A HERBALIST AFFAIR

Episodes: 20
Cast:

Roger Kwok - Cheung Yee Fai (Ah Fai)

Charmaine Sheh - Ruby Ng Sin Yu (Ah Bee)

Melissa Ng - Geung Sum Yuet
Derek Lee - Kuk Yat Siu

Eileen Yiu - Fung Gao (Gao Gao)

Shuet Lei - Cheung Dai San

Ko Hung - Cheung Wan On

Lo Yuen Yan - Kuk Li Sa

Wu Fung - Cheung Si Sang

Wong Wai - Geung Tiet To

Yu Yeung - Ng Sing

Mark Kwok - Chung Jing Lung

Chan Kwok Bong - Chow Chi Wah

PLOT

Under the backdrop of a modern glitzy Shanghai cosmopolitan and in the guise of the "westernization" and commercialization of Chinese medicine, "An Herbalist Affair" is a warm light-hearted family centered drama with romantic and comedic plot elements that we have seen many times before. There is the suspicious smart up-and-coming salesman carefully keeping tabs on his sassy secretary/assistant assigned to him who just turns out to be the only daughter of the big boss and owner of the company of he's employed. Later, their relationship blossoms into an ill-fated "poor boy rich girl" romance. On another front, two young men from different walks in life and culture meet by chance and become the best of friends only to discover that they are truly brothers sharing the same father. We have a career-minded professional doctor who needs some serious defrosting. And in the course of her reconnection to the human spirit and heart, the doctor also falls in love with the salesman. Finally, an idealistic gullible young chef (the younger brother) who is kind, gentle and good in every way falls for a fun-loving wild child dancer. Will he be lead astray by her wicked influences, or instead, become the gallant knight who rescues her back from the dark side? Before we dig deeper into the story, let's get a rundown of the principle characters first.

Roger as Ah Fai plays a striving ambitious salesperson and department head of Bo Wor Medicine Company, a leading distributor of Chinese herbal remedies and pills in Hong Kong. He jets back and forth from Hong Kong to Shanghai trying to promote the company's products while at the same time uses his contacts and the company's resources to do some peddling and selling of other products to make some money of his own on the side. His best friend, Chi Wah (Chan Kwok Bong), who also works for the company is part of this underground operation as well. Ah Fai starts out as a ruthless and driven Hong Konger whose only desire is to make money. Cynical and opinionated, he has a lethal tongue with a reputation of running his office assistants so ragged that they always wound up quitting on him in a month's time or so. However beneath all the roughness, Ah Fai is a proud but caring individual who does not shy away from responsibilities, especially towards his family. When his grandfather, Cheung Si Sang, gets a stroke and falls into a coma, Ah Fai drops everything and goes on a frantic search for a mystery woman in Shanghai in order to fulfill his grandfather's dying wish.
Charmaine as Ah Bee is a bright and optimistic designer who also happens to be the only daughter of a rich and powerful businessman, Ng Sing, the owner of Bo Wor. Having just returned from her fashion studies abroad, she makes a bet with her daddy to see how long she could hold a steady job in their family company. This leads her to become Ah Fai's secretary/assistant. At first, Ah Bee and Ah Fai don't hit it off. Ah Fai gives her the run-around and sends her off on pointless errands to buy this or that snack. It's his way of making sure that she doesn't discover his side business since he believes she's a company spy initially. However, Ah Bee's cheerful attitude, quick wits, and willingness to help others (him especially) soon win him over. A romance between the two develops during their search for the mystery woman in Shanghai. Yet, things change quickly when they head back to Hong Kong and Ah Fai gets fired from his job when his side operation comes to light. He also finds out Ah Bee's true identity and accuses her of snitching on him. Strung out to dry, Ah Fai opens his own company. The two love birds do settle their differences, and Ah Bee goes against her father's wishes to help Ah Fai out both financially and physically. Given their class differences and the ill will Ah Bee's father has against the Cheung family (Ng Sing blames Ah Fai's grandfather - a former famous Chinese doctor - for his wife's death when he refused to treat her terminal kidney problems with Chinese herbal medicine), their match never turns into fruition. Ng Sing plots to break them apart by using every means possible - threats, guilt, even money. Finally, when Ah Fai's older sister runs into huge gambling debts of over $3 million HK, Ah Fai chooses to sacrifice their love in order to borrow the huge sum of money from Ah Bee's father.
On the other front in Shanghai, we meet a newcomer to the small screen Lee Ho Lum as Kuk Yat Siu, who plays the perfect example of a filial son - talented in cooking, helpful to others without wanting anything in return, mild-mannered, and full of starry-eyed ideals. As a top chef of a grand Shanghai hotel that Ah Fai was staying during his many business trips there, the two meet when Yat Siu comes out from his kitchen to take away the dish from a very hungry Ah Fai because it did not meet up to Yat Siu's exacting standards. Through a series of chance encounters, the two eventually click, and Ah Fai becomes Yat Siu's first Cantonese speaking friend. Even though Yat Siu is a native Shanghainese, he knows how to speak both dialects, Mandarin and Cantonese fluently since he had been raised by his widowed mother who originally came from Hong Kong. When he learns of Ah Fai's moving quest to fulfill his sick grandfather's last wish, he goes all out to help Ah Fai by rounding up his network of friends and knocking from door to door asking for this mystery lady. As it turns out, they did not need to look very far. In fact, it is Yat Siu's mother who they should be searching for all along.
Years ago, Ah Fai's father, Cheung Wan On, had an illicit affair with Li Sa in which she wound up pregnant with Yat Siu. The father being a "little" man always afraid of confronting issues did nothing. Yet the grandfather, having found out about it, was sympathetic to her plight. He never told anyone the secret because he did not want to break up his son's family. He tried helping Li Sa out when she left for Shanghai, but eventually lost touch with her. This becomes a lingering regret of the grandfather's because he never did more for her and the unborn child.
Kuk Li Sa from the start realizes that "she" is the one Ah Fai was sent to find, but she had changed her name and had long moved out of the neighborhood that they were searching. With her relatively happy and stable life as the head of her own tea restaurant and ill feelings toward the irresponsible man that left her, she hides the truth from the two brothers. In one of the series most comedic moments, Ah Fai who Yat Siu has just invited to stay overnight in their Shanghai flat accidentally knocks over the broken picture plate of Yat Siu's father. As the two young men work to piece the plate back, Ah Fai offhandedly remarks how familiar the eyes were, not realizing that it was actually an old picture of his own father. In duress, Li Sa scolds them frantically to not touch her things, especially her dead husband. Up until that point, Li Sa had always come across as a very nice and soft-spoken mother figure who never raised her voice, so everyone is taken by surprise at her odd reaction. In the end, Yat Siu does find out her secret and goes to Hong Kong to visit the other family he never got to know.
Also from Shanghai is Melissa Ng's character, Geung Sum Yuet, who is a smart, career-oriented medical doctor at one of Shanghai's top hospitals. She has duel MD's in both Western and Chinese Medicine and uses both types of disciplines when treating her patients. Besides being a doctor, she also finds time to teach Chinese Medicine at the Shanghai University and help her father, Geung Tiet To, a renowned doctor of Chinese medicine, in his study and research the scientific and medical properties of well-known Chinese herbal plants. Their goal is to "Westernize" these remedies into a pill form and try to bring all aspects of Chinese medicine into the 21st century. She is articulate, disciplined and hardworking, and tries very hard to meet her father's high expectations. Geung Tiet To and Kuk Li Sa are good friends and sworn siblings. Therefore, Sum Yuet and Yat Siu also grew up together and treat one another like close siblings.
Living under the same roof as Yat Siu and Li Sa since her father's always away on medical conferences, she is very close to all the action brewing between Yat Siu, Ah Fai and his family, and Ah Bee. She plays a hand in getting her father to help Ah Fai's grandfather out through the use of alternative Chinese medicine in his recovery from his stroke. Also, when Ah Fai needed a marketable product for his upstart company, Sum Yuet tries hard to persuade her father, yet again, to let Ah Fai be the distributor of her father's research and medicinal products. Geung Tiet To agrees but only on one condition - that Ah Fai go to Shanghai University to enroll and pass a basic course in Chinese medicine that's offered to first year Chinese medical students. Ah Fai in his desperation to rescue his floundering company and pay back the loan he owed to Ng Sing does take up the challenge. As luck would have it, Yuet Sum becomes his professor there. As his relationship with Ah Bee draws to a close due to familial pressure, another possible love interest for Ah Bee, and Ah Fai's pride of not turning into a worthless boyfriend living off from his rich girlfriend's money, a small spark of chemistry ignites between Ah Fai and Sum Yuet. From the start, the two always had been at each other's throat. But time and close quarters makes them reassess their former opinions of each another that later grows to mutual appreciation, respect, and even love.
How this brewing love triangle will end between Ah Bee, Ah Fai and Sum Yuet is one of the climaxes in this series that would spoil all the fun if revealed. As for what happens to Yat Siu and his fun-loving wild dancer, Gao Gao, they do get together in the end after too many snide mumblings and intervention by Yat Siu's father (who brands Gao Gao as the evil spider spirit that lures his pure honest monk of a son into her seductive web cave, an allusion to Tong Sam Jong in Journey to the West) and a climatic hijacked bus chase sequence through the major streets of Shanghai metropolis.

Personal Comments:
The Chinese title of this series, "Ching Hien Bak Zhi Gwei" roughly translates to the love and relationships contained inside the hundred of wooden apothecary drawers that line the back wall of a Chinese herbal shop. Each drawer is reserved for a specific dried herb, and in some ways, every main character (and even some of the minor ones) is given an opportunity to shine in this light but richly layered dramedy (drama + comedy).
Playing against type, Roger trades in his normally straight laced image for a rougher look with mussed-up dyed hair and long side burns that reminded me of Dai Tao Mun (Gallen Lo) in "Secrets of the Heart". It took me about a chapter or two to buy into this new look and bossy attitude, but like Ah Bee and Sum Yuet, I too, became touched by Ah Fai's good intentions and sincerity towards those he loves.
As for Charmaine, her portrayal of Ah Bee is the most natural I've ever seen of her. Maybe it has to do with the fact that Ah Bee is familiar territory for Charmaine since it's another incarnation of the rich pampered heir of a medicinal empire she played in "Seven Sisters". Or it could be that with given enough practice, she's finally picking up on the art of how to breathe life into a character. Whatever it is she's pretty convincing in showing all sides of her character from the cute to the ugly.
Melissa also does a bang-up job playing the cold but believable doctor from Shanghai who's well versed in Chinese and Western medicine. I was impressed by her Mandarin and English speaking skills when she conducted all her classes in Mandarin and even gave an interview in English that explained the possibilities of alternative medicine to the foreign press.
As for the newcomer Lee Ho Lum, he turns in a fairly decent debut performance. He does not have the picture perfect face nor the muscular physique to be a breakout hit like Louis Koo and Raymond Lam, but he's natural in front of the camera and exhibits some good comedic timing interacting with the veteran actors. In addition, he and Ying Ying have enough chemistry that made their romantic development believable.
Finally, a special mention must be made for all wonderful performances put in by the supporting cast, especially Wu Fung, Lo Yuen Yun, Ko Hung, Wong Wai and Chan Kwok Bong. Without these characters and their special quirks and antics, this series would probably be not as enjoyable or amusing as it turned out.
Besides the acting, another element that makes "An Herbalist Affair" worth watching is the spectacular Shanghai scenery in which the story plays out. From the modern night-time skyline to the quaint rural back villages to Shanghai's many bridges - from wide heavy traffic metal wonders over Wong Bo Kwong (Yellow River) or the old stone bridges that connect a running stream or canal together, there are glimpses of a grandiose city that knew how to blend its old architecture with and the new and did it well. Much research and investment has been done to scout out and shoot such great on-location scenes. And it gives this series a refreshing context despite the over-use of familiar plot devices and storylines. All in all, while "An Herbalist Affair" will not turn any viewer into an expert on Chinese herbal remedies, it does leave a satisfactory taste in the mouth for its mild (no major blowups nor all-out evil antagonist who kills everyone off lurking in here) but vastly warm and charming tale of one happy "herbal" family.
PS I do not own this review.