English Title: The Ultimate Addiction (previously known as ‘Midas’)

Cantonese Title: 點金勝手

Cast: Bosco Wong 黃宗澤 , Kate Tsui 徐子珊, Nancy Wu 胡定欣, Sharon Chan 陳敏之, Ben Wong 黃智賢, Elena Kong 江美儀, Toby Leung 梁靖琪, MC Jin 歐陽靖

Episodes: 30

Airing date: 2 June 2014 – 11 July 2014 (after ‘Never Dance Alone‘)

Themesong: Challenge (考驗) by Fred Cheng | Sub- Tight Game (棋逢敵手) by Hubert Wu & Kate Tsui (Full versions)

Official: Website

Executive Producer: Chong Wai Kin

Scriptwriter: Pang Mei Fung, Ng Lap Kwong

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• Polls

Official Synopsis

Financial elite, CHEUK YUK (Bosco Wong), never hesitates to use any dirty tricks to gain a profit, so he has been under close surveillance by the Commercial Crime Bureau (CCB).

Being obsessed with money and power, CHEUK YUK constantly neglects his family members and friends. Because of him, his wife and mentor pass away respectively, yet he shows no remorse at all. On the contrary, his craving for money and power continuously increases. His brother-in-law CHOW SUN-YUNG (Ben Wong), one of the CCB inspectors, is determined to put him in jail, collaborating with superior HO SHEUNG-YEE (Sharon Chan) and subordinate CHI NGA (Kate Tsui) to gather evidence. SUN-YUNG thinks highly of CHI NGA and even regards her as his last apprentice, to his surprise, CHI NGA suddenly resigns and starts working for CHEUK YUK. At first, she gains CHEUK YUK’s second wife, FONG MING-YU’s (Nancy Wu) trust, following which she helps CHEUK YUK deal with CHAI PUI-FUN (Elena Kong), a mogul in the financial industry. It seems that CHI NGA has grasped total control, undermining CHEUK YUK’s ambition. Who will eventually be the ultimate winner when facing fierce competition in the financial battle like this?
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Some reasons why I enjoyed this series: *Warning: Contains spoilers*

• “I will survive” by Gloria Gaynor. This song is so catchy- love it every time M Club dance to this song (young and older versions). Love their dance too!
• All the dancing in the series- makes me want to get up and dance too! Flora’s dancing was pretty pro!
• Refreshing cast- great to see the 90s actresses and a bunch of young refreshing girls
• Alan Tam songs used in the series
• The scene were Siu Sze (Carman Lee) finally cried out hard after her husband’s death at the Dance Studio
• The reference to Sailormoon!!
• First Eliza Sam series I enjoyed. And “Lorelei”- cute name!
• Julie (Rachel Lee)’s original “Hero” Ad
• Jenny (Angie Cheong) being chased by Fok Gam- it was so cringe-worthy to watch- but loved the reference to her role in ‘A Kindred Spirit’
• The scene Carrie forgives Miss Julie in the finale
• Watching Cyndi (Elvina Kong) ‘s dream come true with M Club dancing in the Aerobics competition- so touching!
• The part Siu Ji Ja (Fennie Yuen) throws off her mask during the competition. So cool!! Hilariously funny when she had the original mask on for the audition
• Fei Choi (Gloria Yip) finally finds a man that treats her well. Love the scene where she finally finds herself again, stays true to herself, and divorces her scumbag husband
• Happy Ending!!
• Eric Tsang’s special appearance in the finale

*Note: Poll is for the character so this includes their young versions as well! 🙂

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• Note: I completed this series when in aired back in May 2013 but I never got around to posting up my write-ups which I happen to dig back up! I really gotta get these posted more timely >_< *sigh* Better late than never I hope? Hope you enjoy! 🙂 *contains spoilers*
• [Beauty at War] was TVB’s highly anticipated 2013 Grand Production, sequel to 2004’s War and Beauty. I heard that this was also TVB’s lowest rated series for the past 2 years. *SIGH*TVB*SIGH*  Ok, the series wasn’t that great..but I wouldn’t call it the worst I’ve seen. There are heaps worse series out there! Cut the cast some slack…their performance were great- the storyline just could have been better. There were a lot of articles talking about lead actress Sheren Tang’s regret in taking part in the series; and due to her public criticism of TVB’s production team, she is now also “Frozen” from TVB. Oh wells- she’s already busy scheduled for mainland dramas anyway!
• Anyways that was just a side note. Having sat through the entire series, I thought I’d drop by some of my thoughts on it. Please note, I, like most of the viewers out there was a little confused on the storyline and I’m probably still equally, unable to ramble through anything meaningful or share any those hidden messages (if there are any!)…so I’m probably not going to be offering any interesting insights to “hidden plots”  or references to War and Beauty because I don’t know them. I haven’t seen War and Beauty, only snippets of it in the past so I will not make any comparisons between the two either. Interesting enough, snippets of War and Beauty appeared in the finale episode in Sheren’s Yu Fei’s dream.

• Beauty at War is confusing. The storyline is slow, draggy, and  has too many characters and relationship plots which makes it hard to follow. I remember when watching the first few episodes I was trying to figure out who was related to who. Despite that, I thought the series had potential so I watched on. TVB decided to do something nice. It was like they figured out that the audience (i.e us) was too dumb to figure out what was going on, so they had their stars come back to film  “interview clip” and showed these before the start of each episode to explain to us the relationship between the characters and what the episode was about. Don’t get me wrong, I actually liked those clips! hahah It was a nice story telling thing and turned into my favourite section of the episodes. It had a nice run down of events, and made me want to watch the series to find out what happens- Then, it made me almost only want to watch the interview clips rather than watch the series!

Storyline:

• The overall plot is simple. Sheren Tang plays Yu Fei who is a favoured concubine. She is a kind hearted lady, but often mistaken, due to her younger sister played by Christine Ng constantly spreading negative rumours about her in the palace. Christine is one of the Grand empresses. When they were young, both Christine and Sheren were part of the concubine selection however Sheren pulls out because she was sick, and as a result, Christine becomes selected. Soon after though, the emperor passed away and his son took the thrown whom later takes Sheren as his concubine. Christine is angered that she became widowed and powerless and is convinced it was part of Sheren’s scheme to gain power over her. While Christine does these petty things to attack Sheren, Sheren doesn’t blame her and only wants to mend their sisterly relationship and protect Christine from doing anything that would damage their family’s reputation.
• Christine is known to be quite immature and doesn’t think things through rationally, acts on impulse and has a desire for love.
• The mess starts happening when Moses Chan who plays a Opera singer enters the palace to perform, causing all the girls including servants to fall for him, but particularly Christine who starts fantasying in her own world about love-  love which does not exist in the palace.
• Sheren notices this and in order to prevent her sister from doing any misconduct, she schemes her way through to get Moses out of the palace. When she learns of Ada’s feelings for him, she manipulates both Moses and Ada and creates a situation where they both fall in love with each other. Ada trusts Sheren and tells her all of her feelings for Moses etc. When Ada finds out Sheren’s scheming truth, she takes revenge on Sheren by making Sheren fall in love with Moses to the extreme she fantasies being in relationship with Moses, in Ada’s spot. Ada later sends poison to Moses, thinking he never loved her but realises the truth too late that Moses left her only to protect her.
• In the finale episode, Ada finally realises that Moses did love her, unfortunately was killed in the riot when she tried to leave the palace.
• Christine and Sheren’s relationship mends.

Character Thoughts:

• Sheren Tang (鈕祜祿·如玥), Consort Yue (如妃): Sheren’s performance has been quite consistent through the drama, but nothing too special. Her character started off being a good character but later turns semi-evil- for no real good reason! I just wasn’t convinced that after the death of her son, she would turn evil. Not to avenge the son in any way, but believing life is unfair and that there’s no need to “be a good person”. She decides to continue to “protect” her sister Christine, by using Ada’s trusts. How can she manipulate and betray someone like Ada who took care of her son like her own? For that reason, I disliked Sheren’s character. Sheren and Ada developed a bonding connection because of the 5th prince, and especially after the prince passed away. Ada didn’t do a thing to betray Sheren, it was just irrational for Sheren to use her that way. Attack someone who is most vulnerable? What kind of woman is that? I laughed and cheered when Ada found out and started manipulating Sheren back without Sheren realising.

• Ada Choi as Seung-ling (布雅穆齊·湘菱) — the nanny of the fifth prince. She spreads rumours and gossips of the harem outside the Forbidden City. Ada is my favourite character in the series. Her performance was outstanding and I loved all her crying scenes. She is the character which kept me interested from the start, made me  empathise with her so much in the middle, especially the scenes when she finds out her three children at home were already dead. Those scenes were brilliant. Ada and Moses’ love story was quite touching too. They had a connection before they even met each other. I’m glad at the end Ada finally found out Moses did truly love her. Ada didn’t do anything to harm Sheren or Christine (from memory). She was what kept me watching the series. Her interactions with Katy and  her ‘battle’s with Tracy Ip were also exciting. She came off as a very clever woman, but at the end she just became so lost..

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One Episode. One screenshot. Enjoy! 🙂

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

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Cast your vote! 😀

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English Title: Never Dance Alone

Cantonese Title: 女人俱樂部 (nui yan kui ngok bo)

Cast: Carman Lee 李若彤, Loletta Lee 李麗珍, Fennie Yuen 袁潔瑩, Flora Chan 陳慧珊, Gloria Yip 葉蘊儀, Angie Cheong 張慧儀, Elvina Kong 江欣燕 , Lawrence Ng 吳啟華

Episodes: 32

Airing date: 21 April 2014- 30 May 2014 (after ‘Ruse of Engagement‘)

Themesong: 星斗群 Star Cluster– Shirley Kwan & Mag Lam | Sub- Let’s Dance– Anjaylia Chan, Cheronna Ng, Winki Lai, Venus Wong, Kandy Wong, Annice Wu

Official: Website

Executive Producer: Eric Tsang, Chan Wai Koon

Scriptwriter: Chan Suk Yin, Ma Ka Wai

• Things I liked about the series
• Voting Polls

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Official Synopsis

MO SIU-SZE (Carman Lee) leads an ordinary married life with her husband WONG KWOK-LEUNG (Lawrence Cheng), and is often bullied by her ferocious mother-in-law WONG CHIU WING-MUI (Miu Kam Fung) for no reason.

One day, coincidentally, she spots a leaflet from “Cyndi Dance Studio”, evoking her memories of the good old days in high school. In those days she loved writing and organized “MCLUB” together with the others. They included CHU LEI (Loletta Lee), who was often mocked for her accent, LAW FUNG-SIN (Elvina Kong), who is enthusiastic about dancing, nosy LUK YUEN-CHAU (Fennie Yuen), precocious HUI CHUN-LEI (Angie Cheong) and superstitious LEUNG KAM-YIN (Gloria Yip), all vowing to stay united and never drift apart. However, more than twenty years have passed, the group disbanded and they went their separate ways and they are no more that young. When dreams and reality collide, the only thing left is nostalgia except for FUNG-SIN. She continues to pursue her dreams of dancing. Due to an accident, she is hospitalized, leading to a reunion of her bosom buddies. While striving to safeguard the “Cyndi Dance Studio” for their friend, they run into their archrival, campus belle YUNG DAN-DAN (Flora Chan), whose “D Fitness” turns out to be a formidable foe for the “Cyndi Dance Studio”. With SIU-SZE re-encountering her first love YIU CHI-LUN (Lawrence Ng), CHU LEI reflects on the past ranging from ruining their relationship on the sly to giving birth to her daughter as a result of a premarital pregnancy, and all sorts of feelings well up in CHU LEI’s heart…… Having gone through all these, their vitality, courage, passion and confidence that seemingly disappeared have just been reignited……

巫小詩(李若彤)與黃國樑(鄭丹瑞)過著平淡婚姻生活的，常常受著惡家姑黃趙詠梅(苗金鳳)無理欺壓，一天，偶然在街上看到「鳳仙舞室」一則街招，勾起了段段中學時代的青葱歲月，當年喜歡寫作的她，連同常遭人取笑有鄉音的燦妹朱莉(李麗珍)、熱愛舞蹈的羅鳳仙(江欣燕)、八卦的陸婉秋(袁潔瑩)、早熟的許珍妮(張慧儀)、神婆梁金燕(葉蘊儀)等人組成了「MCLUB」，她們為此許下共同進退，永不分散的約定。可是，當二十多年過去，各散東西，青春不再，昔日的夢想比對今日現實的落差，徒添唏噓。唯獨鳳仙仍對跳舞不離不棄，她意外入院令姊妹重逢，各人為了昔日的情義，合力守護「鳳仙舞室」，但就遇著了當年宿敵校花容丹丹(陳慧珊)經營的「D Fitness」成為「鳳仙舞室」的競爭對手。小詩又重遇初戀情人姚子倫(吳啟華)，朱莉為當年暗中破壞二人關係以及未婚懷孕留下的女兒等往事百感交雜……千帆過盡，以為消聲匿跡的活力、勇氣、衝勁和信心再度重燃……

Credit: TVB.com.au

English Title: Swipe Tap Love

Cantonese Title: 愛我請留言 [Love Me, Please Leave a Message]

Cast: Raymond Wong 黃浩然 , Priscilla Wong 黃翠如, Eddie Kwan 關禮傑 , Tony Hung 洪永城, Kelly Fu 傅嘉莉, Elaine Yiu 姚子羚, Vincent Wong 王浩信 , Rebecca Chan   陳秀珠

Episodes: 20

Airing date: 31 March – 25 April 2014 (after ‘Storm in a Cocoon‘)

Themesong: 留言(Leave a Message) -Jinny Ng

Official: Website | Purchase @ YesAsia.com (English Subs)

Executive Producer: Chan Yiu Chuen

Scriptwriter: Shek Hoi Ting

Official Synopsis

The year of 2009 seems very ordinary, but in fact marks a crucial moment when two melancholy souls pull themselves together and start anew.
Through her news coverage related to a fire, TV reporter YU CHOR-KIN (Priscilla Wong), who lost her father in a car accident earlier, recalls her own grievous loss.  On the same day, when regretting she is not able to see her father again, she encounters glass artist LOK TIN-SUNG (Raymond Wong), who just lost his sister in the fire.  They wander on the streets, accompanying each other silently to spend the whole night.  Not wanting to have another regret, she borrows TIN-SUNG’s mobile phone to leave her suitor CHEUNG YAT-HEI (Tony Hung) a voice mail, which is “Miss you”……

CHOR-KIN changes her job to be a marketing manager for the chocolate business.  Having spent four years together with YAT-HEI, she notices that she has been further estranged from him.  They eventually break up as a result of mutual suspicion and jealousies.

In the meantime, CHOR-KIN re-encounters TIN-SUNG as her mother YU LO OI-LAM (Rebecca Chan) becomes his daughter’s babysitter.  Due to TIN-SUNG’s daughter, the two start communicating via text messages.  Ever since then, consolation and encouragement regarding work, family and love have been on and off sending through their mobile app.  Love turns out to be destined in their lifetime……

二〇〇九年，一個平凡不過的年份，卻是兩個心灰意冷的生命重新出發的重要一年。
電視台記者茹初見(黃翠如)因採訪一場火災之故，勾起了同年父親突然於車禍離世的傷痛。痛心「來不及」再見父親一面，同日遇上在火災中失去親姊的玻璃藝術家樂天送(黃浩然)。兩人漫步街頭，無言的互相陪伴度過此夜。初見不希望自己會再一次的「來不及」，於是借來天送手提電話，給追求者張日熙(洪永城)錄了一個「想你」的留言……
轉職朱古力市場推廣經理初見與日熙一起四年間發現彼此距離愈拉愈遠，只剩下猜疑，於是最終亦因此分手。
此時，初見因母親茹盧愛林(陳秀珠)替天送的女兒作保姆而重遇。二人因天送女兒的關係，二人開始用短信來互相聯絡。在手機平台上卻不時傳來關於工作、家庭、愛情等安慰和鼓勵，只因二人的生命冊上原來早已下載了一個關乎愛的應用程式……

Credit: TVB.com.au