TVB 2021 Dramas Review

Hello everyone, 

As some of our readers may know, we annually write a countdown post to rank our favourite dramas of TVB. Unfortunately, we found it impossible to rank them this year because frankly many dramas were all pretty bad, and we really did not finish that many dramas. That said, we have still compiled our thoughts for each drama into a shorter review. Even though it is coming out a bit later, we hope you will enjoy it. 

This year, Sinister Beings came in first for viewership ratings with an average of 27. The Impossible 3 came in next followed by Beauty and the Boss. Murder Diary suffered from the lowest ratings, averaging to 13.7 points. In terms of theme songs, we were not impressed by many. It looks like HANA and Kayee Tam had the most theme songs, each singing 5 songs this year for dramas. A common problem we found with dramas this year was their length and poorly executed endings. 15 dramas of TVB were at least 25 episodes long, and most did not need to be in our opinion. If there was a 25 episode drama, it might interesting the first 5 episodes and then drag for 15 episodes, and then they would try to solve the problem in the last 5 episodes. We are glad there has been shorter dramas coming out with fast-paced plots as these are the dramas that seem to do well. 2022 seems off to a great start with well received Hello Missfortune and Freedom Memories with 10 and 15 episodes, respectively.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Dropped/Did Not Watch:

The Runner (大步走):  A drama disguised about running that was actually not about running, but about middle aged people finding love. There was probably a maximum of 5 minutes of running in each episode with no talk of technique or strategy. The love triangle was boring, and from the clips we saw in later episodes, they let it run for too long letting Elaine Yiu actually get engaged to Jack Wu even though she liked Joel Chan's character. 

The Legend of Xiao Chuo (燕云台): Did not watch.

Beauty And The Boss (愛美麗狂想曲): The major turnoff was Moses for us. After seeing him in Armed Reaction 2021, we were sick of his high-pitched English and did not want to see him in another role superior to the female lead. We have also seen Ali and Moses as a pair enough already.

Plan "B" (寶寶大過天): Jay accidentally played episode 5 while trying to watch the first one. Turns out, not much was missed, and there was really no reason to continue with Kenneth being a bore. We heard that Eliza was better in this role though.

Final Destiny (一笑渡凡間): We were not that interested in the drama, mainly because TVB's ancient dramas are now poorly executed. We did not here a lot of comments about this one either, so we can't comment if it was good or bad.

Battle Of The Seven Sisters (七公主): We watched over 15 episodes of this but was left with no motivation to finish. The plot consisted snippets of the different sisters' lives and how some of them were on poor terms with each other, but it failed to come together as a coherent story. As we have said before, we were confused how this won the Best Drama of the year.

A Love Of No Words (十月初五的月光): Cee saw 5 episodes. Nothing much to say about it, though we heard that many people actually enjoyed this new version over the older one. There was not enough  Claire Yiu stole the show as Sa Wa. How unfortunate she was not in top 5 nominations.

The Line Watchers (把關者們): After a few episodes, we expected them to move on from promoting the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department but that was all they did from what we saw. We watched clips that Mandy was heartbroken over her miscarriage for half the show. Did it really need to be 27 episodes long?

The Ringmaster (拳王): We were disappointed with this drama. We did not see many boxing scenes, and the action seemed poorly done. Wayne was wearing the same leather coat for the entire series, and Owen was very expressionless whenever he came on the screen.

Completed Dramas:

Once again, the dramas listed are in no particular order, since we decided not to rank them this year.

Come Home Love: Lo and Behold (愛·回家之開心速遞):  Many actors left the sitcom this year which has been running since 2017.  A lot of the same storylines have been reused in many episodes. We hope they develop new romantic lines a bit quicker. For example, Andrea So still has not had much development in that area yet. This year, the weddings held on Dec 27 for 2 onscreen couples was a major development for the characters. It felt like we were witnessing someone we knew actually get married because these characters have been onscreen for 4 years. We heard that fans also bought advertisements on buses and billboards to celebrate Konnie and Stanley characters’ weddings which shows how into the story fans are.

We saw some of these beautiful wedding shoots online, but they did not have these scenes for the 3 wedding episodes which was a bit disappointing for us.

The Impossible 3 (非凡三俠): We enjoyed the fast pace of this drama, but we do not remember much from it. It's surprising that with 6 episodes only, it got the 2nd highest ratings of the year. It was action-packed with actors that you don't see on TVB often.

The Forgotten Day (失憶24小時): We usually like dramas produced by Amy Wong. However, The Forgotten Day was missing something. It started off great with some dark humour but got lost with slow progression near the middle of the drama. By the end, we pretty much guessed what happened that night that Shaun Tam's character forgot. Roger Kwok was pretty funny, though Shaun was a bit boring in his role. It was still a decent drama, but it certainly did not need 27 episodes.

Sinister Beings (逆天奇案): This felt like a very typical 2010's cop drama that TVB used to produce a lot of. We kind of forgot what happened in the cases. Joman did a much better job as one of the female leads that Rosina or Crystal. We did not understand why Crystal kept getting called AT-NA or why they had to force a love triangle to happen when it was not even reasonable. Moon Lau and Jonathan Cheung were great as villains, and it was overall an acceptable drama. The ending felt pretty lousy with Rosina leaving Ruco because of the unnecessary affair they had to include in the story. 

The Kwoks And What (我家無難事): A very typical family drama with low budget production. It was heartwarming nonetheless. Wu Fei was a pleasant surprise to us and was very natural. Joe Ma was quite annoying as Duncan, and Natalie Tong did not do anything. 

Take Two (換命真相): We have seen so many time travel dramas, so this one did not seem new in terms of ideas. Because so many dramas were poorly done this year, we found this to be one of the more watchable series. We liked watching Gloria, Moon, and Angel as best friends running their cafe together. It felt quite sad at the end when we found out everything was Bo Kim's (played by Brian Chu) imagination, and Gloria and Shaun did not have a happy ending together. 

Armed Reaction 2021 (陀槍師姐2021): The main problem with this installment was that it seemed to undermine its previous themes. Instead of showing a policewoman that was armed as its Chinese title suggests, Jessica Hsuan played could not even fire a shot without shaking. They should have just made another series called something else.

We found this hilarious report of netizens complaining Moses' annoying off pitch voice:

https://www.weekendhk.com/entertainment/%e9%99%80%e6%a7%8d%e5%b8%ab%e5%a7%902021-%e9%99%b3%e8%b1%aa-plt-1111581/5/ 

Moses screeching “THIS IS OFFICE” as seen in the picture below basically sums his acting in the show.

Judging by Bob Cheung's face here, it looks like netizens aren't the only ones suffering from Moses' exaggerated actions and voice.

Shadow of Justice (伙記辦大事): We can't believe we actually finished this. The whole drama was about Jeannie as an undercover, and everyone around her played a supporting role. Why get Bobby, Joe or Joey when you are just going to focus on Jeannie every episode?

We waited and waited for Bobby and Joe to have some interaction. Finally, Bobby and Joe exchanged their first words on the 20th episode and it was just Bobby saying he needs to ask Joe questions followed by Joe turning around and ignoring him lol.

Fraudstars (欺詐劇團): This was another short series that was well done with a good script. Pierre Ngo, Angel Chiang, Sammi Cheung and the other second, third line actors were endearing. JW surprised us with her acting as the villain. Our only complaint is that the final scheme could be have been bigger and more deceptive.

Murder Diary (刑偵日記): This was a very different TVB drama. It felt darker and more cinematic with topics regarding mental health that were newly explored. Vincent and Kara were great and irreplaceable in their complex roles. It is definitely not the typical family drama and requires patience and attention to small details that are hinted. Hence, the drama did not get good reviews or ratings, though we personally enjoyed it. The plot was not perfect, but we felt the cinematography and psychologic themes were bold.

AI Romantic (智能愛人): Ali was the star of the show. We thought the premise of the show was good, and Ali was one of the few actresses in the station who could pull off playing the robot that well. Luk Wing was honestly not bad. In the middle, the plot got kind of lost and dragged on a bit too long . It could have done with 20 episodes. 

Kids Lives Matter (星空下的仁醫): A more serious production that was aired this year, with a focus on the pediatrics ward. The cases touched our hearts especially with the child actors and parents who were amazing. It should have been recognized over Battle of Seven Sisters. We wrote a full review on this on our blog.

Thanks for reading the review!

-CeeJay

Images retrieved from:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TVB_dramas_in_2021

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E6%AD%A5%E8%B5%B0 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/zh/9/97/%E5%AF%B6%E5%AF%B6%E5%A4%A7%E9%81%8E%E5%A4%A9.jpg

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https://i.mydramalist.com/xJr1z_4f.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/zh/thumb/7/70/%E6%84%9B%E7%BE%8E%E9%BA%97%E7%8B%82%E6%83%B3%E6%9B%B2.jpg/250px-%E6%84%9B%E7%BE%8E%E9%BA%97%E7%8B%82%E6%83%B3%E6%9B%B2.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/zh/4/49/%E5%8D%81%E6%9C%88%E5%88%9D%E4%BA%94%E7%9A%84%E6%9C%88%E5%85%89_%282021%E5%B9%B4%E9%9B%BB%E8%A6%96%E5%8A%87%29.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/zh/thumb/0/0e/%E6%8A%8A%E9%97%9C%E8%80%85%E5%80%91.jpg/250px-%E6%8A%8A%E9%97%9C%E8%80%85%E5%80%91.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/zh/thumb/7/72/%E6%8B%B3%E7%8E%8B_%282021%E5%B9%B4%E9%9B%BB%E8%A6%96%E5%8A%87%29.jpeg/250px-%E6%8B%B3%E7%8E%8B_%282021%E5%B9%B4%E9%9B%BB%E8%A6%96%E5%8A%87%29.jpeg

https://hk.ulifestyle.com.hk/cms/images/topic/1024x576/202108/20210816205351_1_1629118431.png

https://fs.mingpao.com/ldy/20211227/s00009/d0a86041c50e1457fb9eeca123abf7b2.jpg

https://cdn.hk01.com/di/media/images/dw/20211226/551864061176975360654013.jpeg/LXxD_iOkYsIQMtv0sYu5QEH7xZr2b2-gRiev1UYnr9U?v=w1920

https://imgs.orientalsunday.hk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/impossible31_15586791385fbe984b9579a-1000x600.jpg

https://www.yule.hk/hk/1539.html

http://www.tvbusa.com/featured/sinister-beings/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vIBnQRXbt8

https://tvbanywherena.com/cantonese/series/2067-TakeTwo

https://www.wikiwand.com/zh-tw/%E9%99%80%E6%A7%8D%E5%B8%AB%E5%A7%902021

https://www.weekendhk.com/entertainment/%e9%99%80%e6%a7%8d%e5%b8%ab%e5%a7%902021-%e9%99%b3%e8%b1%aa-plt-1111581/5/

https://tvbanywherena.com/cantonese/series/1790-ShadowOfJustice

https://tvbanywherena.com/cantonese/series/1796-Fraudstars

https://tvbanywherena.com/cantonese/series/1862-Murder_Diary

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https://inf.news/zh-hans/entertainment/8c4c40c7164111a3f4068a89d9832614.html

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