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The second story in this anthology series bears too many resemblances to its predecessor to really stand on its own. They both feature two women in love with a man of lower class, with the one he’s in love with dying and the other helping him with his grief, while the dead girl haunts the living girl, and both feature an evil suitor the two women try to protect the guy from. They take different paths in the long run, but are similar enough that I had to compare them as I was watching, and Huan Niang came up short of Lian Cheng for me.
Wuchen is a popular actor who disappeared a few years ago, and the amnesiac Niu doesn’t know that he’s Wuchen until the ghost of his aristocratic lover, Huan Niang, comes back to find out why he survived their joint suicide when she didn’t. The only person who knows the full story is Liang Gong (Played by Liu Xiao Jie, one of the many Yang wives from Young Warriors of the Yang Clan in this series, as Lee Kwop Yap loves his collection of young actresses. And Hu Ge.) the daughter of the leader of Wuchen’s acting troupe.
The story is fun, but, like I said, not as fun as Lian Cheng, and the characters were a bit too into being self-sacrificing for myself. I did appreciate that Huan Niang started reconsidering dragging Wuchen to the afterlife with her not because she loved him, but because she thought Liang Gong had been through too much to protect him to have him dragged off by a ghost. I also liked when Liang Gong tried to kill her stalker/suitor, but kind of hated the rest of the actors when they stopped her. Guy was blackmailing them and trying to terrorize her into marrying him, not to mention little things like forcing Wuchen to swallow a redhot coal. I’m actually confused as to why the two stories were placed together, when the other two stories in the series sound completely different, and having them in between may have reduced the comparisons.
Wuchen is a popular actor who disappeared a few years ago, and the amnesiac Niu doesn’t know that he’s Wuchen until the ghost of his aristocratic lover, Huan Niang, comes back to find out why he survived their joint suicide when she didn’t. The only person who knows the full story is Liang Gong (Played by Liu Xiao Jie, one of the many Yang wives from Young Warriors of the Yang Clan in this series, as Lee Kwop Yap loves his collection of young actresses. And Hu Ge.) the daughter of the leader of Wuchen’s acting troupe.
The story is fun, but, like I said, not as fun as Lian Cheng, and the characters were a bit too into being self-sacrificing for myself. I did appreciate that Huan Niang started reconsidering dragging Wuchen to the afterlife with her not because she loved him, but because she thought Liang Gong had been through too much to protect him to have him dragged off by a ghost. I also liked when Liang Gong tried to kill her stalker/suitor, but kind of hated the rest of the actors when they stopped her. Guy was blackmailing them and trying to terrorize her into marrying him, not to mention little things like forcing Wuchen to swallow a redhot coal. I’m actually confused as to why the two stories were placed together, when the other two stories in the series sound completely different, and having them in between may have reduced the comparisons.