I cannot remember if I ever watched this movie in the 80's, because last night when I watched it, the images were familiar, especially the red wedding gowns in the beginning. I remember the Night Orchid very well, but only recently I found out that Lin Ching-hsia did another movie with Cheng Shao-chiu (and Erl Tung-shen) - beside the Zu Warriors. Or perhaps I only read the synopsis back then in Ria Film. [Ria Film was a weekly magazine in the 80's. It contained detailed synopsis of new movies and celebrity news.]
Wai Kai (
Cheng Shao-chiu) and Ling Er (
Lin Ching-hsia) are lovers, but unfortunately they are students in Ying Feng Villa - which belongs to Eunuch Sheng. One of the villa's rules is: love affair is strictly forbidden. Wai Kai and Ling Erl must die because they have violated this rule. When they are about to be executed (using guillotine. Usually in this kind of movie they use a sword [or sabre] to decapitate. In the execution the couple wearing red wedding gowns - but they are not the usual traditional wedding clothes, the designs are beautiful. This scene is completed with wedding music in the background.), they are helped by Feng Shi and Feng Chu, another couple which has been expelled from the villa.
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The wedding/execution scene.
I bet the costumes were designed for fighting purpose. |
Eunuch Sheng sends people to go after them. Later, the pursuers are led by Lu Cheng (
Erl Tung-shen), who actually also loves Ling Er. Lu Cheng helps the couple to get rid of the pursuers. However, Wai Kai decides that he won't run anymore and makes a plan to expose Eunuch Sheng's secret agreement with the Tibetan princess to usurp the throne. Unfortunately he doesn't tell Ling Erl about his plan, so when he leaves her to seduce the princess, Ling Erl thinks he has betrayed her, so she seeks revenge by trying to kill him.
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| I'm happy to know this movie has English subtitles! |
Compared to the Night Orchid, Be Careful Sweetheart has more comprehensible plots [the first 15 minutes of the Night Orchid is hard to understand unless you have read the book]. Ling Er's two lovers, Wai Kai and Lu Cheng have opposite character traits. Wai Kai is full of humour, headstrong, animated; while Lu Cheng is quiet, sincere and reserved.
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| I like very much Wai Kai's grey costume |
The costumes were great. Cheng Shao-chiu in real life was skinny (he still is), but in ancient costumes he looked very dashing. He looked more handsome in ancient costumes than in modern suits. I wonder how many layers of clothes he wore if he was playing a swordsman.
7 comments:
Hello! I know this was years ago, but I was wondering if you knew from which novel this movie was adapted from?
I've been looking everywhere but my limited understanding of written Chinese is making things difficult.
Please and thank you!
No I don't... I myself have been reading many wuxia novels lately and so far never come close to a story like in this movie. Sorry I can't be of much help :-(
Oh hey, thank goodness I thought this blog was abandoned.
I see... that's too bad. But thank you so much for replying!
I'm gonna keep on looking. I know the author is Gu Long (according to the cable channel summary) so I'm gonna go through their novels one by one. The title was changed for the movie you see.
Anyway thanks again :)
I think I have read most of Gu Long's works, but the story of this movie doesn't remind me of any of them. I think you must have known that there were ghostwriters work for Gu Long or used his name... so something published under the name of Gu Long was probably not his work. There is a list of Gu Long's novels and the person made it claimed that anything not in the list was not Gu Long's.
Thank you, too, for reading my blog... :-)
Strangely enough, for these last few days I have reading a book called 'Pisau Kekasih' and it's the book which this movie was based on. Someone mentioned the real title should be 情人看剑 which is almost the same as the movie's original title, just replace the 剑 (sword) with 刀 (knife)
Ah! really? Where did you get the book from? Is it in pdf or physical form? Also you said that ghostwriters using Gu Long's name exist. Is the book really Gu Long's work?
To my ears, Pisau Kekasih sounds funny somehow. I'm imagining a kitchen knife and it's not at all poetic, heh. Why not a "dagger" if they don't want a sword. What's daggers anyway in Bahasa? Belati?
Sorry for the abundance of question marks...
The book is in pdf and you can find it using Google. I don't know if this book is really Gu Long's work, but my guess is: it is not. This is a list of Gu Long's novels http://koolung.tripod.com/novels.html and you can see that Qing Ren Kan Jian or Qing Ren Kan Dao is not on the list. In the bottom of the list, it is stated that 2 other people finished some of the books. You must have known that Gu Long in his last years drank so much wine... he was unable to write... [Please read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gu_Long]
It's not easy to translate from one language to another... 刀 can also be translated to 'dagger' or 'sabre'. Dagger = belati, you are right, but 'fei dao'(flying dagger) is translated to 'pisau terbang' and not 'belati terbang'.
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