聲夢傳奇2 海外踢館賽下半場 回顧 丨 Stars Academy 2 Overseas Battle Part 2 TVB Review

Hi Everyone,

This is our Stars Academy 2 Overseas Battle Part 2 review and is the post that will wrap up this season. It has been a long journey for the constestants and the audience who have witnessed their growth throughout the months. This was the last time they performed on the stage which had to be taken down after the night these 2 episodes were filmed.

Disclaimer: This post contains purely our opinions after watching the show. The information presented is done according to the best of our knowledge. We would like to apologize in advance for any errors or missing information.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Since both part 1 and 2 were filmed the same day, the judges were the same as last time, including: 譚國政 (Davy Tam), 黃尚偉 (Conrad Wong),  張佳添 (Clayton Cheung), 陳潔靈 (Elisa Chan/Miss Chan Chan), 黃敬佩 (Peggie Wong), 舒文 (Schumann Lee).

Song list based on order of appearance:

Zev -《讓我一次愛個夠》

Sabrina -《Roar》

Vincent, Xair, Ziwei, Zentson -《小情歌》

Sean, Christopher, Timothy, Duncan -《My Zone》

Ziwei, Pamela, Kayee Tam -《Can You Hear》

XiX -《那些年》

Xair, Zev, Ziwei, Vincent, Zentson -《童話》

Zev's singing technique is quite solid. However, we felt this song was a bit too repetitive with not enough variation. It's too bad Zev didn't sing R&B on this stage because we remember it seemed to be a strength during the Malaysia competition. The red hair really helps 

This was the song Sabrina prepared for the night of finals that she did not get to perform. We like how Sabrina has her own style that doesn't try to really resemble another singer. The vocals were great, but Sabrina didn't show enough of that attitude or confidence to match the meaning of the song. If she had a bit more groove or playfulness, it would push this performance to the next level.

We also felt like the instrumentals could have been a bit lighter for the first verse and then pick up during the chorus. We are looking forward to seeing Sabrina improve more and more in confidence and stage presence on a different stage.

Vincent has a really unique and soothing voice well-suited for softer songs like this. We overall enjoyed the performance with nice backing vocals from his teammates. We agree with a judge's comment that taking some singing lessons might be beneficial to help him go further. 

This is an original rap song written by Sean. Though we wished they added some singing parts to the song, 2e think these 4 could definitely form a male group because a solo act might be harder at this time with so many new singers coming out.

 We wished we could hear Ziwei sing more since we didn't get to hear her voice too much , but all the harmonies were nice, having Kayee lead Ziwei and Pamela. The performance was like three sisters sharing a story together.

Finally, we could hear XiX sing a slow non-dancing song with acapella elements. Their pink ruffles outfits were specifcially designed for each of them and gave the song a new meaning of the girls creating and sharing memories with each other, instead of a love story. Some of the girls still need to work on their Mandarin pronoucniation as it sounded unnatural, but overall a decent performance.

This was another emotional piece performed by the Malaysian students together. It was a simple arrangment, but everyone's voices blended well. We also liked how they sang a part of it in Malay to acknowledge their home and what it took to get here.

The final song performed on this stage was《 我的快樂時代 》by everyone. Through the clips of the video, we saw the friendships the students created and their relationships with the mentors which will be treasured no matter where everyone's path takes them.

Other Clips:

This was the rehearsal version of Pamela's 《Dance Monkey》for the finals as well. It was interesting to see her try a different style.

They played a series of mini games in between including this one where the background music will go out in the middle of singing and the students must sing with the right tempo to time their vocal to match when the music comes back on again. While Jasmine and Sabrina sang their own competition songs which they should be really familiar with, Lorraine and Xair had to sing Star Team's old competition songs.  Jasmine and Lorraine passed, while Sabrina and Xair did not. Lorraine handled it easily here and sounds like a professional to us.

Here's another mini game they played where they had to sing for a specified amount of seconds and have to stop singing when they think they are at that time.Gina won in this round as she was right on the dot. 

This game is a dance marathon where Xair and Angel were the winners, showing that the moves were easy for them. It was funny that Charlotte and Aster both forgot the moves quickly even though they are supposed to be the better dancers of the team.

These were also fun clips of Star Team bringing Dream Team to Cheung Chau and cosplaying as classic HK tv/movie characters at TVB's filming street.

In the end, Star Team won again, with 4 judges choosing them and 2 judges choosing Dream Team for the 2nd round as well. XiX won the best performance award out of Star Team, and Lorraine won it out of Dream Team which was well deserved. Despite the awards, it was easy to see that it was not truly a competiton, but a student exchange to learn from each other. We hope to see Dream Team invited again to perform in Hong Kong and gain some more opportunities.

With a fresh batch of singers from this show, we wonder what TVB will do with them. Do they have the funds to help promote both Stars 1 and 2 members, or will some of them sign with other record companies to develop their careers? We hope their talents will not go to waste. The show was overall very well produced and professional. We are very excited to see the students continue to pursue their dreams because their hardwork and determination through the past few months has bee truly inspiring. Hope you all enjoyed this series of Stars Academy 2 posts!

- CeeJay

Images Retrieved From:

https://almondmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/16.jpg

https://www.mpweekly.com/entertainment/focus/local/%e8%81%b2%e5%a4%a2%e5%82%b3%e5%a5%872%e6%b5%b7%e5%a4%96%e8%b8%a2%e9%a4%a8%e8%b3%bd%ef%bd%9c%e5%a4%a7%e9%a6%ac%e5%86%a0%e8%bb%8dxair%e6%b4%be%e5%8f%af%e6%84%9b%e8%a1%a8%e6%83%85%e5%8c%85%e6%90%b6fo 

References:

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%81%B2%E5%A4%A2%E5%82%B3%E5%A5%872

https://www.youtube.com/c/%E8%81%B2%E5%A4%A2%E5%82%B3%E5%A5%87STARSACADEMY