Juniper
In the past few weeks, I have been watching 3 Chinese dramas online and just finished with “Heirs” starring Jiang Xin and Hawick Lau. There’s also veteran Hong Kong actor, Damian Lau whose suits are really loud and unsuitable for his role in the drama as he is a well known and successful lawyer. Damian’s jackets are all kinds of vivid and glaring shades of yellow, green and red. Makes him look quite camp actually.
Anyway, I sat through 43 episodes of this drama because of Hawick and Jiang Xin. The drama begins with Jiang Xin’s character, Tang Ning returning unannounced from America because she received a mysterious letter regarding her past. She is a Harvard Law School graduate and is the daughter of the late founder of Tang Ye Corporation, Tang Ji Ye. She decides to investigate her past but encounters obstacles in the form of her aunt and uncle, her uncle being Zhong Ke Ming played by Damian. Her aunt and uncle are managing Tang Ye Corporation. It looks like aunt and uncle have something to hide as they are scheming to get Tang Ning to sign over her inheritance of shares in Tang Ye Corporation.
Tang Ning ends up as assistant to Hawick’s character, Zheng Hao whose mother is mentally unstable and whose father has just passed away. Zheng Hao’s late father was the mentor to Zhong Ke Ming and Zheng Hao’s boss, Xue Han Zhi. Tang Ning is initially on good terms with her aunt and uncle and was even willing to sign away her shares to them but little by little, she suspects that there are secrets as she finds out a few things from the maid who used to work for her aunt and uncle.
I’m not sure which lawyer in Shanghai whizzes around on a bicycle but Zheng Hao does and it just seems improbable. Also, he is always dressed casually in the office as if he is going to the mall. I thought that Tang Ning’s character was just miserable throughout the drama. Most of the time, Jiang Xin looked like she was on the verge of tears as her eyes were so red.
A lot of the scenes are in court and I guess the moral of the story is that blood relations should be more important than money but that’s easier said than done as however close relatives might be in the beginning, all that can be broken apart when it comes to the issue of dollars and cents. Good ending but rather abrupt as it doesn’t show how the villain, Zhong Ke Ming gave up what he had been fighting for from episode 1. I thought the ending could have been done better.
