I missed the first half, due to American Idol. When I switched the channel, I was seeing a young Wing Tak already seeking refuge in Au Yeung Martial Arts/TCM school. I would appreciate some write up on what happened in the beginning between Tak, his son, Kenneth and the gang?
And what has he done to deserve such insults from the nosy noisy bitchy young wife of Biu? She just wouldn't let go of him, making he feel inferior and of course a great reason to kill her later. Did they have a relationship in the past?
I remember Biu was also very harsh on him, asking him what is the best thing he can teach his students and whatever he replied Biu scoffed at it until Biu said "Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! The best thing you can teach your students is ethics! Without ethics there is no point in teaching and no one can learn!!". And then he reminded Tak "Remember you are not my student here, but an employee!"
Pause here.
Very easy for Biu to say that and so discriminatory. Tak doesn't have chance to be decent; he has to be a villain with such insults and all thrown his way!
Anyway Tak was very angry at his predicament and he fought off his unhappiness by doing some major kung fu and he accidentally destroyed or rather poked at some female clothings thus the clothing is ruined. Then Shing walked to him and he talked to Shing his Winner of Martial Arts Scholarship (sorry for the bad translation!) during Qing Dynasty and then you kinda remember Qing Dynasty was no more. So he was prolific and he talked about the forbidden city with awe and deep respect, relivig his glorious past and Shing, being the nice guy said "You will find that glory again one day! Your talent will never be wasted" but why then is he in such a destitute state? Someone said to me since he no longer has that position and no longer Qing Dynasty he would have lost such privileges. I disagree. There are remnants of respectability and he could have ridden on that past glory for his new school so he must have done something to have lost that.
Next scene bitchy young wife came running in an immediately shouted "WHO DESTROYED MY DRESS?" and since no one could admit it what them, she immediately zeroed in on Tak and Tak denied it. He probably didn't even know he did it so I find him somewhat the victim here. Biu and Shing came in and asked "What is going on?" and wife cried "THIS IDIOT! HE DESTROYED MY CLOTHES!! I already knew he was trouble! These I saw them grow up so I know them and they respect me but this scum...I knew he was a scum and up to no good. He was just angry, I noticed his gaze when I insulted him and he had anger! So he took it out on my expensive clothes!" and Tak said "I didn't!" and Biu said "Let this stop here. Forget about this!" and the wife cried "WHAT? NOOOOO!! My expensive clothes!!" and Biu said "I said enough!!" and Wife went on and on and on until she stormed out.
Pause here.
You know what this scene shows me? It shows me Biu absolutely has no control over his wife. He is supposed to be a respected big time kung fu master and yet here is this young wife making a whole lot of ruckus even when he told her to shut up at least twice, in front of his entire academy. Can you have respect for a guy who can't even control his wife?
And why show he has a young wife? WHY? What purpose does it serve and with a wife so bitchy? It just shows what a fool of an old man he is and does not serve to build up the integrity of his character. At this point I felt the writing was weird.
Back to present time and I kinda shouted ENOUGH WITH THE PARRARELLS!
In present I finally got less confused as to how many children Wai Lan has. Theres;
Cheung the eldest. Tong the 2nd. Man Kuen twins with Leung, she being 3rd and him 4th. Yan the 5th son and Ngan Ming is the adopted daughter.
Cheung (the uncle with the money) is Wai Lan's brother.
And my question is why so many children? Such a hard time remembering their names and characters and with so many people in so few episodes, some will be caricatures which is what Kuen and Leung are.
Anyway Leung was in love with a pretty girl whom I suspect is the daughter of Tak who will eventually call for Yan. World is small in TVB, good guys always fall for the bad guy's daughters. So he went after her and fell into a sewage pond and came home very smelly, ran to Kuen's room and used up her expensive perfumes and powders (she works in a dept store). Everybody knew what happened and laughed at him, and Kuen was angry he used her stuff and chased around him and Kenneth tried to restore order but he and his uncle laughed at him and the uncle even took out Leung's love letters and read them out.
The point of this scene is they are close knit,they can joke about one another, depended on one another and all I can see is such a noisy messy scene. Shirley Yeung was particularly awful.
Next thing they know Leung ran away from home. Afraid to let their mother know they went in frantic search for him.
Pause here.
I have this feeling Wai Lan is such a non-participating family member. She is never home, rarely interacts with her children and so I cannot believe she is their mother. In fact I find old Wai Lan so underused.
Anyway they found him hiding with a friend and intent on leaving the state to work elsewhere and this is when the scene became extra excruciating for many reasons.
So they hurt his feelings, so they could just say "Brother, we are sorry! Forgive us!" but instead suddenly Kenneth turn on the waterworks, with tears brimming in his eyes said "Leung, listen to me. You all were too young to remember, but I could remember mother waiting fruitlessly for father to return everytime she heard the bicycle bell's ring. Mother has lost her husband, our brother, her father and stepmother, she can't lose you too!"
and I was thinking is that necessary? So dramatic. Then everyone starts begging him, and Leung cried "You all insulted me! Just because I am short, can't I be in love? Just because I am ugly, does it mean I can't find love?" and even the adopted daughter was crying, Shirley was howling "Fine! I will not ask you for money for the stuff you used! Come home!" and even the youngest brother was crying and in the end Leung said "Ok!" and they ran home happily like children.
Pause here.
I know that scene is to show that they're so close they have no trouble taking the mickey out of the other. But that scene was so dramatic to the point it was ridiculous. It need not be like mother will be hurt, etc in such a dramatic fashion. And Leung was simply angry they insulted him, mocked him and when Kenneth started crying with that dialogue, I felt that scene was so out of place. The dialogue was weird, the set up was weird and the acting was noisy and too many people.
And frankly I can't remember what happened after so I can't remember the trailer for next episode.
My problem with this series is first and foremost the story. The story is there but the script is terrible. I find certain scenes too OTT and does not establish certain basic scenes like the siblings' closeness and just jumped straight to them being so close. I blame the constant back and forth scenes. The series should just start properly, show us the siblings when they were young.
And Wai Lan is such a non participating character. She is hardly ever in one scene with the children, making me feel like she was so distraught over what happened in the past that being away from them is her way to protect herself emotionally but that is reading too much into the character which is simply not developing at all.
Tong bears the brunt of the responsibility and he is the respected well loved older brother who took upon himself to care for the family. And he is close to his siblings. That we all know. I have no problem with the characterisation but I have problem seeing Kenneth Ma in this role. He seems too silly, too goofy to be the responsible and sometimes stern master. He gets no help from the awful script. But Kenneth himself lacks that heroicness to display this character. He plays him earnest which is good, Kenneth has this nice guy quality but does he have that leadership quality? I don't think so. And it doesn't help his acting was not just inadequate but wholly inappropriate in many scenes, especially that one when he suddenly cried with that out of this world dialogue for something so darn petty. Kenneth does not command my attention, I find my attention wandering away. He is a cute guy, but he is badly cast as Tong who at episode 3 is also still underdeveloped considering his character has the most exposure since episode 1 making me think his Tong is the lead character in this series.
Dominic Lam is to me wrongly cast as the villain. He does not display the dissatisfaction and deeply helt hatred like "ng kam sum" sort of feelings well, at all. I find his performance too understated, he a tad too old and kung fu as usual terrible. More like aerobic session.
Overall I am still bitterly disappointed with this series which has yet to fulfil the promise of the trailer. It is noisy, messy and badly written.
Here's hoping the next episode will be better.
March 26, 2011 at 6:51 PM
Yan (Stephen Wong) is the 3rd son. The hierarchy should be
Cheung (Kevin)
Tong (Kenneth)
Yan (Stephen)
Kuen (Shirley)
Leung (Jazz)
Ming (Natalie)
TVB relationship chart state the relationship between Yan and Kuen is 'hing mui'.