Lofty Waters Verdant Bow

When I was back in Singapore last month, one of the things I looked forward to doing was to watch spastic TV serials on Channel 8 - local and Hongkong TVB productions. "But why, CO? You already said they are spastic!" I hear you say. Let's just say that, when you are out of the country for so long, you begin to miss our local spastic home grown productions as well as those spastic Hongkong drama serials. There is just something warm and homely about watching them with your parents which no amount of HBO and Cinemax can substitute. I grew up watching Huang Wen Yong and Xiang Yun with the old SBC to Fann Wong and Zoey Tay in the new TCS. I watch countless reincarnations of the "Legends of the Condor Heroes" from Hong Kong which SBC/TCS always faithfully showed(remember the old one with Andy Lau?). One of the best thing about returning home last month was sitting down with my parents to watch a rerun of Holland V (5.30pm, Channel 8) and heard my mother say "Chen Liping became fat." Yes, Mom. Fat as in walrus fat. Chen Liping used to be hot years ago in "Good Morning Teacher" with a dorky Li Nanxing though. I take watching Holland V and Fann Wong anyday over the HBO's "acclaimed" series of "Lost" and "The Triangle".

Do you know what is also the best thing I missed about stupid and spastic Hong Kong drama serials, especially those period sword-fighting ones? Take for example the "Lofty Waters Verdant Bow" which was showed in Singapore in Thursday and Friday at 11 pm at Channel 8. I am not sure whether it has ended its run but watching this show in August cracked me up. I couldn't stop laughing and wished I did not have to go back to Laos to work.

By simply looking at the poster, you know it is going to be a standard/soppy martials arts fare with the handsome hero learning impossible God-like skills and caught in a love triangle between two beautiful women. i.e tried and tested TV formula. The one where I laughed when our handsome hero was elected as Master of the Beggar Sect at the Beggar Sect Annual Meeting (sort of like a Year-End Dinner and Dance for Beggars - heh heh). Expectedly, our hero got the vote because he predictably unveiled the villian behind the murder of the previous Beggar Sect's leader, produced the jade dog-beating stick and demonstrated an incredible array of skills. Basically save-the-day shit. Typical stuff which even I, who was watching the show for the first time, knew exactly what was coming. What made me laughed was:

THE BEGGAR SECT ANNUAL MEETING, ONLY HAVE LESS THAN 20 BEGGARS.

MUWHAHAHAHAHAH. WAH LAU - CHEAP PRODUCTION!!

Don't you just love cheap Hong Kong drama serials which couldn't afford many part-time actors? The Beggars Sect, with thousands of members, can only muster twenty non-descript beggars for its annual big meeting? HA HA HA. And they all look so bloody bored - only lift their sticks and made unintelligible noises in the background. The main actors actually outnumbered the part-time beggars.

And the battle scene between the Beggar Sect and the Imperial Guards, which is supposed to be a major battle involving thousands, only have twenty beggars and soldiers running around blindly, waving their cheap shiny swords in the typical "1-2-clang-clang-where's my pay" style. I could swear some of them were beggars died in one scene and got up to fight again in another. No Lord of the Rings/Braveheart/Kingdom of Heaven epic battle graphics involving uncountable thousands of soldiers here. Ha Ha Ha.

I missed shit like this. Back in the old days, my dad and I always sat down and watched cheap Hong Kong productions like this and tried to pick out anomalities which shouldn't be in the script. I always remember during an episode of the "Four Mashalls" when I was twelve, during a battle which covers the whole TV screen, two of the part-time actors who were fighting near the edge of the screen actually STOPPED AND TALKED TO EACH OTHER. My father said that they probably thought the camera couldn't cover their angle and thought it was safe to stop and discuss what to eat for lunch. Muwahahahahha.

I love Singapore TV. Long live cheap Hongkong productions and local dramas.

Long live Beggar Sect Annual Meetings also.