‘貓屎媽媽’ (Coffee Cat Mama) is a TVB series that started airing mid of December 2013 right after the end-year TVB Anniversary Awards. I already knew not to expect anything from series that is put into this slot, which is usually not getting attention from viewers at this period of time when holiday season overwhelms. And it is the usual practice of TVB to put in low-budget short production on early year’s slot. But since I have nothing to watch, and ‘Coffee Cat Mama’ had only 20 episodes and appears to be a light drama, I had it to kill my time.
The series which starred Michelle Yim, Nancy Wu, Bosco Wong, Eliza Sam, Koo Ming Wah, Vincent Wong, Mimi Chu, etc revolves on a coffee shop named ‘Mr. and Mrs. Bean’ run by Grace with her biological mom, Marcia and her stepmom, So Mei, her friends and particularly her new found love, Bao Chi Tai. The characters eventually encountered issues like indecisive problem, conflict between biological mom and stepmom, friendship, huge gap between mother and daughters, responsibility, workaholic attitude, etc.
Since I had not much expectation, hence I didn’t get any disappointment from this series. The story just develops smooth and steady, and all I was thinking is to get it done till its final episode aired yesterday. The series first started out to be quite refreshing, especially when I have not seen Bosco and Michelle for quite a while in drama. But then, despite there are quite a number of hilarious scenes (especially the scene where Vincent kissed Mimi Chu while he was drunk, mistaken her as Nancy) to give us a good laugh, the story still develops in quite a boring pace. But it is still not that bad and is in acceptable situation. The drama tells us quite a number of coffee knowledge, as it stays to the series’ theme.
Koo Ming Wah is getting popular nowadays after winning ‘Best Supporting Actor’ not long ago. He is cast into any supporting roles easily and gaining more screen-time. Well, his role is very bad and appears useless in ‘The Hippocratic Crush II’, but not for this one. He had a very interesting role here which is quite substantial to pull the story along. As for Eliza Sam, I thought that she is improving after watching her performance in ‘The Hippocratic Crush II’ that pushes her to win ‘Most Improved TV Female Artiste’ last year. But then I was wrong. She is getting back to her poor form in this drama. Her acting is still not up to the level, and I prefer her to stay back to just supporting role first. She still couldn’t handle major role. Even her younger sister in this drama acted better.
Other casts generally contributed solid performance. I also do like the scenes between Vincent and Nancy that had Leslie Cheung’s song playing in the background as the late star had been a very important part of their relationship in this drama. The final episode yesterday shown a happy ending. That’s not a surprise. Generally, this series is worth to kill your time off, and is still a good piece of entertainment. Just that there is not enough excitement or excellent substance going on. Don’t expect much from this light-hearted production and you will have a fine time watching it. Out of 10 points, I rate ‘Coffee Cat Mama’ a total of 6.6. And by the way, this series has a very awkward name when translated to English.
(Images in this post are from various sources throughout the world wide web)
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