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Completed
Mission Run
6 people found this review helpful
Jan 2, 2023
27 of 27 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 5.0
Story 5.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Music 6.0
Rewatch Value 4.0
This review may contain spoilers

Pretty good drama, but suffers from having too many protagonists

Watched up to episode 22 so thought I would share my thoughts. This is one of those ICAC kinda dramas, and it has the Youku signature gritty gray dark style we’ve come to expect from their dramas these days. It is pretty good and starts with the collapse of a building during an ICAC investigation that has 5 childhood friends get caught up in a lot of trauma and injury. Fast forward to present time and they have all grown up and have their own paths that all deal back together due to the collapsed building of the past. It is all written pretty well and starts off slow, but once the bad guys start doing their stuff a few episodes in is where it starts to get really good. The only thing holding this drama back are that there are too many protagonists in it and they do not bounce off each other effectively as foils for the other characters, instead we have Vincent Wong, Bosco Wong and Ron Ng all acting very serious and all shown to have contemplative moments, but they are very samey. There isn’t an upbeat member of their crew at all, so it just gets very depressing, especially when they are onscreen at the same time with Nancy Wu and Mandy Wong. Sisley Choi is the only upbeat person in the drama but she is not part of the main crew, and it seems Sisley has been typecast into these roles so you can see it coming a mile away. The true pull of the drama comes from the bad guys played by Ben Wong, and Derek Kwok, two complete and utter bastards that would do shady things for money. If it weren’t for them, this drama would be a 5 or 6, they pull it up to a 7

Update: I just completed watching the entire series and holy moley, I have to pull the score down to a 5 because the ending was so abrupt and ridiculous it gave me whiplash 3 times. We spend most of it watching Nancy Wu’s character trying to take down Ben Wong but it all fails, so literally in one episode near the end she basically goes “f*** it” and kidnaps Ben’s wife and kid and forces him to a confrontation and admit his crimes to a secret livestream. Like all the plans failed, but a last ditch unplanned attempt in one episode out of 27 suddenly works? That is some lazy writing and it annoyed me to no end.

And to top it off, I forgot to mention in my earlier post that that many of the scenes are dubbed over, with the native cantonese speakers having to dub over their lines again. This is quite typical with many Youku productions, but the problem here is that the dub does not provide good lip syncing at all is it looks very out of place. Just get a better boom mic, please!

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Completed
The Airport Diary
5 people found this review helpful
Jan 16, 2024
10 of 10 episodes seen
Completed 1
Overall 3.5
Story 4.0
Acting/Cast 4.0
Music 2.5
Rewatch Value 4.0
This review may contain spoilers

Basically a huge advertisement for HKIA

You know… I knew this would be somewhat of a program informing viewers of how Hong Kong International Airport functions, but I was not prepared for episode 1. We get introduced to the main characters and how they worked together, but suddenly, out of the blue, JW’s Wish started to play. This was the love theme for Kenneth Ma and Natalie Tong in Big White Duel, which represented their connection despite being divorced, so why was it playing here? Because Kenneth Ma here is divorced from Sisley Choi. I found that so lazy, like the only thing that could make it lazier would be Sisley Choi divorcing him because of a miscarriage that was her fault and Kenneth not knowing about it. In any case, episode 1 ends in a spectacularly cheesy way with the main cast all staring off into the sun in the distance. Was it meant to be inspirational? Dude, it’s just an airport!

Episode 2 introduces some other supporting cast members and more BAU airport activities, but what I noticed that was not normal was how everybody - and I mean EVERYBODY - brought up Kenneth and Sisley’s divorce so casually as if it was a minor thing and even tries to get them back together. I don’t know if the writers have been around real divorced people who work together but nobody brings it up out of respect as it would make for some real awkward moments if done so. Even if they do it would be every now and then as required, here it is constant “I’m a divorcee” or “hey sis-in-law opps lol not really”… just no.

Do you know what I found really wrong? Some of the depictions of the staff and commuters at the airport. Man, the staff at the check-in desk were really patient and talked to this old gentleman as he couldn’t find his passport, and after some time he found it made some small talk with the check-in staff. Do you know what would happen in real life? He would be asked to stand aside to allow other passengers to check-in while he looked for it as the other passengers in the queue all start asking, “Yo, what’s the hold up?”

And man, the theme song sucks. It is so forgettable it is like why even bother. They could have saved the money and just do an ICAC musical thing and boom done it would have made no difference.

As this is just 10 episodes long in total, there are not many more episodes to see if things improve, but I am not holding my breath. A completely quick cash grab HKIA sponsored load of nonsense so far.

Episode 3: BAU, but Sisley Choi is really annoying in this episode as we see her and Kenneth dancing awkwardly around the fact they are divorced but still have to work together. You can tell Kenneth wants to get back with her but she’s all evasive.

Episode 4: man this episode… like what were the cameramen thinking. Rosita Kwok was wearing a really short skirt to show off her legs, but in one scene the camera was almost an upskirt shot. That had me thinking “what the he…” What made it worse was how unflattering the shot was as you could see all sorts of blemishes on her legs.

Episode 5: this episode had more things that had me call BS. As the episode starts, the airport staff started looking for somebody because they were going to miss their flight and going out of their way to look for them. It turned out the passenger was just shopping and even asked for a few more minutes when they find her. In real-life you know that airport personnel would just let her keep shopping as it isn’t their problem if she missed her flight. I also found Rosita extra annoying this episode as she had dropped her ID card and it was found by Ricco. Ricco tries to return it but she is unbelievably rude to him, even later snatching the card from his hand at lost and found. No normal person would act like this in a professional setting especially to someone they just met when Ricco did not even do anything inappropriate.

Episode 6: not bad.

Episode 7: finally something somewhat juicy is happening with Tiffany and Sisley meeting for the first time, the ex-girlfriend and ex-wife of our charismatic main Kenneth, and only Tiffany knows their status. See this is what I am talking about, but this is introduced too late so I know it is not going to escalate much.

Episode 8: another run-of-the-mill episode. Man, it ends with Rosita in a flight simulator and she’s all wide-eyed and full of wonder. The machine isn’t flying anywhere nor did it have any actuators to simulate movement. It is a stationary cockpit with computer generated imagery. This is like being amazed that the popcorn button of your microwave burns your popcorn.

Episode 9: okay this episode really annoyed me. We finally get the scene where Kenneth and Sisley discuss their divorce and I thought we would get some startling revelation about why they were divorced because they were clearly still in love. And the reason? Sisley: I forgot the reason. Kenneth: same here, must have been trivial. Like wtf, you cannot remember why you guys got divorced? You separated, you signed the papers, and you cannot remember why? I thought maybe it was something traumatic they didn’t wanna discuss and TVB would give us a flashback but no, no flashback no nothing. This show treats marriage and divorce like minor things, and us the audience as idiots if they think we would just roll with that. As this is episode 9 it is clear this will be the only time the subject is approached and the next and final episode they will get back together. Man….

Episode 10: the last episode wraps up the show and pretty much tries to wrap up all loose ends. However, Kenneth and Sisley’s getting back together really annoyed me. Kenneth finally remembered why they got divorced, but Sisley says he doesn’t have to remind her as they shouldn’t dwell of the past and only on the future. So basically we never find out why they were divorced and Sisley really doesn’t want to discuss where they went wrong in the past to improve their relationship going forward. What lesson was this trying to teach its viewers? What was that nonsense?

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Completed
A Perfect Man
5 people found this review helpful
Jan 20, 2023
20 of 20 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 8.0
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 8.0
This review may contain spoilers

A surprisingly good drama

I didn’t know what to expect watching this but I found myself really enjoying this drama. Joe Ma is the cool and suave bodyguard that we are getting used to watching but it never gets old, and pairing him up with Ali Lee was a great decision. The story was quite ridiculous but I let it off the hook because the drama was just so entertaining. The general premise is that Ali Lee’s character got married in England but her husband couldn’t have kids, so they got donated sperm from the sperm bank , which coincidentally was donated by Joe Ma after losing a bet. Somehow, Ali finds out the doner was Joe so travels to HK to find him many years later after her husband passes away. Already the setup is a huge “wtf?” in my mind, and yet somehow it works. Ricco Ng plays the 17-year-old son to the two biological parents and somehow he managed to pull it off. He really does act and sound like an immature teenager.

Although the main actors were great, the major stand out for me was Yoyo Chen. Her character was flawed for sure but the number of scenes with her were all incredibly entertaining thanks to the personality of the character she was portraying. She plays the aunt to Joe Ma who just so happened to be younger than Joe in the drama, so the interactions between them can be a little awkward but hilarious as a result. The scene where she gets proposed to put a huge smile on my face.

But despite all these great things, it suffers from the old TVB rushed ending that make things a bit weird. It is not as bad here, but the final episode where Ali kept pushing Joe away made no sense. She explained it to her best friend but even then I was scratching my head thinking “what are you talking about?” It does have a happy ending, thank goodness, but that last episode for the most part had me really confused over what the writers were thinking.

Overall, a great feel good series and worth rewatching in future!

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Completed
In Bed with a Stranger
4 people found this review helpful
Feb 27, 2024
25 of 25 episodes seen
Completed 1
Overall 4.5
Story 5.0
Acting/Cast 4.5
Music 4.0
Rewatch Value 4.0
This review may contain spoilers

Lol episode 1 and already it is all so predictable

Man, I love Joe Ma but this drama from episode 1 had been predictable, and I mean every typical TVB trope was thrown in here from amnesia, lost in translation in a foreign country, suddenly causing a wedding to be cancelled, the situations that force boy and girl to embrace… everything is used in episode 1. I swear every time I called out a prediction it came true because of how lazy whomever wrote the screenplay for this was.

Man… the worst part? Joe Ma got an award near the start of the 1st episode, and when there was close up of the award it made me laugh out loud. It had the label “23rd Top Ten figthers award”, but they made a typo with the word “fighters” and wrote it “figthers”. Clearly it is wrong but they decided not to change it. That alone tells you how much budget was allocated to this drama, so who knows about the quality of the upcoming episodes. Damn I’m worried.

Episode 4: watching up to this episode and so far everything has been predictable. Even the guy that tried to hurt Mandy Wong I got it mostly right. I knew he had gone to prison and someone would get run over on the road because that’s the TVB way. I thought both his wife and kid would get hit and killed by a car but it was just the wife, so I’ll give that to TVB.

Some scenes were just plain setting a bad example for viewers. Joe Ma drove in this classic red BMW 5 series convertible to pick up Kelly Cheung. He spent the entire drive with one hand on the stick, which was on purpose so that Kelly could put her hand on his during one of their touching chats. This meant for the entire trip Joe was steering one handed, very safe (!). When we see Kelly put her hand on Joe’s, we can clearly see the car had automatic transmission and he had it on drive, so there was no reason to have his hand on it besides from the Director wanting the shot where they held hands. Lol what?

What I found hilarious was the obvious product placement of the red flower oil. Man, they zoom in so you get a good hard look at the bottle just before Kelly Cheung uses it on Joe.

Update: I’ve watched up to episode 14 and man what have I been watching? This drama is just a giant commercial and platform to advertise products. You’ll see how the actors blatantly put cup noodles, medicinal rubbing oils, paper map books and even Seahorse mattress. Jesus!

So far, some things in the drama have been so bad, like when Joe Ma grabs Mandy Wong to jump out of a boarded up window because the place was on fire. I thought it was quite high up, but they just crash through the wooden boards as if they were made of paper, then landed on the ground outside on the same level! That had me laughing out so loud because of how stupid it looked.

Another one that had me go wtf was when somehow Joe Ma worked out how some special code written in an old diary entry by Mandy was deciphered using the map book. The code was something like MB123456, and somehow from that Joe worked out MB was for “map”. How does MB mean map? And the numbers were the page number and co-ordinates on that page. Joe then randomly grabs a map book that he happened to have in a car, and coincidentally this was the right book to use to apply his theory. Joe then travelled to that location with his partner and they started randomly digging to look for whatever may be hidden. This part made me laugh even harder because Joe started digging in one spot 3 times and decides nope, not here. He walked to a second location and dug twice and bang, he hit something! He quickly dug it out and it was a small metal box the size of a tissue box. Like how lucky was that! Second attempt and somehow Joe hits that tiny tissue box! Man, why didn’t he use a metal detector to make it more believable? Joe took the box home, opened it and finds a dictation machine buried there 7 years ago. Joe turned it on and there is power! 7 years in the ground and the machine still had power to it! Joe listened to the last recording and of course it had a conversation that was incrimination to him so he deleted it.

This drama is going to get worse isn’t it?

Episode 18: omg, this episode gave us some proper laughable scenes. Check it out, Joey Law is going through 2015 street camera footage similar to Google Maps Streetview. Now, how can you get 2015 Streetview-like footage in 2023 I have no idea, but it is the same sort of browsing around the roads stuff. Joey virtually checks a road and suddenly he spots a couple in the back and in a complete blurry mess. Joey clicks to zoom in and suddenly we are shown a fully hi-res 4K crystal clear image of Joe and Kelly standing together as if it came from a DSLR. Like what technology was Joey using here? It doesn’t even blur out faces to protect identities or anything.

And the pièce de résistance, Joey Law tries to get access to Joe Ma’s safe and to do so he used a thin piece of plastic and places it over the safes’ keys. He doesn’t dust the keys or anything, just slaps the plastic on and lifts it to find black fingerprints on the keys Joe used to open the safe.

How is this drama rating higher than the drama Happily Ever after?

Episode 22: man this episode gave me some good laughs. Mandy nearly gets abducted, so she scratches the man’s right arm then falls over, hits her head and passes out. Joe Ma happened to be around, so he wrestled the same man. That man scratched Joe’s right arm as well before escaping. Mandy later sees Joe’s arm injured and suspects it was him. You know this is so stupid on so many levels because the suspect redirection was so forced, and also the cops here are not properly doing their jobs. If Mandy scratched the man who tried to kidnap her, they could remove the skin from under her nails, do a DNA test like in past TVB dramas and prove Joe was not the man. Why was it not done here? Because the Director didn’t allow it in the plot.

Final update: man I just finished the drama and I can tell you one thing… I called it! I knew Joe Ma was a good guy, it is rare that he is the bad guy in these dramas so all the red herrings being planted throughout the drama to make Joe look like the bad guy I knew were all BS. But the biggest plothole was in episode one where it ended with Joe visiting the location where his then wife Mandy fell off the cliff. How did he know to go there? That was planted with no explanation since he didn’t know where Mandy went missing.

Of course, we have the misunderstanding fully revealed with Mandy realising Joe was the good guy right at the end, and we get the typical TVB trope of a diary entry left by Joe that explained everything on one page. It’s never a daily one page entry per day, it is always one page that explains everything in the past up to that point in time. Convenient. And I also called out that Mandy would get back with Joe and somehow their situations would be reversed. And guess what? It happened. So Joe saves Mandy from falling off the cliff again, but he himself nearly falls. However, his fiancee Kelly - who happened to be the original person who pushed Mandy off the cliff (which I also called out) - saves Joe and she herself instead fell down the cliff. Joe then gets knocked unconscious by Frederick Cheng and was about to be killed when conveniently the cops arrive with Joey Law, and Joe is left in a coma for one week. At the end of the week, a lady - whose face we are not shown - goes to visit Joe in his hospital bed. This is implied to be Kelly’s spirit as it has been a week and suddenly Joe wakes up. We see Mandy now looking after Joe and his company while Joe now has amnesia.

I found Mandy really annoying because I knew everything she was doing was a misunderstanding against Joe. Later after she allegedly regained all her memories, she claimed in public that it was Joe that pushed her off the cliff. This is so dumb, because near the end when Kelly rescues her from Frederick going nuts, she finally remembers it was Kelly who pushed her off the cliff, not Joe. We get a flashback and can see Kelly dressed in BLACK in the DAYTIME attacking Mandy and chasing her to the cliff without a mask on so Mandy could clearly see her face, and it was Kelly that shoved her off. That really made me angry with Mandy, like you can remember everything but you couldn’t remember that important moment that led to you going missing? Geez!

The weird thing was that Kelly was great in this drama. Frederick Cheng also did a great job as a spoiled rich kid who needed people to help cover up his nonsense. Most of the stuff happening in the drama was a result of him being an idiot and the cover ups not being good enough to prevent others finding out.

The biggest annoying person in the drama is by far Joey Law. He had funny moment for sure so he isn’t the usual wallpaper paste as in his other dramas, but he had this unexplained bias towards Joe that made no sense. Even before they met he was looking into Joe’s past and kept saying Joe was a liar and a pretender and a bastard… anything to make Joe sound like the bad guy when he had no basis to these beliefs. Later when they meet Joey is standoff-ish, and this continued throughout the entire drama even in situations where clearly Joe did nothing wrong.

Overall, a predictable drama and it is below average. It had sparks of something great and some of the actors made their roles look good, but man it suffered from too many issues to be good. Better luck next time TVB, stop reusing so many tired tropes in one drama! There should be a trope limit given to Producers before they start producing anything.

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Completed
Let Me Take Your Pulse
4 people found this review helpful
Oct 18, 2023
25 of 25 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 8.0
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 8.0

Great show about TCM

Man I never thought I would enjoy a drama about traditional chinese medicine. They throw so many herb names around that I have no idea what the characters were saying, and stuff about qi blockages made me go “pardon?” But it ultimately was a great show because of the characters.

It depicts how tough it is for TCM practitioners to be taken seriously as modern western medicine has more respect, but it drives home the message of how TCM has existed for hundreds of years and many people are alive today as a result of it.

I liked most of the characters of the show but for most of it I really disliked Matthew Ho as he is this really naive and oblivious idiot that constantly pisses off Sisley Choi’s character. Sisley Choi is also not in a typical happy role this time, she plays a more down-to-earth serious role and it is about time as I was worried she was being typecasted into the happy hehe roles at TVB. But the biggest stand out for me was Ricco Ng as he was just a joy to watch, and I never thought I would be saying that. His acting has come on in leaps and bounds; he really has potential in becoming a male lead in a future big drama for sure.

Overall, a great drama that is held back by a really annoying main male protagonist who only barely redeems himself near the end of the drama.

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Completed
I've Got the Power
4 people found this review helpful
Dec 4, 2022
25 of 25 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 4.0
Story 5.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Music 7.0
Rewatch Value 2.0
This review may contain spoilers

Starts great end really dumb

What is TVB's problem with Ruco Chan? This guy keeps dying at the end of his recent dramas and never gets to have his own happy ending. Yes that's right, he dies at the end and that really annoyed me. What annoys me more is the use of the old reversing time to prevent stuff happening thing as well. We watch the entire drama and how these characters have grown together, only for the ending to rewind back to the beginning to unset it all, basically meaning everything we as viewers have witnessed was a waste of time. It is almost as bad as the "oh it was all a dream" trope. This drama started out pretty good, with the people getting used to their powers and we see great character development, but there is no real scary bad guy for them to fight with their super powers, just some triad dude trying to avenge his son. If you have super powered heroes, have super powered bad guys to even the playing field, come on! To counter the lack of super powered bad guys, they introduced side effects to using the powers, which is good and all but not all users get side effects, which is a little unfair. At least two great things did come out from this: Natalie Tong doesn't play a stupidly annoying character like she usually does, she was very likeable here, and the music is great, but hot damn I do not want to rewatch this purely for the ending. So much potential wasted

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Completed
Happily Ever After?
3 people found this review helpful
Feb 27, 2024
20 of 20 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 8.5
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 8.0
This review may contain spoilers

Man what a strong start

Episode 1 just dropped and I gotta say it is a strong start. Him Law and Yoyo Chen are the first couple featured in the first story and the acting here is incredible, just top class stuff. It was also masterfully written because it starts at the current situation and then the past is slowly revealed so it allows the viewer to have some sympathy for Him Law that lingers even after the reveal is made. Him Law and Yoyo Chen play a happily married couple and have a daughter together, but as the episode goes along you can quickly see that they are going through a divorce and the wife is very cold and angry. You feel bad for Him as you see how terrible his situation is, but as you think Yoyo is a hateful bitch, there is a big reveal where Him cheated on her with another woman, and even though she forgave him she found he had been writing a novel about his experience. This made her lose her calm and she goes full on angry tiger woman mode. I was firmly on Him’s side, but after that reveal I was emotionally conflicted. If the story had been told from beginning to end we would not have had that same emotional reaction as we would have known immediately Him was the asshole. Well played writer, well played.

I am now excited for the other stories and this first one is not even done yet! Most of the cast is strong but we do have the yawn inducing Joey Law in there so I am dreading his story coming up as he is awful at acting, but we’ll see how it goes. Good start so far!

Episode 3: man Chris Lai is so cool in this episode. His character here for the first story is elaborated on and we see he is actually is a great guy and really wants to help Him Law and Yoyo Chen be okay together. We see the flashbacks and how he encourages Yoyo to be more open minded to how annoying her husband is. Later, unsurprisingly, we discover Chris has feelings for Yoyo ever since they first met but was unable to act upon them because he was such a girl magnet (and rightly so, he is damn charming). They share a kiss during a time when Yoyo was really upset over her husband, but he managed to push her back to prevent it getting out of hand. This causes some tension between him and his girlfriend, especially when he finds out that it was his girlfriend’s younger sister that slept with Him Law, but he sorts it out by being honest with her sells his car where he shared the kiss with Yoyo so he can forget about it. Man, this was a good episode.

Update: man what a rollercoaster. This show brings to light how complicated and complex it is being an adult and being in love. It shows how divorce can affect the most innocent victims in a marriage: the children, and it shows how someone's love can go through changes and lead to different destinations.

Chris Lai's story is really sad but he is also my favourite character in the drama. He goes from a carefree laid-back kind of lover and matures into a more serious person and we see this emotional growth. His and Winki's story had a really sad subplot that drove a wedge between them, but I am glad in the end it all worked out.

This drama is also the only drama where I found Joey Law tolerable. His immaturity remained almost constant throughout the drama, but he finally matured - along with the former loveaholic Venus Wong - that he managed to save their failing marriage.

The only annoying factor here is Him Law. Man, his character was so darn annoying. He messed up at the beginning, messed up later when in a new relationship, then when he was semi-back with his wife and found out he had cancer in his right leg, he started to push his family away, acting nonchalant and telling his daughter he wouldn’t be around forever, especially when his daughter really needed him. His daughter put it best when she said, "Are you guys crazy?" When she called out her mum on her control freak nature and her Dad for being stupid trying to push them away when he had cancer, and they both just walked away from her. Why do TVB HK dramas always do this? A character finds out he has a terminal illness, so to "protect" his family he doesn't tell them, stays away from them to ease them into not having them around, and then decides to suffer in silence. That's so stupid, when they die their friends and family would all find out anyway and hate them for not telling anybody. Please stop this TVB, be normal for once.

Overall, a great series worth rewatching!

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Completed
You're Just Not Her
3 people found this review helpful
Jan 4, 2024
15 of 15 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 8.0
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 8.0
This review may contain spoilers

A surprisingly good romantic drama

I have only seen this up to episode 9 but I feel I need to put out there how much I enjoy watching this drama. I remember seeing the ad for this with Karl Ting and Crystal Fung plastered all over it and I thought, "Oh no, this is going to suck." I mean the last few roles they had weren't particularly rememberable and they never left a lasting impression. However, this drama had them turn it all around. I can feel their chemistry on the screen and the scenes where they were together and enjoying each other's company felt very genuine. This is all bolstered by a great romantic theme song "Officially Missing You" sang by Aster Lau that is easy to listen to and enjoy time and time again.

I, also so far, have not found any character to hate. The supporting cast are all great and have their own troubles to solve, but they all work together around the main leads without taking too much of the spotlight. Even William Chak is not bad acting as this bastard who just got out of prison.

The story is still quite a mystery because Crystal Fung's character is very serious and angry at the start of the drama, but during an argument and sudden car accident with Karl Ting at the wheel, there is a flash of light with Crystal flying through the windshield and yet she is completely unharmed, with her personality taking a one-eighty degree turn. The once serious and cold Crystal is suddenly very passionate and forgiving of her boyfriend, which Karl did find weird but ultimately accepts. I can't wait to find out what is going on because there have been so many theories on this I have discussed with friends. Is she an Angel in disguise? An alien? Maybe a fox spirit taking Crystal's form to help out her last wishes? We don't know. At least not yet!

Update: boy the last 2 episodes were a massive rollercoaster ride. Karl starts getting annoyed with Crystal sticking her nose into everybody’s business and helping them face their problems. His reasoning is that she would do this behind his back and without considering the feelings of others when doing so. Crystal’s stance is that we should directly face issues and tackle them head on. I understand both arguments so I could not choose a side, I kinda agreed with both arguments so I was massively conflicted.

The disagreement leads to Karl avoiding Crystal and speaking to his grandma and friends for about the situation. All of them tell him how great they thought Krystal was and how she helped them face and resolve their issues. Then finally, in episode 14 while Karl was at an arcade to avoid Krystal at home, he suddenly had an epiphany and ran home to hug Crystal to apologise to her and say how stupid he was for acting like he did when he had such a great girlfriend. This scene was great and I thought the relationship drama was over, but no, there’s more! Karl noticed later that Crystal was trying to hide something in a wicker basket, so he decided to sneakily take a look and discovered a futuristic phone with 7G (7G!!). He saw the background wallpaper had Crystal and himself, but he had an hairstyle he had never had before. He listened to a voicemail and recognised his own voice but he did not remember leaving such a message before. Finally, he watched a video clip where Crystal was being arrested after a car accident before the camera pans over to the passenger side to reveal another version of Karl sitting there dead. This frightens our Karl as he was clearly alive.

Predictably, in episode 15, the final episode, Karl confronts Crystal about this and after pressing her repeatedly, she finally revealed that she was from another universe that found herself in ours after she crashed her car at the same time he crashed his and swapped places with his Crystal. This realisation horrifies Karl because he knew his Crystal was in her universe and was in prison for a crime she did not commit, so he begged other Crystal to bring his Crystal back. Despite the protests of other Crystal’s love for Karl, Karl couldn’t accept this and finally speaks the name of the drama, “You’re just not her.” He said the thing!!

Cue the next few hours of them just wandering around until night when other Crystal decided to kneel down and cry on the side of the freeway. Somebody suddenly drove by and stopped to check on her to make sure she was okay, but other Crystal noticed that the car was the exact same car she drove on the night she crashed. So, predictably, she stole the car and drove it to Karl, asking him to get in as she explained herself. She explained that she thought it was heaven’s way of giving her another chance because her direct approach in her universe led to her boyfriend wanting to break up with her, and in an act of anger she crashed the car, accidentally killing him, but managed to switch places with our Crystal so thought it was an opportunity to start again. Since our Karl was so adamant in getting his Crystal back, other Crystal was going to try and recreate the situation that caused them to switch places by driving the same model of car with them in the car and crashing into the same place with her seatbelt undone. We see this kinda work and other Crystal flies out of the windshield with a huge flash of light.

We finally go to the next scene where Karl wakes up in hospital and asks where Crystal was. The doctor tells him that she had suffered more serious injuries and was in a coma. We spend the last few moments of the episode watching Karl constantly visiting her and waiting for her to wake up, until one day he gets a phone call to inform him she had woken up. He arrives at the hospital and after some hesitation, enters her room to ask of she was his Crystal, where she only smiles, leaving it all ip to the viewer’s interpretation.

The ending was a lovely touch to keep it mysterious and I still really loved the drama, but there were so many things that ruined the immersion. Other Crystal’s carjacking had no consequences at all, and I know it was left out due to time, but it was sending the message that stealing cars was fine as there are no consequences for doing so. Also, during the final scene where Karl wakes up and has Crystal in a coma, none of the other characters are seen to visit them. These characters were seen to be indebted to Crystal and yet we do not see any of them visit Karl or Crystal during their time at the hospital. They didn’t have to be shown saying anything, just a montage of them standing there silent would be enough to show they cared. Also, how does dimensional travel work her? Does it require you drive a Subaru WRX Impreza STi, particularly the 2009 model with the optional sport pack for it to work? Nothing is explained! There are other plotholes as well that doesn’t allow me to give this a score above 8, but ultimately this was a great romantic drama that I hope gets a sequel. The romantic scenes between Karl and Krystal made the romance between Romeo and Juliet in TVB’s recent Romeo and His Butterfly Lover look like a joke.

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Completed
The Beauty of War
3 people found this review helpful
Nov 3, 2022
20 of 20 episodes seen
Completed 2
Overall 2.0
Story 1.0
Acting/Cast 3.0
Music 10
Rewatch Value 1.0

Are TVB out of their minds?

This drama was such a disappointment it really hurt to watch it. It made me very angry at the beginning because the main character was just awful to watch, like watching a horse trying to walk like a human. The worst part was all the best stuff happens near the end, but it felt so rushed like they had to stuff 10 episodes worth of content into the final few episodes. This leaves on a cliffhanger, and I pray to all that is good that they do not make another sequel to this horror show of a drama. It’s only saving grace is the amazing Rebecca Zhu and legendary David Chiang - who both barely appear in the show. It also has a pretty good theme song. Other than that… damn

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Completed
Justice Sung Begins
2 people found this review helpful
Feb 18, 2024
18 of 18 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 7.0
Story 6.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 6.0
This review may contain spoilers

This drama is surprisingly good, but…

I thought I would watch it for a while before writing a review as it started out pretty good, but as most dramas shown on TVB get worse later after a good start, I was hesitant to post an early opinion on this. However, I did not need to be concerned as this drama kicks all kinds of butt!

Vincent Wong stars as the Song Sai Kit, the incredibly intelligent, hilarious and sometimes lecherous lawyer. He had the potential to become a government official but gave up when he noticed how officials just bullied people, instead swapping his exam paper with a future ally played by Lam Chi Chung. Many do not know who Lam Chi Chung is until you say “oh you know, that fat guy who was in Stephen Chow’s last few movies” and immediately people go “oooh!!” Lam Chi Chung is also the director of this drama, and you can see some of the Stephen Chow influences in this drama for sure, but I believe this is fine because he was able to work with such a legend.

We follow Vincent around as he makes a name for himself slowly becoming known as the greatest lawyer or “King of Lawyers” for his righteous deeds, albeit not always his original intention for doing so. Watching the main characters do some cross dressing and getting into mischief was all very entertaining to watch. Elaine Yiu plays Ling Lung, Vincent’s wife in the drama and she does an amazing job in portraying the simple-minded and naive nature of the character, along with her great knowledge of martial arts. The chemistry between her and Vincent is okay, nothing amazing but it represents their relationship early in the drama accurately as Vincent initially wanted a divorce as he was forced into the marriage.

What spurred me to write this review was the recent case that just wrapped up in episode 14 and had me laughing my butt off. Vincent decides to spread his name around China so travels with his wife and buddies to a neighbouring town. In this town, there is a disgusting villain who cons people into digging up coal under the pretence of digging up gold, making them sign contracts that essentially prevent them leaving early. When these people discover it’s coal and not gold so want to leave, they get beaten half to death and cannot go since the contracts prevent them anyway. This villain was named Wong Ho Shun, basically Vincent Wong actual Chinese name. Vincent essentially spends a few episodes calling himself a disgusting asshole and every other curse from the period, which is hilarious if you’re in on the joke. Later when under a disguise, he is asked what his name was so he gave a false name Cheung Chun-long, which is Owen Cheung’s real name and an actor he worked with on several TVB dramas. That was a great meta joke and you need to be a fan of TVB dramas to really get it but I loved it.

The weakest parts of the drama come from two places: Ada Wong and the dubbing. Ignoring that Ada Wong is Wong Jing’s daughter (yes, THAT Wong Jing), here she only has one mode: angry uncivilised girl. She just growls and screams all her lines so there is nothing really compelling about her character, she’s just there to be the love interest to Ah Kau, played by King Kong Lee, but at least it isn’t too offensive so I can ignore it. Also, the dubbing can be quite jarring. Luckily the lipsync is very good but you can tell when a section was dubbed over because of how the audio changes and feels off. I understand that some lines need to be dubbed due to poor audio at the time of recording, but as I always say, just get a better boom mic.

So far this is great. This drama only had 18 episodes so we have 4 left and haven’t seen Benny Chan yet, so I am guessing the final 4 episodes will involve him somehow. Man, I am not a fan of Benny Chan as his acting is literally just him shouting a lot, but we’ll see how it goes. Maybe Lam Chi Chung flexed his director muscle/fat and reined in Benny’s anger acting? We can only wait and see.

Update: dammit, the final case gave me huge mixed emotions. The last case is really the most complex and the stakes are high. We really see the main cast acting serious, it is great to see Vincent Wong and Elaine Yiu finally using their dramatic acting skills finally as the entire drama up until then had been very lighthearted. However, the screenwriter messes this all up.

We see Ada Wong get drugged and violently raped by a British Envoy. She is found by King Kong Lee and taken to safety. Up until then I found Ada really annoying but after that scene and seeing her reaction later as she had to deal with the trauma of what happened to her and finding out that Vincent was going to defend that British Envoy, I felt she had improved and was going to accept her character. But not a few episodes later, after a week of so had passed in the drama, she appeared to back to normal and completely fine! No PTSD? No fear of going out alone at night? She recovered remarkably quickly as if rape was such an easy thing to get over. Wtf?

What I also found ridiculous was Ling Long’s secret back story. Vincent divorces her so that in the event he messes up the case with the British guy that he would not get her killed as well, but just as assassins come to kill Vincent due to him deciding to turn against the British guy, Ling Long suddenly appears and fights them all off. Now this scene alone was really dumb because in the entire fight Ling Long is outnumbered by 20 people or more, and yet the assassins all target her when she appears and nobody thinks “oh hey while she is busy let’s chop Sung Sai Kit in half” as nobody pays him any attention. In any case, they manage to escape and we find out Ling Long was a member of the Little Dagger Clan that helped people, and that clan decided that Vincent was worth protecting as he looked like he could also help people. So how do they decide to protect him. Let Ling Long marry him. What? So you’re telling me Ling Long, who was working at a brothel when they first met, suddenly decided at that time Vincent was worth protecting and became his wife? This is not elaborated on at all, when did the clan decide he was worth protecting? How did they know he would not be a selfish money grabbing bastard? Nothing is explained!

And finally we get to Benny Chan as Chan Mong Gat, who finally appears in the last 2 episodes. The guy has not changed at all, his acting is just him shouting loudly and being obnoxious. There is not subtlety at all to his acting method, so I was glad he only appeared very briefly, but it was so brief that I do not think he was worth adding to the main poster of the drama. Why put him in there?

Despite those issues, overall this is a good drama. The crap dragged the score from a 9 to a 7 because it felt rushed and sensitive topics were not approached tactfully. It felt like this needed to be 20 episodes and not 18, but hey I didn’t decide on the episode count. The drama ends on a cliffhanger so we may get a season 2, hopefully season 2 has more episodes and handles it’s sensitive topics more carefully.

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Completed
The Queen of News
2 people found this review helpful
Dec 23, 2023
26 of 26 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 10
Story 10
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 10
Rewatch Value 10
This review may contain spoilers

A great drama, best one in 2023 in my opinion

When I heard Charmaine Sheh was returning to TVB for this one drama I was excited because she was one of my favorite actors to watch on TVB in the past. And here for this drama she does not disappoint. She is a strong independent woman who is called the Queen of News and you can tell from all her interactions and actions that she clearly is the Queen, and had worked hard to get to that position. The other members of the cast really compliment her well as we have great acting such as from Kenneth Ma as her rival at the SNK news station really driving up the tension between the two.

This drama really had the feel of the period drama piece Beyond the Realm of Conscience and its sequel also by TVB, but put into a modern setting. There is a lot of shadowy underhanded work and backstabbing with people constantly switching sides so it just had you second guessing everything that was going on. We have Samantha Ko who started out working for Kenneth and using her sex appeal to draw in the viewers, but she switches sides to Charmaine the moment she felt Kenneth was losing, and we have Regina Ho who was being trained to take over from Charmaine by Charmaine herself, but it turned out she was actually undercover for Kenneth and was secretly dating him. And you have the Director of the station played by Eric Tang who appears to foster calm and friendly competition but was secretly plotting against Charmaine with Kenneth, yet he can’t do much as Charmaine has the support of his boss, Mrs Fong played by Mimi Kung. Their relationships are confusingly intertwined, so you really do not know what is going to happen at any moment. The reveals just kept having me going “whoa what?”

The person with the most interesting character arc was played by Selena Lee. She started out as the neutral party and was vehemently against siding with Charmaine or Kenneth, instead focusing on delivering the truth to viewers. But as the drama went on, she found her beliefs tested and ended up in a real dark place. She came out of it with a massive heel turn, switching from righteous reporter to selfish Selena. As we watch her progress, we understand her thinking and sympathise with her decisions.

The only actor I found annoying was Regina Ho. Man, she is portrayed as this really easily manipulated idiot who is ashamed of her humble beginnings and cannot even handle her younger sister being this brat that needed to be disciplined. Later she started to hallucinate as she started to have a mental breakdown. She was annoying enough already, but she had to commit the biggest sin in the drama by cheating on Kenneth Ma with her uber driver. Like wtf?

The final episodes were not as tense and dramatic as the earlier ones, but it does end with Charmaine’s past catching up with her and a hostage situation to resolve, but I am hopeful for the future because Bosco Wong made a cameo appearance at the end as a possible new rival for Charmaine. That had me very excited, season 2 hurry up and come!

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Completed
Romeo and His Butterfly Lover
2 people found this review helpful
Oct 31, 2023
25 of 25 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 7.0
Story 7.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Music 7.0
Rewatch Value 7.0
This review may contain spoilers

Interesting premise

I do like this drama, it is a very interesting twist on two very popular and tragic love stories. It takes Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and blends it with the Chinese story of the Butterfly Lovers, put it in a strange setting that is a mix of Hong Kong with a Wild Wild West cowboy feel. You can feel the lawlessness of everything and how people can get shot and killed yet nobody bats an eye.

I am still watching this so will update when it is all done, but so far the mixing up is done pretty well. Will it end with tragedy like the original two stories? Who knows?

Update: I have just completed the series and I can say for sure that the series is good. It is not great, but it is worthy of being a 7/10 easily.

The fusing of two tragic romantic stories somehow managed to work here. Moses Chan as Leung Shan Pak and Aimee Chan as Zuk Ying Toi togetheras a couple was very touching, and I found their romance believable and convincing. Sadly, the other love story with Kalok Chow as Romeo and Kayan Yau as Juliet didn’t work with me. I understand this is following the original Romeo and Juliet’s love at first sight story beat, but my issue is with Kayan Yau as she lacks any onscreen charisma. There was no observable chemistry between her and Kalok so I was never convinced they were in love and wanted to really be together. I actually preferred watching Yuki Law over Kayan, and when that happens you know the casting went wrong somewhere. Please stop pushing Kayan as a female lead until she’s improved further, she’s not ready yet. She wasn’t ready in that TCM drama, and she isn’t ready here.

A wasted opportunity in the drama was when Aimee Chan took on Kalok as a disciple to teach him how to use a gun. They put this all into one episode and suddenly Kalok is pretty good at shooting. They should have done this earlier in the drama so that we would have gotten to see them build a rapport as teacher and student, making the final scenes have more impact. I won’t spoil it, but the final scenes with them both in there would have had a bigger emotional hit if we had witnessed this bond over the series.

One major gripe I had with the drama was the constant gun spinning and twirling the characters do as they drew guns to fight or train. It is so ridiculous sometimes as they would spin it halfway into a life or death gunfight, wasting 2-3 seconds spinning it before opening fire. It feels forced and in real life would have gotten the person killed.

The best part of the series? Weirdly enough, Joman Chiang as Zuk Ying Wah, Aimee’s cousin. She is the boss lady of a salon in the lawless 8th district and her gunslinging abilities are the best in the series, like nobody even comes close. Her story is also really tragic so when she goes on a revenge mission you can emphasise with her. Her skills are so badass that she did the Taken film bullet curling while dual-wielding to defeat both Aimee and Moses at the same time. Undoubtedly the coolest character in the drama, so her absence at the end of the drama was a huge hit for me. I was secretly rooting for Moses to get with her instead of Aimee… that’s how much I liked her. TVB, do a sequel with Joman and give her a happy ending!!! Do it!!! Easy win!!

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Completed
Unchained Medley
2 people found this review helpful
Oct 29, 2023
20 of 20 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 3.0
Story 5.0
Acting/Cast 6.0
Music 4.0
Rewatch Value 2.0
This review may contain spoilers

At least make the characters sing!

Do you want to see how TVB can waste a talented guy like Owen Cheung? If so, watch this drama. Here Owen plays a music composer and has fallen into some rough times because of being accused of plagiarism. He decides to move to a small village to get away from all the drama, and that is when he meets a Chinese opera loving female ghost played by Katy Kung.

There is only one interesting plot point with a bastard plagiarising Owen and making it appear as if it was the other way around, but they sort out this issue too early in the drama. The rest of it is all boring opera stuff that had me yawning the entire time. I don’t mind Chinese opera, but the issue is that this drama managed to make it so uninteresting. The worst part is that all the female singers are clearly dubbed, especially Katy Kung as the dub is very obvious as the lips do not match the singing. If TVB actors can learn gun fighting and choreography and so on, they can learn to sing Chinese opera music. And if mot just cast a person who can, why Katy Kung? Why Tiffany Lau?

The entire show was very predictable as well. Owen Cheung just happened to look EXACTLY like the boyfriend of the Katy Kung ghost, and yet it never crosses their mind maybe he is the reincarnation of the boyfriend despite Owen having dreams of his past life. Instead they spend the rest of it looking for the boyfriend as if he was alive. Then later - gasp - it turns out he is the reincarnation and that in his past life he was murdered! Whoa I did not see that coming (!). Later when the main big bad appears, it is right near the end of the drama so we don’t get time to get to know the guy, it is just boom - there he is - then boom - bad stuff. And - coincidentally - the big bad happened to know ghost catching magic as well. Like how much plot convenience crap can you cram into one drama?

And the funniest part? Katy Kung is a ghost and we all know this, but for reasons only known to the writers, she is the only ghost in the entire drama. She doesn’t meet other ghosts and we never see any other ghosts besides her. If she is a ghost then logically there would be others, and with a huge place like Hong Kong you can’t tell me that there would be no wandering ghosts hanging around. Come on!

As a result, I think this sucks due to the really poor and lazy writing.

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Completed
The Invisibles
2 people found this review helpful
Mar 30, 2023
30 of 30 episodes seen
Completed 1
Overall 9.0
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 8.5
Music 6.0
Rewatch Value 8.0
This review may contain spoilers

One of the best action HK TV dramas in recent memory

This is one of the best action Hong Kong TV dramas in recent memory to be released by TVB. It is high-octane fast action-packed awesomeness that just made me go "Whoa what?" It starts out with a bang and each episode is entertaining with great funny scenes and some serious ones as well to mix it up with the action.

The stand out here is Kenneth Ma who simply exudes an air of calm and cool even while surrounded by bad guys shooting at him. The cinematography in this drama is just top notch, showing great slo-mo shots displaying character observational skills and strategic thinking, and Kenneth really shines in these scenes. When the main characters team up and fight together in these shots it is simply breathtaking.

As I have only seen 19 episodes I'll leave the complete review off for now, but the one thing I have to raise is how much I hate Natalie Tong's character in this drama. She has clearly been typecast into roles where she is as annoying and obnoxious as possible, but here she is simply unbearably annoying. The story flashes back to how her brother played by Alex Lam gets shot in the knee by Kenneth and it is clear it wasn't Kenneth's fault as you watch it up until episode 19 as there is more to the story than meets the eye, but Natalie is just a plain disgusting bitch towards Kenneth because of how her brother lost his leg after being shot. She started to calm down in the earlier episodes, but suddenly she goes back to being a hateful harlot around episodes 18-19 after insisting on meeting Chinese Hannibal Lecter in prison played by Ruco Chan. I will post a more thorough review once I have seen it all, but right now I just want Natalie Tong to get the crap beaten out of her.

The main theme song isn't very good, a very phoned in performance without any passion in the singing, but luckily the ending credits song is pretty good.

Update after watching episode 20: There is no action in this episode but hot dang it is full of great emotional acting and full of character development. It is still very clichéd and very TVB, but the main cast carry it off amazingly well with the 4 main characters finally all making up and putting all misunderstandings aside. The biggest stand out this episode is Alex Lam as his acting has really come leaps and bounds in this drama. His portrayal of conflict and guilt after remembering what truly happened in getting his knee shot really deserves an award, so I really hope he wins something at the TVB awards at the end of the year. The most wonderful thing to come out of this is that Natalie Tong finally stopped being a massive bitch to Kenneth after she realised she had the wrong idea the entire time, so much so that she didn't know how to face Kenneth after all those years of wrongly being angry at him. I was happy that Kenneth made amends with Joel and the scene where Joel tells Kenneth to punch him as an apology for the misunderstanding was very touching, but what annoyed me was how Joel's character could have come to that conclusion when he and Kenneth were comrade-in-arms so he should have trusted that his bro wouldn't do something as stupid as he originally thought.

Update: Just finished watching it all and boy what a ride. The drama slowed down somewhat around episodes 22-23 and gets a little boring, but pretty soon the main big bad, Ruco Chan, finally unleashes his master plan and gets out of prison, then it gets a lot more interesting. The action never reaches the heights of the earlier episodes, but it is still really cool, especially the gun-fu gun grab fight scenes.

I really liked Ruco's Chinese Hannibal Lecter role here, it is a great change from seeing him as the good guy who usually dies in TVB dramas. Now he is the bad guy... who *SPOILERS* dies in this TVB drama. It is different, but Ruco was an unlikeable person in this role from the start so he did a great job.

The final episode put him up against the two main good guys, Kenneth Ma and Joel Chan, and knowing he was no match against the both of them, busts out a syringe of a drug to help him in his final battle just like in The Righteous Fists, so I knew he was going to die. The director here missed out on an opportunity for a massive final 10 minute boss fight against the 3 of them, pure balls-to-the-wall action, instead the ending of this fight was a little anti-climatic. I was expecting Ruco to bust out a drug-powered Baji Kuen to mess up Kenneth and Joel.

I was very close to giving this drama a lower rating because it was implied that one of the main male leads passed away, but it is all good, we get a happy ending, even for Alex Lam! Alex Lam better win an award for his role here, massively improved!

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Completed
Treasure of Destiny
2 people found this review helpful
Feb 16, 2023
24 of 24 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 6.0
Story 6.0
Acting/Cast 6.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 6.0
This review may contain spoilers

So far great fun to watch!

Up to Episode 14:

I loved the original Duke of Mount Deer, so this show that brings back all the old characters into a modern day setting was just great! The characters are… let’s say reincarnations of the characters from the old show and the premise is really weird, like how some people get struck by lightning and it reignites memories of their past, but I dig it! It makes no sense but I’m game! i’ve only watched it up to episode 14, but thought I would get some thoughts in.

The show revolves around the 42 chapters, a key to finding the buried treasure that the original series also brought up, but the hunt is still on in the modern day world. I found it quite refreshing to see some gender benders in here, like Siu Bo and Obai being girls in the modern age. Making Katy Kung constantly shave due to being Obai is hilarious and completely makes no sense but I don’t care! It’s just fun!

What I do find very annoying is Kaman King as Siu Bo. It is not the actor I don’t like, but the character she plays. I mean, as a guy it was okay watching Siu Bo be this perverted idiot, but when it is now a girl running around pining for a guy it just feels really cheap for some reason. It kinda got on my nerves a little bit, but luckily the rest of the cast manages to stave off the cringe. Also, the guy she is pining over is Kalok Chow, and his character has serious issues. He constantly scolds and beats Kaman that it becomes essentially domestic abuse. I know they make it out as him being a partial reincarnation of Princess Kin Ning, but man some scenes were a bit too much for my liking.

The biggest cringe moments were the terrible rap scenes. I have not finished this series yet but I hope they stop doing those. They are awful! But so far, most of it is pretty great, especially the scenes with His Majesty, Moses Chan.

Update:

I just completed this drama and yes, it suffers from typical TVB pacing issues where the ending is rushed and some things really do not make a lot of sense so it dragged the overall score down from 8 to 6 for me, but some things I do find quite humorous so I'll leave it at a 6.

It turns out that the guys were not really after the buried treasure, but amongst the treasure were these super medicine pills that could grant great healing and rejuvenation capabilities, even raising the dead back to life. Once I heard this I wondered.... why didn't the Emperors of old just keep these tablets and use them to stay alive longer and rule longer? Why hide this in a treasure vault? Better yet, why not make more? An explanation for this was never given, we just have to accept yes, they exist and they are in the vault.

So the gang finally find where the treasure is and despite having the huge country of China where to find it, the treasure just happens to be found in Hong Kong. Yes, of all places, the legendary buried treasure is in Hong Kong and it happens to conveniently be in the sticks. Zoie Tam and her crew of evil bad guys in white military soldier fatigues - yes they are dressed in white in Hong Kong - tried to blow up the entrance to the treasure but apparently ancient Ching dynasty technology is blast proof. Best part? The entrance was under 2 inches of dirt, so I am amazed that normal rain and wind erosion did not expose it to the world sooner.

Later, the protagonists find the key needed to open the entrance, which reveals a short staircase down into the main vault. All the gold and jewels are there, but the magical medicine of longevity? Oh, that's a long a series of passageways fraught with traps and dangers. Cue the low-budget Indiana Jones tropes and bad CGI, but I found it so bad it was funny so I forgave it.

They finally get the medicine after a few minor characters die and gasp, there are only 3 pills left! A lot of drama later and we get the next treasure hunting trope of escaping from a collapsing chamber because the main treasure has been removed. Everybody gets out and the vault is completely caved in. The vault is never brought up again, but I kept thinking with all the gold and jewels there, why is nobody organising a digging expedition to get down there and remove the treasures? I mean the treasures are a t most 5 metres deep from what we could see. There is millions if not billions of HKD worth of valuables in there!

But there is a plot twist! Kandy Wong was revealed earlier in the drama to be the reincarnation of Chan Gun Nam, Siu Bo's martial arts teacher in their previous life, but it seems in this life they have turned evil and was 150 years old. In the past they managed to take one of the super pills and gained longevity, but the efficacy of the pill was running out and she started turning old, so she needed the medicine in the vault to regain her youthful appearance. The pill also happened to increase her fighting powers as well, so that was two birds with one pill! She manages to fool everybody and steal the pills, taking of of them to heal her affliction and then perform a massive heel turn to become the main antagonist right near the end of the drama. I did not see that coming.

The final battle was pretty cool, with lots of martial arts and fighting, and Kandy being nigh-on upstoppable, but somehow she gets shot to death and forced into the river with the remaining 2 pills. Luckily, Moses managed to grab one of them, but the other dropped into the river. Oh no! Here is where I got quite upset with the ending because it was so rushed. Moses Chan and Katy Kung had no chance to have any real romantic moments in the drama, so at the last episode Moses was going take the pill he grabbed and travel with it to the USA to heal a girl called Ruby (JW) with it. Katy says she would go with him to protect him, and the show does a sudden 2 months fast forward where they are back in Hong Kong and are suddenly a couple. Were we expected to imagine their 2 month developing romance? What the heck? Terrible TVB, just terrible. If you were going to make them a couple, build their relationship earlier in the show, don't just slap it at the end and have the good parts occur offscreen.

But the worst part is final scene. Lisa-Marie Tse appears briefly in this show, probably because it was a contractual obligation as her acting and cantonese is truly awful, and right at the end she brings up the immortal bird to Moses to discuss, which looks like a phoenix. We then cut back to the river where Kandy Wong was killed and where one of the pills fell into the river. A pigeon, yes one of those flying rats, flew into the river using bad CGI and ate the pill. It then flew away and suddenly turned into a giant phoenix shaped bird the size of multiple buildings and then flies over Hong Kong ending the show. Now, that pill fell into the river and was eaten immediately, meaning it was 2 months ago, and yet in that time nobody in Hong Kong saw it or reported on it, and Moses never mentions that it was discussed anywhere in Hong Kong so clearly nobody saw it. Dude, if a bird the size of a football stadium flew overhead, especially in a place with many skyscrapers like Hong Kong, you are going to see it, and then news outlets and social media would have a lot of news about it. Lazy lazy TVB here.

The best thing to come out of this is that the actors that usually play side characters had the chance to shine here as they had a lot more to do than in other dramas. It was great seeing Sunny Dai and Cheng Ka Sang get more screentime to shine here.

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