Christine Ng Reveals Plot of “Beauty at War”
In the upcoming Beauty at War <金枝慾孽 (貳)>, Christine Ng (伍詠薇) will take on the role of a resentful woman whose husband, the emperor, died not long after taking her as his concubine, making her a widow and leaving her loveless. Embittered, Christine takes out her misery on the residents in the palace.
Christine revealed the hardships in filming Beauty at War. “Usually, I only need half a month of preparation time. This time, I spent 2 months to understand the role. Not only did I watch War and Beauty <金枝慾孽>, I also watched other palace dramas to observe how the women carry themselves.” Knowing that there would be last minutes changes to the script, Christine was prepared to memorize the lines on the set, but she never realized that the dialogue would be so long and profound. In the end, she had to burn midnight oil almost every night to memorize her lines.
A Wonderful Husband
In spite of the emotional turmoil in filming for the series, Christine was able to detach herself from her role during after-hours, unlike costar Sheren Tang (鄧萃雯), who suffered from anxiety attacks while filming. Christine said, “Maybe the stress of memorizing the scripts really got to everyone, but I didn’t feel she was having anxiety attacks. In any case, I’m a positive person so I won’t let the stress get to me.”
Or perhaps, being able to go home to her husband helped to alleviate the burdens of work. She has been blissfully married to advertising executive Kasey Lin (練海棠) since 1999. If her husband’s love for her were to change one day, Christine would be willing to let him go. “If he were able to find true love, I will let him go and not stop him. I believe that he will do the same for me. Over the years, we have learnt to trust and respect each other. We also learnt not to take each other for granted. For example, we will take the initiative to let the other person know our whereabouts so as not to worry him or her. Honestly, it’s been 14 years and our love is no longer filled with passion. Rather, our love is steady and secure, just like family members.”
Synopsis of Beauty at War
Consort Yuen (Christine Ng) is the sister of Consort Yu (Sheren Tang). Both were initially selected as concubines for the elderly emperor. However, Consort Yu fell ill and Consort Yuen was selected instead. Although Consort Yu was later chosen to be the new emperor’s concubine, the emperor died soon after. Resentful, Consort Yuen believed it was her sister’s ploy to enter the palace all along. As a result, Consort Yuen began to spread damaging rumors about her sister in the palace.
The cunning nanny, Sheung Ling (Ada Choi 蔡少芬), used the opportunity to get close to Consort Yu to investigate the truth and make financial gains for herself. Sheung Ling becomes Consort Yu’s most trusted confidant, until the arrival of a Kunqu opera troupe. The performers, Lau Fei and Chau Yuen (played by Moses Chan 陳豪 and Eddie Kwan 關禮傑 respectively), move the hearts of many within the harem, including the lonely Consort Yuen.
Worried that her sister will make a grave error in judgement, Consort Yu devises a foolproof plan. Instead, she becomes entangled in the complicated relationship between Sheung Ling and and Lau Fei. Meanwhile, Consort Yuen conspires with Divine Master, Kat Hoi (Kenny Wong 黃德斌) to thwart Consort Yu. And thus begins the internal conflict of the Forbidden City.
Beauty at War is scheduled to air on April 22, 2013. The 30-episode drama will be the last collaboration between producer Jonathan Chik (戚其義) and scriptwriter Chow Yuk Ming (周旭明) for TVB, as the duo will head to mainland China to produce their own television projects.
Source: ihktv.com
This article is written by Karen for JayneStars.com.
I hope that “Beauty at War” will be as good as “War & Beauty” though there are fewer good artistes. I love watching Sheren Tang as well as Ada Choi, not sure about Christine Ng. She looks good in her ancient costumes in the above photo.
What a lovely woman. Looking even better than 10 or 15 years ago.
christine ng has too much plastic, does not look natural in pix above
Omg…I hardly recognised her….
I’m confident that Christine will do well. Sheren and Ada will obviously be great as well.
i know at least she is much better than the young and pretty but not so talented actresses.
That is for sure. Christine Ng has been acting for a long long time since ATV.
Chow Yuk Ming may be a good scriptwriter but he seriously needs to be more professional. It just isn’t right for people to expect having to memorize new lines at the last minute on set.
I never really liked the first one. The only good thing in the series was Sheren. At least she will be in this one.
I liked the dialogues in WAB, very classy, but I did not know that Chow Yuk Ming had them last minute. No wonder Charmaine Sheh and Gigi Lai were like memorizing the dialogues, instead of conversing with other artistes. Sheren Tang was the only one (to me) really acting (and speaking) with the right tones and emotions. Bowie Lam was not too bad among all the top artistes, and it was hard for him to memorize all the herbal/medical names and drugs. Feel sorry for the whole cast (especially the one from the Royal families because their dialogues were much harder).
Much better than some directors who have no scripts and expect stars to ad lib! This is reality; even big expensive productions have last minute script changes because of what works and what don’t. I wouldn’t worry for these stars. They probably have been through much worse and their pay all than make up for their difficulties.
Chow Yuk Ming’s scripts (ancient ones, such as War & Beauty) were quite difficult to understand. Don’t ever mention about memorizing and saying them with proper tones and emotion. I had difficulty in understand them when I watched the drama series. Last minute changes are not that bad, but Chow Yuk Ming always had the first script (not changes) a few hours before filming. That is his style. It is okay for modern or even some ancient drama series, but not dialogues for Ching Dynasty royal family members.
can’t be worse than eric tsang. eric is infamous for having no script for his productions and even if he has one he will change it as he pleased during filming. the reason why teresa mo refused to work with eric after love hk 2012. she finds working in eric tsang’s movies too tiring and pressure due to no script.
So consort yu is the good guy?
Anyway aren’t they all TOO OLD for their roles? Sounds as if she just entered the palace not too long and if so she is a good 30 years too old for her role. Or is the plot gonna be about someone who is in the palace about 20 years or so?
No new young artistes are capable of acting those roles anyway. TVB does not have any good and young actresses unfortunately. It is true that they are a bit old for young concubines, but it is a sequel of War & Beauty, and TVB took too long to film a sequel.
don’t they have scripts written on boards for actors to readjust in case they forget?
I don’t think so. Many scripts in TVB are given to the artistes last minute. Usually a veteran artiste can handle it if the dialogues are not too complicated. However, old Chinese verses and classical Chinese dialogues are very difficult to say and remember. The dialogues for royal family members are even more literary and solemn. It is hard to understand it unless you have excellent Chinese (old Chinese) language skills.
I hope this series is good!
Me too.
I love to watch Sheren Tang and Ada Choi.
sheren tang? yes ada choi? nothing fantastic
Watch your idol artistes then. Most people these days only watch idol artistes, not solid artistes. Shame! No wonder TVB has no good drama series with good artiste who can really act.
Christine Ng looks prettier in ancient costumes than in modern ones. She looks quite pretty in the above photo.
TVB will lose their capable and prominent producer, Jonathan Chik as most his series are phenomenal, extraordinary and high quality standard such as Cold Blood Warm Heart, Secret of The Heart, At The Threshold of An Era I & II, Criminal Investigator I & II and last year Best Drama When Heaven Burns.
When Heaven Burn sucks. Bad boring plot with corny acting. Seems like the producer wants to an artistic and deep drama but cannot grasp the depth of the situations highlighted in the drama. All they do is chuck in corny music whenever they can’t find the essence of the plot. It felt like watching a broken recorder.