Acting
YU Pi-hsia, mother of three children asks for a favor from CHANG Nieh-tien to save her husband in jail. When YU’s husband is killed, she is forced to marry CHANG. The three children are raised by their uncle, who treats them as his own. Their aunt, however, treats them like slaves. When the uncle discovers she is having an affair, he kills his wife and her lover. Before turning himself in, he reveals to the three children their true identities and tells them to find Da Fu Temple and learn kung fu. The three children begin a journey of revenge and rescue.
Tsi-Bing is living a wealthy and successful life. However, he is manipulated by his mistress into believing that his wife is having an affair and he throws her out. After his mistress vanishes with his money, Tsi-Bing is forced to relocate to a makeshift home with his three children, who take on various jobs, such as selling rice dumplings, to make ends meet. The story centers on a man who loses his social and economic status but manages to regain his place in his family through sacrifices – much like the experience of female protagonists in melodramas. This male-centric narrative was recognized as part of a subgenre of Taiwanese-language melodrama. The depictions of a powerful male figure losing his power before finally turning the tide, and a woman able to support herself after leaving home, both suggest the changing attitudes of the late 60s as people were less convinced of the perfect family, but could still find beauty in its cause.
The Bride Who Has Returned From Hell (or Bride in Hell) is an adaption of The Mistress from Melynn, a 1960 novel by Victoria Holt. The story begins when a yacht is lost at sea. Then a telephone call between male protagonist Wang Yiming (Ke Junxiong) and his cousin Gao Fengjiao (Liu Qing) reveals that Wang’s wife has perished while eloping with a neighbor. After female protagonist Bai Ruimei (Jin Mei) learns that her older sister Ruiyun – Wang’s wife – has died, Ruimei changes her identity and applies for a job as a tutor to Wang’s daughter Shuyuan in a bid to solve the mysteries surrounding her sister’s death.
Qiuxiang is molested by debt collectors because of her father's debts. Fortunately, Li Shihong and his wife Yingmei rescue her while they pass by. They hire her as domestic helper. Shihong travels to Thailand, while Qiuxiang takes care of the pregnant Yingmei.
