I like to be surprised by TVB once in a while 🙂
I am pleasantly pleased with how Last one Standing turned out. Unlike most people, I found the story only ‘ok-ish’ from the beginning. I guess I still wasn’t too thrilled about pretty much only watching Kevin and Roger at each other and I felt the story was kind of ‘heavy’ but it was definitely an eye-opener. The ideas were quite fresh however and different from the usual TVB series so I kept watching on. The story turned out quite intense and exciting to watch, especially in the middle-latter half of the story and I really felt myself wanting to know what would happen next! The thrillers in here were somewhat what I had anticipated for Love Exchange before I watched it (but that didn’t happen) so I’m glad TVB has produced this to feed my thriller-appetite. The story is quite intriguing and well written. I have to say the script is quite decent too!
As for the cast, I haven’t doubted Roger’s acting abilities before but him as the villain was totally woah!! He is SO convincing and scary!! His portrayal is so realistic and I can see how his character is able to deceive everyone! (excluding the wise Granny though ^^) The way those eyes and grin changes in front of some people to others sends me chills lol..I never want to meet someone like him in real life XD That would be so scary…
On the other hand, Kevin who I hadn’t expected too much from acted really well and his expressions were really realistic! I felt his pains, anger, frustrations and desperations when dealing with Roger, his loss in hope again and again after the evidence kept getting destroyed, the way his own mother has given up on him and doesn’t believe her own son…and then we have those cute little scenes where he turns into a gentle guy around the women, i.e Yoyo (Carmen) , Macy(Kelly) and Elaine [I wonder if it was really ‘him’ or part of his act] I really emphasized with his character and was rooting for him all the way!
I was quite impressed by the performance delivered by these two leads 🙂 They did a great job! I think Roger and Kevin both did a great job in their roles. My whole image of Roger changed though >< haha. As for Yoyo I didn’t find her character/performance any different from her other series though.
Loading ...The Story *contains spoilers*
The story starts off where Kevin is working out alone at night when he receives a phone call from his sister, saying that their stepfather has been harassing her again. The raging Kevin went to find their stepfather and started beating him up. Later however, he gets wrongly accused and convicted for murdering his stepfather when his cousin/best friend Roger stands up as a witness in court. 10 years later, Kevin is freed from jail and he is back to find Roger for revenge! However, Roger gets evidence which points to Kevin’s brother in-law (played by Ellesmere) being actually the one who killed the stepfather. Torn by how much his sister ‘needs’ him, Kevin painfully decides to forgive his brother in-law and keep it to himself rather than clearing his own name for his sister’s happiness awww…
Clues starts emerging and Kevin starts to realises the so called ‘evidence’ was misleading, only manipulating him into believing so. Thus Kevin secretly attempts to gather evidence to find out the truth and slowly realises Roger being the one behind it all- killing his stepfather because he had evidence of Roger’s illegal activities. One fateful day, Kevin meets the girl he likes again- Yoyo who was a volunteer who visited him during his time in jail and he started to feel hope in his life again. However, it turns out Yoyo is actually Roger’s current girlfriend! Kevin becomes really desperate with time to find solid evidence against Roger in attempt to let Yoyo see his true nature and to stop her from marrying him! Sequence of investigations lead on to others, but each time the evidence would end up getting destroyed- like the tape recording getting burnt in a fire! No more evidence existed.
Just when he thought there was no more hope left, Kevin gets inspired when he sees a guy perform a magic trick in front of a girl, saying that as long as he can deceive people, then he could make it reality, just what Roger is doing. From that episode onwards, Kevin’s character is acting in front of everyone in hope to get close to Roger and gain his trust. Knowing that Roger is a greedy person who would more attempts to make big money, Kevin hopes to catch him then. Kevin starts working at Roger’s insurance company and Roger’s assistant and accountant, Macy(Kelly) falls for him. Kevin ends up using her feelings to get access to all important documents etc.
Because of Roger’s act in front of everyone, his whole family who adopted him believes he is a very honest, filial, genuine nice person and has complete trust in him. He manages to persuade his mum to have a linked bank account with him, his dad to sell off their home, and got him to be the trustee of all the assets on his will. Only Grandma was cautious and knew he was not as simple as he seemed, and hasn’t ever liked him from the day they adopted him from the orphanage. However, no one would believe or listen to her.
Later, Roger’s dad dies (potentially caused by Roger) and Grandma becomes more protective over her family. Seeing that Grandma always bad-mouthed him and was in his way, Roger deliberately did things to scare grandma (like the fish in the toilet, cutting up her plant etc), but then cover it up again, making Grandma seem like she was going mental so that no one in the family would trust what she says 🙁 Those scenes so creepy! I was rooting for the poor Grandma!! but I knew she was too fragile to fight against Roger herself. I admired all that she went through and tried her best to protect her family but there really is only so much she could do alone. She even went through all the trouble to install web cams in the whole house, but unfortunately Roger discovered those too and he threw them all away…except one!! 😀 ~ a very crucial one which was placed in Roger’s room. She managed to record him speaking on the phone with the lawyer, shifting all the will’s funds into his own account. Thinking she had enough evidence, Grandma quickly called Kevin who she trusted and wanted to give the disk to him! However, being chased and scared by Roger, Grandma desperately wanted to get to Kevin and ends up getting run over by a car!!
Still, Grandma handed the disk to him and she thought she could rest in peace but it turns out it wasn’t enough to hold charges against Roger. Thus, the only way to maintain Roger’s trust was for Kevin to pass the disk onto him. When grandma found out, she was so hurt and betrayed by Kevin, she ended up dying in vain..
Slowly everyone – his mother, sister (Elaine), Yoyo (Carmen) and his friend played by Evergreen starts seeing Roger’s true nature! However, it appears to be too late… Soon Kevin’s cover also gets blown, not because of investigating him, but betrayal as he blames Kevin for coming in-between him and Yoyo and sacks him from his job. The only hope Kevin had left was Yoyo as he secretly passed on the evidence to her. Roger ends up going crazy and even captures Yoyo so he could “keep” her…torturing the one he claims to love the most.
The Ending
I’m glad the deaths ended there. I actually thought Roger’s mum would get killed in the process too, especially how fragile and sick she was. It would have been so sad if she actually killed herself from all the misery…
I’m kind of glad that Yoyo didn’t end up with Kevin…yet. After all that Roger put them all through, it would be really hard for her to forget about him. Hopefully later they will:)
The ending to the whole series- that final shot was so creepy & scary XD (I screamed!! LOL) but suited the whole theme/series/ title of the series “Last One standing” or its Chinese title which roughly translates as ‘Along with the enemy’. The act and deceiving between the two characters in attempt to gain each other’s trust is ongoing- there will be no end- not until one of them is dead. That last shot of Roger in jail is like him saying ‘the game has just started’ *chills!*
From watching the whole series, it would be terribly unrealistic if Roger really turned good at the end after being imprisoned. It’s very unlike his nature and he was born with that selfish desire and greed since young. Even being crippled, Roger will bound to come back out for his revenge.
Random notes:
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- I watched the first 2 episodes at night and it got a bit creepy XD
- Doesn’t TVB sorta send the message to the audience not to adopt anyone from the orphanage? XD
- I don’t quite understand why even earning so much money Roger wasn’t willing to invest some money to cure his mum’s disease. I thought he really cared about her…but then again- the moment he dropped her onto the ground- no way.
- I thought Macy (Kelly) turning evil in the end seemed a bit forced
- I also like to mention I really like Elaine (Roger’s sister) & Ellesmere’s character (Kevin’s brother in-law) .
- Elaine’s acting has really improved from the past. I don’t find her character/acting annoying at all and she appears more natural. I grew to like the way her character stands up against Roger and the determination she has to save her mum and make her happy.
- As for Ellesmere, I started liking him from the time he started working with Kevin. It’s comforting to see Kevin have a companion who he could really talk to about what he is facing because he is the only one who knows what Kevin is doing. The two continue to pretend they don’t get along to help find evidence against Roger, but they do share some funny scenes hehe XD
- This series reminds me of elements from The Price of Greed ! It gives me a similar feeling: All the plotting, and much like the two-faced Sammul, Roger’s character really scares me! It’s that thrill that’s worth watching- Fear for Kevin getting caught and us hoping desperately that Roger will disappear from the world lol Also, like Phoenix Rising, it’s really creepy how Roger kills off the people one by one, much like Louisa’s character in PR.
Recommend? If you like a series with some mystery & thrillers, then Last one Standing is a TVB series that should not be missed!
It’s not probably not a series I would want to watch again though. I guess it’s the genre which only makes me wanna watch it once, and enjoy it for that one experience 🙂
I agree with you K 🙂
I was so surprised that the rating for this series wasn’t so high, and there were many complaints about violent scenes and stuff too. Well, the blood look more realistic than some other series but I don’t think the violence was that bad.
Roger is just plain creepy. He has a really cute and childish voice that at first I thought it’s a bit unfit to have him play an evil role with that voice, more like Ah Wong’s voice, but he did really well! I also didn’t want to watch it at night because some scenes were really scary.
Kevin did really well too. I really hate the nice guys characters that TVB always gave him. I mean, this guy CAN act, but he could not show his full potential in the past due to those boring good-guy roles.
As for Elaine, wow! She improved a lot. She disappeared for so long, and suddenly came back with an amazing performance. Maybe she went to some more acting classes 😀 I think she’ll do well in the future. Her eyes are just amazing.
Well, the TVB Awards are coming soon. I really do hope that the award either go to Ha Yu or Roger, because if it goes to Raymond, I’ll never watch it again. I mean Ha Yu and Roger are definitely better than Raymond. He did well, but the role Goon Ga Chai is really plain and normal, and I hope he would win Best Actor for a role which he can show his full acting potential.
Roger is always acting innocent in dramas like being dumb(illness) and childish or like detective but never a bad person i was creeped out when i found out he WAS the bad person this time. O_O
And raymond some how i never seen any new movies from him.
P.S is Charmaine Sheh gonna act as the evil people (never seen her been the bad person before)
(i know this isn’t related 🙂
I don’t quite understand why even earning so much money Roger wasn’t willing to invest some money to cure his mum’s disease. I thought he really cared about her…but then again- the moment he dropped her onto the ground- no way.
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Roger wasn’t willing to pay for Leng Ma’s medical expenses because to him the illness in incurable. Spending money there is akin to throwing money in to the sea. He has a thirst for money to make more money. So the more money he has, he can make even more. And that is why he was reluctant to pay for Leng Ma’s medical expenses. And also the reason he persuaded Fei Ba to sell the house… so that he will get the cash to invest. And he only give a partial sum from the investment returns to Fei Ba and pocket some himself.
To iciel: haha yea at first I was like ‘woah! violence!’ but that was about it. Wasn’t that violent really (maybe for a tvb series)- nothing to complain about. As for Best Actor Award, I do agree that I prefer HaYu to win the award of Raymond this time around. Goon Ga Jai was kinda ordinary and I really hope Raymond will win the award for a different role (hopefully in the near future :))
To Wendy: I thought that was just Roger’s excuse ‘the disease being incurable’ because he was greedy and woudl rather spend the money to invest more money. I was so convinced by Elaine that there was really an operation/cure but just needed the funds. He didn’t even bother contacting the doctors overseas or really look into the details…
I’m glad Elaine was able to take her mum overseas in the end.
i really really want to watch it now!! i’ve actually only watched the first two episodes and like you, i watched at night, so right now, i’m still a bit freaked out over it, so the only time where i can watch it is in the afternoon…which i seem to have no time of, hahah but anyways, i’m so scared easily but i really want to watch this just hearing everyone’s wonderful comments. thanks for posting the spoilers!!! hahah, i don’t think anyone ever thanks people for spoilers, but yeah, knowing what’s gonna come up next will let me watch it in peace and now thinking that at any second, something bad is gonna happen.
i’m really intrigued by this, kevin and roger’s facial expressions are so real!! i got so scared just looking at their faces, i closed my eyes for half of the episode, but at the same time, it’s so suspenseful, i love it! this is one of the couple series that aren’t generally in the genre that i normally watch, but this so far is an amazing series!
I guess the producers are keeping it real, in the sense that currently, there isn’t any cure for Parkinson’s… maybe just at clinical trial stage.
Lap Yin, a real screwed up person and he is insecure… like he needs to test Sing Hei and Carmen, for him the only sense of security is money and he wants lots of it.
Evil Roger? I never see him in an evil role. This will be interesting to watch.
Wow.. never wonder, KTVB will still post on Last One Standing.. although alot of ppl ,felt its not so nice and even this series got lots of complaints due to too rough or some animal abuse scene.. but, i just love the series so much..
To me, its same as KTVB, 1st time seeing Roger tat evil and his shotting is great.. the way he talk.. the words come from his mouth through his mind..oh ..tats scary lol..
and when listen he say something..feel scare
To, kevin, 1st time seeing him in another type of role.. he did done a great job too.. actually whole series… i think every role is great.. just ” Kevin sis ” she abit dissapointed .. ( earlier did read news on she being critize , she also feel so sad on her shotting )
Overall.. love the series and , the ending.. its just so scary.. at 1st, watch the ending, thinking, might have LOS II.. but when read news..only know, tis is the part of the role of Roger tat ,he is villian since episod 1 until the end.. they don’t wan have something new on villian person tat, not as usual, when sended jail and will be come good..
so, feel its something new and nice to me..to watch..
any way, if the is Part II is great too..haha..:)
wooow..great summary!! I only watched bits and pieces but I think your review was quite thorough so no need to watch, ehehhee…
LOS has a video blog with the stars talking about their characters etc, and in one of the video Roger said his character ‘tong lap yin’ did not kill ‘fei ba’, and that he genuinely cares for his family.
Also, I don’t think grandma was wise enough at the start, when the family adopted tong lap yin, to know that he was an ambitious and money hungry child. I mean, from the surface ‘ah yin’ was a really nice and filial person, whom never openly revealed his evilness (at the start) to people, so I thought it was weird how grandma just ‘knew’ from the beginning that he was evil. Since he was a child, she kept accusing him of things (even of things he didn’t do), and showed obvious hate for him, which I think is because she was prejudiced against the fact that he was adopted. I don’t think she was very smart either when ‘ah yin’ was looking around for the hidden cameras, and she stood in front of all the hidden locations, which obviously made it easier for ‘ah yin’ to find. Ah yin wouldn’t have suspected that there were hidden cams from the start, if grandma hadn’t leaked ‘clues’ that she knew everything that was happening in the house even from inside her bedroom.
I think ‘ah yin’ did care for his family, but was conflicted with issues of money and also disliked any of them being disobedient to his wishes.
I do think he’s selfish and hard to understand, and it makes his character even more interesting.
I alwayas know Roger is a very good actor! and Raymond is best! wow!
I really want to watch this series..looking forward to buy it online when the dvd is released. may u alert me when the dvd of last one standing and the four with english subtitle are released?
thanx!
To rachel: Looking forward to hear what you think of the series when you’re done 🙂
To Wendy: And you’d think the thing he wanted most was a family..he did have one, but completely destroyed it for money…
To Summer: I sorta got annoyed by Kevin’s sister’s character- indecisive weak one, her acting was ok-ish I think.
To hacco : That’s interesting 🙂 I didn’t watch the video clips so wasn’t aware of it.
That’s an interesting discussion you have there about Grandma being prejudice etc against him. I felt that too. I think she sensed something, but had no idea he was as evil as he turned out to be. Grandma made things obvious for Roger but its more realistic this way, being old and all..there’s no way she could put on a great act like Kevin etc
To nam1ra: haha if I’m aware of it 🙂 Where do you normally buy it?
I’ve finished LOS but I don’t think the last episdoe was my fav. Probably episode 19 or before. 😀 I liked LOS and loved it in the middle but towards the end, Roger’s eyes freaked me out. >.<
Just finished watching it, and what can I say?
I LOVED IT. <3
Roger’s acting was so pro! Kevin’s role was also an eye opener.
Roger’s facial expressions are just. Wow! <3 >” But! The rooftop scene at the end was … *twitch*
Sorry for double post, but the “less than” signs and “greater than” signs sort of muddled up the post. So I had to modify it.
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*melts under glare of doom at the end of the show*
Same, I’m glad Roger’s “mum” didn’t die! That would’ve been sad. 🙁 Oh, and I like the grandma’s character. I found it amusing the way she was biased against Roger from the start, but as Roger started doing “evil stuff” to her, I felt sorry for her, and rooted for her all the way! T_T
Elaine was also good in it~
As for the gore and all… Yeah, I admit, it is rather bloody. But that’s to add to the whole creepy thriller effect! I didn’t mind it. I mean, well, I sort of got used to it. But! The rooftop scene at the end was … *twitch*
i finally finished it! and once i got into it, it wasn’t even that scary! just me scaring myself! lol but once i started watching it, i couldn’t stop, tvb really did a great job of making it suspenseful, sure i knew that roger was the one behind all the evilness…but the mystery of why he did it and how he did it just made me keep watching it. both of their acting, roger and kevin, was awesome and really done beautifully.
i really couldn’t look at rogers face without scaring myself, his eyes are the creepiest things ever!!! the last scene was beyond creepy, roger sorta reminded me of ah wong during the scene when they were talking on the phone in the jail. that just creeped me out the way he stared at them and his voice ahhh, but i seriously thought he changed when they mentioned how he had good conduct, but then there’s no way he could have changed that quick. but i wonder, the way they ended things…it seems like they need to have a sequel to continue what roger wants to do once he gets out of jail…
kevin really did a wonderful job, i really think this role tested his acting skills, having a role that is so different from his usual ones. he could act so violent and evil, but yet also be really caring and loving towards his family, especially his sister. and before i always thought his facial expressions were quite limited and didn’t show a lot, but in LOS, he really had a wide range of emotions and expressions and he portrayed each one precisely
this is now one of my favorite series this year, even with all the creepy scenes and stuff lol 😀
this show freaks people out XD