More New Dramas!

As promised, part deux of introducing the dramas that I await eagerly...

(I will only post the links to the trailer because it's taking too long to load the page.)

ATF Terror – If Tiger Cubs is any indicator, this will be good! Of course this doesn’t have the same million dollar budget and abundance of muscular men as Tiger Cubs, but it should still feature some awesome action scenes. Ruco Chan’s role as an undercover cop should propel him to higher heights since HK audiences seem to really love undercover cops.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4fsaMKgAyw

Ruco Chan explains his character: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeLi67uEzBo

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Highs and Lows – Raymond Lam takes a departure from his handsome, gentleman characters. This time he’s a rugged cop, complete with the mustache. The sales presentation trailer featured an intriguing plot about bribery and betrayal. The cast is different from the sales presentation (save for Michael Miu and Kate Tsui), but I hope they kept the same storyline. This is the same producer as Tiger Cubs so I expect serious action stuff.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGMpDM3QQ-A

Raymond Lam explains his character: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz2y7DqJ9co

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Justice Attack – Lawyer dramas always interest me for their cases and legal perspectives. Will this be funny like Ghetto Justice or more serious like The Other Truth? There’s bound to be comedic moments with Sammy Leung, Louis Yuen and Johnson Lee. According to Wikipedia, the character’s names make reference to HK celebrities and slang. I’m thinking this might lean towards Ghetto Justice-like. With Michael Tse in the leading role, this might be a crossover of Law Ba and Laughing Gor.

Sidenote: They are actually making a film featuring Law Ba x Laughing Gor.

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Rosy Business 3 – This series has yet to be confirmed. But if it is given the green light, it will surely be a hit. It takes things into the modern business world. The cast will be Wayne Lai, possibly paired with Michelle Yim. I have a feeling it will depend on how well the pairing is received in The Confidant. But is it still Rosy Business without Sheren and Producer Lee Tim Shing?

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Triumph in the Skies II – Are they ever going to film this series? The rumored storyline involves a whole tangle of relationships. Normally, I wouldn’t want to sort through all the mess, but I’ll probably watch this because of the cast and the fact that it’s such a major production. Plus the airplane scenes are pretty cool. But with Fala Chen in a leading role, I am going to keep my expectations low.

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Excited About...

TVB has several heavy-hitters lined up for the rest of 2012. Perhaps gearing up for the competition with the new TV stations?

Like TVB's sequelmania, there will be a Part 2 tomorrow with more highly anticipated dramas. Stay tuned!

Ghetto Justice II

Law Ba returns!! I loved Law Ba in the original series. He was so funny, yet was also a diligent lawyer. His bickering scenes with Kris (Myolie) were hilarious, but this time their relationship scenes might be more serious because TVB just had to impose their typical love triangle plot (WHY? WHY??). The cases in the original weren’t particularly unique (unlike The Other Truth), so hopefully there are more interesting cases in the sequel. Please have a better theme song too. So funny how they put the mop on George’s head in the trailer, who’s now a judge.

King Maker

After watching The Greatness of a Hero, so excited to see Wayne and Kent battle again. The sales presentation clip made it seem so intense. Plus Producer Leung Choi-yuen’s historical dramas always has unexpected twists and turns to it. (Can’t say I like his modern family dramas though.) I don’t think I’ve watched a palace series set in the Song dynasty, so hoping to learn more about that time period. The costumes are oddly similar to the ones in The Greatness of a Hero, even though it's two different dynasties.

The Confidant





















Another palace series with Wayne in it! He is really good in ancient dramas, probably better than modern ones. This series is set in the Qing dynasty during the rule of the famous Empress Dowager Cixi. Wayne and Michelle Yim are both terrific actors, along with a solid cast that also includes Maggie Shiu. The two Empresses rule over the weak Emperor (Oscar Leung). Interestingly, the role of Cixi was portrayed by Michelle in the sales's presentation, then offered to Maggie Cheung (after her partnership with Wayne in Forensic Heroes III), and finally given back to Michelle after Maggie C. declined. Personally, I think Michelle looks better as Cixi.

Beauty At War



The return of Yue Fei. Except the sequel sounds like it will focus a lot more on the relationships rather than the evil schemes of War and Beauty. There’s an infuse of new actresses, like Katy Kung, Christine Kuo, Tracy Ip. Hopefully, they won’t be too bad. Christine Kuo was not good in her previous ancient drama (The Life and Times of a Sentinel) because she needed dubbing. I want to watch this mainly because the original War and Beauty was so good. TVB, DO NOT RUIN THIS!!!

Photo Credits: TVB.com

"Master of Play" Review

Contains Major Spoilers!

 

Producer: Jonathan Chik
Genre: Crime, thriller
Cast: Adam Cheng, Moses Chan, Maggie Shiu, Aimee Chan, Rebecca Chan, Kenny Wong, Rachel Kan

Plot Summary: Adam is obsessed with finding his kidnapped daughter. Maggie’s hand was chopped off by a psycho killer. Moses is controlled by four weird people who don’t even exist. Aimee runs around crying and yelling and being annoying. People die.

Review: I was looking forward to this series. So what if Producer Chik’s previous dramas set records for lowest ratings? This is different! Right and wrong! Yeah, it’s a new theme, new setting, but a very Jonathan Chik feel. Dim lighting? Check. Long-winded dialogue? Present. Ambivalent meaning? Yes. Moses and Kenny? Definitely.

This series is supposed to talk about humanity and consequences of falling into bad habits. If the thesis is that humans are psycho, then I’d say it was portrayed pretty well. Moses imagines psycho people, Adam becomes psycho, Maggie is a psycho killer, Aimee can see the tree change colours. I’m surprised I didn’t go crazy myself after watching this. 

Not everything you see is real. A lot of things are constructed in the minds of Moses and Adam. I like the technique they used. It cuts from one thing to another, mixing two unrelated scenes together to evoke your imagination. It also keeps you constantly guessing. But at the same time, you might feel really lost about what’s happening. The audience is led to believe many things and then there’s a big twist. For the majority of the series, the set-up is that Aimee is Adam’s long-lost daughter. When she admits to this, you’re like “Yes! I’m right!” and then she goes “Haha, just kidding! I’m not his daughter.” Then as he’s dying, Moses declares “You’ll never know what happens to your daughter.” Huh? Same situation when Maggie turned out to be the Wednesday killer. The audience is left in a daze. I find this both brilliant and frustrating.

The story leaves a lot of room for guessing. Some things are supposed to be implied and some things you have to think really hard to understand. The lingering questions: Does Adam die in the end? Is Aimee his daughter or not? Did Kenny & Co. ever exist in real life? Is Maggie the real Wednesday killer as she claims? Why did she hook up with Adam if she still loves Moses? And what’s up with Aimee’s ability to see the tree change colours?   

The setting, like I said, is really Jonathan Chik – as in dark. It’s as if none of his productions ever have a lighting crew. The characters speak in circles; they never just say things directly. Very similar to his previous dramas where the long dialogue brings out some kind of deep meaning if you can actually stay awake to hear the whole thing. No wonder the housewives in Hong Kong didn’t like it. The costumes and make-up are plain weird for the people at the Jekyll bar, especially Kenny and Rachel. But I guess this is fitting because they’re weird people to begin with. The sand paintings at the end of each episode is very unique.

For me, it’s always plot over acting. Plus the veteran cast had no problems with acting anyways. Special compliments go to Adam, since he had to portray so many different personalities when his character immersed himself into the mentality of other people. Adam expertly handled everything thrown at him. The only glaring exception was Aimee. She sounded like she had a stuffed nose when she talked. Not helping things is her pronunciation and sometimes she slurred the words together, so it makes it hard to hear what she’s saying.

Last thing I want to say is that this series received a lot of complaints for being bloody and terrifying. I find them unwarranted. There weren’t many bloody scenes after the opening ten minutes. And this series was hardly terrifying. It was being branded as such, but it turned out to be mostly talking. Probably should have been less than 30 episodes so things can move along faster.

Recommendation:  Watchable. 2.5/5

Initial Thoughts

I’m currently juggling between three series and have watched the first few episodes so far. Here are my initial thoughts:

Tiger Cubs

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Guns, bombs, BOOM, BANG!! 3 episodes in and I’m absolutely loving it. Action-packed. A lot of movement, little talk. My type of series. Tiger Cubs is about the operations of the highly-trained Special Duties Unit (SDU). It’s roughly one episode per case. Some very smart criminals, but still no match to SDU’s quality training, teamwork, and sheer power.

If you’re looking for plot, look somewhere else. There’s room to develop a little romance in between cases. Being typical TVB, it features a love triangle between Joe Ma, Oscar Leung and Christine Kuo. But this is obviously not the emphasis of the series. The name Tiger Cubs refers to the two new members of the SDU team, who have to adapt to the rigorous demands of the SDU team. There’s the annoying, hot-headed, arrogant Him Law and the timid, lacking-in-confidence Vincent Wong. Joe Ma, as the SDU leader, will train them to excel in all aspects. Joe is the perfect person for this role because his height and build give off a very “SDU” feel. Being a former G4 member doesn’t hurt. 


There’s little need to comment on the acting because running around in armour and guns does not require much acting. The one thing that requires comment is TVB’s decision to air it at the late Sunday night timeslot. I don’t live in HK, so it makes no difference to me, but it’s questionable why TVB wouldn’t air it during prime time. This series to promote TVB’s next generation of male actors: Him, Vincent, Oscar are the most prominent of them. There would certainly be more exposure during a prime time slot. However, Tiger Cubs is still faring pretty well despite all this. The once a week showing builds a lot of anticipation for the audience. I can’t wait for episode 4!

Witness Insecurity

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I tend to like police dramas, so I decided to watch this one as well. As you can probably tell, I’m the action-typed person. I despise the slow lovey-dovey plots. So  4 episodes in and my thoughts are: not the best, but alright. This series is a mix of action and romance, as the Chinese title 護花危情 implies.

The first 4 episodes has some good action. The Witness Protection Unit (WPU), led by Bosco Wong, must protect Linda Chung and her uncle from triad members. The mission involves gun fights, car chases and arson. Then there’s the scenes about the withdrawn Linda, who suffers from depression. Bosco and Linda will slowly (and I really do mean slowly) develop their romance. There is no eye contact or conversation between them until episode 4. As of now, I find the series tolerable because it doesn’t bore you with long lovey-dovey scenes. It has just the right balance of romance and action.

The theme song is sung by Linda Chung. While I’m not a fan of TVB artists singing theme songs and definitely not a fan of Linda Chung’s singing, I find the theme song to be quite fitting for the series. Linda’s character suffers from depression and she brings exactly that emotion to the song.

 

 

 

 

Three Kingdoms RPG

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Aside from action series, I’m quite a history buff. I love historical dramas depicting different time periods in China’s imperial past. (Mind you, I don’t like watching dramas set in the pre-modern era after the fall of the monarchy.) Three Kingdoms RPG has been one of my most eagerly anticipated dramas. I’ve always wanted TVB to make a second A Step into the Past, which remains on my all-time favourite dramas list.

First off, Raymond Lam looks awkward with the fake beard. Maybe I’m just not used to seeing him with that. He hasn’t made an appearance in the series yet (it’s only episode 1). I’m sure he will appear tomorrow. The first episode is about Kenneth Ma’s pitiful life in modern-HK. Through a mysterious force field, he finds himself travelling back in time to the onset of the Three Kingdoms period. This is looking good so far and I looking forward to tomorrow’s episode. What happens when Kenneth meets Raymond?