How Long? 56 episodes = 19 tapes
Stars: Gallen Lo, Roger Kwok, Louis Koo, Ada Choi, Kenix Kwok, Lisa Wong, Paul Chun Pui, Joe Ma, Nicky Wu, Maggie Siu, Michelle Saram, Grace Yip, Hawick Lau and Flora Chan
Picking up from the cliffhanger at the end of part one, part two opens with Gallen, Roger, and Flora reeling from the tragic death of Kenix and Sunny.
And of course Kenix'’s long awaited death scene. At the end of part one viewers were left on the edge of their seat wondering: would she die? What would be her last words?
As a huge supporter of the love between her and Sunny, I was expecting her to say something along the lines of “I am going to join Sunny now” or something to that extent. But unfortunately, Kenix’'s death speech was awfully hasty and controversial and lacked mention of her beloved Sunny. Her exact words: ‘I am happy to be with the one who loves me, and the one I love.’ I took it to mean that the one she loves is her baby, and the one who loves her is Gallen.
Horribly, these last lines rekindled Kenix and Gallen'’s tedious relationship in my mind (from part one), and also made me remember how I detested their lack of chemistry and dull love story. Also, it made me angry that she failed to think of her love for Sunny. During the time that she was captive she rarely showed any grief at his passing away.
It was obviously TVB’'s attempt to offer some consolidation to supporters of the Gallen-Kenix romance, to illustrate that although Kenix chose Sunny, Gallen still has an important place in her heart. But terribly, it causes Sunny supporters to feel that he has been done a great injustice by Kenix.
Kenix’'s death speech was badly written and her death scene poorly directed, and as I progressed further into the series I realised that this was only the beginning of a badly written storyline. Compared to part one, part two fails to be as well rounded and exciting, and loses audience interest from midway towards the end. But it was still enjoyable and not terribly tedious, because of one main reason:
all of Gallen’'s actions are based around one goal: that of building Sunny’s ‘Smokeless City”, thus fulfilling the dream of his dead friend. Viewers feel that it is Gallen’'s duty to devote the rest of his life to achieving Sunny’s dream, as he played the biggest part in Sunny’s death. It is very inspirational as Sunny’s dream now becomes the dream of all three of them (Roger included) and represents their strong friendship. Thus, although part two is badly written, this one good point manages to hold it together and prevent it from becoming unbearable.
After Kenix’'s death, Gallen realises it was business tycoon Paul Chun’'s second son who was behind the deaths of the couple. He then goes to all lengths to get revenge for them.
Gallen’'s ‘grey’ character is emphasised very well as the audience does not view Gallen as a murderer, but rather as a justified man taking the law into his own hands to gain justice for his two friends, thus these first few episodes of part two are filled with excitement and anticipation of ‘justice being done.’
Audience involvement and support for Gallen’'s actions are further emphasised by the tragic death of Kenix and Sunny, a sweet couple that created support in part one. If this couple was ineffective in achieving audience support in part one, part two would have nothing to entice viewers to watch it.
Spcnet'’s review gives an accurate description of Gallen’'s character in part two: he has truly become ‘a good boy’. No longer ‘grey’ nor multi-dimensional, Gallen’'s flaws are non-existent. He is now considerate and wants a peaceful life. Granted that after all the tragedy he’s experienced (most of the tragedy having been caused by him), he would have to mature and change. But TVB has made a bad decision to portray him as a flawless good boy, as this destroys all audience interest. The sad part is that viewers do not begin to like Gallen’'s character (as is obviously TVB'’s intention). On the contrary, I found myself detesting him even more than in part one--with his attitude of ‘not wanting to hurt innocent people’ being very dreary and tiresome.
Also with Gallen’'s complete character change, the sense of corporate excitement is gone. No more ‘dirty’ corporate tactics are used, thus making this series dull. Compared to part one, part two is rarely exciting and mostly irritating.
But before Gallen becomes a ‘saint’, he still sticks to his old ways in creating his ingenious plan of revenge. I just wish he could’'ve retained these defining qualities [sigh].
THE REVENGE
After numerous failed attempts to take Paul Chun’'s son’'s life to gain vengeance, Gallen finally thinks clearly. His quote is: ‘if I can’t kill him in Hong Kong, I will kill him in another country.’ Apparently Hong Kong legislation is the strictest and most reliable in the world - well at least more reliable than the Philippines system at any rate.
So Gallen tricks his target to leave Hong Kong and enter the Philippines, where apparently anyone can do whatever the hell they want and carry guns around shooting people, with the added bonus that the police force is too incompetent to catch anyone.
That all said, Gallen is caught by the police after another failed attempt at taking his target’'s life, but only because Paul Chun has flexed his corporate muscles and influenced the Philippines police force to detain him.
Still burning with the desire for revenge, Gallen contacts his trusty helper Flora (who has stuck like a leech by his side ever since she got divorced in part one) to bring him a million dollars. Gallen has hired some assassins to kidnap Paul Chun’'s second son, but they will only kill the hostage when they receive the money.
So as always, Flora does everything she can to gather the money for him - without knowing his motives. She borrows the money from her mother (Lisa Wong, who as we remember is married to Paul Chun thus making Gallen’'s target = Flora'’s stepbrother). She brings the money to the Philippines, but Gallen is detained and cannot deliver the money to the assassins, thus Flora unknowingly delivers it for him, and sees her stepbrother being killed in front of her eyes.
This is another well written point (one of the very few in this series), very dramatic and entirely unpredictable. I was on the edge of my seat during these first few episodes. After trailing after Gallen for so long, Flora finally gives up on him. She finds it impossible to forgive him for causing her to inadvertently kill her stepbrother - although she and her stepbrother were not at all close, she did after all cause someone to be killed. Also, she has put her mother in a very tough situation as it was her mother who lent her the money to give to the assassins, therefore causing much friction in Lisa'’s relationship with her husband Paul Chun.
Thus Flora leaves Gallen and is written out of the story. A good decision by TVB, as she was the most dislikeable character in part one, and after despising all her scenes in the first part, I was hoping that she would not have a large role in part two. My wish was fulfilled, and I was so relieved that she was written out of the whole series. But TVB didn'’t do this in response to audience reaction (if there was one), but rather, Flora was sick when they filmed part two so she requested to take leave from filming. A good decision nonetheless, as she and Gallen have no special chemistry and her character was detestable in part one.
It should’'ve been the precursor to bigger and better things with Flora out of the way, but pitifully I was disappointed as another equally, if not more annoying, character took Flora's place - get ready for Ada Choi.
THE ADA ANNOYANCE
Ada is annoying not because of lack of acting talent, but because her character causes her to be annoying. Fully committed to Louis and willing to help him get vengeance on Gallen for Sunny’'s death, she goes into Gallen'’s company to be a spy. I just wanted to strangle her when she leaked information to Louis, causing Gallen to lose his business prospects. And it is more laughable and extremely ironic when viewers realise that Louis is single-handedly destroying his late brother’'s dream by ruining Gallen'’s business. Ada and Louis make a very absurd and irritating pair. TVB attempts to portray their relationship as the strongest love, but a badly written love story makes their relationship seem rather lame, and viewers feel little or no support for them.
LOUIS KOO
Not a gifted actor, Louis just succeeds in looking cocky and arrogant all the time, regardless of what role he tries, perhaps echoing his true personality? In emotional scenes he contorts his face up in a frown, and fails to display any deep emotions. His expressions consist of smiling and frowning. There is never any inspiring emotion. Thus, with this lack of talent, lack of charisma, and a villainous role, one can’'t help but despise him. It wouldn’'t be so bad if his character was madly in love with Ada or willing to sacrifice anything for her which would make him tolerable, but he goes off the deep end when he starts to abuse her at the end. Also, it is the lowest thing a man can do to let his girlfriend go into his enemy’'s company to be a spy and expose herself to dangerous situations (as when Ada gets raped by Joe Ma). All in all, an uninspiring performance and loathsome character.
ADA and LOUIS- CHEMISTRY?
They manage to pull it off slightly, but unfortunately sparks do not fly. Louis seems to be overwhelmed by Ada’'s enthusiastic acting, and his own underacting or lack of acting talent causes them to be a mismatch on screen. Not a good love story or a good pairing.
CONSOLIDATION FOR BARRY
Michael Fitzgerald who played Flora’'s husband Barry in part one has no scenes in this part, but is mentioned when he and Flora rekindle their love and in Flora’'s words 'I have truly found out what love is'. Flora proposes to Barry (a fresh change from the typical ‘man propose to woman’ scenario) and they marry overseas. A fitting resolution for the devoted Barry as he was treated unfairly by Flora in part one, and a sweet ending to that couple. Flora finally sees how worthy Barry is of her love. A sweet ending.
MICHELLE SARAM
Where do I start? She has to be the worst actress to ever grace the TVB screen, and I am really surprised that she got such a large role in a major production. Grace Yip as Gallen'’s sister is a newcomer to acting so fittingly got a small role, but it was a big mistake to give an important role to Michelle Saram. Her expressions include: smile, smile, smile and look stoned. She is so bad that it is painful to watch, and leaves the audience confused about what she'’s trying to express. In one scene where Louis rejects her, she sits there and looks straight ahead, like she’'s stoned, not even frowning or even crying. She probably fell asleep with her eyes open while they were filming that scene. Michelle Saram comes close to edging out Ada for the title of ‘as annoying as Flora,’ but lucky for her, she is not as annoying as Ada, but she comes very very close.
THE WORST PERFORMANCES
So what were the worst performances? Has to be Louis and Michelle Saram. Both lack talent and coupled with poor or despicable characterisation this just doubles the effect.
THE MOST MEDIOCRE PERFORMANCE
This title has to go to Gallen, but he cannot be blamed for a poorly written character. His new ‘good boy’ character restricts him from attempting anything out of the ordinary, thus there are no breakthrough scenes or scenes worth remembering. He is the most one-dimensional character in this series and nearly the dullest. His character is identical to his role in "‘Golden Faith’", something I had been dreading would happen. TVB has made a bad decision again!
THE BEST PERFORMANCE/ SCENE?
This award has to go to Joe Ma and the woman who plays his wife in the scene at the hospital where Joe’s son dies. The most emotional and sad scene: Joe didn'’t realise the kid was his son until too late, and breaks down as his wife strikes out at him in anger and grief. The saddest thing is that Joe never defends himself or stops his wife from hitting him. This is the most touching scene of the whole series, and worth watching. Although Joe Ma is the villain, he portrays his character very well, making a deep impression in my mind, and I can'’t help but think: is Joe Ma better in a villainous role?
KENIX KWOK RETURNS
As is commonplace in many TVB series, the twin sister always turns up after the other has died. I don’'t think TVB was planning to write such a cliché storyline, but I think they had no choice since Flora was unavailable for filming. Luckily, Kenix has a small role in this series [but too bad Ada has more scenes than Kenix] and her romance with Gallen is bearable, although of course there is no great chemistry between them [as there never was].
NICKY WU and MAGGIE SIU as Joe and Tina
As I mentioned in the review for part one, this couple has great chemistry. Unfortunately, they spend the first part of this series battling with Joe’'s older brother (Joe Ma) in the family business. Then they disappear for the rest of the series, being written out of the storyline. What a bad decision by TVB to write this couple out. As always, their story could do with some elaborating on. At the end of part one they were kidnapped and it turns out that Tina was sold to a brothel and had been tortured so badly that she could no longer have children.
Nicky Wu’'s best scene of the whole series (part one included) is when he shows true pain when he sees his love, Tina, so mutilated. He asks her to marry him, she not wanting to because she cannot have children, he assuring her that he does not mind. She agrees to marry him after a brief hesitation, and they begin married life.
This was disappointing as this story could have been the best one of the series if only it had been extended. Tina SHOULD NOT have accepted Joe’s proposal, because she cannot forget the fact that she has been mutilated, while Joe SHOULD have spent much of the series trying to get her to accept him and assuring her that the past does not matter. TVB always fails to identify the story with the most potential to capture audiences, and writes this couple out after a brief happy scene of Tina telling Joe that she is pregnant. There wasn’'t even a scene of their wedding! That shows you how lax this series is.
But a good point is that once married, Joe and Tina do not lose their personalities (as is commonplace in TVB sequels). Tina as the strong business woman attempts to help Joe rise in power at his father’s company, while Joe does not like to compete with his brother and prefers a more leisurely life. But their marriage is too strong to fall apart from this difference of views, and ultimately they decide to leave Hong Kong to chase a peaceful life. A brief story but one worth watching.
THE BIGGEST FLAW
Louis’ revenge: After realising that it was NOT Gallen who killed Sunny, instead of ending his plans for vengeance, Louis CONTINUES to try to destroy Gallen. Such a ridiculous storyline poorly written and quite preposterous. Obviously TVB did not think over their story properly, and in the last episode they tried to explain Louis motives for continuing his vengeance, but his motives had not been made clear from the start and thus TVB fails to convince the audience in their attempt to make up for their flaws at the last minute. A big flaw that'’s hard to overlook.
Also, Louis seems to lose all his love for Ada and devotes his time trying to torture her mentally, causing her to become suicidal. He truly goes off the deep end and has no motives for doing anything, obviously a poorly written script and character.
THE SECOND BIGGEST FLAW
Another cliché storyline is Ada losing her memory, forgetting her love for Louis and falling for Roger. This story was sweet in the beginning as Roger has finally found someone to love, but then things went downhill as Ada regained her memory and agreed to marry Louis, not because she loves him more, but she said yes when she was still unsure of her feelings for both of them. An extremely irresponsible and stupid thing to do, and I felt she thoroughly deserved all she got in the end.
THE MOST WELL WRITTEN POINT
At the end, Sunny'’s “Smokeless City” is finally built, but it is Roger who puts in the most effort. It is thanks to him that they can accomplish such a large ambition, and he has been forced to mature and not depend on his two friends anymore. Sunny’'s dream has helped Roger develop his own personality and become stronger. A well written point.
Stars: Gallen Lo, Roger Kwok, Louis Koo, Ada Choi, Kenix Kwok, Lisa Wong, Paul Chun Pui, Joe Ma, Nicky Wu, Maggie Siu, Michelle Saram, Grace Yip, Hawick Lau and Flora Chan
Picking up from the cliffhanger at the end of part one, part two opens with Gallen, Roger, and Flora reeling from the tragic death of Kenix and Sunny.
And of course Kenix'’s long awaited death scene. At the end of part one viewers were left on the edge of their seat wondering: would she die? What would be her last words?
As a huge supporter of the love between her and Sunny, I was expecting her to say something along the lines of “I am going to join Sunny now” or something to that extent. But unfortunately, Kenix’'s death speech was awfully hasty and controversial and lacked mention of her beloved Sunny. Her exact words: ‘I am happy to be with the one who loves me, and the one I love.’ I took it to mean that the one she loves is her baby, and the one who loves her is Gallen.
Horribly, these last lines rekindled Kenix and Gallen'’s tedious relationship in my mind (from part one), and also made me remember how I detested their lack of chemistry and dull love story. Also, it made me angry that she failed to think of her love for Sunny. During the time that she was captive she rarely showed any grief at his passing away.
It was obviously TVB’'s attempt to offer some consolidation to supporters of the Gallen-Kenix romance, to illustrate that although Kenix chose Sunny, Gallen still has an important place in her heart. But terribly, it causes Sunny supporters to feel that he has been done a great injustice by Kenix.
Kenix’'s death speech was badly written and her death scene poorly directed, and as I progressed further into the series I realised that this was only the beginning of a badly written storyline. Compared to part one, part two fails to be as well rounded and exciting, and loses audience interest from midway towards the end. But it was still enjoyable and not terribly tedious, because of one main reason:
all of Gallen’'s actions are based around one goal: that of building Sunny’s ‘Smokeless City”, thus fulfilling the dream of his dead friend. Viewers feel that it is Gallen’'s duty to devote the rest of his life to achieving Sunny’s dream, as he played the biggest part in Sunny’s death. It is very inspirational as Sunny’s dream now becomes the dream of all three of them (Roger included) and represents their strong friendship. Thus, although part two is badly written, this one good point manages to hold it together and prevent it from becoming unbearable.
After Kenix’'s death, Gallen realises it was business tycoon Paul Chun’'s second son who was behind the deaths of the couple. He then goes to all lengths to get revenge for them.
Gallen’'s ‘grey’ character is emphasised very well as the audience does not view Gallen as a murderer, but rather as a justified man taking the law into his own hands to gain justice for his two friends, thus these first few episodes of part two are filled with excitement and anticipation of ‘justice being done.’
Audience involvement and support for Gallen’'s actions are further emphasised by the tragic death of Kenix and Sunny, a sweet couple that created support in part one. If this couple was ineffective in achieving audience support in part one, part two would have nothing to entice viewers to watch it.
Spcnet'’s review gives an accurate description of Gallen’'s character in part two: he has truly become ‘a good boy’. No longer ‘grey’ nor multi-dimensional, Gallen’'s flaws are non-existent. He is now considerate and wants a peaceful life. Granted that after all the tragedy he’s experienced (most of the tragedy having been caused by him), he would have to mature and change. But TVB has made a bad decision to portray him as a flawless good boy, as this destroys all audience interest. The sad part is that viewers do not begin to like Gallen’'s character (as is obviously TVB'’s intention). On the contrary, I found myself detesting him even more than in part one--with his attitude of ‘not wanting to hurt innocent people’ being very dreary and tiresome.
Also with Gallen’'s complete character change, the sense of corporate excitement is gone. No more ‘dirty’ corporate tactics are used, thus making this series dull. Compared to part one, part two is rarely exciting and mostly irritating.
But before Gallen becomes a ‘saint’, he still sticks to his old ways in creating his ingenious plan of revenge. I just wish he could’'ve retained these defining qualities [sigh].
THE REVENGE
After numerous failed attempts to take Paul Chun’'s son’'s life to gain vengeance, Gallen finally thinks clearly. His quote is: ‘if I can’t kill him in Hong Kong, I will kill him in another country.’ Apparently Hong Kong legislation is the strictest and most reliable in the world - well at least more reliable than the Philippines system at any rate.
So Gallen tricks his target to leave Hong Kong and enter the Philippines, where apparently anyone can do whatever the hell they want and carry guns around shooting people, with the added bonus that the police force is too incompetent to catch anyone.
That all said, Gallen is caught by the police after another failed attempt at taking his target’'s life, but only because Paul Chun has flexed his corporate muscles and influenced the Philippines police force to detain him.
Still burning with the desire for revenge, Gallen contacts his trusty helper Flora (who has stuck like a leech by his side ever since she got divorced in part one) to bring him a million dollars. Gallen has hired some assassins to kidnap Paul Chun’'s second son, but they will only kill the hostage when they receive the money.
So as always, Flora does everything she can to gather the money for him - without knowing his motives. She borrows the money from her mother (Lisa Wong, who as we remember is married to Paul Chun thus making Gallen’'s target = Flora'’s stepbrother). She brings the money to the Philippines, but Gallen is detained and cannot deliver the money to the assassins, thus Flora unknowingly delivers it for him, and sees her stepbrother being killed in front of her eyes.
This is another well written point (one of the very few in this series), very dramatic and entirely unpredictable. I was on the edge of my seat during these first few episodes. After trailing after Gallen for so long, Flora finally gives up on him. She finds it impossible to forgive him for causing her to inadvertently kill her stepbrother - although she and her stepbrother were not at all close, she did after all cause someone to be killed. Also, she has put her mother in a very tough situation as it was her mother who lent her the money to give to the assassins, therefore causing much friction in Lisa'’s relationship with her husband Paul Chun.
Thus Flora leaves Gallen and is written out of the story. A good decision by TVB, as she was the most dislikeable character in part one, and after despising all her scenes in the first part, I was hoping that she would not have a large role in part two. My wish was fulfilled, and I was so relieved that she was written out of the whole series. But TVB didn'’t do this in response to audience reaction (if there was one), but rather, Flora was sick when they filmed part two so she requested to take leave from filming. A good decision nonetheless, as she and Gallen have no special chemistry and her character was detestable in part one.
It should’'ve been the precursor to bigger and better things with Flora out of the way, but pitifully I was disappointed as another equally, if not more annoying, character took Flora's place - get ready for Ada Choi.
THE ADA ANNOYANCE
Ada is annoying not because of lack of acting talent, but because her character causes her to be annoying. Fully committed to Louis and willing to help him get vengeance on Gallen for Sunny’'s death, she goes into Gallen'’s company to be a spy. I just wanted to strangle her when she leaked information to Louis, causing Gallen to lose his business prospects. And it is more laughable and extremely ironic when viewers realise that Louis is single-handedly destroying his late brother’'s dream by ruining Gallen'’s business. Ada and Louis make a very absurd and irritating pair. TVB attempts to portray their relationship as the strongest love, but a badly written love story makes their relationship seem rather lame, and viewers feel little or no support for them.
LOUIS KOO
Not a gifted actor, Louis just succeeds in looking cocky and arrogant all the time, regardless of what role he tries, perhaps echoing his true personality? In emotional scenes he contorts his face up in a frown, and fails to display any deep emotions. His expressions consist of smiling and frowning. There is never any inspiring emotion. Thus, with this lack of talent, lack of charisma, and a villainous role, one can’'t help but despise him. It wouldn’'t be so bad if his character was madly in love with Ada or willing to sacrifice anything for her which would make him tolerable, but he goes off the deep end when he starts to abuse her at the end. Also, it is the lowest thing a man can do to let his girlfriend go into his enemy’'s company to be a spy and expose herself to dangerous situations (as when Ada gets raped by Joe Ma). All in all, an uninspiring performance and loathsome character.
ADA and LOUIS- CHEMISTRY?
They manage to pull it off slightly, but unfortunately sparks do not fly. Louis seems to be overwhelmed by Ada’'s enthusiastic acting, and his own underacting or lack of acting talent causes them to be a mismatch on screen. Not a good love story or a good pairing.
CONSOLIDATION FOR BARRY
Michael Fitzgerald who played Flora’'s husband Barry in part one has no scenes in this part, but is mentioned when he and Flora rekindle their love and in Flora’'s words 'I have truly found out what love is'. Flora proposes to Barry (a fresh change from the typical ‘man propose to woman’ scenario) and they marry overseas. A fitting resolution for the devoted Barry as he was treated unfairly by Flora in part one, and a sweet ending to that couple. Flora finally sees how worthy Barry is of her love. A sweet ending.
MICHELLE SARAM
Where do I start? She has to be the worst actress to ever grace the TVB screen, and I am really surprised that she got such a large role in a major production. Grace Yip as Gallen'’s sister is a newcomer to acting so fittingly got a small role, but it was a big mistake to give an important role to Michelle Saram. Her expressions include: smile, smile, smile and look stoned. She is so bad that it is painful to watch, and leaves the audience confused about what she'’s trying to express. In one scene where Louis rejects her, she sits there and looks straight ahead, like she’'s stoned, not even frowning or even crying. She probably fell asleep with her eyes open while they were filming that scene. Michelle Saram comes close to edging out Ada for the title of ‘as annoying as Flora,’ but lucky for her, she is not as annoying as Ada, but she comes very very close.
THE WORST PERFORMANCES
So what were the worst performances? Has to be Louis and Michelle Saram. Both lack talent and coupled with poor or despicable characterisation this just doubles the effect.
THE MOST MEDIOCRE PERFORMANCE
This title has to go to Gallen, but he cannot be blamed for a poorly written character. His new ‘good boy’ character restricts him from attempting anything out of the ordinary, thus there are no breakthrough scenes or scenes worth remembering. He is the most one-dimensional character in this series and nearly the dullest. His character is identical to his role in "‘Golden Faith’", something I had been dreading would happen. TVB has made a bad decision again!
THE BEST PERFORMANCE/ SCENE?
This award has to go to Joe Ma and the woman who plays his wife in the scene at the hospital where Joe’s son dies. The most emotional and sad scene: Joe didn'’t realise the kid was his son until too late, and breaks down as his wife strikes out at him in anger and grief. The saddest thing is that Joe never defends himself or stops his wife from hitting him. This is the most touching scene of the whole series, and worth watching. Although Joe Ma is the villain, he portrays his character very well, making a deep impression in my mind, and I can'’t help but think: is Joe Ma better in a villainous role?
KENIX KWOK RETURNS
As is commonplace in many TVB series, the twin sister always turns up after the other has died. I don’'t think TVB was planning to write such a cliché storyline, but I think they had no choice since Flora was unavailable for filming. Luckily, Kenix has a small role in this series [but too bad Ada has more scenes than Kenix] and her romance with Gallen is bearable, although of course there is no great chemistry between them [as there never was].
NICKY WU and MAGGIE SIU as Joe and Tina
As I mentioned in the review for part one, this couple has great chemistry. Unfortunately, they spend the first part of this series battling with Joe’'s older brother (Joe Ma) in the family business. Then they disappear for the rest of the series, being written out of the storyline. What a bad decision by TVB to write this couple out. As always, their story could do with some elaborating on. At the end of part one they were kidnapped and it turns out that Tina was sold to a brothel and had been tortured so badly that she could no longer have children.
Nicky Wu’'s best scene of the whole series (part one included) is when he shows true pain when he sees his love, Tina, so mutilated. He asks her to marry him, she not wanting to because she cannot have children, he assuring her that he does not mind. She agrees to marry him after a brief hesitation, and they begin married life.
This was disappointing as this story could have been the best one of the series if only it had been extended. Tina SHOULD NOT have accepted Joe’s proposal, because she cannot forget the fact that she has been mutilated, while Joe SHOULD have spent much of the series trying to get her to accept him and assuring her that the past does not matter. TVB always fails to identify the story with the most potential to capture audiences, and writes this couple out after a brief happy scene of Tina telling Joe that she is pregnant. There wasn’'t even a scene of their wedding! That shows you how lax this series is.
But a good point is that once married, Joe and Tina do not lose their personalities (as is commonplace in TVB sequels). Tina as the strong business woman attempts to help Joe rise in power at his father’s company, while Joe does not like to compete with his brother and prefers a more leisurely life. But their marriage is too strong to fall apart from this difference of views, and ultimately they decide to leave Hong Kong to chase a peaceful life. A brief story but one worth watching.
THE BIGGEST FLAW
Louis’ revenge: After realising that it was NOT Gallen who killed Sunny, instead of ending his plans for vengeance, Louis CONTINUES to try to destroy Gallen. Such a ridiculous storyline poorly written and quite preposterous. Obviously TVB did not think over their story properly, and in the last episode they tried to explain Louis motives for continuing his vengeance, but his motives had not been made clear from the start and thus TVB fails to convince the audience in their attempt to make up for their flaws at the last minute. A big flaw that'’s hard to overlook.
Also, Louis seems to lose all his love for Ada and devotes his time trying to torture her mentally, causing her to become suicidal. He truly goes off the deep end and has no motives for doing anything, obviously a poorly written script and character.
THE SECOND BIGGEST FLAW
Another cliché storyline is Ada losing her memory, forgetting her love for Louis and falling for Roger. This story was sweet in the beginning as Roger has finally found someone to love, but then things went downhill as Ada regained her memory and agreed to marry Louis, not because she loves him more, but she said yes when she was still unsure of her feelings for both of them. An extremely irresponsible and stupid thing to do, and I felt she thoroughly deserved all she got in the end.
THE MOST WELL WRITTEN POINT
At the end, Sunny'’s “Smokeless City” is finally built, but it is Roger who puts in the most effort. It is thanks to him that they can accomplish such a large ambition, and he has been forced to mature and not depend on his two friends anymore. Sunny’'s dream has helped Roger develop his own personality and become stronger. A well written point.
PS I do not own this review.
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