Overview:
Triumph In The Skies II is a television series produced by TVB in 2013 which is sequel to the blockbuster Triumph In the Skies released in 2003. It brings back the previous cast of it predecessor Francis Ng, Ron Ng, Myolie Wu, Kenneth Ma and Nancy Wu as well as new addition of characters and actors such as Julian Cheung, Fala Chen, Him Law etc. Consisting of 43 episodes, it aired from 15 July to 8 September 2013. This series has scenes filmed in locations all around the world such as Hong Kong, China, France and Taiwan. 
Main Cast:
Francis Ng as Samuel Tong Yik-Sum／唐亦深
Julian Cheung as Jayden Koo Ha Yeung (Captain Cool) ／顾夏阳
Fala Chen as Holiday Ho Nin Hei ／何年希
Ron Ng as Isaac Tong Yik-Fung／唐亦风
Myolie Wu as Summer Koo Ha Sun／顾夏晨
Kenneth Ma as Roy Ko Chi Hong／高志宏
Nancy Wu as Coco Ling Cheuk-Chi／凌卓芝
Him Law as Tsim Zhi Lun (Jim-Jim)／詹子麟
Elena Kong as Heather Fang Choi-Ga／方芮嘉
Plot:
This series picks up several years after it’s predecessor, Samuel Tong takes a long holiday from flying and stays in England in attempt to re-make the cake which he failed to make for Zoe before her death. But his holiday ended early after encountering Holiday Ho, whose attempt to ruin his cheesecake turned out to be the exact ingredient which he has been looking for. Samuel Tong returns to Hong Kong and returns to Skylette Airlines as a Captain to fly again. During his time at Skylette Airlines, he took up the job of recruiting and training a new batch of cadets for Skylette by being the main organiser of PPP (Pre-Pilot Project) along with Tony Ching (played by Patrick Dunn). He then re-meets Holiday Ho there as a student for PPP is hope for living her deceased boyfriend(Daniel)’s life of being a pilot and finding out what made Daniel fell in love with the sky. Samuel finds this an unacceptable reason to be a commercial pilot as Samuel’s view of being a commercial pilot is to safely send their customers to their destination and constantly persuades Holiday to give up her dream of flying into the sky solely based off her ‘unreasonable’ reason to live her boyfriend’s dream.
Samuel Tong also encounters Captain Cool who shows polar views on flying and in life – Samuel who is reserved and loyal to his S.O and Jayden who is a playboy and likes attention on him.
Captain Cool joined Skylette with a remarkable resume and background from his experience of being in the air force and histories where his piloting skills have been proven to live up to his name. Being a playboy, Jayden has had hundred of ‘girlfriends’ and thinks that all women are a work of art and has a view on relationship where the act of a mutually agreed breakup is a form of behavioural art. He then falls in love with the feisty and adventurous Holiday Ho after meeting her from PPP and the two becomes a couple by the end of PPP with their matching personalities, did some pretty reckless stuff in France and clicked with each other as a couple. She then decides to break up with him after realising that Jayden was only a replacement for her deceased boyfriend Daniel and then proceeds to fall in love with Captain Tong. After Sam and Holiday got together, Jayden under the lack of knowledge of their underground relationship announces that he would like to court Holiday to be the ‘only women of his life’. Both of them then gets entangled in a love triangle with Holiday who seems to be interested in both but decides to settle for one in the end, having no idea how to reject the other who she has once be in a relationship with.
Roy Ko and Isaac Tong both ‘reunites’ at Skylette Airlines welcoming Roy back from being in Taiwan and are now both at the position of a ‘First Officer’. Roy encounters Captain Jayden ‘Captain Cool’ Koo at his first flight back with Skylette and gets off on the wrong foot at their first meeting. Roy is stuck with 2 girlfriends and is indecisive of who he would like to spend the rest of his lives with. He then gets the help of air stewardess/friend Heather to help him out with this and came to a realisation that he truly loves neither of them and ends up to be in a relationship with Heather.
Isaac Tong then sees an uncanny resemblance between an aircraft maintenance engineer, Summer as well as he deceased sister-in-law, Zoe. Summer Koo is Captain Cool’s younger sister and bears grudges against him for an unhappy childhood when he left her a young age to join the airforce. Isaac, being friends with Captain Cool and the resemblance between Summer and his sister-in-law helps Summer and Jayden reconciles their relationship and slowly falls in love with Isaac, Isaac also starts to have a crush on Summer but refrains himself from making a move despite knowing their mutual feelings for each other as he doesn’t want to evoke his brother’s grief from his wife’s death which he still seems unable to get past.
Review:
First of all, to clarify, I did not watch the first one😣 but I have read reviews that the first one was quite something and the second one couldn’t compare to its predecessor. But I’m going to review this series just based on the second series and not compare it to the first one. To be honest, with this line-up of cast that they had as well as the name that ‘Triumph in The Skies’ had for itself, this series was set for success. The plane shots were great, storyline was amazing, the suave casts spoke for themselves but I do have quite something to say about it though. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely LOVED this series but here are just some details that I thought that could’ve been improved on. Like many other TVB series, this drama was focused on a line of industry, in this case, pilots. But ALSO like many other TVB dramas this set more as a undertoned theme rather than its main focus. Despite the fact that it talked about planes and pilots, the main them RIGHT IN YOUR FACE was romance. First of all, there was this Sam-Holiday-Jayden-Zoe-Daniel-Pansy hexagonal romance situation then there was the Summer-Josie-Teddy-Isaac love square or rectangle going on let’s not leave out the Roy-Heather-Tony-Mr. King-Joanne-Phillis situation. Seems like we’re learning more about geometry and relationship webs than aeronautics.
But this series won the ‘Best Drama’ award at the TVB Anniversary Award 2013 so it’s saying something right? I think that this drama is really good for fans who watched the first one and to relive the nostalgia of this franchise as well as the fact that this drama is really light hearted without the unnecessary dramas that TVB series has nowaday, all the backstabbing, family feuding as well as murdering because … why not? (*cough cough* Two Steps From Heaven 😝) At the same time, I really loved it even though I didn’t watch the first one 😂 so .. it’s just for fans of TVB as well as fans of the franchise. I think that the foreshadowing technique used in this review was EXTREMELY smart, the way that they foreshadowed how Coco and Nick couldn’t be together by showing the upteenth times which he has failed at proposing to her as well as the fact that Jayden and Holiday can’t be together in the first scene they met in England and she ran past him towards her boyfriend’s sister for a hug instead of him. Let’s move on the the characters’ review:
Francis Ng (吴镇宇）→ Samuel Tong/Captain Tong／(唐亦深）
Interesting character… very sophisticated but at the same time extremely controlling. Like what Holiday said, he just seems to be her superior whether it be in work or in private. But there’s just something about this character which I find extremely special, the fact that he cares for you in the most subtle way possible is so cute for us as audience to watch but it’s most probably for the character such as Holiday to see as he just doesn’t seem to care. He is extremely faithful as a lover as you can tell how much Zoe’s death affected him as well as how much he cared for her when she was alive. There’s no doubt that this character is amazing at what he does, but for some reason Francis Ng just doesn’t seem to show that, it might be part of the character, but Samuel Tong’s accomplishment is so much more than what is shown. What was nice to see for this character is that he starts to care more about the people around him as well as expressing himself more. He also fits to the brotherly character very well and a lecturer identity – responsible and reliable .. exactly who Samuel Tong is.
Julian Cheung（张智霖） → Jayden Koo/Captain Cool ／（顾夏阳）
Captain Cool 😍 For those of you that have read my Triumph In The Skies Film review, you probably have an idea of how OBSESSED I am with this character and the fact that you are most probably getting your head stuck into a paragraph of me fangirling over him (just kidding.. but I’ll try to tone it down 😝). Jayden Koo being a young, handsome celebrity captain/pilot who is skilled in aviation at Skylette Airlines who steals the heart of hundreds is definitely a role he is able to handle. SO GOD DAMN CHARMING! Anyways, I think that despite his character being absolutely a heart robber (kudos to Chilam Cheung 😉), I do find that his character gets slightly annoying and clingy towards the end of the series where he refused to let Holiday go after being rejected by her. I think that Julian Cheung perfectly pulled off this character with his never-aging looks and his small movement that makes people fall in love with him. His relationship with his junior Isaac Tong was one that I found quite nice to watch, as they help each other out on things beyond their work such as Isaac helping him salvage his relationship with his sister.
His occasional reference to himself as the DC superhero Batman and Isaac as Robin was quite cute as Batman is a wealthy playboy by day and a righteous vigilante by night which shows that he would be able to carry out the superhero deeds is the need arises. I think that even though he shows everyone his cool, cheerful side, Julian Cheung shows that Captain Cool is a human too and is also confused about life and the existence of human. He doesn’t really have a life long goal and takes life on a day-to-day basis. His view on love and on women is something that I found rather interesting. Captain Cool thinks that all women is a work of art. Despite him denying being a playboy, he takes relationship in a slightly improvident approach that involves countless woman as he truly appreciates the uniqueness of every woman. As a romantic, he has a view on love as something that isn’t meant to be everlasting and risk-free nor does it mean to enslave one or hold one captive. His relationship with Holiday benefited him in a way where he matured form it unlike the hundred of other ‘relationships’, Jayden becomes slightly more family-orientated by caring more about his siblings and having dinners with Summer instead of clubbing.
Fala Chen（陈法拉） → Holiday Ho （何年希）
Fala Chen has the playful wilful look which already does half the job for her in terms of portraying the young and wild Holiday Ho. Her screen time with the other cast was quite natural and was quite nice to watch. Even though many criticised her performance in this series, I beg to differ. Even though I have to admit that she wasn’t perfect and there was definitely room for improvement for her role in this series, I think that she did amazing as her role for being able to open to all the other characters which Holiday meets along her piloting journey. The reason why she attracted so much criticism for her acting in this drama might be due to the fact that she was acting alongside veteran actors for the main part of this series such as Francis Ng and Chilam Cheung. There were times that this character might get on my nerve due to the fact that Fala Chen portrayed her to be way too childish to be a pilot which got ME to worry for the passengers on her plane and completely agree with Samuel Tong’s slightly objective comment on why he thinks that Holiday isn’t cut out for a pilot as she doesn’t fit his bill of a pilot which is to be mature
and disciplined at all times.
Partnerships:
Francis Ng/Ron Ng → Samuel Tong/Isaac Tong
These 2 are somehow quite relatable from a person that has 3 older siblings. It’s nice to see Sam Tong wanting the best for his brother and disciplining him as if he’s his own son. There are times where I see both of them as a pair of father and son rather than brothers. It’s most probably due to Samuel Tong’s attitude towards him where he’s a superior to him in work and his stone-like attitude to people. I think that the scene where Captain Tong (Sam) passed his brother’s CT test himself was my favourite scene of these two as a lot of pressure is on Sam’s shoulder to make sure that he isn’t being biased towards Isaac because of their relationship. But Sam was proud of his brother for not letting him down and the look was apparent on his face despite his poker face 99% of the time. Even though there are times where they are quite awkward with each other, these 2 was pleasant to see on screen.
Julian Cheung/ Myolie Wu → Jayden Koo/ Summer Koo
This sibling duo is most probably my favourite duo of the series – cool, calm, collected. One as a pilot and one as a aircraft engineer can you find me a cooler sibling pairing than that?! They’re relationship in this series is definitely one that has a drastic change where you are able to see the hatred that Summer had against her brother for abandoning her during her childhood to join the airforce. On the other hand, you can see Jayden’s will to reconcile with his sister as well as to make up for the mistake that he made years ago. They compliment each other well with one of them being bubbly and more extroverted and one that is more introverted and conservative. It’s really touching to see the protective side of Jayden when he hears the news of his sister getting ‘bullied’ and Summer being the most important women in the heart of a ‘womaniser’. I mean tbh who wouldn’t want Jayden Koo as a brother. I would love to see these 2 on screen together again as siblings but it most probably wouldn’t be happening in a TVB series as both of them have ended their contract with TVB and changed to the another company but the chances of them appearing on screen together again wouldn’t be slim as both of them are now in the same company!
