Reviewed by: wyeeso Date: 04/03/2012 Summary: A long, rough trip to royality [Plot: 3/5] An unknown source once said that "The Lord of Hangzhou" is an adaptation of a side story found in the unofficially recorded history based on Qinglong's voyage to the south. Unfortunately, I can't find any other reliable sources to back this rumor up, and I can't compare and contrast the adaptation and the side story. Anyways, the story is about Qinglong Emperor (played by Waise Lee) and his sister Bi Yue (played by Gong Bei-Bi) traveling down to Hangzhou for a vacation, and at there they befriend Mei Chi (played by Gardner Tse) and his loyal servant Mei An (played by Power Chan). Following the first appearance of Mei Chi, the audiences begin to learn what type of person he is. First, we see Mei Chi as a prodigal who loves to study martial arts and hates to take care of his family business. Then later on, we also find out he loves to help his friends and others by offering them his kindness and his wealth. However, as a result of his generosity, all his wealth and property are eventually cheated out of him by his greedy friends. Although Mei Chi has been greatly betrayed by his friends and gets kicked out of Hangzhou, it's good to see that he's still willing to trust and rely on his huckleberry friend, Mei An. Once they begin their year-long trip to find Qinglong and his sister, who they have no idea they're the emperor and the princess, the depiction of their friendship becomes really touchy and enjoyable, especially when it is shown that none of them will ever give up on each other no matter what. So together, they have both gone through a series of hardships and have learned what's it like to be near death, live poorly, eat cheap food, take care of a new-born baby, and become a beggar. From all of these experiences, Mei Chi has finally learned to become a responsible individual. Yet, the idea of responsibility is weakly portrayed in the story since we don't really see much examples of Mei Chi taking responsibility during his trip and after. The only example that's been demonstrated is after he helps to take care of a baby girl, he teaches her irresponsible mother about the importance of responsibility. Well, the story ends with absolutely no surprises when Mei Chi finally catches up to Qinglong, because we know that Qinglong will grant him as the lord of Hangzhou, which allows him to marry the princess, go back to Hangzhou and seek his revenge. Yup, looks like Mei Chi finally gets a good reward for going through some hardships, even though he would have become the lord anyway with or without going through what he has to for the past year. Oh well, I guess the story is trying to say he's gonna become a better lord than he would have been since he's gone through a lot, but I wish there's an even bigger and apparent change on his character for contrast. [Actors: 3.5/5] Both Gardner Tse and Power Chan are graduated from The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and have been previously nominated for different films in various award ceremonies, so there's no doubt they're some great actors that can incorporate their emotions and body language quite well. It's also good to see that both of them get to deliver some funny lines and bring in some humorous effect to the film. Nevertheless, it's always hard to enjoy their acting when their voice doesn't match with the movement of their mouth (will talk about it a bit more in the Production Crew section). [The Production Crew:] I guess there're two reasons why the actors' voice was dubbed with their own voice (that means the HK actors still have their own voice for the production, but their voice doesn't match with the movement of their mouth). One is the actors were speaking Mandarin during shooting; therefore, when getting ready to show the film to the HK audiences, the HK actors were asked to replace their Mandarin dialogues with Cantonese dialogues during post-production. Two is the actors' voice wasn't properly recorded during shooting, so the HK actors had to speak out the lines again during dubbing. Well, whichever reason it is (or is not), the post-production on the dubbing has done a really, really bad job. As for the costume design, the costume and hairstyle for the princess doesn't appear to be that grand, but I guess the director wanted to keep it close to reality. [Memorable scene(s):] I'm surprised a film like this would make a reference to baby Jesus, Mary, and the Shepard/Joseph. The scene is like this: Mei Chi, Mei An and a baby girl are inside a stable. While the baby girl is laid on top of the hay, Mei An, who has a blanket over his head like a kerchief, kneels down before her, and beside him is Mei Chi, who's up at the sky as the stars shine. Quite a funny moment! Another quite funny scene is when Mei Chi thought that Mei An has died from sickness and is ready to bury him, Mei An suddenly wakes up and says: "Master, I'm not dead yet." Then Mei Chi quickly takes him out of his grave. [Worth Watching A Second Time?] Although it's easy to guess the plot, and the dubbing is not too good, I still enjoy the depiction of Mei Chi and Mei An's friendship. Also, they have some funny scenes and dialogues to make the film more comical, so I guess it's recommended to watch the film once and again. Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: ryan Date: 11/21/1999 Summary: Lord of Hangzhou, The (1998) What'll you think about when you know the movie 'Lord of Hangzhou'? First, you know the cast of TZE Kwan-ho, who has won his Golden Horse Award last year with his 'Madness of the Phoneix, The'. Second, you'll think about it's related to KO Chi-sum. Yeap, there's a little relationship as it's produced by KO. However, the director changes to CHIN Wing-keung for it's 01:00am series. The story starts with a billionaire's son MEI Chi (TZE Kwan-ho) who has lost all his money as being cheated by baddies in Qing Dynasty. He lose everything and he wants to go to Beijing to find his friend KAM for help with MEI Ang. However, they don't know that KAM is the Majestry. On the other hand, the way for them to go to beijing from Hangzhou is quite long while they have no money. It makes the whole journey hard. When you first take a look to the production, you'll probably guess that it's a PRC production. In fact, it seems to be while we expect that the diaglogues should be in Mandarin. However, the showing version in Hong Kong is in Cantonese which makes it hard. It's hard no only because you feel that the mouths of the performers do not match but also the diaglogues is hard to get along with. Maybe it would be better to have it in Mandarin. Back to the issue of the movie, it seems that they want to make the movie full of contents. Basically you can clearly divide the story into four. The first is how MEI spend his money without thinking twice. The second is how MEI Chi is broken up. The third part is how they go to beijing to meet the princess and majestry. The last part is how they do when they have their new identity as Lord of Hangzhou. To me, I consider the whole script is complete but they can make it a bit better. The good part is that they put enough contents with a bit of surprise to make audience feel a bit different. For example, the mystery when they get a house to live temporarily and meet a girl is out of my expectation. However, sometimes it seems that they want to make surprise which resulted in the problem as they make some part ridicious. For example, the last moment when they meet the princess is too ridicious. Together with the Mandarin style Cantonese makes audience feel uncomfortable. Some of the plot in Beijing is also making you want to insult them. In terms of performance, I consider TZE is still shining. He acts good as the main role for the whole movie. However, some of the characters are designed to be too stereotyped which may take down TZE a bit. One of the obvious example is Uncle Hang. If you've seen the first 10 minutes. I think you may be impatient to him as his diaglogue is inappropriate. I expect they want to make audience feel inpatient but they can make it in a more funny way to make audience easier to accept. It's not the fault of the actor but the movie. Another problem of the movie is that the contrast and the impact of MEI is not strong enough to let audience get the feeling. Sometimes, they try to put diaglogues to fill in the dead air while omit that sometimes visions with scores only can be much more effective. On the whole, I think TZE has once again shows his talent in 'Lord of Hangzhou'. However, due to the poor design of the side characters, which can't put the movie to a very good level on the whole.