Return of the Condor Heroes

TRIED in vain to search for the Return of the Condor Heroes (1960) starring a young Patrick Tse as Yang Guo and Nam Hung as Xiaolongnui. That would be great to watch!

The current  series on Ch 8 (weekdays 11pm) have been heavily criticised by netizens as not sticking to the original storyline... and featuring a Xiaolongnui who is too fat and not an ethereal beauty as the character was supposed to be in Louis Cha's swordfighting trilogy.

I have not read the original novel before. But my mum had. I remember stacks of these novels lying around (they have lst part, 2nd part...). It was unfortunate that mum sold them all later to the karung guni man, along with the Southern Screen movie magazines. The covers had Chinese brush sketches of swordfighting heroes in various gongfu poses. And inside, only one or two illustrations -- much to my disappointment.

Back to the current series shown over Ch 8. I think the criticism on Michelle Chen as Xiaolongnui is rather unfair. (There was one comment that she might be too fat for Yang Guo to carry.)  I find her a very unique Xiaolongnui. Certainly not a drop-dead beauty, but has a certain innocence, gentleness and simplicity.

People said that the MediaCorp (or was it TCS then) production starring Fann Wong as Xiaolongnui (with Christopher Lee as Yang Guo) was a great choice. My votes go to Michelle Chen though. And I should think Nam Hung would be a great Xiaolongnui.

Patrick Tse would take my votes any time as the perfect Yang Guo.

Aside: There's something about that bird, that condor that is rather hilarious -- in all the versions. I don't think they have hit upon the right "bird" to star as the CONDOR. If all the bird stars fail, I think they should enlist Big Bird of Sesame Street.