COLLECTION · Series · 1984

香江花月夜(數碼修復版)

Original title

A story that fully depicts the laughter singers greeted audiences with and the bitterness they endured in private in the 1950s. This series, *Fragrant River Flowers and Moonlit Night*, steeped in nostalgia, portrays three girls of different backgrounds and temperaments who each take to the stage for different reasons. Their experiences and legendary lives reflect the bitter history of singers of that era. Through a succession of song-and-dance numbers and many melodious interludes, the series underscores a story that grips the heart. The three girls are Fong Ji-mei (Anita Mui), Pui Ting-ting (Chiang Li-ping), and Siu To-kuen (King Doi-yum). Ji-mei is a rich man's daughter. When her father loses everything in gold speculation, the shock leaves him paralyzed by a stroke. After the Fong family goes bankrupt, their only son is adopted out to an uncle. Ji-mei's mother is forced to work as a live-in maid to support the family and endures endless humiliation. Ji-mei takes over her mother's work and meets Ling Yu-sum (Miu Kiu-wai), the young master of the Ling household, and falls in love with him. Siu To-kuen's mother once worked as a servant in the Fong household, and To-kuen and Ji-mei are very close. Because To-kuen's father is a compulsive gambler, debts pile up, and at a young age she is forced to sing for money to fund his extravagance. Seeing the Fong family's financial decline, To-kuen introduces Ji-mei to work at a nightclub, where the owner, Kiu Lo-luk, takes notice of her and makes her a star singer. Ji-mei's classmate Pui Ting-ting is vain and status-hungry. Seeing Ji-mei's growing fame, she schemes to get close to her in the hope of becoming a singer herself. Yu-sum and his cousin Chow Gai-yip go to watch Ji-mei perform, drawn by her reputation. Yu-sum and Ji-mei are reunited, and their relationship advances by leaps and bounds. Meanwhile, Ting-ting learns that Gai-yip is from a wealthy family and sets out to entice him into pursuing her, determined to marry into wealth. To-kuen is tricked by her father into going to Macau and nearly loses her chastity. Weary of the nightclub life, she decides to marry Leung Sing, a Chinese medicine practitioner who truly loves her. After marrying into the Chow family, Ting-ting shows her true colors. She and Gai-yip are incompatible in temperament, and their relationship grows distant. Ting-ting eventually leaves the Chow family and returns to the stage, only to discover to her misfortune that she has a terminal illness. Ji-mei also wants to retire from singing and marry Yu-sum, but Kiu Lo-luk has long coveted her and sabotages the relationship. He rapes Ji-mei, and when Yu-sum refuses to forgive her, she has no choice but to agree to marry Kiu Lo-luk. Later, Yu-sum learns the truth, flies into a rage, kills Kiu Lo-luk, and goes on the run with Ji-mei.