Daddy Cool (2018)

A trend I find in recent TVB drama is that they are unnecessarily long. Drama's they believe will be "well received" are often 30+ episodes with a storyline that is only 20 episode long, dragging out the rest of the 10 episodes or ad some stupid storyline to the end, that is inconsistent with the story and make the characters do things out of character.

This is one drama that I thought will become a victim of this dumb trend, but I was pleasantly surprised. Not only does it have a good cast, but also a nice flowing storyline. Even though it could have ended 5 episodes earlier (I actually thought it was 30 eps long) the extra 5 episodes didn't fell out of place, and flowed quite smoothly.

Plot
The storyline isn't very creative. It is essentially another time-travel series in which Carlos Chan from 1948 wakes up in 2018, to which he needs to adapt to a new life with a family who was brought up differently to himself. Chan's character is a honourable, honest, good man who is shocked at his petty, deceitful decedents.
I'm happy they didn't overuse the fact that he's from the 1940s, but rather made use of his honourable personality instead.

Only thing I'll fault is they the should have dropped more hints that Joel's character was also from the 1940s by, say, making him have more knowledge of life in 1948, or liking a food that isn't common now ect. And it'll be nice to have more scenes of his grandchild (also played by Joel) since, to show how different they are, since that's how Macy found out.

Cast
John Chiang and Wayne Lai acted very well, making their characters feel believable. Even though Chiang's role began as a more "unlikable" character, he played the character well enough to be not too unlikable that the viewers hate him. His character's transition to "good" was believable too. Lai's character started out good, but later become corrupt with greed, but he made that very relatable as to not offend the viewers.

I was pleasantly surprised by Carlos Chan, it's the first time I've seen him act and was was very convincing. He stayed in character the entire time and was quite charming through out. I hope to see him more in the future. Joel Chan was okay. He has always been quite consistently good across all his dramas so I'm not surprised.

Considering how dull of a character Rosina played, she did quite well. She stayed in character, as a gentle, elegant Japanese girl, but she needs work on her facial expressions. It seems like she's trying to hard to pronounce her words right (I know she speaks Mandarin). Patricia Ha's face barley moved. She was almost robotic. I know her character was supposed to be elegant and cold hearted, but watching to close ups of her face was quite difficult for me.

Music
The music is hardly memorable o I have nothing to say. I quite like that theme song, considering how tired I am of listening to Fred (he's a good singer but the songs are usually boring). I'm surprised there was no ending theme or insert song, but the opening theme didn't feel over played at all and I don't want to listen to Hana or Stephanie any more so I don't mind.

Overall this was a good series, even though the plot was lacking a bit, it had a good flow and the acting and character interactions were brilliant and you can really feel the emotions and the motives behind each characters decisions. I give this 7.5, could have gotten an 8 is the story was more appealing but overall a good score, particularly compared to recent dramas TVB have been producing.

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Should've been a thriller instead.

Despite this show having many flaws in its direction, I quite enjoyed it.

This show suffers the fate of a lot of TVB shows where the middle part becomes really unfocused and the beginning was slow. The highest rated TVB shows are always straight to the point. This one is the contrary. It suffered greatly in the middle part where there were too much fluff. Easily could've been shortened to 25 episodes if you cut out parts of Wayne's father-in-law cheating subplot, Joel's relationship with Kandy Wong (not saying cut it completely as their relationship becomes vital in later parts but we did not need THAT much focus on them), etc. There were so many subplots and it all had very little to do with the climax. I forgot some characters existed by the last 10 episodes.

This show also could've just been a straight up thriller ala. Last One Standing or Black Heart White Soul. Wayne Lai's character was perfect for an antihero, similar to some of Roger Kwok's villain protagonist roles although nowhere nearly as psychopathic. This show tried to be a comedy with family drama but I think this show deserved way better than that forced nonsense. The comedic parts failed flat and imo brought the serious themes of the show down.

The themes are actually VERY intriguing and poignant. Rarely do we get TVB shows that focus on parental relationships, generational trauma, toxic/narcissistic parenting, and superstition in older generations where they are heavily criticized like it is in this show. Yes, while toxic parents do appear often in TVB shows, they are usually played for laughs or the director chickens out and goes with "at the end of the day, parents are just trying to do good for you no matter how wrong you think they are." It defeats the purpose. Here, it's VERY clear that these parents are bad parents. They learn their lessons, yes, but in no way does the director tries to say "yes they're bad but..." Starting from Pat Ha, to David Chiang, Wayne Lai, even to minor characters such as Alice Fung, Helen Ma, these characters are terrible parents. I love that. I love that there is finally an Asian drama that does not try to guilt trip children in hating their parents even if it's justified.

Carlos Chan surprised me. This is my first introduction to him. His character could've easily been annoying as he's the only good guy in a sea of morally-gray characters. He could've came off as preachy and boring, but he had great chemistry with the entire cast. You actually feel bad for the guy. As always, the veterans are great in their roles. Pat Ha is beautiful and she fits the part so well. She is alluring, cruel, and absolutely narcissistic. You hate her character, but she's really fun to see on screen. I love seeing David Chiang play against type as he's always the righteous, wise father. He had the best arc in the entire show imo.

A good 6/10 for me. Sounds low, but that's because I don't see myself watching this again with how little I cared for the middle part of the story but once the plot picks up, I would say after a certain character gets married, then it gets pretty interesting.

Also, great Chinese title, terrible English title. Yes, I know it's a pun based on a Boney M song but how many people get the reference these days? The title really doesn't go well with the dark plot. Again, it's like the writers had originally wanted this show to be a comedy and realized a thriller would've been better suited halfway through the script.

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