No Regrets (TVB 2010) – Review by Colly

No Regrets – <巾帼枭雄之義海豪情>

No of episodes– 32

Producer: Lee Tim Shing

Cast

Sheren Tang as Cheng Kau Mui
Wayne Lai as Lau Sing
Fala Chen as Lau Ching
Raymond Wong as Yeung Yeung
Evergreen Mak as Leung Fei Fan
Pierro Ngo as Tong Kat
Nancy Wu as Ma Lei Wah
Susan Tse as Cheng Long Hei
King Kong as Mukaiyama Tetsuya
Kara Hui as Ng Lai Sam (Yeung Sei Lai)

SUMMARY – May Contain Spoilers!!!

Cheng Kau Mui (Sheren Tang) is the daughter of a powerful tycoon who is involved in the narcotics industry. She is often in conflict with her family especially her aunt Hei (Susan Tse) over the control of the business. However, Kau Mui hates drugs and wants to destroy them. She befriends Lau Sing who is a police. She admires Lau Sing and tells him all her secrets. Lau Sing often helps Kau Mui when there is trouble.

The Japanese army occupied China under the leadership of Mukaiyama Tetsuya (King Kong). He wants Kau Mui to cooperate with them with their business. She agrees because she wants to transport children to Hong Kong and away from the war. As well as helping the Japanese, she was also helping the Chinese. However, the Japanese army suspected that Lau Sing was scheming against the Japanese army; they wanted him shot dead. Kau Mui tried to protect Lau Sing and suggested that she would shoot Lau Sing herself. Lau Sing was shot and buried.

Tetsuya lost faith in Kau Mui because she had failed to expand on the drug business. Hei decides to take over and help the Japanese sell drugs instead. Kau Mui was sent to a concentration camp where she suffered from starvation. She was rescued by Lau Sing who did not die.

The Japanese lost the war eventually and everybody was celebrating. Kau Mui’s family had full control of their business again but Hei looked like the heroine and took all the credit for Kau Mui’s work of saving the children. Kau Mui discovered that her brother was really Hei’s son. She wanted this clarified and pretended to be drunk with Lau Sing where the truth was revealed. She told her father who sent Hei and her son away.

Civil war started within China, with the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party fighting for power. The new government wanted Kau Mui and her father dead because they were involved in the drug business. Lau Sing helped them escape. Kau Mui went to Hong Kong. Lau Sing was going to take her father away but her father was killed. Lau Sing disappeared for many years. Every three months, Kau Mui would place an advertisement in search of Lau Sing. Eventually she was allowed to go back to China where she saw everybody and found Lau Sing. Lau Sing had lost his memory and joined an army. They reunited and went traveling around the world. Eventually Lau Sing died. Kau Mui was asked by archaeologists to give information regarding the war. She eventually died of old age.

ACTORS AND ACTRESSES’ PERFORMANCES

This series had a lot of outstanding actors and actresses. Everyone gave a believable performance and this made the series very good to watch. I would give the acting skills top marks. Sheren Tang did a brilliant job as Kau Mui. Her character was very complicated and difficult to estimate. On the other hand, Lau Sing was much more straightforward and Wayne Lai did such a great job too. The outstanding actors and actresses in this series include Evergreen Mak who played a very hateful Lau Fei Fan and Pierro Ngo as Pai Kwat. His crying skills has improved so much since Love Is Beautiful. Nancy Wu also delivered a very good performance. Her character was really annoying.

Also the Japanese soldiers were brilliant. I think they did such an outstanding job in their credible performance as Japanese soldiers. They seemed like they were fluent in Japanese too. In previous series involving Japanese soldiers, the Japanese is usually dubbed but they are actually saying the words themselves.

The Series

The storyline was set during the war with the Japanese. I found some scenes rather disturbing. The scene where Eileen Yeow was slapped for standing on a Japanese flag, Pierre Ngo being beaten up for wearing a hat and not understanding Japanese, Nancy tells the Japanese soldier not to rape her but hinted that Fala is younger and hides in the kitchen etc. These scenes were disturbing and makes you feel so annoyed!! However, I found that the series was very draggy. The last episode was also rather pointless. It was mainly looking back at previous scenes.  I felt that this series could have been shorter.

I should not really compare this series with Rosy Business but they do kind of share the same name, theme song and cast so I will make a little comparison. This series was not as good as Rosy Business. Every episode in Rosy Business was good to watch and each episode is highly anticipated. No Regrets normally climaxes at the end and there were times where I felt like I could miss the start and just watch the last 15 minutes which was usually the most exciting part.

I was also not very keen on the whole Japanese war theme. It did help with the storyline and was the most exciting part of the series. However, TVB has produced so many series with the Japanese war theme and its getting a bit too predictable. Because it is a historical event, everyone knows what will happen to the war but not necessarily the fate of the characters. What makes this series different from the previous is that it does talk about the war in much more depth whereas before it actual war would be omitted. I guess its because this is a big event that happened during that period and because the series was set at that period, it cannot be omitted.

Finally the first episode was a total give away. You can sort of tell by watching the first episode what the series is going to be about and what will happen. I think the first episode spoiled the whole series in some ways.

Overall:

This is an anniversary series and one that I was highly anticipating this year. However, I was kind of disappointed with the series. I found at times I was not really concentrating and got distracted from the series. When I watched Rosy Business, I was watching it religiously and refused to miss a scene. However, with this series, I did not mind missing an episode because some parts were rather boring. Nevertheless, this is still a pretty good series. The performance of the actors and actresses makes this a worthwhile series and definitely worth watching. I do not think this series is the best one produced this year though and definitely not as good as Rosy Business.

Review written by Colly, a JayneStars.com contributing writer.