Triumph In The Skies (Film) 冲上云霄（电影版）// Review

Overview:

Triumph in the Skies is a 2015 Hong Kong-Chinese romantic drama film which was released on February 19, 2015 with a running time of 100 minutes. Directed by Wilson Yip, Matt Chow and  primarily starring Louis Koo, Sammi Cheng, Francis Ng, Amber Kuo, Julian Cheung and Charmaine Sheh, this film has earned US$24.59 million in China and HK$21.5 million (US$2.78 million) in Hong Kong. This movie is an adaptation of the popular TV franchise Triumph In the Skies produced by TVB.  

Main Cast:

Francis Ng as Samuel Tong (唐亦深）

Sammi Cheng as TM Tam (谭梦）

Julian Cheung as Jayden Cool/Captain Cool (顾夏阳)

Amber Kuo as Kika Sit (薛健雅)

Louis Koo as Branson Cheung (张春亮)

Charmaine Sheh as Cassie Poon (潘家诗)

Kenneth Ma as Roy Ko (高志宏)

Elena Kong as Heather Fong (方芮嘉)

Plot:

Pilot Branson Cheung has just taken over Skylette Airline, his father’s empire to realise that his ex-lover, Cassie Poon is working there as a flight attendant. Branson was forced to leave her several years ago due his father’s demand - wanting him to go over to New York in order for him to take care of his father’s business. Cassie was handed a large sum of money by Branson’s father before Branson left her. These two old flames still has feelings for each other but decides to keep them bottled up. As part of his marketing strategies, he invites rock idol, TM to star in an upcoming commercial for his airline and invites experienced pilot Samuel Tong to be her flying consultant. Having polar views on the arts of flying, this odd couple has an unsteady start to their relationship. However, as the shoot progresses, they start to discover each others merits and their relationship slowly takes off from there. After leaving Skylette, Jayden Koo became a pilot for private jets and meets the effervescence and vivacious Kika Sit during a flight and has an impression of her being shallow and wilful. However, they then find out that they have a lot in common and proceeds to be heads over heels for each other and is madly in love. At the peak of their romance, Jayden finds out the a dark secret of kika which she tries to hide from everyone － she is at an incurable stage of cancer but has a slim chance of recovery through an operation. Each of these relationships has their own twist in their love story but as long as there is trust between each couple, they would be able to overcome these challenges and come out stronger than before.

Song Thoughts:

《岁月如歌》陈奕迅 Eason Chan

《Somewhere Over The Rainbow》郑秀文 Sammi Cheng

I know that there are a lot more songs for this movie than these 2, I’m only going to comment on these 2 songs as they are the two which I found that personally stood out to me and I feel give this movie more meaning and makes this movie the movie that it is - in terms of music. Sorry for not commenting on all of them 😔🤗. The first song, a classic ‘Triumph In The Skies’ song, the theme song for the very first television series for this amazing franchise. This song brings back a lot of memories for those that started watching this series from the very beginning (personally, I didn’t watch the first series 😝) but I still fell in love with this song. Classic. Comforting. Ever-So Familiar. ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ was a song that got so much more meaningful after being incorporated into this movie. To me, this song has Captain Tong and TM ‘s love story behind it now and I find it so soothing to have a song that most probably everyone has heard of before and making it so much more than what it is and adding more dimensions to it and Sammi Cheng’s voice really suited this song!

Review:

With the renowned directors,gorgeous sceneries, star-studded ensemble of cast, this movie was on the road to success. Despite being successful, I felt that it could’ve been SO MUCH MORE! Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely LOVED this movie but there were aspects which I felt could’ve been done better. The casts were amazing, all of them looked absolutely stunning in the movie in their suave uniforms and the main actress flaunting their figures in the beautifully-designed outfits. One thing that I would have to address first and foremost is the fact that Amber Kuo’s character practically has NEVER been introduced in this movie with her name or her background but after some wiki checks, her name in Kika… so I’ll roll with that 😉. Personally, I felt that the beauty of this franchise is the way that they present the hardship that is going on behind this industry and getting the audience to know more about flying and planes as well as providing the ‘I want to become a pilot’ or ‘Sign me up for PPP’ (Triumph In The Skies 2 reference 😉)  feel. Not to forget the romance aspect of it where it makes all the characters to be at least 10X more attractive and charismatic than what they already are. But this movie completely throws the ‘planes’ theme out of the window after the first 10 minutes of the movie and COMPLETELY focuses on romance which I’m not complaining about but I would’ve loved to seen more planes and flying going on in this movie. Kudos to the cameramen and director of this movie for making this movie seem like a 2-hour long music video which I absolutely LOVED and all the cinematic shots that have been used in this movie 😍.This movie was quite something for being able to fit 5 love stories into the 100 minutes running time of the movie and giving a somewhat detailed love story for 3 of them. But ... the fact that the 3 main characters in this movie Branson Cheung, Samuel Tong and Jayden Koo only even meet in the ENDING CREDIT scene really does get on my nerves, like honestly HOW THE HELL DO THEY NOT MEET UNTIL THE VERY END. But all this aside😤, this was a great movie 🤗 and I’ll give a more detailed review for the main 3 couples of this movie:

Samuel Tong and TM Tam / 唐亦深 & 谭梦（吴镇宇& 郑秀文）

I find it slightly puzzling throughout the whole movie about the fact that they kept the same character played by the same actor but  completely cut off from what happened in the last series. They never really provided the information with what happened with Holiday Ho and what happened between Sam and Holiday. Other than that, I personally found this pairing slightly odd. I really liked each character on it’s own and Sammi Cheng definitely contributed her starpower to this series and worked well with Francis Ng, but I think I just can’t accept their relationship together due to the personality of Samuel Tong presented in the TV series which is extremely reserved and takes his time to fully understand a person before starting dating which is why I found him extremely out of his element in this movie. But nonetheless, I thought that Francis Ng did amazing in this film.

Branson Cheung and Cassie Poon / 张春亮 & 潘家诗 （古天乐 & 佘诗曼）

Louis Koo and Charmaine Sheh… the OTP of many people’s hearts! 2 veterans working together, it’s a formula for something amazing! I think that their love story was quite mediocre and could’ve been improved on nonetheless it was enough to for me. The way that they bottled their feeling for each other slightly annoyed me but thank god this phase wasn’t for long. Some of the comedic relief that they provided in this movie was good and it has references to the relationship. This relationship is one that consists of 2 characters that weren’t in part of the first OR second franchise which allows the audience to make fully understand them as a brand new character and not allow their previous characters or personalities to affect their perception of these pair of characters. Being a well-seasoned actor, Louis Koo brought his own flare into this film and gave HIS twist to the rather boring character of Branson Cheung (where everything just seems to be going his way, whether it be his career or relationship) and made him more interesting to watch.

Captain Cool and Kika Sit /  顾夏阳 & 薛健雅 （张智霖 & 郭采洁）

My favourite couple out of the entire franchise! I mean honestly… I’m practically OBSESSED with Captain Cool he’s such a charismatic guy like honestly, no doubt he’s a playboy, but he HAS EVERY RIGHT to be one! He has the ability to absolutely pick up any girl that he stares at with that ever-so-charming look of him 😍. Sorry back to the couple… I think that the pace of which their relationship progresses is nicely-paced and allows the audience to understand their love story but at the same time not being bored by a phase being stopped for too long. The scene of them at a carnival/funfair and the very last hospital scenes was my favourite scene of both of them as it really showed their relationship build up, it also reveals the personality of the characters. I felt that Amber’s character in this movie really suited her with the vivacious personality and the innocence that both her and the character share. That hospital scene was one that I found SOO cute as it shows that Kika was willing to operate due to the influence/persuasion of Captain Cool which shows how much impact he is leaving on her as well as the impact that she is leaving on him as it shows that Jayden Koo is with girls much more than just for lust and truly loves and cares for Kika.

Completely not being biased around here 😝

Reasons to watch this movie:
1) If you are a diehard fan of this series
2) If you don’t mind a lowered self-esteem after looking at the good-looking af casts for 100 minutes straight
3) Just for the sake of watching Chilam, I think that it’s is a good enough reason 😍💕