"Slow Boat Home" Review

"Slow Boat Home" had promoted itself to be a refreshing youth-oriented and romantic lighthearted comedy. While the first half of the series did manage to be quite enjoyable and deliver many laughs, a closer look and one can easily tell that it quickly morphed into another typical TVB family drama. Although quite funny in its earlier episodes, it became yet another series with poorly written story lines weeded together and love stories that lacked a romantic factor that turned it lackluster and draggy.

The four leads all deliver, but the development and outline of their characters was sloppy.

Raymond Wong is solid as always and delivers as "Cheung Bo Jai". The character would have easily become annoying with his obnoxiousness in the early episodes, but instead Raymond made him quite hilarious. Yet, Cheung Bo Jai found himself primarily pining after Bo Bo (portrayed by Aimee Chan) and caught in the middle of family drama, lacking his own direction in life. Although he has a dream of owning his own boat, not much is ever done with this subplot until - you guessed it - he buys himself a huge yacht in the last episode.

Aimee Chan is surprisingly pleasant and very likable as "Bo Bo". She is charming and appears very comfortable onscreen due to the tailor made role and casual atmosphere. However, it is actually her character that puzzles me the most with her odd actions and behavior. She so readily settled down into life at Cheung Chau and gave up her career as a director that it was simply bizarre. I find it hard to believe Bo Bo would not return to New York when she could, had such a good attitude about working as a waitress when she was formerly a director, and so easily gave up on looking for her father (the reason she came to Cheung Chau) after learning it is not Mui Kei (portrayed by Ngok Wah).

As a huge fan of Ruco Chan, I become giddy every time I start a new series with him as lead. Now, this giddiness literally lasted all through out "The Other Truth", yet wore off for me here after just a
few episodes. Why? "Fit Wing" offers absolutely no challenge to Ruco's acting skills and range, and didn't present much more substance than that of a fool blinded by love.

Selena Li is given more of an acting challenge with "Heidi", who goes from greedy to good to being even more greedy than before and finally back to well, volunteer work doing, no make up wearing good. She does what she can with the role and it's nice to see her exercising her abilities a bit, but Heidi's character changes were abrupt and poorly done.

As said above, the love stories lack actual romance. Ruco and Selena share so much sweet and genuine chemistry, yet Fit Wing and Heidi's relationship was a constant back and forth with Heidi's regression, hurting and using Ruco as well as his loved ones time and time again, only to end with him forgiving her. And then the cycle repeats again. And again. Their relationship was dysfunctional and kept suffering the same setbacks. I feel teased that two such lovable and endearing onscreen love interests were given such a terrible love line.

Raymond and Aimee's line fared better. They were entertaining during their take as the classic bickering rivals turned couple, but I failed to see when Aimee started to return Raymond's feelings for her. Although they were fun together and shared chemistry, they too lacked romance.

However, "Slow Boat Home"'s most significant setback is how disconnected from each other the four main characters are. At first, the series seemed to tell two completely different stories, with one taking place in Cheung Chau and one in Hong Kong. Although this improved when Ruco and Selena's characters relocated back to Cheung Chau, it still couldn't hide the fact that the four were very much disconnected and lacked cohesion.

Friendship was a theme that would have been enjoyable to see develop, but the bonds beyond the two couples was not explored. Aimee and Ruco do not even share a scene together until almost halfway into the series, and Raymond and Selena had almost no interactions despite being childhood friends. It focused almost solely on the two couples and unnecessary family drama.

The most enjoyable aspect of the series though, was the bromance friendship between Raymond, Ruco and Matt Yeung. The three guys appeared very comfortable together and their friendship looked realistic, resulting in fun and warm scenes. However, these scenes were limited, particularly with Matt's minimal screen time and once again, disconnection to the group overall. Poor "Chuen So Kei" was constantly lost about what was going on between the four and almost consistently the last to find out.

Easily the most refreshing thing about "Slow Boat Home" is its location filming in Cheung Chau. It was a breath of fresh air to not see the same boring sets and filming sites yet again and instead see the natural beauty of this small town. Of course, this alone was not able to keep "Slow Boat Home" entertaining and fresh.

What becomes most evident about halfway through the series is that there is no actual point to it. There is no central story line, and just a bunch of poorly written story lines weeded together while the two main couples were pushed apart and back again and again. Not only does it become mixed with trite family drama, but allows itself to fall victim to cliched and random story lines like Oceane Zhu's and Elaine Yiu's. These subplots added nothing to the overall story (whatever that was) and seemed like they were simply included to drag out the series length. In addition, Lee Yee Man's character can probably go down as the most annoying character of the year.

Here's a fun fact: when the series was first proposed, it was supposed to have a music theme and showcase the musical talents of the cast. Ruco and Aimee were to play together on the guitar and piano respectively. Sadly, what showed up in the final script was Ruco strumming random guitar chords two or three times and no use of music as a theme. This is disappointing as it could have helped make "Slow Boat Home" more refreshing, particularly with its musically inclined cast (Ruco can play guitar and sing, Aimee can play piano, Selena can sing and compose and plays the piano, and Cilla was originally a singer). My guess is TVB backed out of this original concept to ease and simplify the filming and production process, since they love taking the easy way out. I would have loved to see music incorporated into this series.

Overall, "Slow Boat Home" is a series that starts off funny and entertaining, but its humor quickly wears off and goes down the trite family drama route traveled a hundred too many times by TVB series. All four leads are strong and likable, but either poor or inconsistent characterization keeps them from being utilized to full potential. If it weren't for the large amount of free time I have on my hands these days and the main cast, I would probably have dropped it by the last five episodes. There was plenty potential, and marketed as a youth-oriented romantic comedy, it had the opportunity to be something fresh. As most TVB series these days though, it is once again wasted potential.

Rating: 2.5 stars

"A Great Way to Care 2" Review by Lynne

If you ask me whether "A Great Way to Care 2" is better than it's prequel or not, the answer would be no. But if you ask me whether it's a good series or not, I would say that it was an enjoyable watch. So depending on the question, this review will come out differently. For this review, I'm just going to be talking about "A Great Way to Care 2" without making any comparisons to it's prequel. (I will then later write one comparing the two.)

General Storyline: With a mixture of psychiatry and police work, "A Great Way to Care 2"'s story line weaves in between the two forces as they work together and solve the cases. From the forensic psychiatry branch: Alex Fong, Yoyo Mung, Edwin Siu, Power Chan, Oscar Leung, Eric Li, Henry Lee and Christine Kuo. The police force consists of Ben Wong and Tavia Yeung. Aside from these two main teams, other supporting characters also includes Ram Chiang, Aimee Chan and Leanne Li.

Waste of a Good Cast? I initially wanted to list all the character names of the artistes but as you guys can see, there were just too many names. Unfortunately out of that chunk, only a few were focused on. There were just too many necessary characters, or should I say, the characters were too small for the assigned artistes. With other series lacking artistes, they just had to throw a bunch into "A Great Way to Care 2". Trying to make it 'star-studded'?  Meh.  I found it frustrating.

You know what? It would've been alright if the series focused on the cases alone. But no, that didn't happen.  Instead, there were a bunch of unnecessary side-stories thrown into the script to distribute the screen time to all the characters. That's why the typical cases that are usually 1-3 episodes long stretched to 6-7 episodes. While I was okay with it in the first 1-2 cases (because they had to introduce the characters), it got on my nerves afterwards as I struggled to focus on the continuously "disrupted" cases.

Overall comments, a lot of the cast members could have been put to better use.

picture credit http://starphoto.joinbbs.net/

Characters and Acting:

Alex Fong
I was not a big fan of Alex Fong, but I've begun to like him since "A Great Way to Care". Resuming his role as Ko Lap Yan, his character did not differ much beside the huge screen-time cut! It is such a pity because I actually like Ko Lap Yan alot, and was looking forward to watching him every time he appeared onscreen.

Best scene? It'd have to be the one where he was reading Monkey's (Kate Tsui) letters. Didn't think Alex would be good in an emotional scene like this, but he proved me wrong.

Though Alex often comes off monotone, there is something about the guy that makes him interesting to watch. I cannot clearly describe it, but it's definitely not something a lot of actors can do nowadays. So despite the fact that he had little screen-time in each episode, I can still feel that he's leading the series.

Edwin Siu
His character had the potential to shine but that did not happen. If I were to define Leung Kai Wing by a geometric shape, he'd be a circle. Absolutely pointless. Wanna know his story line?

"I have a crush on this girl and is trying to woo her (lasted for half of the series). Finally got together with her! But wait, my childhood friend. I want to be there and protect her too. So in the end, who should I choose? I love both Q.Q Becomes a two-timer. Busted. Realization. Too late."

While I may have exaggerated this a bit, it's still pretty close to what actually happened.  Honestly they should have just crossed Scarlett (Christine Kuo) out of the whole picture (bias here because I actually really enjoyed the scenes he had with Aimee Chan).  Personally disappointed by how much they focused on his love life instead of his profession when he's one of the main characters.

Acting wise, Edwin is a capable actor and was funny at times in the series.  Unfortunately his story line was just nonsense.

Yoyo Mung
Don't let her position on the poster fool you. As a matter of fact, she and Edwin should switch places on that thing! Yoyo Mung barely had any screen-time and when she did, her sub story was boring and random. Maybe the scriptwriters/producers realized that they did not give her any screen-time even after the first 8 episodes or something, and so had to squeeze in that story about Franco And speaking of Franco, we never got to see his face or anything but at least we got to see his shadow right? Had an entire episode dedicated to that guy! Overall, she serves little purpose to the series and is only there because TVB wanted to push more stars in.

Putting my rants aside, Yoyo's "Cheuk Wai Kui" was pleasant to watch. I really liked her personality: stubborn and straight forward. Her relationship with her subordinates is quite cute and I love how they call her "Big Brother". And when she got "together" with Alex Fong, they called Alex dai sao (sister-in-law). Though this character is nothing new for Yoyo, I still enjoyed seeing her again (which is why I am unhappy that she did not have much screen-time).

Tavia Yeung
If there's a character worth watching for, it would be Lam Chung Yan. She first appeared as the daring and spunky prostitute who then turns out to be an undercover cop. TVB always like to surprise us don't they? Anyways, after she finished her case, Chung Yan returned to being a cop and begins to work under Chung Kwok Ban (Ben Wong). Growing up as an orphan, Chung Yan endured many hardships and there were a number of times when she almost lost her life too. But even then, she continued to live on an optimistic life. Unfortunately there is a limit to all of us and she eventually reached the level that she herself could no longer handle...

To be honest, I think a majority of the series was dedicated to Tavia Yeung. Thus she ended up being one of the very few with a decent character development. Thoroughly enjoyed Tavia's performance and notably in episode 23.

As for her pairing with Ben Wong, there was nothing special going on. Instead, I think that it would've been better if Alex paired up with Tavia since I liked the two of them together. But then, Alex would be dating another police woman like he did in the prequel. What are the possibilities of TVB copying something from the prequel into the sequel? BTW, this is within that rare percentage that they did not.

picture credit http://starphoto.joinbbs.net/

The 'Others':  While I would love to talk more about the other characters, there is little to talk about due to their minimal screen-time. So I'm just going to sum it up that the rest of the cast were great with the exception of Christine Kuo.  I'm relatively easy going when I talk about newcomers (or at least I think I am), but Christine has driven me to the point where I want to bang my head against the wall.  More so than the bad acting, it's the fact that her acting is going absolutely nowhere.  Back in "Ghetto Justice 2", I understand that her character in there may have been too complicated for her to portray.  But even in here, she's still not giving me much to look out for.  Acting in 8 or so series already, I expect her to be a bit better than now.

**To make it clear I am not criticizing her accent because I do not know Canto :P  Just the acting (ie. facial expressions, body language etc).

The Cases:  I would talk about each individual case if I wasn't so confused which case is which.

While there are a few main cases that are featured in the series, there were also a lot of sub-cases within those big cases that confused me.  So I'll only talk about a few:

Otto Chan and Aimee Chan:  Wrote this in a separate post before-hand.

The Pedophile Case:  This case focused on Chung Yan (Tavia)'s childhood friends, who she considers as brothers.  They grew up together in an orphanage: Chiu, Wai, Man and Yan.  Unfortunately Man disappeared when they were young.  Chiu and Yan then ended up working for the government (police officer and the other a lawyer).  On the other hand, Wai is crippled and often went into debts.  On with the case; a few murders took place.  Father, the one who took care of them (Yan, Chiu, Wai and Man) then confessed that he was the one who killed them.  Why?  Father works as a volunteer for a kids recreation center and cares a lot for the kids.  Later, he discovered that some of the kids were being sexually abused by a volunteer, foster father etc and thus couldn't stand it and killed all those pedophiles.  Eventually, we find out that he's taking up the blame for someone else (though the true murderer is also killed for the same reason).

While the identity of the murderer did not surprise me, I liked how the case slowly unwrapped itself.  Though the subject (issue) is something that's also used in other series, the length and the pace this one went at made it even more disturbing.  Honestly, I just really wanted the case to end because as it goes on more victims would be discovered and I just couldn't handle it.  More so, as it progressed I began to think of such situations happening in reality (which I know are not rare cases) and I just felt worse from there...

There are things in life you just wish you did not know because you won't have to worry or get hurt by it.  But then if you don't know about it, you can't do anything to help solve the problem.  On the other hand, there are so many things that is not within our power to resolve even when we do have knowledge of the issue.  I find it quite ironic how Ah Chiu is the murderer even though he's a lawyer.  Though he may work in the legal field, Ah Chiu couldn't see how law can punish those pedophiles and therefore took the matter into his own hands.  Thus this case in turn displays the imperfections of our justice system (nothing is perfect).  I personally pity Ah Chiu despite his wrongdoings and was saddened by his death in the end.

***Pedophilia is actually a psychiatric disorder.  

Serial Killer Case:  A number of people are killed and the police is investigating who the murderer is.  This is the last case of the series and it was quite interesting to watch.  Though I must say that its ending felt kind of disrupt.  (Not going to talk about it anymore since I don't want to give away spoilers.)

The Unnecessary Bits:
1)  Just cross out that whole love triangle between Edwin, Christine and Aimee.  More so, just cross out Christine because I liked Edwin's and Aimee's characters together.
2)  Yoyo getting a sperm donation from Alex.  While it increased their interaction with each other, it just felt ridiculous.  Although I know that they wanted to get the two 'together', this development was too hard to absorb.
3)  You know what, there's probably more but those two up above were the most frustrating to watch.

The Ending:
Here we have two professional psychiatrists helping a murderer escape.  Sounds a bit sketchy?  I can understand why they would want to help her, but yet at the same time, their whole set up is kind of ridiculous.  More so, even if she did manage to escape from the police, how in the world is she going to board the plane?  I'm sure the police would have restricted her (passport profile) from crossing the borders (or something like that).  Overall, it just seems too irrational.  I guess TVB wanted to be creative and add a "twist" to the ending.  Unfortunately, it didn't turn out so well.

Overall Thoughts:
"A Great Way to Care 2"'s story line did not run as smoothly since it kind of jumped from one character to the next, but the series overall is not bad to watch.  It's actually one of the more enjoyable series released this year and if you have time, I would recommend it.  But if you're one of those who loved the original "A Great Way to Care", just watch this without comparing it too much to the prequel, since it focuses less on psychiatry and more on the police force.

TVB: "Forensic Heroes 3" Review

Watch with low expectations and an open mind.  By doing so, this reboot of the beloved franchise can actually be very enjoyable and relaxing to watch.  While not extraordinary by any means, "Forensic Heroes 3" is one of the standouts of 2011 for its decent entertainment value and great cast.

Characters and Cast Performances
A reboot of such a loved series with a new cast and characters could've been a disaster.  However, TVB was able to assemble a great cast that worked extremely well together.  Nevertheless, I wish they had just given it a different name.  By carrying the "Forensic Heroes" name, it angered and turned away (close minded) fans of the first two and ended chances of another installment with the original cast.

Wayne Lai - Pro Sir
Good actor, solid performance, but flat character with not much substance.  Pro Sir was likable, but more could've been done with him.  However, I enjoyed the scenes with his family (played by Yuen Wah and talented child actress Moon Chan).

Maggie Cheung - Mandy Chung
Finally, a character and performance from Maggie I can actually consider a good comeback!  Having been the original choice to play Yoyo Mung's character in the first "Forensic Heroes", it was nice to TVB to invite her to replace Charmaine Sheh.  This worked out well, as Maggie did a solid job portraying Mandy's professional as well as off-work side.

Kate Tsui - Ada Ling
Is it unrealistic for a senior inspector to curl her hair every morning?  Yes.  But you have to cut Kate some slack as it is TVB's wardrobe and hair and make up department that dictates artiste's look for the series.  For whatever reason, they always make Kate look most feminine when she's playing a cop.  How contradicting.  I can't deny that she looks very pretty and stylish here.  Loved her hair and clothes!  In the time where the young people are taking over TVB, I was able to overlook how oddly young Kate and Ron were to be senior inspectors.

Appearance and casting decisions aside, Kate was cute and fierce as a tough and smart cop.  Her reactions to Ko Sir's pursuit of her were too hilarious and adorable.  Her acting has become a lot more convincing and gradually becoming more natural.

Ron Ng - Wind
"Wind" is one of Ron's worst roles in years.  The character was boring, undeveloped, and had very little screen time.  Even Edwin had more to do than him!  Ron has improved so much as an actor, but hasn't been able to show it for a while.  At the least, he was likable, unlike in "Wax and Wane".

Edwin Siu - Ken Ho
I know Edwin's acting has vastly improved since his return to TVB, but his performance as "Ken" justifies it.  He is cute, lively, and extremely likable.  However, it was his acting in the finale that blew me away.  His emotional and crying scenes were superb and he definitely should've been nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Most Improved.  Happy to see TVB is promoting him and am looking forward to seeing him in more major roles.

Aimee Chan - Angel Chiang
Her accent is still strong but it was funny how everybody poked fun at her for being an "ABC".

Ruco Chan - Jim Fong
A huge step down from "Keith" as "Jim" lacked substance, but he was still likable and charming as always.

Nancy Wu - Eva Chow
What a refreshing and different role for Nancy!  She was superb as the driven and capable lawyer.  Although she had a strong desire to win cases at all costs, she was proven to still be human.

Character Dynamics
Wayne and Maggie's relationship was subtle and sweet.  It was too obvious how compatible they were from the beginning.

Despite the age differences and appearance incompatibility, Wayne&Nancy and Maggie&Ruco's relationship as well as Maggie and Kate's friendship were all convincing and enjoyable to watch.  Wayne, Nancy, and their family were fun to watch.   The family's subsequent struggle was sad.

Maggie and Ruco's short lived relationship was sweet.  It was refreshing to see that both consistently acted like the mature and logical adults they were, right down to their break up.  This made it very easy to watch them.

Kate and Maggie were a great representation of modern career women who are best friends.  They look so incompatible appearance wise, but Maggie's professionalism and Kate's ability to get along with her co-stars makes it work well.

Kate and Ron's "brothers to lovers" love story was disappointing. They were cute together and Ron's confession to her on the rooftop was sweet.  Due to Wind's flat characterization, the two's relationship was mostly unfulfilled potential.

Finding the Balance
In the first half of the series, case after case is thrown at you.  There was barely any focus on the characters themselves.  The dominance of the cases in the storyline made me worry it'd go down the road of wasted character potential.  Luckily, it started to slow down and balance cases and relationships in the second half.

The Cases
Decent yet forgettable, and most of them predictable.  As I'm writing this, I've already forgotten most of them.  The first one was extremely predictable, most likely to throw us off that the rest would be as equally predictable.  The cases could've been better, but could've been a lot worse.  The forensics here were less impressive and not as focused on as in the original.

Conclusion
"Forensic Heroes 3" isn't outstanding, but addictive, entertaining, and enjoyable.  Unlike the first two, it branches beyond the field of forensics and has a more diverse cast.  With low expectations, I was able to enjoy FH3 more than almost any other series this year.

Rating: 4 stars

*Written by Iris.
*Originally posted on TVB Interaction
*View on original site here.