Cave of the Golden Rose

Growing up in the 80's sure has its benefits! Especially there are so many nice nice shows on tv which indirectly become part of my memories.

Alright... I wonder do any of you remember this show called Cave of the Golden Rose? It has the same feel of Neverending Story. This story is about a princess who is very spunky and has a character of her own. While her 2 elder sisters are those dasmel in distress who wanted to marry off soon kind of girl, in another words abit bimbo? =p She has a never-say-die spirit and always has a golden heart, always helping the good and weak against the evil. She even help reform many bad people with her ways of doing things! She also believe that the good will always triumph over the evil! She is my role model when i'm young! =p Channel 5 always run this show during 1995-1996. And her name is Fantaghiro!

Still no recollection? Anyway Cave of the Golden Rose has 5 sequels of which part 5 isn't available in english so Channel 5 didn't run it on tv. Cave of the Golden Rose is originally an Italian tv-mini series. Here is the synopsis of the 4 different parts which I extract from a website.

Cave of the Golden Rose:
When King Romualdo first met princess Fantaghiro in a forest, he immediately fell in love with her. However, she was frightened and ran away. Since King Romualdo only saw her eyes, he try to find the woman with those beautiful eyes. Later on, as King Romualdo challenges his enemy kingdom to fight a duel to end the war, Fantaghiro was sent to accept the challenge due to prophecy.
However, Fantaghiro cannot reveal herself as woman. Therefore, she cut her hair and dress like a man. When Romualdo saw her later, he somehow recognize her beautiful eyes. However, she dress like a knight and that makes Romualdo uncertain whether she is his love or not. Therefore, he do all kinds of tricks to find out whether she is a knight or the woman he saw in the forest.
Later on, Fantaghiro also fell in love with King Romualdo, but her sense of duty to fight the duel is stronger. Will they fight in the duel until one of them died? Will the war ends? How could Fantaghiro survive Romualdo's challenge?

Cave of the Golden Rose 2:
Fantaghiro and Romualdo was about to marry when suddenly the Dark Witch interrupted them. The Dark Witch kidnapped the father king and force King Romualdo to start a war. During the war, the Dark Witch turned herself into Fantaghiro and made Romualdo kissed her. As a result, Romualdo was under her control.
Now, Fantaghiro have to fight against her own love, Romualdo. However, she couldn't attack Romualdo as she love him very much and she also cannot let herself to be killed by him. What will she do next? How can her defeat the Dark Witch?

Cave of the Golden Rose 3:
Romualdo became the victim of Tarabas evil spell and was turned into a stone. In order to restore him, Fantaghiro has to get an "impossible kiss", that is to kiss Tarabas. However, any woman who kiss Tarabas will turn him into a beast and that woman will be devoured. Fantaghiro eventually found Tarabas and is willing to kiss him even though she hated him so much, because she wants to restore her love, Romualdo. However, Tarabas demanded her to marry him in order to earn that "impossible kiss". Will she survive the beast? How could she escape the marriage with Tarabas?

Cave of the Golden Rose 4:
Darken casted a black cloud that took away many castles, including Fantaghiro's one. Therefore, Fantaghiro has to join Prince Parsel to find her castle back. During her journey, she met Tarabas, who was about to engage Rufus in a duel, because Tarabas was accused for casting the black cloud. She rescued Tarabas and together, they travel to find Darken.
Finally, they found Darken, but was imprisoned by him. Darken tried all kinds of bad tricks to force Tarabas to go back to evil. Will Tarabas become wicked again? Can Fantaghiro beat Darken? Will the castle be rescued?

I personally feel that part 1 is the best. The sequels storyline are getting more and more cheesy. (but I like to see Fantaghiro acting so righteous in every part of the show, it's just so inspiring even though the story become anyhow in later parts!) Feels like they just want to anyhow fill in the plots to make the seqeuls work. I won't vouch that Cave of the Golden Rose has deep plots and all but it's is nice, motivational and straight forward. Good against Evil and love.

here are the character photos which I have found over the internet.. it's so pathetic... Not much on the show therefore pictures are quite scarce.

King Romualdo (that is Fantaghiro's love interest.):

Is he dreamy or what? =D

Fantaghiro:

I'm sorry I can't find more picture of her as there isn't much on the net. And these pictures doesn't do her any justice as she is really pretty in the movie!!! Even Iszy(ccnp) had a crush on her when he was young! XD Left top is her when she has to act as a male to hide her princess identity. Right top is her in black armor. Below left is when she still has long hair but wasn't cut off by the cropping and the below right is when she is about to marry Romualdo I think.

Tarabas:

Tarabas's love interest is Fantaghiro and he is initially a evil person, he put a curse on Romualdo. At the later stage, he slowly he falls in love with Fantaghiro as he is moved by Fantaghiro's kind act. He is the dark prince.

Misc Characters:

This woman appears in the first part of Cave of the Golden Rose. She appears to be some guardian of some forest who helps Fantaghiro. I like her image it just like she was created out of those fairy tales! =D

Left: Fantaghiro's sisters. Right: Dark Witch. The actress is actually a famous play-boy pin up girl when she was young! Hahaha!

There are other characters but I don't think it's necessary to put it here hehehe...

Recently I have found a website that sells this series dubbed in english. Previously I found that Germany Amazon.com sells them but it's all in italian with dutch subtitles (so stupid >_<) but it's original and cost wise is reasonable. The one i found recently sell it in english dubbed!!! But then as discussed with helen, they sell the series in DVDR..... -____-"" which means they ripped it from somewhere.... therefore it meant that the series is PIRATED isn't it... and the cost is eur 170. Which means it cost SGD340!!! That's so expensive for pirated isn't it? And what if the Singapore customs found out it's pirated and sued me??? =( What am I suppose to do? I need advice!!!

Should I just buy the pirated one with sky rocket high prices, taking a gamble and risk seeing low quality show and getting sued or should I buy from Germany Amazon with resonable price and originality but I won't be understanding a word they say as it's all in freaking italian?

I found one VHS cover on amazon.com which show a very pretty picture of Fantaghiro and Romualdo hahaha and the White Witch and Fantaghiro's father!