The Youth of Liang Shan Bo and Zhu Ying Tai (2000)

There are many adaptations of the Butterfly Lovers, and this one is the “cutesy” version. Even the theme song is cute. Our lovers here have lots of friends. They joked, they danced, they frolicked in the fields. Everything was light and fluffy. Then suddenly there was murder, disfigurement, and rape. The shift in tone was so unexpected that it left me cold and a little disgusted.

Noel Leung was a lovely and talented actress, but totally unsuited for this version of Ying Tai. She looked too mature and tried much too hard to be cute. She did well in the sad parts but seemed forced in the funny scenes. The part where Ying Tai fooled her parents with that fake looking mustache was embarrassingly bad. Unfortunately, there were too many scenes like it. They should’ve chosen a different actress, someone who could handle both comedy and melodrama.

Lo Chi Cheung was a dorky but sweet Shan Bo. John Chan as Ma Wen Cai was a total creep who will make your skin crawl. Their acting was impressive, given that in real life Lo is a reputed playboy and John a family man happily married to Noel.

This was supposed to be a comedy, but most of the cast were not that kind of actors. The only one with real comedic timing was Wu Meng Da as the teacher. It was brave of the producers to try to do something fun and different with an old tale. They just tried to do too much, so the show sort of collapsed under its own weight.

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