Water Margin is a famous classical novel from Chinese literature. In this story, there is an adulterous by the name of Pan Jinlian. There have been quite a number of TV dramas and movies featuring this notorious seductress who is also known as the Taoist goddess of fornication and prostitution. Pan Jin Lian became the patroness of prostitutes, who frequently make obeisance to her as they enter their places of business.
The actress chosen to play the part is mainland Chinese actress, Bobo Gan Tingting (pictured above). The twenty-four year old actress said she had read the book and other relevant stories for more than 30 times to understand the character.
Wu Song is famous for killing a fierce man-eating tiger at Yanggu county with his bare hands. It is at this place that he meets his elder brother Wu Dalang, who has moved there recently. Wu Dalang brings his brother home and introduces him to his wife Pan Jinlian. Wu Song learns that they had moved to Yanggu to avoid gossip. In their former residence, the neighbours would often remark their being together as "a rose placed on a pile of cow dung" (一朵鮮花插在牛糞上) asWu Dalang is short and ugly so he is the "cow dung" to his wifes's "rose". Pan is instantly attracted to her handsome and heroic brother-in-law and attempts to seduce him but she is rejected by him. To avoid her adulterous advances, he accepts an assignment from to transport gold to another county. After completing his assignment, he is shocked to see that his brother had died, apparently from illness.
Wu Song was suspicious and carried out his investigations. He found that Pan had entered an extra-maritial affair with a rich and lustful merchant by the name of Ximen Qing and murdered her hawker husband Wu Dalang and later became the fifth mistress of Ximen Qing. The nymphomaniac Pan had also fed Ximen Qing with aphrodisiacs which led to his demise. Another version of the story has Wu Song forcing a confession out of Pan Jin Lian and then decapitating her first and then kills Ximen Qing in a fight.
What an interesting character! I wonder if she was a figment of the author's imagination or if he had based her on a real-life adulterous.
References:
http://asianfanatics.net/forum/topic/713316-gan-tingting-to-act-as-adulterous-woman/
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/p/pan_jin_lian.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Song
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