The Return of the Condor Heroes

Looks familiar?

This is Andy Lau and Idy Chan in the drama series by TVB, "The Return of the Condor Heroes", which is a TV adaptation of the book by Louis Cha (aka Jin Yong). It is my favourite Chinese novel, and my favourite TV drama. Other adaptations of the book for TV never really left as deep an impression on me as this one by Andy Lau.

The plot and all can be found in the Wikipedia entry, so I shan't touch too much on it. For me, the first time I encountered this story was through the TVB drama, which was shown in Singapore back in the late 1980s. I was so struck by the story, that I went on to read the novel itself, and got myself even more attracted to the story. So when the comic came out, I went out to get that too. And when the animation appeared in the stores, I got it too. The only problem was, I got the Japanese version of Season 1 of the animation... and guess what? They didn't make Season 2 in Japanese... guess I have to get the Mandarin/Cantonese versions...

What struck me about the story is the character Yang Guo, and his disregard of social norms (he attacked his first teacher, and was going to marry another teacher of his, something unthinkable during the era that the story was set in). The love between him and his teacher Xiaolongnyu was very touching, and was so well described in the book that reading it brings tears to my eyes. Yang Guo has a personality that swings between extremes. He is very nice to those he likes, and totally scorn those whom he hates. To him, it is either black or white, there is no gray.

The love story was touching because of the sacrifices the couple were willing to do for each other. They loved each other so deeply that they were willing to sacrifice their own happiness and even their own lives so that the other may live. While the first edition saw the eventual death of Xiaolongnyu, by the demand of the readers, in the second edition, Xiaolongnyu managed to survive her ordeal. That added yet another touching scene to the story, so for me, it was tears reading the whole novel.

The TVB drama is available as a VCD set, and the novel itself is still in print, so what are you waiting for?

This fansite lists the changes made in the third edition of the book.
This is the fansite from which the picture was taken from.