I just finished re-watching this series and I must say that the 2nd time around was even better than the first time! This is definitely one of my favorite series from the past 5 years (which says something about how good it is, since there are only a handful of series -- like less than 10 -- from the past 5 years that I actually like).
Again, the below is not exactly a review of the series, but rather just some random thoughts that came to mind about the series and its characters / storyline:
Of course, I was attracted to watching this series because of Damian Lau, since he is one of my favorite veteran actors and he never disappoints when it comes to his acting. I actually had high hopes for this series because I hated the previous series that Damian was in ("Drive of Life") and really wanted to see him in a likable role after the lame one in DOL. Well, I got what I wished for because his character in "Catch Me Now" (Jack Ko -- a modern-day 'Robin Hood') was awesome!! I think the reason why I liked the character so much is because he's very close to the way I've always pictured Damian in my mind all these years -- extremely smart and intelligent yet amazingly down to earth and humble, classy and suave but not condescending, cool but not arrogant, great sense of humor that borders on cynical but yet not offensive, displays the perfect amount of compassion and emotion (makes the character human) but not going overboard, a big brother who takes care of those who work for him as though they were family, someone who righteously stands up for what he believes in and fiercely stands by his principles but does so in a way that is not imposing and so easily gets 'buy-in' from those around him (I could actually go on and on with the description of his characteristics, but I'll stop here)....bottom line, I guess you could say the character is very similar to how Damian is in real life.
As much as I loved Damian's character in this series, I didn't like the pairing of him and Idy Chan. I know, TVB pretty much hyped up this series as the 'highly anticipated' comeback of 'Siu Loong Nu' but I really got to say that Idy's performance in the series was ‘disappointing’ at best. It's very obvious that she has been away from acting for a long time because her performance here really lacked emotion and was very wooden -- absolutely nothing like her performance in 'Return of the Condor Heroes', which at that time, bordered on legendary. From the beginning of the series when her character first appeared, I was already wondering what had happened to Idy's voice because it sounded so hoarse and whispy -- I thought that maybe she had a cold or something when she was filming those scenes and so figured that it would go away as the series went on....well, it didn't -- her voice was like that throughout the ENTIRE series, which annoyed me to no end because it was sort of distracting (at least for me). Also, her expressions seemed very forced and unnatural to me, which made her character very unappealing -- it was like she was trying to 're-learn' how to act all over again (and doing a poor job of it).
At first I didn't understand why Idy's acting turned so horrible all of a sudden, but after watching her interview on "Be My Guest", I was able to gain a somewhat better understanding -- apparently, in the years when Idy was less active in the industry, she had taken on a new religion -- I don't remember the name of the religion (though I'm sure it was NOT a 'mainstream' religion like Christianity or Buddhism) and don't want to say the wrong thing, so will leave it at that.....if I remember correctly, in adherence to the religion, she had committed to avoiding sexual desire (or something like that) so she had made it clear when she took on the role in "Catch Me Now" that she would not do any 'intimate' scenes (i.e.: kissing scenes, bedroom scenes, etc.). Of course, in a series, it's hard to completely avoid 'intimate' scenes altogether, especially if you're going to talk about a love relationship between a couple, so I think that's why in certain scenes that were 'somewhat intimate' (i.e.: hugging scenes), Idy came across as very stiff and unnatural (or perhaps it’s just been too long….don’t know)....
Anyway, I personally think that it was a bad decision for Idy to come back and do this series because it totally changed the audience's impression of her (and not for the better). The fact is that many HK viewers nowadays don't look at 'past history' when it comes to judging a person's acting skills and base their perception purely on how they perform in 'current' series (that's why the whole concept of 'veteran comebacks' are so dangerous -- but I'll save that for another post). I'm sure it would have probably been better for people to remember Idy as the 'perfect' Siu Loong Nu from "Return of the Condor Heroes" rather than the horribly acted 'see lai' character from "Catch Me Now". For me, I would have much preferred to see Damian's character paired up with someone else who was more 'worthy' of someone as 'perfect' as Jack Ko....
Moving on to some of the other characters in the series....
I have to say that I was quite impressed with Johnson Lee's performance in the series. Back when I first watched this series a couple years ago, Johnson was still a 'newbie' of sorts and the only other series I had seen him in was the sitcom "Welcome to the House" in which he played a nerdy computer genius (the stereotypical geek: glasses, eccentric personality, etc). Not knowing too much about him at that time, I was amazed at how he was able to play such an opposite character in this series (still a computer genius, but 'cool' and 'suave' rather than geeky) so well....of course, I'm not surprised now, knowing more about him and how talented he is. Also, I actually really liked the pairing of him and Sharon Chan in the series and felt that they complemented each other pretty well (except for the height of course) -- actually, I thought that they were a very cute couple, so I was a bit bummed when they broke up (though obviously they still had feelings for each other). Then, when Johnson's character died, it was even more sad, especially since they were so close to probably getting back together. I actually got teary-eyed during that part because Johnson's character was so endearing, yet they had to make him die so tragically (the fact that I got teary-eyed says something about how moving those scenes were, since very few TVB series are able to move me to tears nowadays -- especially the poorly made ones from recent years). As a sidenote, it's interesting that I didn't get teary-eyed when Damian's character died at the end of the series, yet I got so worked up when Johnson's character died. I think this is probably because with Damian's character, it was pretty much anticipated that he was going to die -- that would have been the only perfect ending for him...whereas with Johnson's character, it was very sudden and unexpected. (Plus I had watched the alternative ending for the series on TVB's website -- which was lame by the way -- and it sort of ruined the whole 'feel' of the ending for me)....
Another character worth mentioning is the villain played by Evergreen Mak. I like Evergreen -- he's definitely on my 'favorites' list in the supporting category. Though I've seen him play both 'good' and 'evil' roles, I actually don't prefer him as the villain because to me, he just doesn't look evil enough....ok, well, perhaps it's because of his chubby physical appearance for one and the fact that he also hosts children's programs on the side -- my image of him has always been of a big, cute teddy bear, so it's quite hard to imagine him as the evil villain....BUT, since he's convincing enough as the villain in this series, I'm totally ok with it (plus it shows his versatility as an actor). One of the things I liked about Evergreen's villain character in this series is that no matter how evil he became, he always showed piety and respect toward his Dad -- whose only goal in life was to get his son to repent from evil and get him back on the path to goodness. True, most of the time, Evergreen's character was 'nice' to his dad because he didn't want him to give away his inheritance money to charity, but there were times when he showed he truly cared (like that one time when the Dad and Jack came up with the plan to 'pretend' to be kidnapped and Evergreen would rather sacrifice ransom money and listen to instructions from the man he hated in order to 'save' his Dad). With that said though, I do have a little bit of a 'riff' with Evergreen's character in this series for killing Johnson's character, since I really liked his character (second only to Damian's character).....needless to say what happens to Evergreen's character in the end (the typical pattern with most villain characters in TVB series)....
Of course, there were alot more people in the cast that I didn't mention (primarily due to time constraints with writing this blog post). I won't go into each one, but I must mention that I especially liked the chemistry between Jack (Damian's character) and his 4 partners (BT, Long Legs, Key Man, and Car God) -- each had their own special skill and together as a team, they would rob the rich to give to charity. It was really fun to watch the entire team in action, constantly outsmarting the police (led by Joe Ma) and at certain points, even indirectly 'helping' them catch bad guys.
Overall, in terms of storyline and characters, this was a great series (with a few exceptions of course). The series is short (20 episodes) and to the point and it does a good job of incorporating suspense, action, drama, comedy, as well as romance together as an entire package. If I didn't already have a long list of series to watch/re-watch, I would definitely choose to re-watch this one again (I could just forward through Idy's parts next time -- the parts that are irrelevant to the main storyline, that is).
LL's Musings 小賢角落
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Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
Review of "The Voice 2" Finale
After 17 weeks, “The Voice 2” is finally over. The finale just finished airing yesterday and the winners have been determined. Not surprisingly, I don’t agree with the results this year and once again, I tend to agree with the sentiment out there that perhaps TVB ‘rigged’ the show to allow their ‘favorite’ to win (more about this later on in the post).
Below are my thoughts regarding the finale and the results:
The episode already didn’t start off well for me because the first thing I noticed right off the bat – why was Teresa Carpio not part of the judging panel for the finale? I had truly thought that she would be there because she had returned to do the judging for the previous 2 episodes after being gone for so long….but yet, she only returned for those 2 episodes and not the most critical one. WTH?? I don’t get the logic behind that at all, especially given the controversy surrounding her departure and the ‘hype’ over her return. So yes, for me, I pretty much already knew the judging would go downhill because of the lack of balance on the judging panel -- Miss Chan Chan, Anthony Lun, and Hanjin are all pretty lenient when it comes to the scoring, Ruth Tsang is pretty consistent and fair, but she's only 1 person and so won't be able to sway the scores too much, and Danny Summer is just plain odd plus his scoring is all over the place…the only ‘strict’ judge on the panel is Chiu Cheng Hei, but then there have been times where I’ve wondered what he’s thinking.
Teresa’s scoring has been consistently fair and appropriate and her comments are always spot on -- she’s pretty straightforward with her judging and from what I can see, she doesn’t give any ‘sympathy’ points to people (which is the way it SHOULD be so that it’s a fair playing field for everyone). Between her and Ruth, they would have been able to balance out the scoring for sure.
So obviously, I was disappointed with the judges (more to come on this later, as I have a lot to say about the actual scoring/judging of the performances).
On to the hosts….in my opinion, Krystal and Sammy talk WAY too much – it’s like, who really cares what they have to say? They aren’t the ‘main characters’ in the finale, the contestants and the judges are, so their (the hosts’) opinions don’t matter to me. I would much rather hear more comments from the judges critiquing the performances rather than all the lame gibberish from the hosts….to me, a lot of time was wasted listening to the hosts talk – time that could have been better spent hearing comments from more judges (we only got to hear the comments from 2 judges, which was not enough, especially for such a critical episode as the finale). Oh, and it was extremely annoying how the hosts (Krystal especially) kept interrupting the judges (not only in this episode, but in previous ones as well) and inserting their own comments / thoughts / reactions – once again, who the hell cares what the hosts think? They’re not the judges for one and two, an effective host – especially in these types of ‘major professional’ shows -- should always be neutral and keeps their own opinions out of it – so by continuing to insert their opinions in each episode, it goes to show the lack of ‘professionalism’ in their hosting.
Now that I got that out of the way, let’s move on to the actual competition itself – the ‘singing battle’ between the 6 contestants who ‘made it’ to the finale. The first part of the show was on determining the top 3 contestants with the highest scores who would be able to move on to the final battle for #1. In part 2, only the 3 highest scoring contestants sang and it was basically to determine the standings (1st, 2nd, 3rd place).
Part 1 – Performances from the Top 6:
First up was leader of the group, Penny Chan. He performed Aska Yang’s song “洋蔥” and ended up scoring 82.8, which was the lowest score of the night. Even though the judges thought he did a good job (at least based on their comments, which again was not in line with their scoring – a common problem throughout this entire season), I really have to disagree. Penny was a bit shaky throughout the performance, though some parts – mainly the chorus – were okay. I don’t know why the judges said they felt that Penny had a lot of emotion in the performance and was very ‘moving’ because to be honest, I didn’t get that feeling at all...perhaps it’s because the original singer (Aska Yang) is REALLY good and is known for putting a lot of emotion into his singing (to the point where he moves fans and audiences to tears with his performances) so since I’m used to hearing his version of this song, Penny’s version just didn’t cut it for me. One thing I will agree with though is that Penny did seem to be a lot more ‘open’ with this performance and less ‘stiff’ than before. I think his score was fair.
Next up was ‘high score king’ Hubert Wu, who performed one of Jam Hsiao’s songs (forgot which one) and received a score of 87 (the second highest of the night). Hubert’s performance was actually pretty good – he was consistent, steady, and barely made any mistakes (except for that 1 part where he went slightly off-key, but it was barely noticeable). I don’t listen to Jam Hsiao’s songs, so I have no clue how Hubert’s rendition compares to the original, however just on its own, I was pretty impressed – Hubert definitely did everything he needed to in terms of singing and skill and he sounded good. In my opinion, he definitely deserved the high score that he received (though it wasn't enough to clinch the #1 spot).
Sheldon Lo performed next – he very bravely performed a song he wrote himself called “Speechless” and also played the guitar while singing. He was REALLY good – the best performance of the night in my opinion. I really like the song – it was very well-written and well-performed (I definitely agree with what judge Ruth Tsang said). His performance sounded really natural and effortless (well, that could be because he’s probably performed this song many times and since he wrote it himself, the familiarity definitely helps). In a nutshell, his performance was pretty much right on – no mistakes made and the song was moving. I also was personally impressed by the fact that he chose to play the guitar while singing the song, especially in such a critical competition because not everyone is cut out to do that (playing an instrument while singing can get distracting for some people because need to keep track of the playing as well as the singing at the same time) – unfortunately, he didn’t get any bonus points for this though (nor did he get extra points for writing the song himself). Throughout this season, Sheldon has pretty much been the only contestant that I actually liked because unlike many of the other contestants, he doesn’t come across as arrogant to me – plus his singing always sounds very natural and carefree…I’m sure he feels a lot of stress and pressure from the competition, but he must have a good way of handling it because it never shows and he doesn’t let it affect his performances. Sheldon’s score was 84.5, which in my opinion, was way too low considering how well he performed. But Sheldon didn’t seem to mind – he was so happy with his score that when the hosts asked him to react, he started talking in English because he was so excited (it was kind of cute and funny at the same time) – now THAT’s the right attitude to have!
Mag Lam – the ‘favorite’ going into the competition – sang next. She performed Kelly Clarkson’s “A Moment Like This” and received a score of 87.8 – the highest score of the night (obviously she gets to advance to the 2nd part). I will reserve majority of my comments about Mag’s overall performance for later, as I have a lot to say about it obviously. In terms of this particular performance, well, it was obvious that Mag wasn’t at 100% -- she actually had a vocal cord infection, which affected her performance. I, for one, found it even more difficult to understand what she was singing – the vocal cord issue made the already ‘nasally’ rendition even worse…plus she was very apparently off-key on a few parts. Some people may say that her performance was ‘touching’ but I personally did NOT feel or see it – I got too distracted by all the other stuff to be ‘moved’ by her performance. It was very obvious even to the judges that Mag’s performance was not up to par, as Miss Chan Chan even said so herself….so I guess my question is why did she still manage to get the highest score out of the 6 performances? (She received 2 scores in the 90s and the rest in the high 80s, which is why it averaged out to 87.8 in the end.) I would have really liked to hear from all the judges – especially the ones who gave her the highest scores – to understand the reasoning behind it.
Some people may feel that it would be unfair to Mag to score her lower for her performance just because she is sick, since she’s been getting high scores throughout the entire season. My argument against this -- it’s even more unfair to the other contestants who gave their all in their performances but weren’t rewarded with the appropriate scores because Mag has an ‘excellent track record’ and let’s not blemish it by giving her a low score despite her performance not being up to par. If the winners are supposed to be determined based on their past performances rather than by their performances that night, then what’s the point of having them sing in the finale? Mag having consistently high scores should not have anything to do with the finale or whether she wins or not because the scoring is not cumulative – the high scores in the previous episodes allowed her to pass and not get eliminated so she could be in the finale and possibly get a shot at winning – it should not be the determining factor for winning….
Also, once again, I question what the point is for the hosts to mention Mag’s illness – is it to gain sympathy points from the judges? I can understand if the judges asked why she performed so poorly and the answer given was because of illness – but mentioning it before the performance? Why? To extract sympathy from the audience and judges from the get-go so they can be lenient on the scoring? Well, that’s the way I saw it – and it annoys me to no end. With regard to Mag’s vocal cord infection and how it affected her performance -- this may sound mean, but I will say the same thing I said about Vivan when she performed while she was ill -- TOO BAD....if the contestant happens to get sick prior to the competition, it's unfortunate and I hope they get better soon, but that doesn't mean he/she should get sympathy points from the judges for it, especially not in a 'supposedly' professional singing competition.
Ok, enough about Mag (for now). The next person to perform was James Ng (also known as Kwan Gor). He sang Na Ying’s “夢醒了“ and scored 83.3, which was the second lowest score of the night. I actually don’t know what to make of his performance….he wasn’t bad, but I didn’t really feel it was a ‘wow’ type of performance either. But at least he didn’t make the types of mistakes that he did mid-season when he sort of ‘lost his way’ and struggled with finding direction. I heard today that a lot of netizens and Kwan Gor supporters are upset that he didn’t get into the top 3 with his performance and that he should have – can’t say whether I agree or disagree…his performance overall was ‘okay’ to me.
The last performer of the night was Brian Tse (aka Station One Leon Lai) who did a song by Taiwanese artist Fan Yi Chen and scored 84.1. He pretty much came in fourth, as Sheldon beat him out for the 3rd place spot by 0.4 points. I’m actually okay with his score this time around because even though he sang well, I really wasn’t as moved by his performance as I was with Sheldon’s. Also, Brian has the same problem that Penny does – the ‘stiffness’ that perhaps just comes with nervousness and limited stage experience. I definitely think that Brian could have done better, as I’ve seen more emotion from him in a few previous performances – but overall, it wasn’t too bad.
So based on the above scoring, Sheldon, Hubert, and Mag advanced to the final (part 2).
Part 2: Top 3 singing one song ‘Unplugged’
Sheldon performed first and sang “Apologize” by One Republic. Then Hubert performed one of Fish Leong’s songs. Lastly, Mag performed Elton John’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”.
Instead of scoring the second part separately on the show, they ended up combining the totals from the first round and whoever had the highest total score was the winner. Even though they didn’t announce the score for the Unplugged round, based on calculation, Sheldon received a score of 86, Hubert got 84.3, and Mag got 83.7. Okay, I have to say that Sheldon definitely deserved to win this round and Mag rightfully got the lowest score (did the judges finally wake up or what?) – but of course, since her score from the first round was so high, she ended up winning (though she only beat Hubert by 0.2 points overall).
Final Thoughts:
In a sense, I’m not too surprised that Mag won (though whether she deserved it or not is another story) – since it was clear from the beginning that Mag was slated to be ‘the one’ this season. She’s been getting consistently high scores on every single episode, even for performances where she was so-so…and the judges seemed to have completely ignored both her consistently unclear pronunciation as well as her nose condition that causes her singing to sound deep and ‘nasally’. Actually, to be honest, as I was writing this post, something clicked in my head and I realize now why Mag is so popular despite her singing being so-so (plus her nasal and pronunciation problem) -- IMO, she manages to pick songs where she can sing one part extremely well that leaves an impression with the audience so even if the rest of her performance is average (or difficult to understand), that one part is what people remember and the rest forgotten. For example, with the A.I.N.Y performance last time (which is what made her such a Youtube sensation), the only part that I remember about the entire performance is the "yeah yeah yeah" part, which she did sing quite well -- the rest, I can't remember (probably because I couldn't even understand anything she sang the rest of the time due to her pronunciation problem). I don't get the hype over the A.I.N.Y song either, so I can only attribute it to the above theory. Same with her "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" performance from the finale -- the only part she did well with that song was the chorus, the rest of it was so-so....I actually think that Sheldon and Hubert sang much better than Mag, yet they lost out to her....
(As a sidenote: I read in an article last week where someone said that the fact that Mag's A.I.N.Y. video got so many hits on Youtube proves that her performance was good -- that's just a bunch of BS -- just because a video has alot of 'hits' doesn't mean the performance was good -- there could be alot of reasons why there are that many hits -- for example, some people who missed that particular episode of V2 may have wanted to watch it, so dug up segments on YT, or it could just be the curiosity factor -- people could have read about it and were just curious to see what the hype was about...)
I actually think that Sheldon did REALLY well with both of his performances and actually outperformed Mag big-time.....but since the judges and TVB favor Mag, of course they were going to make her the winner...I feel that the judging was way too biased towards Mag -- well, it always has been, but this time it was VERY obvious because Mag's performance was not good at all (I actually cringed listening to her sing and kept wishing for it to be over) -- yet, she got the highest score for that poor performance??? Most of the other contestants sang better than she did, yet they got lower scores than her! It's no wonder that all the rumors are circulating right now that TVB 'rigged' the show so Mag could win....
Below are my thoughts regarding the finale and the results:
The episode already didn’t start off well for me because the first thing I noticed right off the bat – why was Teresa Carpio not part of the judging panel for the finale? I had truly thought that she would be there because she had returned to do the judging for the previous 2 episodes after being gone for so long….but yet, she only returned for those 2 episodes and not the most critical one. WTH?? I don’t get the logic behind that at all, especially given the controversy surrounding her departure and the ‘hype’ over her return. So yes, for me, I pretty much already knew the judging would go downhill because of the lack of balance on the judging panel -- Miss Chan Chan, Anthony Lun, and Hanjin are all pretty lenient when it comes to the scoring, Ruth Tsang is pretty consistent and fair, but she's only 1 person and so won't be able to sway the scores too much, and Danny Summer is just plain odd plus his scoring is all over the place…the only ‘strict’ judge on the panel is Chiu Cheng Hei, but then there have been times where I’ve wondered what he’s thinking.
Teresa’s scoring has been consistently fair and appropriate and her comments are always spot on -- she’s pretty straightforward with her judging and from what I can see, she doesn’t give any ‘sympathy’ points to people (which is the way it SHOULD be so that it’s a fair playing field for everyone). Between her and Ruth, they would have been able to balance out the scoring for sure.
So obviously, I was disappointed with the judges (more to come on this later, as I have a lot to say about the actual scoring/judging of the performances).
On to the hosts….in my opinion, Krystal and Sammy talk WAY too much – it’s like, who really cares what they have to say? They aren’t the ‘main characters’ in the finale, the contestants and the judges are, so their (the hosts’) opinions don’t matter to me. I would much rather hear more comments from the judges critiquing the performances rather than all the lame gibberish from the hosts….to me, a lot of time was wasted listening to the hosts talk – time that could have been better spent hearing comments from more judges (we only got to hear the comments from 2 judges, which was not enough, especially for such a critical episode as the finale). Oh, and it was extremely annoying how the hosts (Krystal especially) kept interrupting the judges (not only in this episode, but in previous ones as well) and inserting their own comments / thoughts / reactions – once again, who the hell cares what the hosts think? They’re not the judges for one and two, an effective host – especially in these types of ‘major professional’ shows -- should always be neutral and keeps their own opinions out of it – so by continuing to insert their opinions in each episode, it goes to show the lack of ‘professionalism’ in their hosting.
Now that I got that out of the way, let’s move on to the actual competition itself – the ‘singing battle’ between the 6 contestants who ‘made it’ to the finale. The first part of the show was on determining the top 3 contestants with the highest scores who would be able to move on to the final battle for #1. In part 2, only the 3 highest scoring contestants sang and it was basically to determine the standings (1st, 2nd, 3rd place).
Part 1 – Performances from the Top 6:
First up was leader of the group, Penny Chan. He performed Aska Yang’s song “洋蔥” and ended up scoring 82.8, which was the lowest score of the night. Even though the judges thought he did a good job (at least based on their comments, which again was not in line with their scoring – a common problem throughout this entire season), I really have to disagree. Penny was a bit shaky throughout the performance, though some parts – mainly the chorus – were okay. I don’t know why the judges said they felt that Penny had a lot of emotion in the performance and was very ‘moving’ because to be honest, I didn’t get that feeling at all...perhaps it’s because the original singer (Aska Yang) is REALLY good and is known for putting a lot of emotion into his singing (to the point where he moves fans and audiences to tears with his performances) so since I’m used to hearing his version of this song, Penny’s version just didn’t cut it for me. One thing I will agree with though is that Penny did seem to be a lot more ‘open’ with this performance and less ‘stiff’ than before. I think his score was fair.
Next up was ‘high score king’ Hubert Wu, who performed one of Jam Hsiao’s songs (forgot which one) and received a score of 87 (the second highest of the night). Hubert’s performance was actually pretty good – he was consistent, steady, and barely made any mistakes (except for that 1 part where he went slightly off-key, but it was barely noticeable). I don’t listen to Jam Hsiao’s songs, so I have no clue how Hubert’s rendition compares to the original, however just on its own, I was pretty impressed – Hubert definitely did everything he needed to in terms of singing and skill and he sounded good. In my opinion, he definitely deserved the high score that he received (though it wasn't enough to clinch the #1 spot).
Sheldon Lo performed next – he very bravely performed a song he wrote himself called “Speechless” and also played the guitar while singing. He was REALLY good – the best performance of the night in my opinion. I really like the song – it was very well-written and well-performed (I definitely agree with what judge Ruth Tsang said). His performance sounded really natural and effortless (well, that could be because he’s probably performed this song many times and since he wrote it himself, the familiarity definitely helps). In a nutshell, his performance was pretty much right on – no mistakes made and the song was moving. I also was personally impressed by the fact that he chose to play the guitar while singing the song, especially in such a critical competition because not everyone is cut out to do that (playing an instrument while singing can get distracting for some people because need to keep track of the playing as well as the singing at the same time) – unfortunately, he didn’t get any bonus points for this though (nor did he get extra points for writing the song himself). Throughout this season, Sheldon has pretty much been the only contestant that I actually liked because unlike many of the other contestants, he doesn’t come across as arrogant to me – plus his singing always sounds very natural and carefree…I’m sure he feels a lot of stress and pressure from the competition, but he must have a good way of handling it because it never shows and he doesn’t let it affect his performances. Sheldon’s score was 84.5, which in my opinion, was way too low considering how well he performed. But Sheldon didn’t seem to mind – he was so happy with his score that when the hosts asked him to react, he started talking in English because he was so excited (it was kind of cute and funny at the same time) – now THAT’s the right attitude to have!
Mag Lam – the ‘favorite’ going into the competition – sang next. She performed Kelly Clarkson’s “A Moment Like This” and received a score of 87.8 – the highest score of the night (obviously she gets to advance to the 2nd part). I will reserve majority of my comments about Mag’s overall performance for later, as I have a lot to say about it obviously. In terms of this particular performance, well, it was obvious that Mag wasn’t at 100% -- she actually had a vocal cord infection, which affected her performance. I, for one, found it even more difficult to understand what she was singing – the vocal cord issue made the already ‘nasally’ rendition even worse…plus she was very apparently off-key on a few parts. Some people may say that her performance was ‘touching’ but I personally did NOT feel or see it – I got too distracted by all the other stuff to be ‘moved’ by her performance. It was very obvious even to the judges that Mag’s performance was not up to par, as Miss Chan Chan even said so herself….so I guess my question is why did she still manage to get the highest score out of the 6 performances? (She received 2 scores in the 90s and the rest in the high 80s, which is why it averaged out to 87.8 in the end.) I would have really liked to hear from all the judges – especially the ones who gave her the highest scores – to understand the reasoning behind it.
Some people may feel that it would be unfair to Mag to score her lower for her performance just because she is sick, since she’s been getting high scores throughout the entire season. My argument against this -- it’s even more unfair to the other contestants who gave their all in their performances but weren’t rewarded with the appropriate scores because Mag has an ‘excellent track record’ and let’s not blemish it by giving her a low score despite her performance not being up to par. If the winners are supposed to be determined based on their past performances rather than by their performances that night, then what’s the point of having them sing in the finale? Mag having consistently high scores should not have anything to do with the finale or whether she wins or not because the scoring is not cumulative – the high scores in the previous episodes allowed her to pass and not get eliminated so she could be in the finale and possibly get a shot at winning – it should not be the determining factor for winning….
Also, once again, I question what the point is for the hosts to mention Mag’s illness – is it to gain sympathy points from the judges? I can understand if the judges asked why she performed so poorly and the answer given was because of illness – but mentioning it before the performance? Why? To extract sympathy from the audience and judges from the get-go so they can be lenient on the scoring? Well, that’s the way I saw it – and it annoys me to no end. With regard to Mag’s vocal cord infection and how it affected her performance -- this may sound mean, but I will say the same thing I said about Vivan when she performed while she was ill -- TOO BAD....if the contestant happens to get sick prior to the competition, it's unfortunate and I hope they get better soon, but that doesn't mean he/she should get sympathy points from the judges for it, especially not in a 'supposedly' professional singing competition.
Ok, enough about Mag (for now). The next person to perform was James Ng (also known as Kwan Gor). He sang Na Ying’s “夢醒了“ and scored 83.3, which was the second lowest score of the night. I actually don’t know what to make of his performance….he wasn’t bad, but I didn’t really feel it was a ‘wow’ type of performance either. But at least he didn’t make the types of mistakes that he did mid-season when he sort of ‘lost his way’ and struggled with finding direction. I heard today that a lot of netizens and Kwan Gor supporters are upset that he didn’t get into the top 3 with his performance and that he should have – can’t say whether I agree or disagree…his performance overall was ‘okay’ to me.
The last performer of the night was Brian Tse (aka Station One Leon Lai) who did a song by Taiwanese artist Fan Yi Chen and scored 84.1. He pretty much came in fourth, as Sheldon beat him out for the 3rd place spot by 0.4 points. I’m actually okay with his score this time around because even though he sang well, I really wasn’t as moved by his performance as I was with Sheldon’s. Also, Brian has the same problem that Penny does – the ‘stiffness’ that perhaps just comes with nervousness and limited stage experience. I definitely think that Brian could have done better, as I’ve seen more emotion from him in a few previous performances – but overall, it wasn’t too bad.
So based on the above scoring, Sheldon, Hubert, and Mag advanced to the final (part 2).
Part 2: Top 3 singing one song ‘Unplugged’
Sheldon performed first and sang “Apologize” by One Republic. Then Hubert performed one of Fish Leong’s songs. Lastly, Mag performed Elton John’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”.
Instead of scoring the second part separately on the show, they ended up combining the totals from the first round and whoever had the highest total score was the winner. Even though they didn’t announce the score for the Unplugged round, based on calculation, Sheldon received a score of 86, Hubert got 84.3, and Mag got 83.7. Okay, I have to say that Sheldon definitely deserved to win this round and Mag rightfully got the lowest score (did the judges finally wake up or what?) – but of course, since her score from the first round was so high, she ended up winning (though she only beat Hubert by 0.2 points overall).
Final Thoughts:
In a sense, I’m not too surprised that Mag won (though whether she deserved it or not is another story) – since it was clear from the beginning that Mag was slated to be ‘the one’ this season. She’s been getting consistently high scores on every single episode, even for performances where she was so-so…and the judges seemed to have completely ignored both her consistently unclear pronunciation as well as her nose condition that causes her singing to sound deep and ‘nasally’. Actually, to be honest, as I was writing this post, something clicked in my head and I realize now why Mag is so popular despite her singing being so-so (plus her nasal and pronunciation problem) -- IMO, she manages to pick songs where she can sing one part extremely well that leaves an impression with the audience so even if the rest of her performance is average (or difficult to understand), that one part is what people remember and the rest forgotten. For example, with the A.I.N.Y performance last time (which is what made her such a Youtube sensation), the only part that I remember about the entire performance is the "yeah yeah yeah" part, which she did sing quite well -- the rest, I can't remember (probably because I couldn't even understand anything she sang the rest of the time due to her pronunciation problem). I don't get the hype over the A.I.N.Y song either, so I can only attribute it to the above theory. Same with her "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" performance from the finale -- the only part she did well with that song was the chorus, the rest of it was so-so....I actually think that Sheldon and Hubert sang much better than Mag, yet they lost out to her....
(As a sidenote: I read in an article last week where someone said that the fact that Mag's A.I.N.Y. video got so many hits on Youtube proves that her performance was good -- that's just a bunch of BS -- just because a video has alot of 'hits' doesn't mean the performance was good -- there could be alot of reasons why there are that many hits -- for example, some people who missed that particular episode of V2 may have wanted to watch it, so dug up segments on YT, or it could just be the curiosity factor -- people could have read about it and were just curious to see what the hype was about...)
I actually think that Sheldon did REALLY well with both of his performances and actually outperformed Mag big-time.....but since the judges and TVB favor Mag, of course they were going to make her the winner...I feel that the judging was way too biased towards Mag -- well, it always has been, but this time it was VERY obvious because Mag's performance was not good at all (I actually cringed listening to her sing and kept wishing for it to be over) -- yet, she got the highest score for that poor performance??? Most of the other contestants sang better than she did, yet they got lower scores than her! It's no wonder that all the rumors are circulating right now that TVB 'rigged' the show so Mag could win....
Thursday, September 9, 2010
“Seven Sisters 七姊妹” – My Thoughts
Just finished watching another good series during my 3 days of vacation – “Seven Sisters” starring Gallen Lo, Charmaine Sheh, Kwong Wah, Anne Heung, Florence Kwok, Annie Man, etc. I must say that I was initially attracted to this series because of the cast, since I’ve always liked both Gallen and Kwong Wah as actors, plus the rest of the cast is tolerable. But as I watched, I ended up liking the storyline as well -- the series really did a good job of combining romance, comedy, and drama all into one, which is very rare for a series, especially one from TVB. I must give the script-writers credit this time around for creating a story that brought tears to my eyes almost the entire time I watched – whether it was happy tears from all the funny (and at times silly) scenes or sad tears from the touching dramatic scenes (which there were also plenty of). It’s been awhile since I’ve watched a series that took me on such an emotional roller coaster (I think the last one I saw that had a similar effect was “Reaching Out”), but that’s ok, since someone like me who is constantly looking to watch “quality” shows and doesn’t want to waste time with ‘garbage’ shows welcomes these types of good series.
Of course, as with many of the series made after year 2000, the “quality” may not be able to live up to those of the 80s and 90s and this particular series certainly has its flaws, but overall, I still enjoyed this series greatly and truly felt that it was one of the better ones made during this era.
Gallen is paired up with Charmaine in this series, which is pretty refreshing to me because I don’t recall them being paired up before in a series (if my memory serves me right). I’ve always felt that Gallen’s acting is best brought forth when he is paired up with an actress who is closer to his age (such as Jessica Hsuan, Melissa Ng, Kenix Kwok, Flora Chan, etc.) and that’s why – despite how much I like his acting and his series – it pains me to watch the ones where he is paired up with ‘younger’ generation actresses who don’t match him at all (Myolie Wu, for example). Therefore, I was actually a bit surprised that I found Gallen and Charmaine’s pairing so refreshing – I think part of the credit can be given to the scriptwriters for not going too overboard with their relationship and making it both comedic (in the first half of the series) and tragic (in the second half)…in fact, I got a bit teary-eyed at the end with what happens to Gallen and Charmaine, even though I already knew it was going to happen, since the storyline was a bit predictable (especially for someone like me who has watched so many TVB series). Of course, Gallen’s superb acting (as usual) played a huge part in me liking the series – he never disappoints, no matter what type of role he is given and how good or bad the storyline is….this is why when I see that Gallen is part of the cast, I will try to watch the series in its entirety, even if it is painful to do (i.e.: the forgettable “When a Dog Loves A Cat”, which I hated) because to me, just watching him demonstrate his great acting skills is already a treat in itself (which is why he is among my short list of ‘favorite’ TV actors – right up there with Sunny Chan, Roger Kwok, Wayne Lai, and Damian Lau – just to name a few).
Charmaine’s character in the series actually reminded me of the role that made her famous – Gwan Ho from “Return of the Cuckoo” – young, loud-mouthed, talkative, willful, headstrong, spoiled brat…I actually felt that her character bordered on ‘annoying’ at certain parts, but I still feel that this was one of Charmaine’s better performances – and I must admit that her acting was quite convincing in this series. Also, at least with the way her character was written, it made sense that she would be ‘annoying’, since she’s a young rich girl who has been spoiled her entire life by her grandfather. And even though her relationship with Gallen in the series was predictable and follows the typical TVB pattern (bickering foes turned loving couple), I still found myself laughing during their bickering scenes and getting teary-eyed during their emotional life and death scenes.
In terms of the other ‘relationship’ in this series – the one between Anne Heung, Kwong Wah, and Florence Kwok – I felt that it was quite interesting. True, some parts of the storyline revolving around these 3 was very implausible and didn’t make sense at times, but it was moving enough that I was able to ‘forgive’ the improbable parts. With that said though, the one thing I didn’t like was how the storyline revolving around these 3 ended so abruptly – I mean, in the last 5 episodes or so, they were barely talked about at all…as I was watching the last few episodes, I kept thinking that there may be more to their story, but it turns out there wasn’t. I guess I was a little confused (and just a tad disappointed) because the way the rest of the series was set up, it seemed as though the storyline involving Kwong Wah, Anne, and Florence was the primary one and the one involving Gallen and Charmaine was secondary….but it turns out that it was the other way around. Not that I didn’t enjoy the Gallen and Charmaine storyline, but I just felt that the Anne/Kwong Wah/Florence one was more interesting – plus I really like Kwong Wah’s acting as well and with him being in so few series, it’s rare that I get to see him in action. I also really liked his character in this series so I was hoping to see more of him, but the way the series ended, the focus was pretty much on Gallen and Charmaine. Despite the fact that I really liked Kwong Wah’s character, I must say that I really hated Florence Kwok’s character in the series and even though I pretty much knew that Kwong Wah’s character would end up staying with her (another ‘typical’ pattern), I was sort of holding out hope that somehow, he wouldn’t – I definitely took to the Kwong Wah / Anne Heung pairing more (plus they've done several series together already, so their pairing gave me more of a 'familiar' feeling).
I don’t want to spoil the ending, so all I am going to say is that if I were the script writer, I would definitely handle the Kwong Wah / Anne / Florence storyline differently.
One of the things that I didn’t like was how some of the characters that were put into the series really didn’t need to be there – it was sort of pointless, since the characters served no real purpose and didn’t really further the storyline. Specifically, I am referring to Shirley Cheung’s Character Yuen Yuen (Gallen’s ex-girlfriend) and Eddie Cheung’s character Jan Cheung (the ‘villain’ who ends up taking Shirley away from Gallen). Both artists were in very few scenes and their storyline was actually sort of stupid (in my opinion), so I felt that it was just a waste of time for them as well as for the audience. I think that the series could have been cut down to 30 episodes (from 32) if they took out all of the ‘junk’ and other ‘fluff’ that really didn’t need to be there. It would have made the series better in terms of quality.
Despite its flaws and some nonsensical scenes, I still very much enjoyed this series and would definitely recommend it to others. A word of warning though – the series definitely takes the audience on an emotional roller coaster (happiness, sadness, anger, etc.), so I would recommend watching it with a box of tissues handy for one, and two, remember that it is only a TV series – don’t take it so seriously or else you may get yourself ‘riled up’ (like I did) at some of the ‘anger-provoking’ parts.
Of course, as with many of the series made after year 2000, the “quality” may not be able to live up to those of the 80s and 90s and this particular series certainly has its flaws, but overall, I still enjoyed this series greatly and truly felt that it was one of the better ones made during this era.
Gallen is paired up with Charmaine in this series, which is pretty refreshing to me because I don’t recall them being paired up before in a series (if my memory serves me right). I’ve always felt that Gallen’s acting is best brought forth when he is paired up with an actress who is closer to his age (such as Jessica Hsuan, Melissa Ng, Kenix Kwok, Flora Chan, etc.) and that’s why – despite how much I like his acting and his series – it pains me to watch the ones where he is paired up with ‘younger’ generation actresses who don’t match him at all (Myolie Wu, for example). Therefore, I was actually a bit surprised that I found Gallen and Charmaine’s pairing so refreshing – I think part of the credit can be given to the scriptwriters for not going too overboard with their relationship and making it both comedic (in the first half of the series) and tragic (in the second half)…in fact, I got a bit teary-eyed at the end with what happens to Gallen and Charmaine, even though I already knew it was going to happen, since the storyline was a bit predictable (especially for someone like me who has watched so many TVB series). Of course, Gallen’s superb acting (as usual) played a huge part in me liking the series – he never disappoints, no matter what type of role he is given and how good or bad the storyline is….this is why when I see that Gallen is part of the cast, I will try to watch the series in its entirety, even if it is painful to do (i.e.: the forgettable “When a Dog Loves A Cat”, which I hated) because to me, just watching him demonstrate his great acting skills is already a treat in itself (which is why he is among my short list of ‘favorite’ TV actors – right up there with Sunny Chan, Roger Kwok, Wayne Lai, and Damian Lau – just to name a few).
Charmaine’s character in the series actually reminded me of the role that made her famous – Gwan Ho from “Return of the Cuckoo” – young, loud-mouthed, talkative, willful, headstrong, spoiled brat…I actually felt that her character bordered on ‘annoying’ at certain parts, but I still feel that this was one of Charmaine’s better performances – and I must admit that her acting was quite convincing in this series. Also, at least with the way her character was written, it made sense that she would be ‘annoying’, since she’s a young rich girl who has been spoiled her entire life by her grandfather. And even though her relationship with Gallen in the series was predictable and follows the typical TVB pattern (bickering foes turned loving couple), I still found myself laughing during their bickering scenes and getting teary-eyed during their emotional life and death scenes.
In terms of the other ‘relationship’ in this series – the one between Anne Heung, Kwong Wah, and Florence Kwok – I felt that it was quite interesting. True, some parts of the storyline revolving around these 3 was very implausible and didn’t make sense at times, but it was moving enough that I was able to ‘forgive’ the improbable parts. With that said though, the one thing I didn’t like was how the storyline revolving around these 3 ended so abruptly – I mean, in the last 5 episodes or so, they were barely talked about at all…as I was watching the last few episodes, I kept thinking that there may be more to their story, but it turns out there wasn’t. I guess I was a little confused (and just a tad disappointed) because the way the rest of the series was set up, it seemed as though the storyline involving Kwong Wah, Anne, and Florence was the primary one and the one involving Gallen and Charmaine was secondary….but it turns out that it was the other way around. Not that I didn’t enjoy the Gallen and Charmaine storyline, but I just felt that the Anne/Kwong Wah/Florence one was more interesting – plus I really like Kwong Wah’s acting as well and with him being in so few series, it’s rare that I get to see him in action. I also really liked his character in this series so I was hoping to see more of him, but the way the series ended, the focus was pretty much on Gallen and Charmaine. Despite the fact that I really liked Kwong Wah’s character, I must say that I really hated Florence Kwok’s character in the series and even though I pretty much knew that Kwong Wah’s character would end up staying with her (another ‘typical’ pattern), I was sort of holding out hope that somehow, he wouldn’t – I definitely took to the Kwong Wah / Anne Heung pairing more (plus they've done several series together already, so their pairing gave me more of a 'familiar' feeling).
I don’t want to spoil the ending, so all I am going to say is that if I were the script writer, I would definitely handle the Kwong Wah / Anne / Florence storyline differently.
One of the things that I didn’t like was how some of the characters that were put into the series really didn’t need to be there – it was sort of pointless, since the characters served no real purpose and didn’t really further the storyline. Specifically, I am referring to Shirley Cheung’s Character Yuen Yuen (Gallen’s ex-girlfriend) and Eddie Cheung’s character Jan Cheung (the ‘villain’ who ends up taking Shirley away from Gallen). Both artists were in very few scenes and their storyline was actually sort of stupid (in my opinion), so I felt that it was just a waste of time for them as well as for the audience. I think that the series could have been cut down to 30 episodes (from 32) if they took out all of the ‘junk’ and other ‘fluff’ that really didn’t need to be there. It would have made the series better in terms of quality.
Despite its flaws and some nonsensical scenes, I still very much enjoyed this series and would definitely recommend it to others. A word of warning though – the series definitely takes the audience on an emotional roller coaster (happiness, sadness, anger, etc.), so I would recommend watching it with a box of tissues handy for one, and two, remember that it is only a TV series – don’t take it so seriously or else you may get yourself ‘riled up’ (like I did) at some of the ‘anger-provoking’ parts.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
My Thoughts on “Burning Flame 烈火雄心 3”
Just finished watching this series and figured I would post some comments about it. To be honest, I really didn't pay a whole lot of attention to some parts of the series, since I pretty much got bored, so technically, I can't really say that I "watched" the entire series (meaning I probably won't even remember much of it after this and most likely won't bother watching it again any time soon). Therefore, I am only going to comment on a few points that sort of 'stuck out' for me.
First, I must say that the original installment of "Burning Flame" (the one from 1999 with Wong Hei, Esther Kwan, Louis Koo, etc.) was way better and even the second installment was not bad (primarily due to the cast, which was quite impressive at that time). I actually wasn't even planning on watching the 3rd installment of this series because 1) I didn't even finish watching the 2nd installment and 2) I don't like the cast at all (the only one I'm able to tolerate from the cast is Wong Hei, but I hated his character in this series -- more on this later). So why did I watch it? For the simple reason that it was airing on TV and since I hadn't seen it yet, figured I would give it a try (I was multi-tasking at the same time, of course, which meant that I wasn't "seriously" watching the series).
The plot / storyline
Ok, so let's look at the plot / storyline of this series -- wait, was there actually a storyline? Well, if there was, it wasn't very appealing, since I barely remember any of it. The only things I remember from this series were the "grand" fire scenes and rescue attempts -- other than that, there really wasn't anything worth remembering....the rest of the series was pretty boring. Also, whoever wrote the script for this series must not be entirely in touch with reality because some of the scenes were REALLY far-fetched -- to the point where at certain parts, I was saying to myself: "And they expect us (the audience) to believe this???? Do they (TVB) think we are stupid?"
Two examples of this that really stuck out:
1) The scene where Bosco and Aimee are doing a rescue mission and are dangling from a rope atop a tall building....they end up falling (I don't know exactly how many stories but it seemed like alot) from the building and landing UNSCATHED on the huge bouncy tarp that the firemen put out 'just in time' right beneath them. Sound a bit far-fetched already? Well, wait til you hear the next part....at this point in the series, Aimee's character is 2 months pregnant -- and after 'the fall', everything was 'perfectly fine': no scratches, no bruises, and absolutely no harm was done to the fetus. In fact, she was pretty much able to get up from the tarp and 'walk away'.
Maybe it's just me, but this scene was really unbelievable -- I mean, any doctor (and probably any woman who has any knowledge of how pregnancies work) can tell you that the first 3 months when a woman is pregnant is the most delicate and dangerous because the fetus is not stable yet and the risk of miscarriage is extremely high. This is why most women (celebrities, for example) don't like to announce their pregnancies until after the 3rd month -- this is especially true with Chinese women, since our culture is traditionally very superstitious about this kind of stuff.
So then how is it that Aimee's character is able to fall from a 15 story (at least) burning building during the most delicate time of her pregnancy (when the risk of losing the baby is sky high and even a task as 'normal' as walking too long, stretching, or just being under too much stress could cause a miscarriage) and come away without as much of a scratch and still be VERY MUCH PREGNANT?!?!?!? I mean, that's unbelievable to the point of being outrageous!! I don't know about anyone else, but when I was watching that scene, I felt like they (TVB, the scriptwriters, the producer, etc.) were insulting my intelligence!
2) The other scene was the one where Kevin and Myolie get into a major traffic accident -- the car is flipped on its side and is in danger of blowing up. Myolie isn't able to get out of the car because her foot is stuck and Kevin is trying hard to pull her out. The fire trucks arrive, but before they are even able to get their equipment off their trucks, Kevin pulls Myolie out of the wreckage and both are shown running for cover just as the car blows up in a ball of flames (sound familiar? yep, typical TVB -- they use this 'action sequence' in almost every series, it seems). The next scene is a short 'hospital' scene where it shows that both Myolie and Kevin only suffered a minor injury from the accident (Myolie had a sprained foot and Kevin had a bruise on his head) -- then the next scene jumps to them all perfectly recovered, holding hands and walking in a shopping mall.
Ok, I'm not saying that there should be a major injury after every accident and I agree that miracles do happen sometimes -- but it's EXTREMELY rare....especially with an accident of that magnitude. And the 'choppiness' of the subsequent scenes made it seem even more unrealistic because it's as though the accident scene happened just to showcase the 'special effects' and then it was pretty much glossed over after that. Though I didn't feel as strongly about this scene insulting my intelligence as the other one did, I still felt it was pretty unrealistic.
The cast
As I stated earlier, I would not have chosen to watch this series on my own accord because I don't like the cast. Those who are familiar with my TVB viewing habits know that I can't stand the younger / later generation of TVB artists because their acting skills are severely lacking yet TVB over-promotes them and pushes them constantly in front of our faces. I won't get into all the 'political' stuff here (saving it for another TVB rant later on down the road) -- the one thing to note is that Kevin and Myolie are on my 'least favorite' TVB aritists list and I've never liked Bosco or Aimee. Out of the main cast, the only artist I am able to tolerate is Wong Hei because his acting has always been quite good and consistent. So obviously, this series was pretty much already doomed for me from the beginning, since the only thing that made the series possibly 'worth watching' would have been Wong Hei...
BUT....even that last glimmer of 'possibly worth watching' was ruined for me because Wong Hei's character in this series totally SUCKED!!! His character had a bad temper, was very irrational, was always acting brashly without thinking, was unreasonably stubborn, etc etc. I especially got annoyed over how 'obsessed' his character was with Myolie's character, becoming a 'tortured soul' when she broke up with him and even to the point of committing suicide for her....I mean, come on -- GET OVER IT!!!!
With how poorly his character was written, I was wondering why TVB bothered putting him in this series at all -- he didn't have a whole lot of screen time compared to Kevin and Bosco for one, and his character was in a coma for a huge chunk of the series anyway. As is typical of the way their politics work, I'm guessing that TVB probably put Wong Hei in this series purely because of his tenure and association with the "Burning Flames" franchise -- he pretty much started the whole 'fireman craze' back in the 90s and became hugely popular after the first installment -- to the point where over the years, when the audiences think of "Burning Flame", they automatically think of Wong Hei. So for the series to not include him, it probably would have been weird -- but still....if they are going to include him, give him a decent character to play at least!
In terms of Kevin -- well, his acting was the same as usual -- bland and wooden....plus I didn't care for his character at all -- it's like he's pretty much there just to take up screen time. Even Bosco's performance and character were better than Kevin's!! At least Bosco's character was interesting and provided some 'comic relief' in an otherwise depressing series (I actually laughed at his funny reactions to things in some of the scenes) – but overall, I’m still not too keen on watching Bosco’s series though.
And I’m not even going to comment on Myolie – all I’m going to say is that I absolutely HATED her character in this series!! I’ve never been fond of her acting in the first place (yes, there IS a reason why I don’t like to watch her series!!!).
In conclusion…..
It’s sad, but the only ‘character’ I actually enjoyed watching in this entire series was one that’s not even listed in the cast list during the closing credits – Bosco’s shar-pei dog Kapun (also his dog in real life). Perhaps because I have an affinity for Shar-pei dogs (I think they’re adorably cute!), so I was really drawn to this one (come on, how could you not love that cute little pouting face??). I was sort of disappointed that Kapun was only in the first half of the series though (ok, which darn writer was it who wrote him out of the series??) – since the ‘character’ I enjoyed the most was gone, the series pretty much went downhill for me after that.
First, I must say that the original installment of "Burning Flame" (the one from 1999 with Wong Hei, Esther Kwan, Louis Koo, etc.) was way better and even the second installment was not bad (primarily due to the cast, which was quite impressive at that time). I actually wasn't even planning on watching the 3rd installment of this series because 1) I didn't even finish watching the 2nd installment and 2) I don't like the cast at all (the only one I'm able to tolerate from the cast is Wong Hei, but I hated his character in this series -- more on this later). So why did I watch it? For the simple reason that it was airing on TV and since I hadn't seen it yet, figured I would give it a try (I was multi-tasking at the same time, of course, which meant that I wasn't "seriously" watching the series).
The plot / storyline
Ok, so let's look at the plot / storyline of this series -- wait, was there actually a storyline? Well, if there was, it wasn't very appealing, since I barely remember any of it. The only things I remember from this series were the "grand" fire scenes and rescue attempts -- other than that, there really wasn't anything worth remembering....the rest of the series was pretty boring. Also, whoever wrote the script for this series must not be entirely in touch with reality because some of the scenes were REALLY far-fetched -- to the point where at certain parts, I was saying to myself: "And they expect us (the audience) to believe this???? Do they (TVB) think we are stupid?"
Two examples of this that really stuck out:
1) The scene where Bosco and Aimee are doing a rescue mission and are dangling from a rope atop a tall building....they end up falling (I don't know exactly how many stories but it seemed like alot) from the building and landing UNSCATHED on the huge bouncy tarp that the firemen put out 'just in time' right beneath them. Sound a bit far-fetched already? Well, wait til you hear the next part....at this point in the series, Aimee's character is 2 months pregnant -- and after 'the fall', everything was 'perfectly fine': no scratches, no bruises, and absolutely no harm was done to the fetus. In fact, she was pretty much able to get up from the tarp and 'walk away'.
Maybe it's just me, but this scene was really unbelievable -- I mean, any doctor (and probably any woman who has any knowledge of how pregnancies work) can tell you that the first 3 months when a woman is pregnant is the most delicate and dangerous because the fetus is not stable yet and the risk of miscarriage is extremely high. This is why most women (celebrities, for example) don't like to announce their pregnancies until after the 3rd month -- this is especially true with Chinese women, since our culture is traditionally very superstitious about this kind of stuff.
So then how is it that Aimee's character is able to fall from a 15 story (at least) burning building during the most delicate time of her pregnancy (when the risk of losing the baby is sky high and even a task as 'normal' as walking too long, stretching, or just being under too much stress could cause a miscarriage) and come away without as much of a scratch and still be VERY MUCH PREGNANT?!?!?!? I mean, that's unbelievable to the point of being outrageous!! I don't know about anyone else, but when I was watching that scene, I felt like they (TVB, the scriptwriters, the producer, etc.) were insulting my intelligence!
2) The other scene was the one where Kevin and Myolie get into a major traffic accident -- the car is flipped on its side and is in danger of blowing up. Myolie isn't able to get out of the car because her foot is stuck and Kevin is trying hard to pull her out. The fire trucks arrive, but before they are even able to get their equipment off their trucks, Kevin pulls Myolie out of the wreckage and both are shown running for cover just as the car blows up in a ball of flames (sound familiar? yep, typical TVB -- they use this 'action sequence' in almost every series, it seems). The next scene is a short 'hospital' scene where it shows that both Myolie and Kevin only suffered a minor injury from the accident (Myolie had a sprained foot and Kevin had a bruise on his head) -- then the next scene jumps to them all perfectly recovered, holding hands and walking in a shopping mall.
Ok, I'm not saying that there should be a major injury after every accident and I agree that miracles do happen sometimes -- but it's EXTREMELY rare....especially with an accident of that magnitude. And the 'choppiness' of the subsequent scenes made it seem even more unrealistic because it's as though the accident scene happened just to showcase the 'special effects' and then it was pretty much glossed over after that. Though I didn't feel as strongly about this scene insulting my intelligence as the other one did, I still felt it was pretty unrealistic.
The cast
As I stated earlier, I would not have chosen to watch this series on my own accord because I don't like the cast. Those who are familiar with my TVB viewing habits know that I can't stand the younger / later generation of TVB artists because their acting skills are severely lacking yet TVB over-promotes them and pushes them constantly in front of our faces. I won't get into all the 'political' stuff here (saving it for another TVB rant later on down the road) -- the one thing to note is that Kevin and Myolie are on my 'least favorite' TVB aritists list and I've never liked Bosco or Aimee. Out of the main cast, the only artist I am able to tolerate is Wong Hei because his acting has always been quite good and consistent. So obviously, this series was pretty much already doomed for me from the beginning, since the only thing that made the series possibly 'worth watching' would have been Wong Hei...
BUT....even that last glimmer of 'possibly worth watching' was ruined for me because Wong Hei's character in this series totally SUCKED!!! His character had a bad temper, was very irrational, was always acting brashly without thinking, was unreasonably stubborn, etc etc. I especially got annoyed over how 'obsessed' his character was with Myolie's character, becoming a 'tortured soul' when she broke up with him and even to the point of committing suicide for her....I mean, come on -- GET OVER IT!!!!
With how poorly his character was written, I was wondering why TVB bothered putting him in this series at all -- he didn't have a whole lot of screen time compared to Kevin and Bosco for one, and his character was in a coma for a huge chunk of the series anyway. As is typical of the way their politics work, I'm guessing that TVB probably put Wong Hei in this series purely because of his tenure and association with the "Burning Flames" franchise -- he pretty much started the whole 'fireman craze' back in the 90s and became hugely popular after the first installment -- to the point where over the years, when the audiences think of "Burning Flame", they automatically think of Wong Hei. So for the series to not include him, it probably would have been weird -- but still....if they are going to include him, give him a decent character to play at least!
In terms of Kevin -- well, his acting was the same as usual -- bland and wooden....plus I didn't care for his character at all -- it's like he's pretty much there just to take up screen time. Even Bosco's performance and character were better than Kevin's!! At least Bosco's character was interesting and provided some 'comic relief' in an otherwise depressing series (I actually laughed at his funny reactions to things in some of the scenes) – but overall, I’m still not too keen on watching Bosco’s series though.
And I’m not even going to comment on Myolie – all I’m going to say is that I absolutely HATED her character in this series!! I’ve never been fond of her acting in the first place (yes, there IS a reason why I don’t like to watch her series!!!).
In conclusion…..
It’s sad, but the only ‘character’ I actually enjoyed watching in this entire series was one that’s not even listed in the cast list during the closing credits – Bosco’s shar-pei dog Kapun (also his dog in real life). Perhaps because I have an affinity for Shar-pei dogs (I think they’re adorably cute!), so I was really drawn to this one (come on, how could you not love that cute little pouting face??). I was sort of disappointed that Kapun was only in the first half of the series though (ok, which darn writer was it who wrote him out of the series??) – since the ‘character’ I enjoyed the most was gone, the series pretty much went downhill for me after that.