Best wuxia drama = Game of thrones political intrigue + jin-yong level of world-building

I'll be honest here. I don't usually write reviews for any dramas, and I comb through cdramas, kdramas, hk dramas and Jdramas like sonic the hedgehog. This is from at least twenty years of drama binging.

This drama is GOLDEN. I was searching top 10 wuxia drama of 2023 and I came across this as number 4 or 5. I was skeptical at first reading the synopsis "oh a dark-brooding assassin drama, but hey, the list so far is pretty good".

Boy was I blown away. Episode 1 - 4 was "Okay... this is interesting." Then is just became better and better to the point where from episode 20 - 24 I was crying non-stop. You really bond with each and every character.

While it's abit of a slowburn at the beginning, I urge everyone to give it a chance and slowly watch every conspiracy and story unfold.

The world building is extremely consistent and rivals the world-building of classics like jinyong's novels, if not better.

Now for the ending, if you don't want to know how the drama ends or even the vibes to the ending ends, you can stop reading here.

The first 40 minutes of the ending is masterful, everything came to a very good conclusion, even the bittersweet endings from certain arcs are, while painful to watch, is satisfying in terms of a conclusion. But the last 5 minutes want you to scream and throw something at the TV screen.

Okay, I'm done. 10/10, easily top 5 cdrama in my 20 years + 100 cdramas of experience.

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Quite a disappointing conclusion to what could be the next generation of Prison on Fire movies

An immediate continuation from Breakout Brother's 2 plot point with the incarceration of the warden for his corruption in helping ron ng escape prison.

If you thought Ron Ng was a 1 dimensional villian in Breakout Brother 2, Kenny Wong is like a 0.5 dimensional villian. I get the feeling he grew quite sick of the franchise as his character scenes consist of expressionlessly smoking a cigarettes in different poses, at different parts of the prison.

The story makes no sense at all since Kenny Wong was able to execute one of the most stupid strategy ever (of killing Scar, played by Justin Cheung from OCTB fame) just to create a distraction to get out of prison.

There's a lot of inconsistency as Scar became the unreasonable ruthless villian in the first movie, to suddenly having zero power in the second movie and then becoming a background teddy bear character in season 3. Just when the movie throws you a redemption arc about a past lover, he dies to warden's plot of murdering him in the shower after drugging him in the cafeteria.

It also makes zero sense that Big Roller and his entire gang was held hopelessly as victims in the kitchen, and only by having Kin-Tin showhim with ZERO additional equipment and only throwing marbles at big roller that they were suddenly able to reverse the situation against the gun men.

All in all, movie 1 was quite a run for its money and had the potential to spin-off the next generation of prison on fire movies, but it was wasted by bringing in super one dimensional-antagonist in the subsequent sequels. But at least story 2's storyline made sense, story 3 felt very rushed.

Oh and Moses Chan as the new warden literally brought nothing to the table.

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Classic Hong Kong Prison Drama carried by veteran actors

Watched this movie after completing the breakout brothers trilogy. If you like classic HK Films, especially the prison ones (e.g. chow yun fatt's prison on fire) this would be a modern take on it.

The premise and story, while nothing mind-blowing, sets the tone for veteran actors ricky chan and ray liu to bring out their "da lou" big brother roles.

Stuck inbetween them is Justin Cheung, rising to fame from "OCTB" as a joker-esque villian who subsequently showed his range of acting in the breakout brothers film as a uncouth big boss antagonist in prison.

It's a nice just juxtapose for Justin Cheung as this time round he's the protagonist, and in a much meeker role with a cunning and strategist mindset versus his role in Breakout Brothers, which again shows his range of acting too.

All in all a very fun ride as you are constantly on a look out on the dynamics between the two gangs and the unpredictability and ruthlessness of ricky chan as the film's primary antagonist.

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