The Hotel

The Hotel (simplified Chinese: 大酒店) is a Singapore Chinese thriller drama which was telecast on Singapore's television station, Mediacorp, in 2000. It is a large-scale production, which has a total of 20 episodes, with more than 95% of Mediacorp Artistes appearing in the drama, mostly either as cameos or as guest characters.

The main cast of the show includes Chen Hanwei, Zoe Tay, Fann Wong, Phyllis Quek, Ivy Lee, Edmund Chen, Huang Biren, San Yow, Chen Liping, May Phua and Yang Libing. Most of the main cast are veteran actors and actresses who have won many awards, namely Chen Hanwei, Zoe Tay, Fann Wong, Huang Biren and Ivy Lee.

Synopsis

The Hotel revolves around a family-run 3-star Hotel, named Queen's Hotel which has been around for over 20 years. Jointly run by Seto (Ivy Lee), her sister, Susan(Jacelyn Tay), Ah Boy (Andi Lim) and sister-in-law Durian (Yang Libing), business began to go downhill due a spate of apparent hauntings of a figure drapped in a black holding a scythe, within and around the hotel area. Alarmed at the dwindling public relations and business, major shareholders and Emil (Edmund Chen) and his younger brother Sunny (Chen Hanwei) step in to salvage the situation, taking the role of Hotel Managers.

Emil consulted the services of a Bomoh, Medium, as well as a Priest to find out what is wrong and in the process appease the apparent ghosts, but to no avail. The hauntings only continue: The murderous apparition still stalks the chambers of the hotel and terrorize those who bump into him, even causing two guests to be sent to the hospital due to fits... Emil and Sunny suspected that it is not an evil spirit that haunts the hotel but a psycho who is part of the staff. Emil and Sunny thus began an investigation, which causes friction between the brothers and Seto's family.

Very different in character, Seto and Emil do not see eye to eye with each other on many issues, and even more so on the ongoing investigation to expose the malicious psycho. The prime suspect that Emil has in mind is Seto herself, and he became paranoid over every single action she took. Emil however admires Susan's frankness and decides to court her. Meanwhile the hauntings continue, and a guest was soon stabbed to death by the psycho.

The escalating antics of the psycho prompted Emil to hire the services of Mystery-Investigators (A pastiche of the American Scooby-Doo series), Freddie (Qi Yuwu), Daphne (Fiona Xie), Shagger (Alan Tern), and Winnie (Sharon Au) to stay up in the hotel to solve it. Unfortunately during the length of their investigation, Shagger and Winnie were murdered by the psycho, but not before Winnie left a clue as to who the murderer could be.

As justice served, the combined efforts of Emil and the remaining Mystery-Investigators, along with the unexpected assistance of Seto, eventually caught the culprit, who turned out to be Emil's girlfriend and Seto's sister: Susan! Susan was an animal rights activist who was unhappy at the Hotel's anti-cockroach compaign held years ago to get rid of the pests to improve hygiene and hotel reputation. She thus vowed to teach the management a lesson. So as fate would have it, a series of events in the hotel dissolves the animosity between Seto and Emil and they soon develop feelings for each other.

Under Emil's management, the hotel business finally sees some improvement. Phua Chu Kang (Gurmit Singh) offers to take over the hotel but is rejected by Emil as his beloved has a stake in it as well. Just as Emil finally decides to express his love for Seto openly, the hotel receives a letter from the Mystery-Investigators, demanding to be paid more since the hotel business improved quickly...

External links

• MediaCorp

See also

• List of programmes broadcast by MediaCorp Channel 8