Love always comes first for Lady Fan. She suffers greatly for her ultimate love!
hmm...hard to rate this drama. first of all, it's supposed to be historical--about some chinese heroine, but 2 minutes into the drama, you can obviously see that it's not going to be very accurate. it was too magical for me. fan lei fa pursues some guy just based on the fact that her su* phu. tells her that they were predestined? please...give me a break. i mean, i love movie romance as much as the next person, but be reasonable. give her a better reason to find her lover. so obviously, the beginning didn't work for me. but the middle was pretty good. it's just too bad that when the drama was just beginning to redeem itself, it went waaaay downhill again. the end was waaay too rushed. tvb, once again, wrote themselves into a corner. *tsktsk*
i don't want to say that it's super bad tho. i mean, i enjoyed it enuf to sit thru it 2x. (not just because of jessica) i can't rationally explain why, but i did.
as far as actors and characters, jessica plays the protagonist. as usual, she plays the strong, independent woman. kinda bittersweet, since that's my favorite type of character and that's the character jessica portrays best, but she ALWAYS plays that type. her performance wasn't exemplary (?), but it was pretty good. her character was much too forgiving. unbelievably so. joe ma plays a truthful, somewhat dense guy. i ended up hating his character. i didn't think his performance was too great either. khong may gi nhap vai.
also, this storyline is a bit overused. king arranges marriage between girl of minority and guy in china (diplomatic relations). girl and guy (and guy's family) hate each other. trials and tribulations. girl and guy fall in love and live happily ever after. it's cute, but it's been done, and, more importantly, done better.
ooh! i loved the clothes! well, specifically jessica's clothes, which makes sense since she's the main character and should therefore have the nicest clothes. even more specifically, i liked the clothes after she got married. so so pretty. 
bottom line: watch it if ur a diehard fan of jessica (like me! 
). otherwise, watch at ur own risk. 
-- ][ edit 11.21.04 ][ --
i still don't understand why this show got such high ratings (avg of about 31-32 pts), but i guess there were some good parts. anyway, i just wanted to add one of my fave scenes so i remember it later.
yan kwai refuses to let ting shan fight because he believes that ting shan will kill him one day. lei fa finds out so she comes up with a plan to help her hubby and to get her father-in-law to overcome the fear. in short, the plan works and sit yan kwai informs ting shan that he can fight in battles and stuff now. ting shan is happy, of course, since he's always wanted to fight. so as he's walking in the ha`nh lang after his dad's told him the good news, he passes lei fa's room just as she opens the door to go out. he grabs her and relays the good news.
LF: see? i told you it'd work.
TS: yes, nhung ma anh cu thay gat cha la khong tot
LF: well whatever. as long as he doesn't find out.
TS: that's true...in any case, thank you.
LF: *smiles* chi noi cam on thoi...don gian vay a?
TS: well what do you want me to do?
LF: *thinks* i don't know yet. i'll tell you when i think of something.
TS: all right.
LF: *starts to leave*
TS: hey, where are you going?
LF: *smiles* khong cho anh biet.
and ting shan looks after her. lol. iono. i just thot it was really cute. i still have it on video somewhere...it was when i was so obsessed with learning cantonese that i recorded viet clips that matched Vicky's clips. anyways, i think i'm gonna start recording my fave scenes from dramas onto a single tape cuz sometimes, i don't like the drama enough to record the whole thing, but i want to keep scenes that make me melt. yes...will do.