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I enjoyed it as a slice of life drama
I think I'm in the minority here, but I actually quite enjoyed this drama, enough to watch it twice over the last few years.The action is very lackluster to be fair, and the only really interesting 'police' parts is the initial training arc, but I realized early on that that just wasn't the focus of the show. The main villain was also pretty lame by the end of it - they could have done a lot more but it didn't work out.
The thing that I did like about this drama is its focus on the characters. I thought that each character had good moments and interesting stories. Definitely made use of the typical TVB police drama character tropes, but I found it fun nevertheless, and felt they had their own twist on most of tropes. I hated Hill on the first watch but the second time around, he strangely grew on me. May be my current love for the actor, but I genuinely found him funny and charismatic, especially by the second half of the show. I enjoyed his relationship with both love interests, his friendship with Easy, rivalry with his brother, love for his mother, and complicated relationship with his father. He definitely has issues but I liked that he was actually competent when he wasn't blinded by his one-sided rivalry, and that he was genuinely a good person but unable to use nice words.
Easy easily stole the show for me - his character is just so likeable. I wish we got a little more storyline from him outside of romance - I know the whole end villain is about him but I just didn't get very much emotional impact from it. I loved all his scenes with his buddies. It definitely made me interested in watching more from this actor!
One character I didn't expect to like so much was Yan. She was so sweet. I don't usually like the 'ditzy' type of female character but she was really likeable and I love that she knew when to stand up for herself. I hated the mother so much! All the mother characters in this show were extremely annoying and I wish there was some karma there for all the awful things she said.
I also thought the flashback openings were super creative and rarely done in TVB dramas, as far as I know. They actually added a lot to the show and I appreciate the uniqueness of it.
Overall this is a super chill watch, unexpected for a police drama but I've always liked slice-of-life shows that focus on teamwork/friendship. Would definitely rewatch in a few years!
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This review may contain spoilers
Super fun watch but you have to ignore ridiculous plot
One of my favorite recent tvb dramas! It was so much fun and I binge watched the whole thing. I'm a huge fan of Owen Cheung because of this drama - his comedic timing is fantastic and I hope he does more roles like this.I would recommend this drama to people who like comedy and don't take these dramas too seriously - because the plot makes very little sense if you think too hard. There is a certain gravitas that you get from mafia in other tvb dramas, but in this one, the mafia is kind of a joke.. that's fine in a comedy, but I had to constantly remind myself whenever silly things happened. The undercover stuff is also So ridiculous - they talk about being uncover in public ALL THE TIME, like how is it even possible for them to not have been caught. At one point, Madam koo showed up at Owen's home without notice. The older sister also at one point showed up at Owen's home without notice. What if they had bumped into each other?? The lack of secrecy was crazy.
I didn't really care much about any of Vincent's relationships unfortunately. He didn't have very much chemistry with any of them. What I did love was his friendships with Owen and Brian, and especially with his sisters. I loved all three sisters and am a huge fan whenever family dynamics are done well in shows. It was kind of unbelievable that they were so accepting of him - but I was okay with it.
I thought the length of the drama was fine but also feel like a lot of storylines were rushed at the end. I was a huge fan of Owen/Winki's relationship - but how is it that we never got a conversation about Owen being an undercover cop in the end? Surely she would be upset? Wish we had some more scenes there.
My favorite parts:
- The bromance was adorable
- Honestly just Owen's character - I felt really bad for him though. He was undercover for years and is almost the head of the mafia and then suddenly someone else comes in?? His old handler was like, just prostitte yourself, and his new handler is someone younger/less experienced telling him what to do. He also got beat up SO MUCH with like no consequence, which again was so silly.
- The family parts - it was so sweet to see the sisters and Vincent, and I wish we got more scenes
- Owen/Winki were super cute - I was rooting for them from the start - again, I wish we got more scenes and more honest conversation - I find it hard to believe that Winki wasn't ??? about Owen's constant flip-floppiness between wanting to be a mafia leader and being scared of dying.
- The fact that there were no deaths for the sake of shock value
- Vincent did his 'descent into madness' very very well
- I appreciate that there weren't too many evil-for-the-sake-of-being-evil characters. I thought the uncle would be a snake but he ended up just being a chill dude. Even the dumb brother character had moments where he helped out.
- I didn't like Madam Koo at first and found her to just be spoiled and annoying (why would you blackmail a civilian into going undercover and still think you're doing the right thing?? all to find a murdurer of mafia members??). However, I grew to like her more over time and appreciated her persistence. I also liked that Vincent calls her out for all the shitty things she did, because they were shitty! I felt like there was consequence to her actions, which I did not expect.
My disliked parts:
- The wishy-washiness/back and forth of characters
- The actress character drove me CRAZY - she had so much audacity with so little substance.. I really thought we would get a moment with her that would change my opinion but no.. she was unlikeable the whole time.
- The blatant homophobia while promoting with bromance. I don't really care if the characters are homophobic in a conservative mafia setting (since that's unfortunately the norm in hk), but I really didn't like the line from Owen's character about being a 'real man'
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