With the protest still showing no sign of stopping and increasing violence in recent weeks, many events or celebrations in the city in these few months were either reduced in scale or cancelled. Concerts expected to be held in Hong Kong Coliseum by Eason Chan are cancelled and the recent 52nd anniversary celebration of Hong Kong largest television station, TVB is conducted in a more moderate and respectful way. There is even news that its annual TVB Anniversary Awards expected to be held on 15th December (next month) will be postponed to mid of January 2020.
The Taiwan’s prestigious Golden Horse Awards had just ended a moment ago and for this year, not a single Hong Kong star is attending due to the extreme political sensitivity especially after last year’s event when a winner in the awards ceremony voiced out support for independence for Taiwan and received huge backlash from China. Hence, not a single China or Hong Kong films is allowed to participate in this year’s Golden Horse Awards which in previous years is known to be the most prestigious Chinese language film awards. If Hong Kong films are allowed to be nominated this year, I’m pretty sure that my favourite actress, Sammi Cheng (more famous as a singer as she is a Cantopop queen) will easily get a nomination for best actress and even highly likely to win for her outstanding performance in the film ‘Fagara’. Luck and timing is not on her side always in the near 20 years of her involvement in films.
Going back to TVB, I have just completed another series and it is ‘The Man Who Kills Troubles’ (解決師) starring both TV King, Vincent Wong and TV Queen, Natalie Tong. The 30-episode series also starred Jonathan Cheung, Crystal Fung, Kelly Cheung, Joseph Lee, Sharon Chan, Eric Li, Law Lok Lam, Michael Tong, etc. The plot revolves around Vincent Wong as a fixer who works for triads to solve difficult problems. He wished to leave the triads and return to normal life but could not do so after knowing that his girlfriend doesn’t die from an accident but rather murdered. He then met Natalie Tong who is a daughter of a triad leader and they both fell in love. He then committed to protect his lover, uncover the truths behind his former girlfriend’s death, and bring the triads to justice.
I think Vincent Wong is more selective of his work after winning best actor two years ago. He didn’t act in many dramas in recent years and whenever he does, that drama usually turns out good and he is sure to give excellent performance. I always don’t like Natalie Tong (find her more suitable in supporting role rather than a lead) but she is actually doing quite fine in this drama. Crystal Fung had quite a stellar year in 2018 (winning most improved female artiste last year too) but her performance in this drama is quite poor, rigid and felt unnatural. On the other hand, her on-screen partner, Jonathan Cheung is doing extremely well as the police officer who turned evil near the end. Also shoutout to Eric Li who usually portrayed villainous role and is given quite a good amount of screen time and acting here. He is good in here as the brother of Natalie Tong. There are some supporting characters who are quite pointless in this series such as the ones portrayed by Sharon Chan and Michael Tong. They add nothing significant to the story at all.
The story is quite draggy and boring in the beginning but it gets more exciting and intense once it reaches half way. The main focus of the story in the beginning that sets mostly at the school is quite boring and gives not much continuity to the main story of the drama (which is about the police, triads and the fixers). Once things get serious near the end, any sight of the school is no longer found and hence there is a loss of story flow. The action sequences are good and there are some very cool dramatic and suspenseful scenes in this drama that add points to the series. Out of 10 points, I rate ‘The Man Who Kills Troubles’ a total of 7.4. It starts off pretty draggy but able to picks up later on in the last half of the series. Now, I’m looking forward to the next series called ‘Wonder Woman’ starring Miriam Yeung (didn’t see her in drama for a very long time already), Pakho Chau and Raymond Wong.
(Images in this post are from various online sources)