"On a scale of 1 to 10, I have to give this series a 3. I have to say that this is possibly one of the worst TV series I have ever seen..."
SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!
Chinese Title
Hoong Yee Seou Gei (which had nothing to do with the English title, although they never do)
Episodes
20
Produced In
2002
Cast-Character
Charmaine Sheh-Charlie Yuk Choi Ling
Samuel Chan-Yung Duc Gei
Hong Chi Nei-Go Hiu Lam (Crystal)
Chan Hoi Yi-Lo Bo Bo
Claire Yiu-Ah Leng
Ling Zi Heen-Chan Ga Lok
Gregory Lee-Mun Geen Fai
Yuen Keng Dan-Goo Mei Lan (Goo Goo)
Chu Mei Mei-Rosemary
Chan Ga Yi-Crystal’s Mom
Language
Cantonese (original)
Plot
This series is basically about a group of twenty year olds who are in nursing school. These student nurses share their experiences and become good friends. Blah…blah…blah…
If you don’t want to read spoilers…stop right now!!! {although I think you’ll expect them}
At the nursing school there are the teacher, Crystal, Ah Gei, Bobo, Ah Leng, and Chan Ga Lok. Later we meet Dai Lo Fai. They all have reasons for being in nursing school. Crystal would like to learn some things before reapplying for med school. Crystal’s main goal is not to become a nurse but a doctor like her father and brothers. Ah Gei remembers when his father was dying and the nurse who took care him and his father. He feels very grateful to the nurse and would like to become a nurse. Bobo does not know what she wants to do but she needs a job. She is afraid of everything. Ah Leng would like to meet a handsome doctor hoping to marry him. She is very superficial. Dai Lo Fai is doing this for the money and had a crush on Charlie. Chan Ga Lok wants to get away from his mother and get a job while he’s at it. He’s the funny guy in the group.
Charlie
The audience first meets Charlie in her parents’ restaurant, “Yuk Gei.” Charlie is in her twenties and still does not have a career. She is not in college but she signed up for nursing school because she loves babies and has hopes of working in the maternity ward. In the beginning there is a misunderstanding between Ah Gei and Charlie on the bus to the nursing school. Charlie thought he was a pervert because she thought he touched her foot but it was actually an old man’s umbrella that touched her foot when ah gei was picking the napkins he dropped. *sigh* did you get all the info from my run-on sentence? Anyways, when they got off the bus, Ah Gei saw Crystal and she helped him get rid of Charlie.
In nursing school the nurse teacher says there are four “hearts,” ngoi sum(love), tong ching sum(sympathy), jat yum sum(responsibility), and shuun sum(confidence). I hope I got the sounds right. Over the three years Charlie and her friends, alternate between work, school, and play. “Play” is usually eating, mostly da been lo at yuk gei or elsewhere. (What’s with that? Charmaine always have these themes with food, makes me all hungry at night.) Ah Gei and Charlie forget about the incident on the bus and become friends. (I see clichés here.) At school they have the boring lectures and tests. Charlie is the worst student in the class. She has not much brain but a lot of sympathy. At work Charlie has been paired with Crystal for the same ward (it was bad enough they had to share a room, they didn’t become friends until they had separate rooms and Charlie helped Crystal get better when she had the flu). They are supervised by a nurse everyone calls Goo Goo. Later on in their rotation, Charlie gets to work in the maternity ward. One of the mothers tried very hard to have a child. She did have one but the baby died from complications. Charlie was very depressed when that happened and decided to quit nursing. She did not to quit because Ah Gei asked her to stay because he liked her. Ah Gei asked her to stay after he got some advice from Dai Lo Fai. (Dai Lo Fai liked Charlie but she didn’t like him that way.) Oh man… that scene where Ah Gei “confessed his love” was so cheesy and yuk maah with that song in the background.
Charlie was having some family problems around this time. She got in a fight with her mother about how she never lets her father do anything. Charlie’s mother had reasons for not letting him drink or overwork. Charlie’s father, Yuk Gei, is sick with liver cancer. He had liver problems when Charlie was younger but kept it from her. He fainted and was sent to the hospital. He found out that he has liver cancer and needs surgery. He does have surgery with complications but was fine afterwards. He and Charlie’s mother go to Hawaii together as like a second honeymoon.
Charlie also has relationship problems with Ah Gei because she thought he was cheating on her with Crystal. Charlie and Ah Gei get back together in the end.
Ah Gei
Ah Gei knew Crystal when they were little and has a crush on her. Ah Gei thinks this is “yuen fen” or fate that they meet again in nursing school. At home he lies to his mother because she does not want him to be a nurse. He says that he works at the airport. He buys imported food for his mother to cover up but he’s not very smart about it because his receipt is there with his mother. When his mom does find out, Charlie tries to help Ah Gei convince her. That does not work. The nurse instructor decided to speak to Ah Gei’s mother because he was falling a little behind in class. That probably did the trick.
An episode or two later ah gei’s mom is sick with gallstones or some kind of stone. She needed a small operation to remove it. In the hospital his mom starts to like Charlie and the idea of her being her daughter in law. She is not very fond of Crystal though. When Crystal was sick he made her rice porridge. When he found out that Crystal never ate any of it but Charlie did he was so angry with her. (How irrational) Around this same time, one of his patients died. He was very depressed as a result. He was taking his anger out on everyone, including his mother and his other patients. Everything was better though when he asked her to stay. Ah gei does lie to Charlie. He didn’t want Charlie to misunderstand his relationship with Crystal which is just friendship. He was trying to help Crystal get through her sickness. Charlie was having a hard time too because her father was sick. Charlie was very angry with him but after he confronted her a few times they get back together.
Crystal
Crystal is a pretty depressed and moody person because she feels very left out of her family. Her father and brothers are doctors. I don’t really know what her mother does but she is really busy. Everyone is busy with their big operations except Crystal. When Crystal was younger, her mother was never home. Crystal resented that. She stormed out of the house when she got angry with her family for not asking her to go to the family trip. When Crystal was sick with the flu, Charlie helped her get better. She made Crystal some food because Crystal didn’t want ah gei’s rice porridge. Crystal finally made friends with Charlie. Crystal’s family knew and understood how she felt. Her mother made her a birthday dinner (well, only the cake). The whole family waited for her but Crystal was at the surprise party that Charlie and the gang threw for her. The next day Crystal went home and her mom was on a plane to Taiwan. (There is always the telephone.)
When Crystal’s mom was there she was very worried because there was an earthquake in Taiwan. (There has to be some obstacle in the relationship to make them realize how important they are to each other -_- duh…). Crystal was sick right after her mom came back. She was packing for a trip to Switzerland with her family. Crystal had kidney failure, I think. She tried to hide it from everyone. Ah Gei found out first when she fainted. She didn’t want anyone to know so she would go to the doctor by herself and dressed in long sleeved sweaters to cover the bruises she gets because of her disease. Of course people do find out about her disease. (Well, duh… she stayed at the same hospital as the nursing school.) Crystal had to have her stomach cleaned, I think. It is very painful and she couldn’t take it. Ah gei helps her by encouraging her to stay in the hospital. Her family comes back from Switzerland. Crystal’s mom decided to give up one of her kidneys for her. Crystal’s father and brothers operates on them. Of course she lives in the end. She also realizes that doctors need and rely on nurses. Without nurses the doctors wouldn’t seem that great.
Goo Goo
She is the one character you should pity in this series. She seems happy and all in the beginning. (She also makes me laugh a little because I will always remember her character as Ah King on Kindred Spirit.) She has a good husband who is a doctor. She doesn’t have kids and doesn’t want kids. Her husband makes her happy. They live in a nice apartment.
It’s like that old saying “It too good to be true.” Her husband really wants to have children. When she wants to have children, it’s too late. She became infertile. Her husband buys a puppy though, they named him jei jei. Later on, she finds out that her husband is cheating on her with his secretary(why do men always have affairs with secretaries). His secretary is pregnant with his child. Goo goo and her husband files for divorce.
Goo Goo sees her long lost father again in the hospital she works in. He is sick and dying. She is angry with him at first that she avoids talking to him. She has ambivalent feelings towards him. It is too late to even say goodbye to him. He dies in the hospital. The scene where she cries for her father makes me want to cry.
All of the characters graduate from nursing school. No one dies. Charlie is with Ah Gei. Crystal decides to stay being a nurse. Charlie’s parents come back from Hawaii. Bobo is dating Chan Ga Lok. Ah Leng gets her doctor…ahem…a veterinarian. Dai Lo Fai shows up at the graduation with his girlfriend.
Comments
On a scale of 1 to 10, I have to give this series a 3. I have to say that this is possibly one of the worst TV series I have ever seen. The acting was horrible. The plot was predictable because of the clichés. Boy meets girl, boy and girl dislike each other, boy and girl make up, boy and girl become friends and then good friends and then voila you have boy and girl becomes a couple. You know that no one dies because it is always given away by the clips in the beginning. I don’t even know why the producers like giving away the ending.
It’s pretty hard for me to like this series because I’ve gotten so used to American television. It has been almost three years since I watched any TVB series or Chinese series. I ended on Kindred Spirit, which I didn’t finish watching (it was so long but I liked it), now I begin again by watching this series. I definitely did not start on the right foot. Whenever they have operation scenes in the emergency room it’s not as intense or real. If anyone has ever watched ER on NBC they would know what I am talking about. Why do nurses have to wear such tacky uniforms? What I meant to say is that White Flame doesn’t really try hard to show a good portrayal of a real hospital.
I did not like any of the female characters as a person, except maybe Crystal. They were all very stupid and dumb. They remind of rich white girls that talk about stupid things while chewing bubble gum. How the hell did they get into nursing school? It’s kind of scary to have them working on patients. I would not want to be in that hospital. Crystal is probably the only that knows what she’s doing but she was really cold. Brr… I felt sorry for her towards the end of the series. I liked Goo Goo too. I felt that Goo goo, Crystal and Ah Gei were more important than the main character.
I really hate, no…hate is a strong word, I mean I really dislike Charmaine Sheh because I don’t think she could act at all. Some people also think that she’s drop dead gorgeous or something to that affect. Hearing that makes me laugh so hard that I could puke. There are so many more actresses that are way more gorgeous than she would ever be. I still have to give Charmaine a little credit because I think that she acted a little better in Country Spirit or Herbalist Affair.
The best actor and actresses in here would have to be Samuel Chan, Hong Chi Nei, and Yuen Kay Dan, even though it was mediocre, I guess its something I should expect from bad scripts.
I got these tapes for free and thought it was a total waste of time. Don’t borrow these tapes even if they paid you to watch it. I think it’s a waste of time, unless you actually like Charmaine and girls who act stupid.
Rating
N/A
