A sad episode in The Iron Lady

Like telling lies, one wrong makes it necessary to create other wrongs just to maintain the status quo.

Last night’s episode showed one tragedy after another afflicting the unfortunate Lun Zhi, the poor girl who was pressured by the self-centred Madam Gao to have sex with her husband to serve her own purpose of inheriting her father’s estate.

She produced a set of twins, a boy as required and wanted by Madam, who lived a life of luxury with her, being vital to a family tradition which insisted on a male heir; while the girl lived in poverty with her natural mother and a mentally challenged step-father, chosen by Madam for her. She had to promise never ever to come into contact with the Gao family.

The twist of fate, as the story goes, not only made it possible for the twins to know each other, but to work as boss and able assistant and later as lovers due to get married. A chance conversation which Lin Xi had with her prospective father-in-law (actually her natural father) raised question as to whether she is related to his ‘surrogate wife’. After some checking which confirmed that Lin Xi is his own daughter, the other twin of his own son, the forthcoming incestuous marriage had to be prevented at all costs.

Like before, being put in a spot, the Iron Lady had to do what she had to do, to prevent the secret from being known which could cause the downfall of her business empire, acquired through a big lie.

To recap, she married her husband with the condition of his changing his surname to hers, Gao. It became possible for her to inherit her father’s estate so long as she produced a male heir. After giving birth to two daughters, she was unable to conceive anymore. Her husband and her maid were given the ‘task’ to produce a son, Tian Yao.

Now, if the secret were out that Tian Yao is not Madam Gao’s own son, the whole basis of claim to the inheritance would collapse! Just imagine, it was already stretching too much to consider a son bearing an acquired surname to suit the circumstances, but the fact that he is a son from an unholy alliance between his father (with changed surname) and someone not a member of the Gao family was heresy!

I must give credit to the scriptwriter for making it interesting, and to the local actors and actresses who made this particular episode so touching with their credible, if not excellent performance.

I could imagine and empathise with the mixed feelings when Lun Zhi met Tian Yao again just after she knew he is her own long lost son. She admitted to Madam that she suffered for more than 20 years pining for her son.

Even at their first meeting, she felt a strange bond between them. She was shown to show fondness each time she looked at a boy of his age who reminded her of him. Even though she promised not to see him, and that she is satisfied just to see him from a distance, how could she keep her promise when meeting him in person? She just could not take her hands off him, much to Tian Yao’s surprise and shock, for he must be thinking she is crazy. As he was leaving in a boat, she just had to look through the window to see the fading image.

The earlier meeting between Iron Lady and her nemesis to sort out the mess, caused the accidental death of her other daughter when in a scuffle, she knocked her head against a metal object at the jetty and fell into the sea. Days later, her sorrow after losing her, and her depressed mental state made her follow the sound of her daughter’s bicycle bell which was being stolen and like her daughter, she fell and drowned in the sea.

Our local film productions have improved tremendously since the time when a number of HK actors took part in earlier ones. But I find it uncomfortable, knowing a local man speaking HK Cantonese, presumably as a HK businessman.
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