Me and TVB
I may not know what TVB of Hong Kong stands for, but all I know is, I LOVE their serial dramas!
Since I was in Kindie at 5 years old, I would sit in front of the TV with my mother at 6 pm onwards to follow on all kinds of dramas, ranging from corporate-themed dramas to totally soapy love dramas. It really does provide us with entertainment, besides keeping us in touch with our Chinese background and mother tongue. It's something that we look forward to on every boring school day. Through the years as I grew up, I never seemed to lose interest in these dramas. Even on exam weeks during my secondary school days I would still find time to watch my favourite shows. Those days without Astro's channel 30, we could only watch dramas on TV 2 that were many months old unless we spent money to rent video tapes from the neighbourhood video shop; something my mother never allowed me to do.
The best part about TVB's serials is their creativity. The themes for their serials are pretty limited, and sometimes they come up with some totally crappy themes. By far the most popular ones are those that revolve around the corporate world (Threshold of An Era), police and thieves (Armed Reaction), ancient settings and the all time favourite love soaps such as Secret of The Heart. Ah my personal favourite too. Newer movies these days on Astro are those about firemen, customs and immigration, pilots, swimmers (???), super magic kung fu masters and my recent favourite one on doctors. But with these same themes, they employ different actors with different stories and twists to make every drama feel different. There can be two corporate dramas going on at the same time but one maybe on stock market and another on property development. So how do you judge a popular drama? It ends 5 minutes earlier than the stipulated air time to include a sneak preview of the the following eposide, has advertisements that last almost forever and ends at the most climactic moment. I have followed dramas that last only half an hour each day and the episodes run into the thousands!
Now I am following The Last Breakthrough which is a doctor drama. It is even better than Healing Hands, personally. It adds more spice to its story line as it also takes you through Africa to see how the HK docs join Life Force to help save lives of poor native African tribe members. Some variety compared to the all-HK setting we see in most dramas. There are also many twists and educational elements in its story. There is a part where a doctor suddenly develops liver cancer and goes for RFA (Radio Frequency Ablation), and another part where a doctor suddenly forgives a guy who mowed down his girlfriend because the murderer agreed to donate his marrow to save his friend's son who has leukemia (Note my use of SUDDENLY). There is also a part where in Africa, the doctor used jumper cables linked to a car battery to defibrillate a guy who got VF. Unacceptable but it worked. There was another part where a doctor brought back to life a woman who died after delivery by punching her chest. Talk about resurrection. Haha. Nontheless, I must say they did very well in mixing love affairs (like, all the time), a generous amount of hospital politics and accurate medical information, with heart warming scenes of humanity. The latest thing I learned is this condition called the Brugada syndrome. Common cause of sudden death among young people. Go check out about it.
This brings me to a question to all readers: Anybody knows WHERE can I download HK serial dramas by the episodes? It's so easy to download or find trackers for Gray's anatomy or Scrubs but Chinese dramas are almost impossible to find! Also, where can I download Chinese songs?
I'm suddenly getting all Chinaman Ah Beng-like now...
Btw, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!
Since I was in Kindie at 5 years old, I would sit in front of the TV with my mother at 6 pm onwards to follow on all kinds of dramas, ranging from corporate-themed dramas to totally soapy love dramas. It really does provide us with entertainment, besides keeping us in touch with our Chinese background and mother tongue. It's something that we look forward to on every boring school day. Through the years as I grew up, I never seemed to lose interest in these dramas. Even on exam weeks during my secondary school days I would still find time to watch my favourite shows. Those days without Astro's channel 30, we could only watch dramas on TV 2 that were many months old unless we spent money to rent video tapes from the neighbourhood video shop; something my mother never allowed me to do.
The best part about TVB's serials is their creativity. The themes for their serials are pretty limited, and sometimes they come up with some totally crappy themes. By far the most popular ones are those that revolve around the corporate world (Threshold of An Era), police and thieves (Armed Reaction), ancient settings and the all time favourite love soaps such as Secret of The Heart. Ah my personal favourite too. Newer movies these days on Astro are those about firemen, customs and immigration, pilots, swimmers (???), super magic kung fu masters and my recent favourite one on doctors. But with these same themes, they employ different actors with different stories and twists to make every drama feel different. There can be two corporate dramas going on at the same time but one maybe on stock market and another on property development. So how do you judge a popular drama? It ends 5 minutes earlier than the stipulated air time to include a sneak preview of the the following eposide, has advertisements that last almost forever and ends at the most climactic moment. I have followed dramas that last only half an hour each day and the episodes run into the thousands!
Now I am following The Last Breakthrough which is a doctor drama. It is even better than Healing Hands, personally. It adds more spice to its story line as it also takes you through Africa to see how the HK docs join Life Force to help save lives of poor native African tribe members. Some variety compared to the all-HK setting we see in most dramas. There are also many twists and educational elements in its story. There is a part where a doctor suddenly develops liver cancer and goes for RFA (Radio Frequency Ablation), and another part where a doctor suddenly forgives a guy who mowed down his girlfriend because the murderer agreed to donate his marrow to save his friend's son who has leukemia (Note my use of SUDDENLY). There is also a part where in Africa, the doctor used jumper cables linked to a car battery to defibrillate a guy who got VF. Unacceptable but it worked. There was another part where a doctor brought back to life a woman who died after delivery by punching her chest. Talk about resurrection. Haha. Nontheless, I must say they did very well in mixing love affairs (like, all the time), a generous amount of hospital politics and accurate medical information, with heart warming scenes of humanity. The latest thing I learned is this condition called the Brugada syndrome. Common cause of sudden death among young people. Go check out about it.
This brings me to a question to all readers: Anybody knows WHERE can I download HK serial dramas by the episodes? It's so easy to download or find trackers for Gray's anatomy or Scrubs but Chinese dramas are almost impossible to find! Also, where can I download Chinese songs?
I'm suddenly getting all Chinaman Ah Beng-like now...
Btw, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!
