Tiger Cubs II 飛虎 II // Review

Overview:

Tiger Cubs 2 is a TV series produced by TVB and Lam Chi Wah in 2014 under the genre of police procedural, action and drama. This series premier simultaneously in 5 different countries on Sunday, October 19 2014 –  Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Australia. Consisting of 10 episodes running 90 mins each, this series stars Joe Ma, Linda Chung, Him Law, Oscar Leung and more.

Main Cast:

Joe Ma (马德钟）as SIP Chin Hon To（展瀚韬）

Linda Chung（钟嘉欣） as WPC Chung Wai Yan （钟韦恩）

Him Law（罗仲谦） as ASGT Yu Hok Lai （俞学礼）

Oscar Leung（梁烈唯） as ASGT Zhong Cheuk Yuen （庄卓源）

Timmy Hung（洪天明） as CIP Roy Poon Zi Long （潘子龙）

Mandy Wong（黄智雯） as WIP So Man Keung （苏文强）

Review:

Sequel to 2012’s hit drama Tiger Cubs, this drama was a complete flop. Don’t get me wrong, despite the failure of this drama, I’m still a huge fan of the 飞虎 franchise – including the newest one and would gladly watch all of them again. BUT I’ll try to review this series being as objective as possible which wouldn’t be difficult because of how genuinely bad this series was, if anything this series proved that TVB can’t produce a good sequel. I swear, there was so little that this series could’ve screwed up given the fact that the name ‘Tiger Cubs already had an amazing reputation to it and the fact they literally had millions invested into each episode of this series.I think that what made this series a flop compared to the first one would be the fact that they focused way to much on the character and actually trying to have a storyline in instead of the first one which was just case after case, keeping the audience on the edge of the seats. Everything good about the first part, the thrill, adrenaline rush, chemistry between the characters completely went out of the window. Instead it took an amateurish and rather amateurish turn. The sequel seemed to fail mission after mission, honestly I don’t expect them to seamlessly succeed in EVERY case that they were given but there didn’t seem to be a case which they have completed without meeting some sort of failure. And at the end of a case, they just have a ridiculously convenient way to these SDU’s to complete their missions. Like honestly, one of these method that they used to counter these criminals would Ah Lai’s (Him Law) unrealistic ceiling crash on top of a terrorist just for the terrorist to be used as a human shield against a grenade that covered an abnormally small area. Not forgetting the EVER SO REALISTIC and so coincidental bubbles shooting so that the reflection can very conveniently help Ah Yuen with his taking down of the terrorist’s sniper. Compared to its predecessors, the guest stars in this series wasn’t as impressive and the only notable ones were Nancy Wu, Ali Lee (given that I watched it in 2018) and Vincent Lam.

Joe Ma（马德钟） → SIP Chin Hon To （展瀚韬）

Extremely impressed with his charismatic performance in Tiger Cubs, I was extremely excited to continue with this after finishing the first one. I mean to be honest, I wouldn’t say that he disappointed me, more like the script disappointed me. When this series aired, Joe Ma was one of the more prominent lead actors in TVB, but sadly he didn’t really make it to the top. I looked forward to his relationship development in this series given that his relationship with Jessica only started during the last episode. But to my disappointment his relationship with Jessica ended because Jessica didn’t renew her contract with TVB explaining why she didn’t show up for this series. I really liked his chemistry with Jessica but oh well.☹️Being the responsible team leader as he is, I was really sad when he was caught in the dilemma between being a good team leader or a good buddy and times when he refused to speak his feeling out. Still rather charismatic during his action scenes, I still enjoyed seeing Joe Ma in this series. I mean me being late as always and only watching this in 2018, Joe Ma has left TVB and I’ve never agreed to someone’s idea of TVB more strongly. First of all given the quality of drama that TVB has been releasing this year as well as the fact he was obviously not the lead of Tiger Cubs 2 which may be the reason he sign to be in it as Timmy Hung and Linda Chung stole the spotlight (not necessarily because of the fact that they gave a great performance but only because the script allowed them to.)

Linda Chung （钟嘉欣） → WCP Chung Wai Yan （钟韦恩）

Honestly, I’ve never appreciated Jessica Hsuan as the female lead more. I’ve always thought that Linda Chung was only suitable for the cheerful and innocent characters and I still think so. I’m not sure what went wrong with her character in this series as I’ve seen her works that proved her acting skills but this series makes me doubt that. As each episode went on, I’ve only been finding out how big her eyes can get as well as how tight she can clench those jaws. To be honest, I get it that her character is meant to be mentally troubled and stuff, but I’m pretty sure there could’ve been another way to portray that rather than THAT same face for 9 episodes straight. I’m saying 9 episodes as I honestly thought that her performance in the first episode was amazing with the impactful entrance which made me really hopeful for this series, but everything just seemed to go down from there. The only thing that happened after the first episode was most probably just her freaking out after seeing the people that she’s been trying to find die in front of her. Sometimes I wonder why did Joe Ma even take interest in her character’s well being even though he has about like a gazillion work related things to worry about. Oh yeah, we can’t leave out the non-existent chemistry between her and Joe Ma.

Oscar Leung & Him Law（梁烈唯&罗仲谦） → ASGT Zhong Cheuk Yuen（庄卓源 & ASGT Yu Hok Lai（俞学礼）

I honestly have no idea what happened to both of these character. Ah Yuen spent a good 3, 90 minutes episodes grieving over the accident of his fiancee and not getting over himself for firing the shot at Tiger-Kor which is more than 20% of this series bearing in mind that this series is only 10 episodes long. The dashing Zhong Cheuk Yuen that was in Tiger Cubs has now become the overly emotional sniper of the team who wasn’t even in the team for a good 2 episodes of the series. Him Law predictably gets together with Mandy Wong and Grace Wong gets in between them, Mandy then suffers a miscarriage and they proceeds to get married at the end. That wasn’t a summary of their love story that was practically what happened. Not to mention Ah Lai’s immature personality when it came to ‘dramas’ that took place within their group which honestly just became so annoying to watch. His method of dealing with his relationships was also rather difficult because of how he just can’t seem to tell Laurine (Grace Wong) straight to the face that he doesn’t like her and that they have no chance of being together but instead he just leads her on which causes such unnecessary events in the series that wasn’t even significant for the plot of the story.

Brief Episode Analysis:

1. The first episode was about Johnson’s Lee character just trying to take revenge for his buddy in the most illogical way by just casually holding hostages in a High Court and demand for the UC whom he believed caused the death of his buddy even though there was a 99% percent chance that she was dead. Personally I liked this case especially the scene where he commited suicide in the cargo and shot down the curtains beforehand which has later been revealed that he did that because of the fact that he is trying to save his girlfriend (Nancy Wu) from being noticed by the SDU. I also found this case really well written because of how genuinely intellectual this criminal is but I do see this happening rather often along the series (or it MAY just be the SDU being dumb)  but this criminal was one that I found TRULY smart.
2. The SDU has been asked to protect a drug dealer Pal Sinn and his personal doctor, Sam Tsang which turned out to be the ACTUAL drug dealer in order to mislead a bunch of assassin who are trying to kill him. I liked this episode as well mainly because of Pal Sinn and his acting was really what carried this whole case tbh.
3. This case talked about a group of disabled girls who aspires to be this next Robin Hood. The leader of this group happens to be Joe Ma’s childhood friend/ kinda crush idek. Honestly the SDU completely got wrecked by this group of disabled girls in their attempt to catch them and I swear those girls are running circles around these SDUs – so much for being ‘the best of the best’ huh? I’m not a huge fan of this case if you can’t tell already. To be honest, this applied to many of the cases in this series. I have to admit that the plot for this case was amazing, it was just the execution of this that just foiled everything.
4. A japanese cult has been said to have come to Hong Kong being up to no good. Believing that it has a lot of stuff to do with the Japanese game show ‘Running Army’ 4 SDU members have been sent to go undercover in this show. It has then been revealed that not only were a pair of contestants part of this cult, the host was the mastermind of this cult. Their target was some bio-warfare that has been hidden in an ex-weapon storage structure which was their final destination of the competition. Tbh, I think that Mandy Wong’s destruction of the empty jar to show that there was in fact NO bio-warfare was the only constructive thing that she’s done throughout the entire series.

.

. These cases weren’t very memorable, some rather bland, others rather dumb.

. One that did leave an impact was the one where Jerry Koo Ming Wah died and Oscar

. Leung went into ‘full depress mode’

.

10. The last case was introduced with Nancy Wu as a CIA Agent taking a tour around the  SDU training ground by Joe Ma ... totally not suspicious at all. Nancy Wu and her gang proceeds to completely take over the SDU training ground.  I do have to say though that Nancy Wu can pull off a pretty great antagonist role (why doesn’t she do that anymore? 😢) To be honest, this was better than the rest of the cases after episode 2, but after the bad series, it just can’t be salvaged at that point. The adrenaline rush was there, the impressive bomb and gun scenes were there but the dumb, unreasonable and unrealistic endings were also there.

Another Era 再創世紀 // Review

Overview:

Another Era is a joint production of TVB, CCTV, iQiyi and CRTP produced in 2018. This series is a sequel to the hundred episode hit series back in 2000, At The Threshold of an Era. Production of this drama took 6 months and has a production cost of HKD $100 million invested into it. Another Era stars Roger Kwok, Tavia Yeung, Niki Chow, Frankie Lam, Linda Chung, Benjamin Yuen, Pakho Chau and Gloria Tang. This series has a Mainland version consisting of 34 episodes as well as a Hong Kong version with 36 episodes.

Main Cast:

Roger Kwok （郭晉安） as Leo Ho Tin Sang （賀天生）

Tavia Yeung（楊怡） as Hayley Cheung Ming Hei （章明晞）

Benjamin Yuen（袁偉豪） as Walter Fong Chak Yu （方澤雨）

Niki Chow（周麗淇） as Ella Cheuk Ding Yiu （卓定垚）

Frankie Lam（林文龍） as Duncan Ko Chit（高哲）

Pakho Chau（周柏豪）as Ching Hoi （程凱）

Linda Chung（鍾嘉欣） as Janice Cheng Sze Yu （鄭思妤）

Plot:

Another Era begins with the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. Scheming businessmen Leo Ho and his soulmate/ business partner Hayley Cheung planed to purchase Fong Chung Yam’s (who was Hong Kong’s richest man then) business group. However, Cheuk Kai Tong managed to stop him in time by purchasing enough of Tin Yam’s stocks – heeding the advice of his company’s financial consultant, Duncan Ko who the resigned after. Leo then plans to destroy him and climb to the top of Hong Kong’s financial industry (?) → 金融界

A decade later, Cheuk Kai Tong becomes Hong Kong’s richest men, but the sudden news of his sons’ death caused him to be in a coma. This forces his daughter Ella Cheuk to learn to manage her family’s business. Being a full-time dancer before this，Ella has been deemed to be incapable by the Boards of Directors. After being used by Leo, Duncan returns to Ngo Tong as a Director and teams up with Ella Cheuk to start a business war with Leo. Cheung Ming Hei, Fong Chung Yam’s grandson/ Ella’s boyfriend Walter Fong and rookie entrepreneur Ching Hoi also joins in the war, starting a new era of business politics.

Song Thoughts:

Theme Song 主題曲 – 《烏托邦》Pakho Chau （周柏豪）

Interlude 插曲 – 《為何要背叛我》Jinny Ng（吳若希）

Ending Theme 片尾曲 –《只想與你在一起》HANA Kuk（菊梓喬）

The theme song of this series by Pakho Chau was AMAZING! 《烏托邦》was relevant enough to the story, amazing melody, amazing lyrics, amazing singer – nothing can go wrong. I’ve actually started listening to this song before I started the series (if you’re confused, I only start a series when it has been aired to the 3/4 - ish stages) The interlude wasn’t really that notable despite being the interlude, but after actually listening to the song as a song though, it’s actually quite pleasing and melodical-ish. The ending theme didn’t really stand out per se amongst the other songs. However, towards the last episodes when this song and the interlude has been played more. It became more prominent as a song towards me as the audience. If you’ve been reading for a while, you’d know that me being slightly weird that I am, I personally link songs with stories in a series. e.g 《陪着你走》with Saving and Cherry etc.  This song sort of symbolises Walter and Ella’s love story despite it also being played in other occasions. I think this may be because of the fact that this song was played when Cheuk Kai Tong passed away and Walter being there for Ella when she was down. This song then plays again when Walter dies (it was soo sad😭) → that scene hit me, real hard 💔

Review + SPOILERS

This series was BRILLIANT! I’ve been waiting for this series ever since it was said to be produced. To get Roger Kwok, Niki Chow, Tavia Yeung and Frankie Lam in ONE. EPIC. SERIES. Their star-studded cast definitely pulled their weights and made this grand production, a grand production – obviously not forgetting about that BUDGET. Honestly, I thought this series was great as I’m very intrigued and attracted to the economics concept, business politics, stock market theme of this series.

However, I do have to say though, there‘s a lot of business terminologies and concepts in there which may not be everyone’s thing. As compared to other dramas that discusses economic concepts, this drama is a lot more technical and discusses more in depth which may bore some. (which may explain the viewership rating of this series) In addition to this, part of the drama which can be rather boring and draggy. There were several episodes in the middle where it was slightly slow and tedious to watch because of how little the plot is progressing. If you are someone that really doesn’t enjoy business politics/stocks / economics stuff. Don’t watch this.

Some parts of this plot doesn’t really make sense. It’s not that there’s a loophole in the storyline, but more so the logic behind stuff that happens. For example, Leo Ho going into jail. Seriously. I mean just imagine the richest man in Hong Kong aka Lee Kar Shing going to jail. (This may very well just be me being dumb, but… ) How easily Hack Net (克网）managed to get the company’s infomation of which they are planning to completely demolish is extremely fascinating but this may also have just been done to show just how powerful Hack Net is. All in all, I genuinely enjoyed this series. Let’s move onto individual reviews：

Frankie Lam （林文龍） → Duncan Ko （高哲）

Frankie Lam was amazing in this series, his character Duncan was my favourite character of this series with his cool and collected personality. The way which he delivers his lines in this series were rather interesting, even though it was slightly monotonous, it does contain feelings in it which baffled me. 😂 The way he presented this character was quite remarkable, making you love and hate this character at the same time.

Benjamin Yuen（袁偉豪） → Walter Fong （方澤雨）

Despite being the perfect other half of Niki Chow in this series, Benjamin seems to be quite rigid with his performance, if that makes sense. He rarely incorporates any emotions into his speeches in this series making most of his scenes rather boring to watch. However, this sort of comes into use during some scenes such as his scenes with Ching Hoi when he was mad at him for not turning up to meetings as well as during the first time where he decided to break up with Ella. Unfortunately, during the majority of the series, his monotonous delivery of lines dulls the scene hence making it very boring to watch.

Niki Chow（周麗淇） → Ella Cheuk（卓定垚）

Congrats to Niki Chow for her 《中國當代題材電視劇最佳女演員》award at 第二十四屆華鼎獎 for her role in this series! Needless to say, her performance in this series was amazing! Not mind-blowing, but above average. She perfectly pulled off the slightly damsel in distress character of Ella Cheuk, she also presents this character without appearing too spoilt or temperamental. She managed to execute all of the crying scenes and emotional scenes throughout this series naturally without appearing too forced or fake – especially during all of the deaths of her brothers and her father.

The pairings in this series were rather interesting. Despite being the exact same age, Niki Chow and Tavia Yeung’s pairing were quite different. Tavia was paired with Roger Kwok who is 15 years her senior whereas Niki was paired with Benjamin Yuen who is 2 years her junior. Cue… Pairing Reviews!

Roger Kwok (郭晉安) & Tavia Yeung（楊怡）→ Leo Ho(賀天生) & Hayley Cheung (章明晞）

To be completely honest, their performances as individuals were amazing coming from 2 veteran actors. It added a lot to this series, but something about them as a couple is just really unnatural. I don’t expect them to be seamless, but it was extremely unconvincing to me that they are a couple to say the least.

Benjamin Yuen (袁偉豪) & Niki Chow (周麗淇)→ Walter Fong (方澤雨) & Ella Cheuk (卓定垚)

Benjamin Yuen and Niki Chow were so compatible together! They managed to pull off a rather weird love story. They were together → split → together → split → together, and the scriptwriter decides to pull a ‘rebel’ card and makes one of them die. I really liked seeing them on screen together though. These 2 characters were amongst the minority who weren’t constantly coming up with evil schemes to make Hong Kong’s economy collapse. They were really natural on screen with each other, making this couple highly believable to the audiences. Would love to see them as a couple, but I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon.😢

Frankie Lam (林文龍) & Linda Chung (鍾嘉欣) → Duncan Ko (高哲) & Janice Cheung (鄭思妤)

Forensic Heroes 2 fan service! 😍Leaving a lot of fans heartbroken back in 2008, these two return being the ONLY couple with a happy ending! I loved seeing them on screen together again, the feels and their chemistry together on screen was undeniable. The fact that Janice is the only one that Duncan would open himself too and the fact that both of them still loved each other even after 10 years is #goals. Their scenes together were heartwarming and often contrasts the heated business war happening around them. To be HONEST after 飛虎2, Linda Chung’s acting disappointed me to summarise. The breakup scene after Janice find out that Duncan indirectly killed her parents could have been so much better, so much more impactful, but it just seemed so flat. I’ll just briefly rant review Linda Chung’s performance in this series, I honestly thought that she did pretty well in this series and it’s really nice to see her onscreen again. However, I just think that sometimes her performance in this series is slightly forced, I guess making it slightly fake to an extent. BUT, back to the couple, I really enjoyed seeing these two on screen together again. 🤗

Flying Tigers II 飛虎之雷霆極戰 // Casts Views and Opinion

Hey there! Sorry for being MIA for so long on this blog, I’ve been busy with schoolwork lately. ☹️This blog post would be about the 《飛虎之潛行極戰》’s long awaited sequel 《飛虎之雷霆

極戰》which started production a few days ago. Casts of this rather hyped series has slowly been revealed building up to the first day of filming.

I’m honestly SO excited for this sequel which I have been praying to be made after the first episode of 《飛虎之潛行極戰》has been aired back in May earlier on this year. The genre of this series is one which I really enjoy as the concept of SDU would only be able to be brought up by Hong Kong series as this unit is only seen as part of Hong Kong’s Police Force. Bosco Wong, Ron Ng and Michael Miu have confirmed to return for the sequel pretty soon after the production of 《飛虎之雷霆極戰》has been confirmed. I was really happy to hear this news as I really liked seeing the dynamics of these 3 on screen and how Michael Miu is able to bring out the most in the both of them. I mean obviously not forgetting all of their acting skills and still being able to suavely pull off their roles in those SDU gears. Kenneth Ma is joining the cast! To be honest, never thought that he would star in a SDU series, but now that he is actually starring in one, I’m so stoked about it! It’s Ron Ng, Bosco Wong and Kenneth Ma’s first time working together after 16 YEARS! There’s no doubt about his acting skills, I’m rather curious about the chemistry between all the new casts and the ones returning. We’re now just missing Raymond Lam 😉(PLEASE GET HIM TO BE IN A《飛虎》SOON 😭)

Oscar Leung then posted a picture of the 《飛虎之雷霆極戰》script on social media which no one expected (well.. at least I didn’t expect that 😅) as his character was killed off towards the mid-end of the previous series. He is a great addition to the trio as many fell in love with Oscar’s portrayal of Kenny and ultimately fell in love with the actor as well and this makes Oscar the only actor that would be participating in all 4 of the 《飛虎》despite them not being related. I’m honestly just happy that Oscar is in this series despite not knowing what type of role he would be portraying as I’ve seen his protagonist role in 《飛虎》 and 《飛虎2》as well as his antagonist role in the newest one and I loved him on either side of story.

Christine Kuo, Lawrence Ng and Yoyo Mung have also joined the star-studded casts of this sequel, adding hype onto this already-hyped series. Christine Kuo returns to the  《飛虎》 franchise as she has starred in the original 2 series, just like Oscar Leung. I wonder what type of character she would be playing as (according to the Wikipedia of this series, Christine Kuo is said to be playing Kenneth Ma’s wife) , to be honest, I’ve never actually seen her performances in any other series other than 《飛虎》 and 《飛虎2》. Yoyo Mung ‘re-debuts’ after taking a break due to her suffering some injuries. Not being on the front line for this series, she plays Michael Miu’s significant other, I’m rather excited to see the dynamics between these 2 as a couple.

Pairings:

After the press conference the other day (1/11/18), the predicted pairings of this series has been confirmed:

Yoyo Mung & Michael Miu → 骆家成 & 欧阳敏仪
(Mentioned earlier)

Christine Kuo & Kenneth Ma → 殷婷 & 丁浩然

Christine Kuo and Kenneth Ma is a pairing that I’m excited to see, I think that this pairing would pretty much be a hit or miss, just like many of the pairings in this series. I’ve never seen their chemistry on screen as a couple which is why this pairing was one that I didn’t really see coming.

Ron Ng, Oscar Leung & Jennifer Yu → 章文龙，唐永飞 & 姚嘉楠

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise. Oscar Leung and Ron Ng got themselves involved in a love triangle again. It was Jeana Ho as 凌文洛 then and it’s Jennifer Yu as 姚嘉楠 now. I mean, I’m still intrigued in their relationship lines don’t get me wrong. It’s just a part of the plot that I’ve noticed which is recurring from the first one. I’m neutral Jennifer Yu as I’ve never heard of her before this (after some stalking, her résumé (aka Wikipedia 🤣) seems rather bland; fun fact –　she once dated Carlos Chan fro 3 years – this is new to me  🤣). However, I do have to say that she is gorgeous! 😍

Bosco Wong & Kelly Cheung → 汪国栋 & 邱皓月

Just a little flashback to my 《飛虎之潛行極戰》review, specifically my thoughts on Bosco and Venus→ ‘I’ve never ever shipped 2 people more in real life’ ‘Their love story was UNFORGETTABLE 😍’ (I’m so salty 😂)

To be completely honest, I have nothing against Kelly Cheung, she seems like a lovely person, an amazing actress and someone that’s drop-dead gorgeous 😍, basically she’s near perfect. However, after 《飛虎之潛行極戰》and how 朗菲 basically took over my life, the fact that Venus Wong isn’t returning is so SAD 😭. I mean I do have high hopes for this couple (Bosco Wong and Kelly Cheung) to soar and for this pairing of actor and actresses to flourish their acting skills, to melt hearts of thousands over their love story ( just like 朗菲 😉) – including me. Can’t wait to see this pairing on screen...but  朗菲 would forever by my OTP 💕.

*Head over  to my instagram account for more pictures from the press conference the other day → @tvb.theleisureplace  (self-promo be like 😂)

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Apology:

There may be some extreme emotions conveyed throughout this post (aka some over-excitement or raging.. no in between 😆) Information included in this post is purely my personally opinion and was not intended to offend anyone or cause any controversy. Knowing the person that I am, I will most probably be dissing this series (But I’m genuinely a huge fan of this franchise and would support despite some disappointing quality work in the past cough cough 《飛虎2》）now but find myself heads over heels about this series after. So for the time being.. it’s simply me voicing my views . – most probably should have attached this at the start of my post.  😝

Who Wants A Baby? BB 来了 // Review

Overview:

Who Wants A Baby is a drama series produced in 2018 by TVB consisting of 20 episodes. Starring Ali Lee, Chris Lai, Samantha Ko, Stefan Wong, Lenna Yeung and more. Having an average rating of 28 points and reaching a peak of 32 points, this series is the second-highest rating series of 2018, after Deep In The Realm of Conscience.

Main Cast:

Ali Lee（李佳芯） as Ellen Tong （唐恬儿）

Chris Lai （黎诺懿）as Elvis Yap （叶致廷）

Samantha Ko（高海宁） as Katrina Hui （许晴）

Stefan Wong（黄长兴） as Frankie Lee （李冠中）

Lenna Yeung （杨卓娜）as Wong Kai Miu （王佳妙）

Plot:

This series focuses on the topic of confinement as well as the stories of novice parents. Specifically on the story of new parents, Ellen Tong and Elvis Yap. Expecting unexpectedly (get it? 😉), Ellen wanted to abort her child initially being scared that it would affect her job of being  a professional buyer. But she was soon talked out of it by her mother who had a hard time having her; teaching her the importance of the tiny live inside of her. Being in a constant war with her mother-in-law about how to raise her baby, Ellen quits her job in order to become a full time mom. Soon after doing that, she realises that their family wouldn’t be financially stable if she does so. Hence she decided to take over a confinement centre with her mom to take care of new parents just like her after her borderline-postpartum-depression confinement experience.

This story unfolds as her husband struggles to find a family-work balance between <1980> (a bar which he opened with his buddy, Frankie) and his newborn. Things then get more complicated when Katrina, a girl whom he tried courting who is also unexpectedly her wife’s junior comes into the frame as <1980>’s bartender. Relationship problems surfaces when Katrina and Frankie gets caught in countless relationship problems which they turn to Elvis for help which ended him up being suspected by Ellen for having an affair with Katrina.

Song Thoughts:

Theme Song 主题曲 — 《有了你》Kayee Tam （谭嘉仪）

Interlude 插曲 —《分分钟需要你》George Lam （林子祥）

Just to clarify,  the interlude technically, isn’t really this song. This song has just been sung by the characters throughout the drama which is why I’ve decided to include it here. I like the addition of this song as this song wouldn’t be unfamiliar to anyone that watches HK dramas or listen to Cantopop which makes the audiences feels slightly more familiar with this series. This song is also really suitable for this series and the situation which the characters were in I think that the theme song sung by Kayee Tam is really fitting for this drama because of her ever so sweet voice as well as the melodic tune of this song that makes it so endearing and the well written lyrics to really fit the context of this series. 🤗

Review:

This series was genuinely a good family modern drama that I’ve seen from TVB in a very long time. I really like it as I found it really close-to-heart (despite not being a parent myself 😝) and endearing in a sense where it doesn’t try to sugar coat anything or try to make the role of a parent to seem glamorous. The plot was nice as it was easy to keep up for the audience, but I think that this drama would discourage someone to have kids because of the state which Ellen was in after giving birth to her child.. which was rather scary to summarise it. One of the plot holes that I sort of thought about throughout the series was the fact that Ellen’s mother-in-law, Mrs Yap, still thought that it was Ben’s ex-wife’s fault that she didn’t have any grandchildren because she’s infertile/ unable to conceive. But she still held onto that thought despite seeing her going to Ellen’s confinement center to find a confinement while SHE IS PREGNANT and this all happened before Ben told her mother the truth that he’s impotent. Anyways, I think that this series may be the producer of a lot of award-winners this year along with Threesome because of its originality as well as the crap low quality dramas that has been coming out this year. All of the character performed really well in this series including the child actor who played Long-Zai as well as ALL 8 of the babies who played 允猪 who were all SO CUTE 😍. Moving along to individual reviews.

Ali Lee（李佳芯） → Ellen Tong （唐恬儿）

Being the female lead of this series, I thought that Ali did AMAZING in her role as a new mom. She fitted this character perfectly at the beginning of being a professional buyer with her gorgeous looks and her killer figure which was why I had low expectations of her or being a mom. But trust me, not only did she meet my expectations she completely exceeded it by miles. One thing that Ali is going to have to give up for this character would be her image – being the borderline 痴线 and over controlling wife, stubborn daughter-in-law, not forgetting the over-protective mother role which she also has to take on. She nailed all of these characters and the way which she portrayed this character was great as you can really tell the character development and that it was executed in a way where it wasn’t too ‘in your face’ at the same time you are able to tell that she’s growing as a parent at the same time which her baby is growing. Honestly I’m rooting for both Ali and Mandy (for her role in ‘Threesome’) for TV Queen at this point of time as I’m not too impressed with the other dramas. 🤗

Chris Lai（黎诺懿） → Elvis Yap (叶致廷）

I think that Chris Lai is really suited for the character of Elvis Yap and is able to pull off all of the roles that this character brings with it such as the filial son to his mother, caring husband and a reliable friend. His acting in this series makes it really believable that he is ACTUALLY a new father to his daughter and a caring husband to his wife. He manages to pull of this character as i think that he isn’t the ‘manliest’ actor out there which makes all of his characters extremely believable and the tone which he delivers his lines enhances the circumstances which he was in. It’s nice to see that he interacts with different people around him with different tones and posture depending on his relationship with them which was nice to see.

Samantha Ko（高海宁） → Katrina Hui （许晴）

Samantha really fits the cool, boyish bartender role which she played. Her styling in this eries really suited the role and Samantha managed to pull the slightly avant garde, cool, black and white wardrobe off. Her character’s personality can be easily understood through her first few scenes as well as the way she dresses. The tone which she speaks in is always very constant and slightly monotone throughout the series which I personally found boring at times even in front of the person she loves. But I guess that’s how Samantha viewed the character. To be completely honest, I think that the fact which her character was pregnant towards the end of series was rather forced and implemented just so that there would be a way which her love story with Frankie (Stefan Wong) can be saved. Be I think that this problem is more of a problem with the script and not so much the actress’s fault.

Lenna Yeung（杨卓娜） → Wong Kai Miu (王佳妙）

First of all, I’ve never seen Lenna Yeung’s work other than her cameo in ‘Angels In The Making’ which I never realised she was in until I went on her WIkipedia. Anyways, back to her role in this series, I feel like she fits perfectly with the slightly damsel in distress character and the knowledgeable confinement worker. She delivered her lines perfectly with the suitable tone of her character as well as communicated with each of the surrounding characters in a really natural way which enhances her acting and makes her character believable. I really liked the interaction between her and Ben (played by Tsui Wing) as he is the only character which she didn’t have a business relationship with hence why she is slightly more comfortable around him than the other characters, this difference was nice to see as it doesn’t slightlys how Lenna’s acting abilities and really understands her character.

Angel In The Making 实习天使 // Review

Overview:

Angel In The Making is a Hong Kong television series produced by TVB released in 2015. Also known as Intern Nurses, this series is under the genre of medical and modern drama. Having 25 episodes in total, this drama stars Tony Hung, Eliza Sam, Pal Sinn, Alice Chan, Moon Lau and Jinny Ng.

Main Cast

Tony Hung（洪永城） as Ray Yeung/ Death Ray (杨志明）

Eliza Sam（岑丽香） as Halley Kei （祈乐）

Pal Sinn（单立文） as Kennedy Tong （唐日俊）

Alice Chan（陈炜） as Defea Cha（卓芷君）

Moon Lau（刘佩玥） as Abby Tang （邓励帧）

Jinny Ng（吴若希） as Alison Yu （俞玥爱）

Song Thoughts:

Theme Song/ Interlude 主题曲/插曲 — 《我们都受伤》Jinny Ng 吴若希

Given that this song is BOTH the theme song and the interlude, it may get too overplayed after some times, but since I’m watching this series 3 years later, online, I am able to easily skip through the theme song which is why I personally like this song. I like the fact that the lyrics are generally quite relevant to the theme of medical. One thing that I like about this song is that fact that different sections of this song has different dynamics which makes this song really versatile for more light-hearted scenes as well as more serious and dynamic scenes. The scene which this song really made an impact was the death of Patrick, this was the scene where the song hits harder than the scene and makes this scene so impactful since the lyrics were so heart-wrenchingly `close to heart`.

Review:

Overall I thought that this drama was really well-written amongst all of the TVB dramas that has been out since then. This drama kind of `stands out` amongst the rest due to the `lackluster`  cast as compared to other TVB dramas, in a sense that none of the casts weren't rising siu sangs or fa dans whom they wouldn't usually do without. The plot was well-written and had a reasonable pace to it in order to keep the audience engaged. Honestly, I went into this series thinking that this was just going to be a ‘The Hippocratic Crush’ rip-off. 😝But I was pleasantly surprised because of the way that they presented the hardships of working as a nurse without trying to ‘glamour-fy’ it and keeping it real. There were definitely times where things just seemed to coincidental which just ruins the illusion of these celebrities being the character and makes this whole thing seem like a TV series again where everything just seems to be perfect but afterall, it IS a TV series. I really liked the dynamics of the rookie casts together as TUNS 6, their scenes together were light-hearted and each of these characters represented a friend that we all have in real life. The actors didn’t try to outshine each other and pull off each of their individual characters perfectly. I was really impressed by Jinny Ng’s acting in this series, I really hope that she pursued/ ‘continued’ her career in acting instead, because too be honest, her place isn’t the most ‘stable’ singer in her company right now after her maternity break and with new singers joining. Let’s move to individual character reviews：

Tony Hung（洪永城） → Ray Yeung（杨志明）

I think that Tony did amazing in this series pulling off the devil-came-alive and serious Ray. His acting was great in a sense that his character was consistent throughout the majority of this series and is able to pull off the responsible nurse look during the hospital scene and using those ‘medical-ly’ terms in his lines. Since this character is vastly different from his actually personality, it was a great opportunity for his to showcase his acting skills and I have to say that, he is quite amazing fro pulling this character off. However, something that he does need to improve on is his crying skills, it wasn’t BAD per se, it just could’ve been improved on to make his overall performance better.

Eliza Sam（岑丽香） → Halley Kei （祈乐）

Honestly, this story was written completely just for Eliza Sam and her character. This character was honestly tailored for her which explains why she completely NAILED this character! Eliza Sam is perfect for the damsel in distress and kind-hearted character and her ability to gain the audience’s sympathy is like through the roof. Her acting skills wasn’t PERFECT, but there has been a significant improvement from when I last saw her which was in Hippocratic Crush 2 as Che Che. Despite a lot of people preferring her role as Che Che over this, I really liked her character in this and thought that her performance in this series is better than it was in HC 2. Her acting and crying scenes were natural, the way she delivered her lines were suitable for her feelings at the moment which makes her performance throughout this series extremely pleasant to watch. To be completely honest, I think that this is Eliza Sam’s best character I’ve watched so far, including her role in Heart and Greed as this character is so much more multi-dimensional and deep. Overall, I think that Eliza Sam did amazing in this series in the execution of Halley Kei.

Ending:

This series was AMAZING… that is until the last episode. The finale for this series is one of the most messed up ending for a series that I have seen in a very long time. Prior to the ending was the marriage of Noddy (Toby Leung) and Chi Fung (William Chak), like what the hell, this couple literally had nothing between each other whatsoever and just decided to get married out of the blue behind the counters of the ER Department. Like honestly, there is zero logic to that. The final episode eventually had a scene where it fast forwarded two years honestly because there was way too much loose ends to be explained and tied up in the remaining 15 minutes of the series. What happened in the last 15 minutes was something else. First of all, Sylvia just casually comes back from Canada after two years in time for Defea and Kennedy’s wedding just to tell Kennedy that she has his 2-years-old daughter right after Defea gave birth to their child in the ER. Lastly… WHAT IS THE FINAL SCENE OF THE SERIES? We waited 25 episodes. 25 EPISODES, for 2 minutes worth of ‘cute couple’ scene between Ray and Halley. And what’s with the papayas in the ocean? Another question that I have is how Ray could’ve held his breath underwater for so long for Halley to shout into the ocean and collapsing in the ‘sea of papayas’ (get it? 😉.. Sorry for that bad pun) before appearing.

Phew… end of rant. All in all, I still really enjoyed this series as well as the performance of the actors in the series.

insert cute picture of Ray and Halley 😉