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 😉

Highs and Lows 雷霆掃毒 // Review

Overview:

Highs and Lows is a Hong Kong television series produced by TVB, this series belongs in the genre of crime, thriller and action. Consisting of 30 episodes, this series reached a peaking point of 38 points when the finale of this series aired. Highs and Lows aired from September 2 to 4 November 2012. The series stars Michael Miu, Raymond Lam, Kate Tsui, Ella Koon, Elaine Ng, Ben Wong and more. This series is also the last series of Ella Koon and Elaine Ng in TVB.

Main Cast:

Michael Miu（苗侨伟）  as Gordon Heung Wing （向荣）

Raymond Lam（林峰） as Happy Wai Sai Lok （韦世乐）

Kate Tsui（徐子珊） as Chan Ka Pik （陈家碧）

Ben Wong（黄智贤） as Brian Poon Hok Lai（潘学礼）

Ella Koon（官恩娜） as Sandy Ko Hei Suen （高希璇）

Elaine Ng（吴绮莉） as Helen Yu Weng Tong（于詠彤）

MC Jin（欧阳靖） as Ng Dak Tim（吴德添）

Plot (Spoilers!):

Heung Wing (Michael Miu) is a Narcotics Bureau’s Operation Wing Senior Inspector, who has served a friend and mentor to Wai Sai Lok’s (Raymond Lam) Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) Senior Inspector. The duo often work closely together in solving narcotics cases.

While investigating a case, Sai Lok found disturbing evidence that challenged whether Heung Wing was an upright officer or a corrupt cop involved with major drug trafficking criminals. Putting aside his personal feelings, Sai Lok investigates Heung Wing further. Operation Wing Chief Inspector, Poon Hok Lai (Ben Wong) also plants a seed of suspicion between the former good brothers.

Sai Lok find himself falling in love with his informer Chan Ka Bik (Kate Tsui)after going through several near-death moments. After Ka Pik withdrew from the love triangle involving Sai Lok and CIB Officer, Ko Hei Suen (Ella Koon) as she thinks she isn’t good enough for him. Ka Bik becomes a drug dealer, even rising in ranks to become a formidable “Drug Queen. Joining forces with Heung Wing, Sai Lok puts aside his painful love to bring down Ka Bik’s narcotics operations.

Song Thoughts:

Theme Song 主题曲 – Theme of Highs and Lows

Interlude 插曲 – 《幼稚完》Raymond Lam 林峰

This series doesn’t really have a theme song, rather it has a more melodic/ instrumental opening without any lyrics. I think that it does suit this series as it is high dynamics at the same time not extremely intense which complements the series. The interlude is a song which I have already been a huge fan of before watching this series. After watching this series, I has caused me to approach this song with a completely different vibe and story. Just like in previous series I personally associate songs with different stories depending on the events where the song has been played behind. Even though Raymond and Kate doesn’t have an extended love story, I still associate this song with this couple as they still care for each other despite not being together, together (if you know what i mean) I think that this song is AMAZING as it is and made even more touching with the story of this series.

Review: 　

This series is a series that I’ve been wanting to watch for awhile but have been putting off due to the new series coming out this year. I have heard a lot of great response for this series hence why I approached it with high expectations. I would say that it doesn’t disappoint … that is until the last few episode (it was still great, just didn’t live up to my expectations). Don’t get me wrong though, I still really enjoyed this series. I think that the plot was amazing  despite some rather questionable loopholes and places where things just doesn't make sense. This series is great in a sense where the topic that they discuss is uncommon … relative to TVB. In terms of the fact that the story revolves around the unit of Narcotics Bureau unlike the ever so familiar OCTB and CID departments. The plot has been well paced so that it keeps the audiences on the edge of their seats despite some part of the story being slightly boring. Highs and Lows is a series where you would be able to episode after episode which is an indication of a great series to me.The characters have also been well established so that their personalities can be easily understood by the audiences within the first few scenes of the character. Let’s move on to the individual character reviews.

Raymond Lam (林峰) → Happy Wai Sai Lok (韦世乐)

First of all, I think that this character was extremely well written and Raymond Lam completely nailed this character. Even though he wasn’t perfect, but at the same time no one is flawless. I think that Raymond really suited this character as he is not afraid to let it go and perfectly execute the type of person Happy Sir is - different, not following the rules but extremely efficient and intelligent. Something that kind of annoys me about this character is the fact is that he is SOO irrational when he faces someone he loves or someone that has hurt the person that he loves, honestly I found this character extremely charming and charismatic at the beginning but as the series progressed, I questioned the sanity of this character. I think that Happy Sir is THE person to go to if you ever need to prove that love is blind. For someone that would go to the length of investigating his close friend to uphold justice, it’s slightly inconsistent to me that he lets Ka Pik (Kate Tsui) just walk away on several occasions after finding out that she not only TAKES drugs but is selling them. But I guess that would be Raymond’s take on the character to prove the power of love on this character. All in all, I really liked this character and he managed to regain that charm and charisma towards the end from the scene of him and the kid.

Kate Tsui (徐子珊) → Chan Ka Pik (陈家碧)

An extremely belated congratulations to Kate for winning the ‘My Favourite Female Character’ award during the TVB Anniversary Awards 2012 for this character. Despite being pulling off this character phenomenally, this character is so inconsistent. A nice character at the start → turns into a ‘Drug Queen’ → unexpectedly stung by conscience after a good 10 episodes to be nice and inform Happy about the ambulance in the last episode. Anyways, I honestly think that Kate executed this character perfectly and I can’t think of anyone else better suited for this character than her, those crying scenes were amazing. Not desperately pouring but just quietly sobbing. The way that she brings this character to life is truly remarkable as she is able to convey the hidden meanings behind each of her actions to the audience without being overly obvious. Her scenes with MC Jin were also nice to watch as they were natural around each other which really brings the closely-knitted friendship between the characters to life.

Michael Miu (苗侨伟) → Gordon Heung Wing (向荣)

As always Michael Miu doesn’t disappoint. Watching this series in 2018, it’s a change to see him as the ‘corrupted cop’/’black cop’ as compared to him trying to find out who the corrupted cop is in the series that he participated in the recent years such as Line Walker (使徒行者) , Line Walker: The Prelude (使徒行者2) and not forgetting Flying Tigers (飞虎之潜行极战) 😉. Personally, I wouldn’t classify Gordon as a corrupted cop as he didn’t REALLY do anything that betrayed the police force, I mean he DID let several drug dealers off the hook, but he did out more of them behind the bars thanks to the ‘Agent’. I don’t know anymore, I guess there’s that grey area in between. His acting skills was great, convincing - especially towards the end. I like that his character still remained ‘good’ disregarding the incident where he was mistaken for keeping the money for himself.  The fact that he died trying to protect Happy and the scene where he told Raymond that he didn’t want him to be involved in this because he treated him as a brother was truly touching. I like that they provided an ending to this character in a sense that they showed the marriage between him and Madam Yu despite him being dead.

Ben Wong (黄智贤)→ Poon Hok Lai (潘学礼)

Ben Wong was the perfect person to pull off the ever so annoying officer-turned-villain character. Despite the character being poorly written and a lot of dumb and illogical decisions, Ben Wong managed to execute it well. The difference between the way where he treats Sandy and the way which she treats everyone else is very evident which made me believe for a moment that he isn’t as bad of a person as I thought. But one of the many ‘what-the-hell’ events that happened with this character would be the fact the 180 change that this character experience when he just decided to leave the police force and join one of the most prominent ‘drug selling association’ out there. Overall, I genuinely enjoyed his acting in this series despite not being a very likable character.

Ending:

Most probably one of the most controversial endings I have seen for a while which is why I have dedicated a section just for it 😉. (this may just turn out to be a section for rants but..)  First of all, I think that when Ka Pik ‘survived’ the bomb in the ambulance and came out to save Happy was really cliche but why would the scriptwriter make Pat survive the bombing just for her to be shot by Poon Sir five minutes later, and the whole point of her being shot was just so that she would be able to tell Poon Sir that she is having his child. And talking about the child, who in the right mind would choose to keep the child of their enemy?! I get it that the child is innocent and deserves to live, but what would be the point of bringing him/her into the world if you know that the child is just going to bring up bad memories of your enemy, this got me thinking that she would’ve most probably kept the child if she were to be pregnant from the gang rape. Additionally, she may seem to be selfless when she thought that she should keep the baby because ‘the baby is innocent’ but did she ever take into consideration that she is a drug addict and that could cause so much harm to the baby as well as her status in life where she is financially unstable. One other question that I had after watching the ending would be ‘why the hell would Ah Fu (Jazz Lam) and Ah Seng (Law Lok Lam) confess to their crimes after Gordon died for them. I mean it makes sense that they did that to get over their conscience but at the same time, this scene just makes Gordon’s death scene meaningless and that he died for nothing.

Anyways, the ending wasn’t all that bad, I liked the pacing of the ending where it wasn’t too rushed nor too draggy. Even though the ending was extremely ‘TVB’ too be way too perfect and happy, I was relieved and surprised that Sandy and Happy didn’t end up together as it just wouldn’t make sense if Happy suddenly just realised that he actually loves her despite not showing ANY sign of interest in her throughout the 30-episode long series. Another thing that I enjoyed about this ending is the fact that even though there were a lot of people who died in the last episode, I think that all of them died for a reason unlike other series *cough The Unholy Alliance cough*.