Friday, May 9, 2008

Revolving Doors of Vengeance

Cast:
Joe Ma ~ Martin Ko Fung
Kenix Kwok ~ Becky Koo
Ron Ng ~Wong Kai Kit
David Chiang ~ Cheng Wing Fat
Ella Koon ~ Hoi Sum
Elaine Yiu ~ Chloe / Ho Yi
Ellesmere Choi ~ Wong Kai Yip
Winnie Yeung ~ Judy
Derek Kok ~ Mark
Mary Hon ~ Kai Kit's mother
Lau Dan ~ Wong Yuk Ting
Lo Hoi Pang ~ Ko Fung's father
Rebecca Chan

Wong Yuk Ting is the Chairman of Royal Court Hotel. He has three sons; Kai Yip, Kai Chi, and Kai Kit (Ron Ng). Kai Kit is Yuk Ting's second wife's (Mary Hon) son, therefore Kai Chi and Kai Yip doesn't like him very much. This is evident in a flashback shown where Chi attacked Kit's mother, angering Kit so much he nearly kills his older brother. For this Kit is in jail, but at the series' time he is about to be released. As soon as he is free, the first thing he does is attack his brothers, again. Next, he forces his brothers to admit their plans to seize power from their father and kick him out of the hotel, humiliating the family in front of the public.
When Yuk Ting dies in a car accident, he leaves Martin Ko Fung (Joe Ma) as head and CEO of the hotel. For a while, Martin sides with Kit in taking power away from his two brothers. He brings Kit back to the Hotel and befriends him, acting as a friend of sorts by teaching him honour and discipline in the form of Kendo. With Mark (Derek Kwok), Martin's friend and lawyer, he helps Kit's mother legally earn her place in the Wong family. Through careful schemes, he has Kit and his mother believe him to be another son of Yuk Ting's. As a result, Kit's mother gives all 5% of her shares in the hotel to him.
Kai Kit loves his mother very much and would do anything for her; however, he is also very hot-tempered and very easily aggravated. After Martin tricked his mother, he became very angry and tried to attack Martin. All his attempts fail, and Martin mocks him for only using his fists instead of using his brains.
Hoi Sum (Ella Koon) is a young girl who is not as wealthy as Kit and his family, she works at a fish market and was given the title "Mai Yu Mui" meaning "The Fish-Selling Girl". Her brother was in jail with Kit once. She becomes good friends with Kit and eventually starts working in the hotel to help him. Not long after, she falls in love with him.
Cheng Wing Fat (David Chiang) is Lau Dan's first wife's brother. He owns 5% of the shares but wants Royal Court Hotel all to himself. He attempted to take over in the past, but Yuk Ting discovers this and throws him out of hotel affairs. Now, he relys on his manipulation of Yip and Chi to subtly control the Hotel affairs, but with Yuk Ting's recent death he tries to return to the hotel. He plans to do this not only with the two brothers' support, but also with Becky Koo Bik Kay's (Kenix Kwok) help, a woman in the Communications Department who is secretly working for him.
In the beginning, Becky is a subtle villain as she does almost anything for the right price. First she appeared to be working for Chi, but in reality she is loyal only to Wing Fat. Even when she seemed to get along with Martin, it is revealed she was simply doing what Wing Fat told her to. For example, she tells Martin she loves to taste red wine and he takes her out on a date to do so. Then later in a meeting with Wing Fat, not only does she reveal she lied to Martin about her favourite brand, but she wasn't even that interested in wine.
With his authority unquestioned, Martin begins his plans to seize total control of the hotel. One by one, Julie and Yuk Ting's first two sons lose their authority. After Chi is thrown out, Martin tells Kit that this was for revenge, setting Kit out to try and find the source of Martin's grudge. With Hoi Sum and her brother's help, they learn that Yuk Ting apparently betrayed Martin's father - who had sponsored Yuk Ting's hotel - to the Chinese Mafia (Triads). It wasn't intentional, Yuk Ting was forced to, but when Kit confronted Martin about this Martin tells him it doesn't matter. Yuk Ting betrayed Martin's father, that's all he needs to know. He was nearly finished extracting his revenge, Kit is his next target. Forced into a corner, Kit starts to cooperate with his two brothers, and forms a close relationship with them.
With the three of them working together at last, the hotel starts to flourish once more. On business relations, the brothers convinces the other major shareholders to support them. When Martin tries to change the hotel name, the brothers finally manages a comeback and defeats the idea. Honourably, without simply using fists, and in one scene Kit returns to Martin in the Kendo Hall, and this time he duels him properly. This victory was not without a drawback, for when trying to stop the name-changing process, the brothers had to accept Wing Fat back into the hotel.
On personal relations, the Wong family starts getting along, as Julie starts treating them more nicely and the older brothers start welcoming Kit's mother. Kit's mother also comments that if it wasn't for Martin's deed, the three brothers wouldn't of gotten along. This is foreshadows to Martin's motives. Wing Fat adapts to this, and puts on an appearance of supporting the three brothers. Kit's and Hoi Sum's relationship is also hinted to become something more very soon. On another romantic note, Becky finds herself actually falling for Martin and decides she cannot betray him any longer.
Since Becky was gone, Wing Fat started to use his daughter, Chloe or Ho Yi (Elaine Yiu). Chloe's job was to get on Kit's good side and tell her father everything she found out about hotel affairs and his relationship with Martin. Often acting as the innocent and wronged girl, she is actually as cunning as her father. Even manipulating Mark at times. It was her who first discovers that Martin was actually trying to help the Wong family.
As it turns out, Yuk Ting never betrayed Martin's father. Not only did he keep his silence, but it was Yuk Ting who helped Martin and his father escape to America. Because Martin's father was missing, Martin views Yuk Ting in a father-uncle perspective. When Martin returned to Hong Kong and learns of the problems Yuk Ting was having, he offers to help. Yuk Ting should leave for a short time and allow Martin to lead the faltering hotel back into business. Without Yuk Ting around to protect his sons, Martin will play 'villain' and force them to cooperate. Sooner or later, the sons will end up having to actually work and learn about the hotel, rather than constantly fighting with each other. At the same time, Martin plans to take the 5% in Wing Fat's hands away. Once everything was settled, Martin will give power back to the sons, and go create his own hotel.
By the time Chloe and Wing Fat figured this out, Martin had already thrown Wing Fat out of the hotel again and effectively end the brothers' trust on him. For Chloe to be able to continue to spying, Wing Fat pretends to be angry at her for not leaving with him and disowns her. This causes everyone to believe, once again, that Chloe is an innocent victim. While Martin does not care much about this, Mark starts to have feelings for her, much to Chloe's glee. She did not try to stop this even when she loves someone else, Kit.
Meanwhile, Wing Fat decides to deepen the hatred between the brothers and Martin. He locates the driver who had accidentally killed Yuk Ting and has him tell the three brothers that Martin planned the whole thing. Furious, the three brothers viciously attack Martin, though Kit prevents them from killing the man. He comments that the law will soon catch up to people like Martin. Nevertheless, the three are now intent on ruining Martin completely, and Kit swears to beat Martin so hard Martin will never be able to recover.
Hoi Sum's brother meets an old con man, and when the two became friends (or more like, student and teacher) he asks the man to go into the hotel as a guest and gain Martin's trust. Then he was to con him into losing everything. The man does, but when he shows himself to Martin, Martin recognizes him as his long-lost father. However, the man doesn't recognize him, and if anything appears to not even know he has a son.
Chloe succeeds in gaining Kit's complete trust and she becomes obsessive over him. Aside from framing Hoi Sum and secretly causing her to run into frequent troubles at her job, she even gets Kit to believe that Hoi Sum is a bad person, and Kit and Hoi Sum began to fall apart. Soon, Hoi Sum could no longer endure this, and so when she is offered a job in the Philippines she accepts. The job was offered by a man who had developed a crush on her (Raymond Cho).
Martin and Becky's relationship soon turns sour when Martin uses her to force Wing Fat's recently returned wife to withdraw her support of Wing Fat. Not only that, Martin made it seemed as if Becky and Wing Fat were involved together and that Becky's son was Wing Fat's. The wife, who had a record of being emotionally unstable to the point she nearly drowned Chloe once, is furious and threatens Becky.
As things begin to unravel and Kit finds out that Martin was following Yuk Ting's orders to get himself and his brothers to cooperate, the story was coming to an end. Kit finds that he is actually in love with Hoi Sum and he breaks up with Chloe.
Chloe was angry about this and seeks Hoi Sum out, asking her to give Kit back. Hoi Sum said that she and Kit have nothing between them, but Chloe did not believe her. She followed Hoi Sum out to the sidewalk and begged her, screaming “Please give back my beloved Kit!!!” Chloe than sees a truck coming towards them, and in a vicious move she pushes Hoi Sum out to the street. The truck turned away just in time and hits Chloe instead. Chloe ends up in the hospital and she is told she will never be able to walk again. Wing Fat and Chloe's mother is mad at Kit and Hoi Sum. Kit takes Hoi Sum outside and talks to her. He finally admits his feelings and tells her he loves Hoi Sum and not Chloe. Hoi Sum said that she really needs time to think about this. After that, she leaves the Philippines, returning to Hong Kong to visit her family.
While this had all been happening, Martin finds out that Becky's son was actually his as well, as the result of a one-night stand. Taking responsibility, he apologizes and gets back together with her. Everything was going well, until the child disappeared and the two receive a ransom note. Knowing he did not have enough money, Martin decides to sell his shares to the two remaining brothers. Wing Fat overhears this, and at the night the documents were to be signed, he sent a few men out to prevent the two brothers from arriving, and he goes to Martin instead. Knowing he was running out of time, Martin sells his shares to Wing Fat. Later, it turns out that the whole ransom had been a lie, Kit had actually paid Becky to find a way to get Martin to sell his shares to his brothers. The only thing he didn't expect was Wing Fat's interference, and the fact that he himself learned from reliable sources that Martin had actually been trying to help him.
Mad at Kit for Chloe's legs being paralyzed, Wing Fat hired a triad group to cripple Kit. Hoi Sum’s brother tells her that a group of men will come and hurt Kit, she went out to try find him. She called but he wasn’t able to answer his cell phone. By the time Hoi Sum found him, he was injured. Kit was taken to the hospital, and Hoi Sum tells Kit that she really still likes him, earning a smile from Kit.
Meanwhile, Chloe's father plotted to take over the Royal Court Hotel with Martin's help. By now, Becky had left Martin, and he was furious at Kit for using her and his father against him like this. Now truly intent on revenge, Martin helped Wing Fat succeed in gaining ownership of the hotel. The three brothers now had no authority or control. Intent on going further, Martin starts watching the brothers and soon tells Wing Fat they were in negotiaitons with a company in building a tourist resort in Hong Kong.
This drew Fat's attention. To prevent the brothers' succeeding, he seized the piece of land. Kit congratulated Fat on his purchase and tells him that the story of a tourist resort was fake all along. Fat lost ownership of Royal Court Hotel since he sold his shares for the land purchase. Angered by this, Fat locked himself up with a bottle of red wine and fell down the stairs, ending up in a coma.
Martin Ko and Becky got back together again and Martin gave the hotel back to the three brothers; Kai Yip, Kai Chi, and Kai Kit. Mark, who had always been there for Chloe regardless of her actions, promised to take care of her. On Kai Kit’s mother birthday, The three brothers, Kit’s mother, Martin, Martin Ko’s father (who did not die), Hoi Sum and her family threw a party. Together, Kit and Hoi Sum gave a present to Kit’s mother. Kit’s mother asked when are they getting married. Kit answered, “ After I finish my work, then I will marry Hoi Sum.” Everyone laughed and the two(Kit and Hoi Sum) smiled.

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