Those Famous Women in Chinese History | |
---|---|
Genre | Historical drama |
Country of origin | Hong Kong |
Original language | Cantonese |
No. of episodes | 20 [1] |
Production | |
Producer | Amy Wong |
Production location | Hong Kong |
Running time | 1 hour [1] |
Original release | |
Network | ATV |
Those Famous Women in Chinese History (歷代奇女子) is a 1988 ATV drama series produced in Hong Kong by Amy Wong. [2]
The series is based on the life of four ancient historical female figures.
Cast | Role |
Nora Miao (苗可秀) | Empress Lu Zhi |
Bonnie Ngai (魏秋樺) | Yu Xuanji |
Kingdom Yuen | Lv Qiao |
Tong Ban-cheong (唐品昌) | |
Pat Poon (潘志文) | Liu Bang / Li Yi |
Lo Chun-shun (魯振順) | Chen Tong |
劉 / 刘 is an East Asian surname. pinyin: Liú in Mandarin Chinese, Lau4 in Cantonese. It is the family name of the Han dynasty emperors. The character 劉 originally meant 'battle axe', but is now used only as a surname. It is listed 252nd in the classic text Hundred Family Surnames. Today, it is the 4th most common surname in Mainland China as well as one of the most common surnames in the world.
Throughout Chinese history, "Emperor" was the superlative title held by the monarchs who ruled various imperial dynasties or Chinese empires. In traditional Chinese political theory, the emperor was the "Son of Heaven", an autocrat with the divine mandate right to rule all under Heaven. Emperors were worshiped posthumously under an imperial cult. The lineage of emperors descended from a paternal family line constituted a dynasty, and succession in most cases theoretically followed agnatic primogeniture.
Wu Zetian, personal name Wu Zhao, was Empress of China from 660 to 705, ruling first through others and then in her own right. She ruled first as empress consort, through her husband Emperor Gaozong and then as an empress dowager, through her sons Emperors Zhongzong and Ruizong, from 660 to 690, not unprecedented in Chinese history. She subsequently founded and ruled as female emperor of the Wu Zhou dynasty of China from 690 to 705. She was the only female sovereign in the history of China widely regarded as legitimate. Under her 45-year reign, China grew larger, becoming one of the great powers of the world, its culture and economy were revitalized, and corruption in the court was reduced. She was eventually removed from power during a coup and died a few months later.
Lü Zhi, courtesy name E'xu (娥姁) and commonly known as Empress Lü and formally Empress Gao of Han, was the empress consort of Gaozu, the founding emperor of the Han dynasty. They had two known children, Liu Ying and Princess Yuan of Lu. Lü was the first woman to assume the title Empress of China and paramount power. After Gaozu's death, she was honoured as empress dowager and regent during the short reigns of Emperor Hui and his successors Emperor Qianshao of Han and Liu Hong.
The consort kin were the kin or a group of people related to an empress dowager or a consort of a monarch or a warlord in the Sinosphere. The leading figure of the clan was either a sibling, cousin, or parent of the empress dowager or consort.
A queen regnant is a female monarch, equivalent in rank, title and position to a king. She reigns suo jure over a realm known as a kingdom; as opposed to a queen consort, who is married to a reigning king; or a queen regent, who is the guardian of a child monarch and rules pro tempore in the child's stead or instead of her husband who is absent from the realm, be it de jure in sharing power or de facto in ruling alone. A queen regnant is sometimes called a woman king. A princess regnant is a female monarch who reigns suo jure over a principality; an empress regnant is a female monarch who reigns suo jure over an empire.
Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban, was a Chinese historian, philosopher, and politician. She was the first known female Chinese historian and, along with Pamphile of Epidaurus, one of the first known female historians. She completed her brother Ban Gu's work on the history of the Western Han, the Book of Han. She also wrote Lessons for Women, an influential work on women's conduct. She also had great interest in astronomy and mathematics and wrote poems, commemorative writings, argumentations, commentaries, essays and several longer works, not all of which survive. She became China's most famous female scholar and an instructor of Taoist sexual practices for the imperial family. Ban Zhao is depicted in the Wu Shuang Pu by Jin Guliang.
Chinese imperial cuisine is derived from a variety of cooking styles of the regions in China, mainly from the cuisines of Shandong and Jiangsu provinces. The style originated from various Emperors' Kitchen and the Empress Dowagers' Kitchen, and it is similar to Beijing cuisine which it heavily influenced.
Vietnamese clothing is the traditional style of clothing worn in Vietnam by the Vietnamese people. The traditional style has both indigenous and foreign elements due to the diverse cultural exchanges during the history of Vietnam. This all eventually led to the birth of a distinctive Vietnamese style of clothing, including the birth of the unofficial national dress of Vietnam, the áo dài.
Xiao Yanyan, also known as Empress Dowager Chengtian (承天皇太后) was a Khitan empress and military leader of imperial China's Liao dynasty. She was regent on behalf of her son from 982.
Hu Mei is a Chinese film director, television director and producer. Usually classed as a Fifth Generation director, since she graduated from the Directors' class of the 1982 Beijing Film Academy cohort, she is a classmate of famous Fifth Generation directors such as Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang.
Can't Buy Me Love is a 2010 Hong Kong television series. It is a grand production by TVB and starred Charmaine Sheh and Moses Chan, Linda Chung, Raymond Wong, Kenneth Ma and Fala Chen as the main cast for this series.
Women in ancient and imperial China were restricted from participating in various realms of social life, through social stipulations that they remain indoors, whilst outside business should be conducted by men. The strict division of the sexes, apparent in the policy that "men plow, women weave", partitioned male and female histories as early as the Zhou dynasty, with the Rites of Zhou, even stipulating that women be educated specifically in "women's rites". Though limited by policies that prevented them from owning property, taking examinations, or holding office, their restriction to a distinctive women's world prompted the development of female-specific occupations, exclusive literary circles, whilst also investing certain women with certain types of political influence inaccessible to men.
Hanfu, are the traditional styles of clothing worn by the Han Chinese since the 2nd millenium BCE. There are several representative styles of hanfu, such as the ruqun, the aoqun, the beizi and the shenyi, and the shanku.
Empress Yuan, personal name unknown, was briefly an emperor of the Xianbei-led Chinese Northern Wei dynasty. She bore the surname Yuan, originally Tuoba. Yuan was the only child of Emperor Xiaoming, born to his concubine Consort Pan. Soon after her birth, her grandmother the Empress Dowager Hu, who was also Xiaoming's regent, falsely declared that she was a boy and ordered a general pardon. Emperor Xiaoming died soon afterwards. On 1 April 528, Empress Dowager Hu installed the infant on the throne for a matter of hours before replacing her with Yuan Zhao the next day. Emperor Xiaoming's daughter was not recognised as a legitimate emperor (huangdi) by later generations. No further information about her or her mother is available.
The Empress of China is a 2014 Chinese television series based on events in the 7th and 8th-century Tang dynasty, starring producer Fan Bingbing as the titular character Wu Zetian—the only female emperor in Chinese history.
A eunuch is a man who has been castrated. Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function. In China, castration included removal of the penis as well as the testicles. Both organs were cut off with a knife at the same time.
Ming Dynasty is a 2019 Chinese television series giving a fictionalised account of the life of Empress Sun, who was an empress consort of the Xuande Emperor. Starring Tang Wei and Zhu Yawen, it aired on Hunan Television until 2020. Loosely adapted from the novel The Chronicle of the Six Eras by Lianjing Zhuyi, the show gained much attention and viewership from non-Chinese viewers after it achieved high ratings in mainland China.
Yi Xu, was a Chinese physician. She is known as one of the famous four female physicians in Chinese history, along with Zhang Xiaoniang of Northern Song dynasty, Gu Bao of the Jin dynasty and Tan Yunxian, who was active during the Ming dynasty. She was active during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han.
The fashion in the Yuan dynasty of Mongol (1271–1368) showed cultural diversity with the coexistence of various ethnic clothing, such as Mongol clothing, Han clothing and Korean clothing. The Mongol dress was the clothing of elite for both genders. Mongol attire worn in the 13th-14th century was different from the Han clothing from the Tang and Song dynasties. The Yuan dynasty court clothing also allowed the mixed of Mongol and Han style, and the official dress code of the Yuan dynasty also became a mixture of Han and Mongol clothing styles. After the founding of the Yuan dynasty, the Mongols strongly influenced the lifestyle and customs of the Han people.