The Legendary Ranger

The Legendary Ranger
Also known as	原振俠
Genre	Wuxia, fantasy, science fiction
Starring	Leon Lai Michelle Reis Catherine Hung Athena Chu
Opening theme	Wishing That You'll Not Leave Tonight
Country of origin	Hong Kong
Original language	Cantonese
No. of episodes	20
Production
Executive producer	Mui Siu-ching
Production location	Hong Kong
Running time	45 minutes (each)
Production company	TVB
Original release
Network	Jade
Release	3 January (1993-01-03) – 26 March 1993 (1993-03-26)

The Legendary Ranger (Chinese: 原振俠, Yuan Zhen-xia) is a 1993 Hong Kong cross-genre television miniseries produced by Mui Siu-ching and aired by TVB. The series starred Leon Lai,^[1] Michelle Reis^[1] and Catherine Hung,^[1] and featured a supporting cast of veteran actors, stars, and future stars, including Faye Wong and Athena Chu. It is based on Ni Kuang's fictional surgeon/adventurer Yuan Zhen-xia and is set in the Wisely fictional universe, a setting in which extraterrestrial aliens, magic and wuxia heroes co-exist.

At the time Leon Lai was at the beginning of the Four Heavenly Kings period of his career and the series' was filmed and edited, especially the fight scenes, with a pop video sensibility. The series cross-genre setting and visual aesthetic was at the time groundbreaking in comparison to the historical costume wuxia that Hong Kong audiences were used to.

Plot

Yuan Zhen-xia is a top class surgeon, amateur detective and martial artist with an insatiable curiosity and the moral code of the traditional youxia. His curiosity draws him into investigating a slew of seemingly unrelated kidnappings and other bizarre crimes. However, as Yuan investigates deeper he discovers all the crimes are in fact linked and are part of a plot by a doomsday cult. Convinced that mankind is due to be wiped out by an extraterrestrial source, the cult's crimes are carried out to hide and fund the theft of genetic material from the brightest and fittest human specimens in order to create a master race with which to repopulate the earth. Despite becoming an implacable enemy of the cult, as an example of what the cult considers to be a perfect human, Yuan himself becomes a prime candidate for recruitment into the cult. To this end the cult sends its top agent, the beautiful model/actress Huang Juan to recruit Yuan.

Despite its illegal activities the cult's crimes are carried out in a perverted desire to protect humanity and to ensure its survival. Yuan discovers his true enemy is someone closer to home. Jin Shí, an adventuring companion of Yuan, a fellow surgeon and martial artist, becomes frustrated at always coming second best to Yuan, especially in the pursuit of the love of the dancer Lan Ling. Twisted by his own inferiority complex, Jin sets out to gain his revenge against Yuan, by destroying all that Yuan loves, starting with Lan Ling.

Cast

References

• Character names and broadcast dates taken from the Chinese article of this subject

This page was last edited on 6 September 2023, at 20:15