The fragrant death of Princess Chang Ping - 帝女花之香夭

This was my grandma's favourite Chinese Opera. She enjoy watching this version with Yam Kim Fai (任劍輝) and Bai Xuexian(白雪仙) very much. Hope you like it too!

Here is story outline from Illuminatedlantern.com

The opera takes place during the Manchu invasion of China at the end of the Ming Dynasty (1644). The emperor Chung was doomed. With the Manchu warriors surrounding the palace, neither the emperor nor his family could escape. To preserve the honor of their dynasty, the women of the imperial household must kill themselves, as tradition demanded. The emperor's daughter is Princess Chang Ping. She was about to be wed to the scholar Chou Shih Hsien, whom she had just been all flirty and happy with. The emperor instead gives her a red scarf with which to hang herself, but Chou Shih Hsien stops her. Frustrated, the emperor kills her himself, to protect the family honor, then pops off to kill himself as well.

She doesn't die, though, and a court official recovers her and hides her away. Later, when that official decides to give her up to the new regime to get a nice promotion, she slips away and assumes the role of a Buddhist nun, where she lives a life of hard work and toil, in secrecy.

One day, Chou Shih Hsien comes by and spots the nun who looks so much like his beloved. He confronts her, and she reveals her identity, and they are reunited at last.

But, as is always the way with tragic love stories, their happiness does not last long. The new emperor, who looks identical to the old (here comes the new boss, same as the old boss) learns of their existence and invites them to marry and live happily together in his palace. This doesn't seem like too bad a turn to me, but in fact it would dishonor her father's dynasty and help justify the new emperor's claim to the throne. They pretend to go along with it for a while, to secure a decent burial for her father. Then, they pop off to the garden, they drink poison together and wait beneath a tree, to die.

http://www.illuminatedlantern.com/cinema/review/archives/princess_chang_ping.php