Eternal Happiness
(2002)
Cast: Michelle Yip, Raymond Lam, Joe Ma, Tavia Yeung, Rain Lau, Myolie Wu
Rating: ****
Brief Summary:
Meng Lai Kwan (Michelle Yip) was a very determined and
strong-willed kind of girl. She liked to dress as a
guy and go to school with her brother. Her father, who
was a doctor, didn’t like this idea much but Lai Kwan
never obeyed her father and always sneaked out. One
night she heard someone was playing a flute outside
and she was impressed. She never saw who was playing
it but she started to like this guy. Then she met Ti
Mook Yi (Joe Ma) and Wong Bo Siu Wah (Raymond Lam). Ti
Mook Yi was a Mongol prince and he disguised as a commoner
while Siu Wah came to this town for "some business".
In town, there was one bad guy called, Lau Fui Bik and one
day Ti Mook Yi, Siu Wah and Lai Kwan (dressed as a
guy) happened to beat him up because they couldn't stand his
behavior. After that incident they decided to become
sworn brothers. Then Lai Kwan happened to find out
that the "business" that Siu Wah was supposed to do
was to marry her. Their fathers were friends and
promised each other that they would have their
children married to each other. Lai Kwan was really
against the whole idea because when she was a kid she
met Siu Wah once and back then he was a fat kid and
kinda weak and above all she thought Ti Mook Yi was
the flute guy and she liked him. As a result, she
never told Siu Wah that she was Lai Kwan and he always
thought that she is a guy. Then Lai Kwan ran away from
home with Wing Lan (Rain Lau), her maid and that how
her journey began. She traveled from town to town and
sometimes accompanied by Siu Wah or Ti Mook Yi. At
first she only wanted to run away from the wedding but
later on it turned out that she had to make a journey
to save her father. Because after she ran away, Lau
Fui Bik came to Meng Family and asked to marry Lai Kwan.
He mistook Ying Suet(Tavia Yeung), who was Lai Kwan's
maid, as Lai Kwan. Ying Suet had to marry him to save
the family but decided to kill herself in the wedding
night and Lai Kwan's father was caught. Later on, Lai
Kwan found out that Siu Wah, after all, was not bad and
also found out that he was actually the flute guy. But
there was also Lau Yin Yuk (Myolie Wu) came between
them so she never really told him that she was Lai
Kwan. Anyway, Siu Wah did find out that Lai Kwan was a
girl, but he thought she was Lai Kwan's girl cousin and not a guy cousin. He
started to feel that he loved this Lai Kwan's cousin
and not Lai Kwan…so he was so confused and didn't
really know what to do because he felt guilty. On the
other hand, Ti Mook Yi never really gave up on Lai
Kwan and kept wanting to see her… there's too many details to
tell and many things happened…and I'm not going to give it out...anyway after all the
misunderstandings and all the bad things were gone,
Lai Kwan and Siu Wah finally got together. HAPPY
ENDING.
Review:
I quite like Eternal Happiness but I wouldn't say it's the best series
ever. I think it was refreshing to see a bunch of
the new people that TVB are trying to promote are in this one series
and most of them gave good performance. The story itself was
interesting and enjoyable enough to keep you watching till the end. It was like one big journey of
Lai Kwan and they travelled from town to town.
The scenary in China was so beautiful and it seemed like they put a lot
of thought into each scene. In each scene,
you can see that it was well made. The lightings, settings and costumes
are so different from previous TVB ancient series. Definitely worth watching.
The Cast
Michelle Yip - I think she did a good job here, her
acting isn't that good but I think she portrayed her part as a determined,
willful Lai Kwan well. But I noticed that she has
problems in some of her crying scenes. Some of them
were okay but some were not since you can't actually
see tears coming out her eyes and it looked fake. But overall she gave a
good performance.
Raymond Lam - I think he was great in ASITP and I can
see some improvements in his acting here also. Anyway, I have to say that
there are some scenes that I feel that he
didn't do well enough. The first one was the scene
where he, Joe, Michelle and that foreign guy decided
to become sworn brothers. He was supposed to be drunk
but as I saw him I think his acting in that scene is a
bit fake...not too natural. The other scene that I
don't like was when his head hurt and he passed
out...and during that time Michelle told him that she
was Lai Kwan. The problem in this scene is that I
don't really feel like he really passed out...again it
looked too fake. Other than that I think he did a good
job because this role of Wong Bo Siu Wah was totally
the opposite to his previous Ying Jing. Ying Jing was
so expressive, while Siu Wah was calm, honest and
noble. Raymond did it very well. You can feel the
torment between him and Lai Kwan when he was about to
marry Yin Yuk and when he found out that Michelle was
Lai Kwan was totally heart- wrenching. I think Raymond
gave an overall good performance and he also looked really cute here.
Joe Ma - I can't really tell about Joe Ma's acting.
He's not bad but he's not special, either. It seemed
that he was the same in every series I've seen. He
gave an okay performance I guess.
Rain Lau - I always like seeing her and I think she's
a really good actress who should deserve more. She
was very hilarious here.
Myolie Wu - She gave an okay performance as a polite
young lady. I started to get bored of seeing Myolie in
this kind of roles. It wasn't so different from her
Ying Chi in Colorful Life. I hope TVB will give her a
chance to act in a different kinds of character to
play in the future.
Tavia Yeung – I can't say much about her because her
role is too small but anyway I think she gave an adequate
performance.
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