This Monday, I started watching TVB's classic 1979 adaptation of CHOR LAU HEUNG, starring Adam Cheng and the recently deceased Ng Man Tat. I didn't abruptly decide to watch the series because of Ng's passing; it had been on my schedule for more than a month, and Ng's death last week was simply a coincidence.
I first/last saw this series back in late 1988, and because of stuff I was going through at the time, I don't remember much about it. Moreover, because of aforesaid problems and the fact that TVB did not finish that particular rebroadcast, I never finished the series and had no idea how it ended. I remember the series being decently entertaining, but a bit meandering (not nearly as bad as SPW '84, however).
What I really want to ask is this: how close or far did this adaptation stick to or stray from the original Gu Long novel? Though I have never read the novel, my impression is that the adaptation probably strayed quite far from the book because the dialogue of the characters in the series doesn't sound like typical Gu Long dialogue lines. Gu Long's character dialogue is very idiosyncratic, and while the 1970s TVB LUK SIU FUNG and ROMANTIC SWORDSMAN (SENTIMENTAL SWORDMAN, RUTHLESS SWORDS) adaptations adhered very closely to the novels, I'm not sure that's true for CHOR LAU HEUNG 1979. The dialogue sounds more TVB standard and not very Gu Long-like, so I'm surmising this was one of those adaptations that took huge liberties with the source material. Tell me if I'm wrong about this.