Groundbreaking “War and Beauty 2″ to Focus on Sheren Tang and Ada Choi’s Lesbian Love Relationship?
At the 2012 TVB Sales Presentation introducing upcoming series for the next year, a promotional clip of War and Beauty 2 <金枝慾孽 2> was presented to advertisers. The original War and Beauty gave rise to the recent popular trend of series featuring scheming palace ladies. The filming of the sequel has been confirmed to take place next year. The chances of War and Beauty 2 featuring its original cast were slim since Gigi Lai retired from the entertainment industry, Bowie Lam (林保怡) and Charmaine Sheh (佘诗曼) left TVB, and Maggie Cheung (張可頤) will be featured in several heavyweight dramas next year. In the Sales Presentation clip, only Sheren Tang (鄧萃雯), Ada Choi (蔡少芬), Astrid Chan ( 陳芷菁), and Moses Chan (陈豪) were the four main characters featured.
While the plot of War and Beauty 2 has been kept a secret, it was observed that the series will be a marked departure from the concubine rivalry featured in Beyond the Realm of a Conscience <宮心計> and Curse of the Royal Harem <萬凰之王>. Producer Jonathan Chik (戚其義) assembled his “golden team” with bold and unconventional results. Moses Chan was expected to replace Bowie Lam’s position as the imperial physician.
Prior to the unveiling of the War and Beauty 2 promotional clip, Moses and Empress, Astrid Chan’s introductory speech gave clues to the series’ plot. Moses said, “Regardless of the willow trees being so green above the palace’s walls, only to be bound by destined love; life and death gather as a scene in a dream…. The palace gives rise to a story to cure the boredom in the world.” Astrid Chan continued, “In the imperial palace, how is it possible to have so many concubine rivalries? For people with expectations of affectionate love and care, these feelings never originated from our masters.” The introductory dialogue reflected the same cautionary tone as found in the prologue of Dream of the Red Mansions < 紅樓夢>.
In the ensuing scenes of the promotional clip, the palace ladies’ lonely and cold hearts were observed, along with the imperial physician’s wishful desire. The torturous love had nowhere to be gathered. The most daring concept was featured in the last scene, in which “Lady Yu Fei” Sheren Tang and her personal maid of Ada Choi, wore their undergarments and laid upon the same bed. As they stared into each other’s eyes, they revealed a complex web of emotions. Finally, Sheren and Ada kissed deeply, which stirred a vocal reaction from the audience.
In recent years, film and television productions featuring same-sex love were few in number. Although War and Beauty 2 has not started official filming yet, the scenes featuring Sheren Tang and Ada Choi’s intimate love was too shocking!
Excerpt from Nanfang Daily
Jayne: The concept behind War and Beauty 2 may be more realistic than the over-the-top power struggles between concubines found in recent series. Fighting for the emperor’s affections may indeed be an impossible and lost dream. For those concubines craving for love, it may be found easier among their everyday companions such as personal maids.
Personal maids of wealthy households in ancient times met all the needs of their masters, whether they included physical cleaning chores, personal companionship or possibly sexual duties. In Dream of the Red Mansions (which drew upon the author’s own life in a wealthy, influential family in the Ming dynasty), such intimate master and maid relationships were depicted. Although the maid may be married to another man outside the household, it was often expected that the maid would no longer be a virgin.
I hope the love relationship of Ada can be expanded not only with Sheren. I mean I hope to see Ada becoming a concubine, gain power, turn evil etc just to make the whole plot interesting..I could understand why Lady Yu and her maid have this relationship, it’s due to loneliness etc..But pls don’t make Ada just a maid for the entire series, it would be boring..
And that’s mean another old maid become concubine. Poor the king!
LOL but old maid has more market value than those young maid in term of popularity in tvb not for the king’s desire
Maybe the king likes variety too.
I wonder if they’ll really go through with this plotline.
Anyone know where to watch the 2012 sales presentation? 🙂
TVB is airing it on December 18, 2011
@ Larry 3
Wow, that’s late, erm, then when is the TVB awards ceremony?
That late.. ? o-o
Its tape delay, edit down version; TVB always do that.
@CY: Monday, December 5 is TVB award show; live. No TVB dramas airing that date; just chocolate award show.
In less then two weeks its TVB 45th anniversary; what is left of TVB under achievers artists party gala show. Airing live on November 19th, Saturday.
@ Larry 3
Thanks for the info! So the sales presentation will be aired after the awards ceremony.. that’s interesting, it’s usually the other way round.. Wonder what TVB is up to now?
I agreed that Ada should become one of the concubines, so that she will be fighting with Sheren. This will turns love, friendship into hate and enemy. In the end, maybe there will be love again. LOL. The plot seems quite interesting and different from the other concubine rivalry dramas.
I feel the story will be like “black swan”. Sheren is the star and ada is vying to be her replacement.
And I hope they pick someone else to be the empress. Sorry but astrid is not pretty enough for that role.
Honestly, I hope they keep with this plot. It’s a different turn from recent palace dramas.
War and Beauty was groundbreaking back then for its focus on the internal lives of the concubines, maids,and officials within the palace. The strong points most fans remembered well are the exceptional dialogues and the script which are stellar even for TVB standards then. The conflict between the concubines was just a natural progression of the script but subsequent producers tend to capitilize on only this theme in their effort to repeat the success of WOB with their own series set in the royal palace. So, it would be refreshing for me not to mention ‘groundbreaking’ again if WOB2 can forgo all the conflict dramas which has become the over-saturated trend for palace series nowadays and concentrate on a new facade of actual lives and loves in the palace and perhaps bring about a new trend for series of this type.
Am I one of the ones that did not care for War and Beauty at all?? I still don’t understand why the series was sooo popular. I thought it was really boring and redundant.
it’s because of Sheren Tang ^_^
and ugh…maybe ’cause people love top fa dans fighting in a series lol
I don’t think it is always best to watch a series just for the cast. I did that once and vow to never do it again because the plot/storyline is the most important thing… A series cannot be good if the plot isn’t. Even a star studded cast will not help.
i don’t care about WAB either, nothing special with a lesbian relationship either.
what is special about this lesbian relationship is that TVB is willing to shine some light on such a controversial topic. if the audience is willing to accept such relationship, it can open the minds of some narrow-minded people. it can also lead to more stories that feature these kinds of relationships causing a change in, not only modern television but also in Chinese society.
WAB was so popular because of how good the storyline was and how great the acting of the cast were, IMO. The first time I watched WAB, I was hooked.
Well everyone has different opinions and views. I think a majority of the audience like WAB which was why it was so popular. I think I am in the minority that did not like it.
Same! Hooked instantly xD
Lesbian without sex scenes (rated R) will not be special but this is an Asian TV series…
I’m loving the pic of the two with their hair spread out. It’s such a pretty scene.
I can see that there Ada and Sheren will be able to pull off the same sex relationship. Just looking at the pic they seem to have great chemistry.
omg is that the same f****** costumes???????!!!!!!!!
Are they?? I don’t really remember… I guess they just want to save money.
LOL!!! They might fork up some money for the actual series, but the sales presentation is rather low budget.
I think for the original WAB, most of the costumes were original.
Daring yes, cheap gimmick at best because in the end that love story will amount to nothing much. This is a sales presentation and the final product may not even match the proposed product. I don’t mind concubine fighting sort of series, it can be done well and not over the top without lesbianism thrown in as a gimmick. They want to make a ground breaking series? Well, make a full blown lesbian series then.
If they are really going with this plot I’ll be watching but I really doubt it.Maybe the storyline would be something like they are just using each other for surviving in the palace and not really love.
I don’t like the title of this article
wow this is def something new and refreshing.
and maybe more realistic?
havent really crossed my mind ever actually.
thought they will be too busy with politics. but what am i saying.
they are only human.
hope the show doesnt suck. i really liked the previous one.
Most series with Sheren don’t suck, hope this one doesn’t disappoint! Kind of missing the original cast though…
Aw this is awesome!! Maybe public reaction from conservative the conservative Chinese audience might be pretty negative, but I’m glad for two reasons:
1. Creative. Finally, TVB has got some creative juices out. Okay, maybe same-sex love within the palace has been portrayed in Korea (I think mostly gay love) but this is a new for TVB.
2. I hope this could raise awareness for the struggles of homosexuals which still exists today.
I’ve always thought Jonathon Chik could be gay or bisexual. I’m not supposed to make assumptions over private matyters like sexuality, but from dramas like this it seems like he was hinting something. For example, [forgot name]’s love for Bowie Lam in The Gem of Life. He does care, and I’m glad. Even if he’s not gay, I’m glad he’s open-minded.
oh boy les love. frankly i wasn’t much hoping for it. -_-hope this one can keep up with the previous WAB cause that one was epic. still seems weird to me though.
In the old days lesbianism and gay relationships were taboo subjects but now it is different and people are quite open about them. In a film or series it’s just how the scene or scenes are to be presented is important, I think. Will the actors concerned be able to pull off their act so that it does not seem cheap or vulgar? In the case of WAB which involves 2 “veteren” actresses, Sheren and Ada I am quite sure they will be able to do so with finesse.
I’d love to see Sheren Tang and Ada Choi in a romantic relationship. I hope it’s done beautifully and involves true love. It would be ground breaking for TVB