"Maybe it would be a better twist if she realises she killed her own father and she vows to avenge her father's death by tracking herself down and putting herself into prison, or she will never rest because she knew she was the killer and she must be punished?? "
SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!
Title Deciphered
This is one series with a very schizophrenic identity. The English title makes this series sound like some teeny bopper series set on some vacation island. The Chinese title, very very long title sounds like some comedy & ghost story. The themesong sounds more like to teenage love story in the light hearted sense. And the contents of this series are nothing of the above. In fact it began with an exploding yacht, a dead father and a grieving daughter looking for answers. You can say it is a thriller, but no where in the title, the themesong or even the trailer indicate that IT IS a thriller. I don't think the writer or even the director knew what to make of this series.
Released in
2004
Episodes
20
Cast
I can't remember any of the characters' names to tell you the truth which shows how unmemorable this series was. But I do know the actors. Surprising, usually second liners became leads in here, which shows how small a production this is.
Joyce Tang
Joe Ma
Mark Kwok
Margaret Chung
Kok Fung
Natalie Wong
Raymond Tso
Victoria Jolly
Law Kwoon Lan
And that is all I remember. The rest are faces you ALWAYS see but can't quite put the name to the face, or maybe it's just me.
Plot
Kok Fung apparently got blasted into smitherins when he was on top of the yacht. I think the daughter, Joyce witnessed it. And guess what? I already told you the ending! I am so so so sorry.
Anyway, they were in a small town. Joyce, a workaholic who has not really communicated or even spent time with her apparently dead father wanted to investigate who was responsible for this. In fact she wasn't convincedhe was dead when everybody in that town was. And again, I told you the ending!
Where was I? Oh yeah, blown to smitherins.
So grieving Joyce, very guilty that she hasn't spent time with daddy went about investigating with her detective boyfriend played by Mark Kwok. She suspected basically everyone except herself or her boyfriend and everyone seems to have a reason to kill this poor old man and then the reason turned out to be a fluke. Anyway, along the way she befriended the chief of the town, the ever sandles wearing, bermuda pants sporting Joe Ma with the messy surfer dude tan and hair. Slowly by slowly she began to accept that her father was dead, until Law Lan, the local "man mai" (don't know what you call that in English) saw the dead Kok Fung, as in his spirit. But that wasn't it, people argued she must have been very confused when she thought she saw who she saw. At the end of the day, apart from running around accusing everybody of either plotting to kill her father to having killed her father to wanting to marry her father to being proposed by her father to having affairs with other men thus plotting to kill her father, she finally fell in love with Joe and vice versa.
Then something really bad happened that may threaten her relationship with Joe and finally, we shall know did the father really really really died? Who wanted to kill him? Why this person wanted him dead? How the father solved his own mysterious death. And the biggest question of all; will Joe and Joyce EVER get together EVER again?
The Ending
Need I say anything more?
Oh yes, for one father didn't die, he pretended to die for reasons I absolutely do not care to know. It was Joe's mother's sister who wanted the father dead because she loved him, he loved the younger sister, and she ended up being carted off to an asylum. All along people thought she had a child and her husband died from some accident, when she never ever married and she concocted this story, thinking Joyce is her daughter and her father her husband. Of course she knew all was a lie, but she wanted to live in her own imagination. This was around the time when the father came back with Joyce who was a little girl, and she nearly killed Joyce by pushing her into the sea (which explains Joyce's immense fear of the sea) and then when Joyce went away, she dreamt this story about her happy family, I think. Frankly by that time I was numb with boredom. And the absolute end? Oh yes, Joe and Joyce did ended up together, sailing off into the sunset, literally..maybe no sunset but there was sailing.
Comments
I wrote a darn good review on this series some time ago and the story was I forgot to save it and kaboom! All info lost and here I am again, writing this review again, for this series I didn't quite care about for actors I didn't quite fancy in a series with a plot that really was heading nowhere because at the end of the day, all those speculations about how the father died, etc, all was pure nonsense because he didn't die.
OOPS! Did I just reveal the whole story to you? I am so sorry if I did but then by the 2nd episode you would know the father isn't dead yet because Kok Fung is playing the father. Too famous a name and he can't be dead! But to get to why her father hid himself was itself a tortorous affair.
For one, we have to watch how Joyce accusess everybody, and I meant EVERYBODY of killing her father, but of course to be fair, she accused one, found him innocent, then accused another, found her innocent and so on and so forth. Just because she saw Joe digging a hole, she immediately jumped to the conclusion he killed her father because Joe didn't like the father. Just because a singer had an accident crippling his arm which the singer blamed the father, Joyce immediately jumped to the conclusion the singer did the deed. Of course I must pause here; what has crippling an arm (and it is still attached to the body) got to do with the death of a singing career? More so when he didn't play any musical instrument? I wonder...
And then just because her father gave money to Natalie Wong, she immediately jumped to the conclusion her father was having an affair with Natalie, and just because Natalie was whispering to the singer, she thought they were having an affair and killed the father.
And she went about pointing fingers at everybody who is not the witness to the boating accident or who is not a witness to someone professing hatred for the father. At this point I was already wondering how come she suspected everybody EXCEPT herself? Maybe it would be a better twist if she realises she killed her own father an she vows to avenge her father's death by tracking herself down and putting herself into prison, or she will never rest because she knew she was the killer and she must be punished?? Silly? So was going around the town and accusing everybody and making enemies with everybody.
Of course we then found out SOMEHOW the father's life is connected to everybody, that everybody disliked him for some purpose and the father was secretly helping people who disliked him because he was a nice guy and he was like a benefactor. Then he didn't die, he came back and the dilemma then shifted to not who wanted to do him in but will the romance between Joe and Joyce ever be fruitful since the father was in love with Joe's mother and if they do marry, then Joyce and Joe will be like brother and sister. Cue, the lightning, thunder and the violin.
Guess what? Parents decided to be just friends and so dilemma solved. BUT no, not yet. More dilemma. Because neither could confess their love for one another, Joe finding out that Joyce has been offerred a high paying job, which was what this career minded woman always wanted and Joe wanted to sail the world in his yatch. So how now? Simple. Joyce saw his yatch sailing by from her office and she ran I think barefoot to the pier only to arrive to nothing and she was so sad and then quietly Joe appeared on his yatch. Amazing she didn't hear anything. Anyway, happy ending, dilemma solved.
And the point being? Maybe to show how a career minded woman regretted not knowing her father when she thought he died and then how she forsaked her career for the man she loved and the man likewise. But that is such a stretch because the entire series was about her pointing fingers, everybody having some dirty little secret which turned out to be not so dirty and the so called perfect ending.
This series in the end was as pointless as its characters, aimless as its story and confusing as its title.
But there must be something worthwhile about this series, there must be. The performances perhaps?
This series has the distinction of having Joyce Tang as a bona fide leading lady, no other leading ladies but just she in this series. And how did she do? I must admit, she looks gorgeous. And she does look like a strong willed career minded stuck up hoity toity type of woman until she begans to crumble emotionally and cry. I understand her character's grief but I do not understand why Joyce, everytime she cries she ends up mumbling a whole lot of script I couldn't hear and she always cries like a baby, like a baby throwing a tantrum and needed to be cooed to sleep again. Whenever she cries, irrespective of the fact that her character is a strong willed policewoman, career woman, cold hearted killer or tomboy, she always ends up looking and sounding like a big crying baby girl. It wouldn't be all that bad to have such a girly girl but the problem is she is supposed to be arrogant, stuck up, career minded strong willed woman. My only conclusion is her character is just a facade to the real her as in the character, someone emotionally vulnerable and weak in the face of a crisis. All her characters always ended up the same way. Maybe it is just Joyce Tang who is actually a very girly girl in real life. Asides from the fact that she is exceedingly pretty in here involved in some scantily clad scenes (as in when she was learning swimming but guys, no bikinis but still very hot looking by a woman's definition), her performance is like all her other performances. It simply doesn't help that her character is so single minded in annoying everybody, including the viewers with her incessant finger pointing and bursting into tears every 10 minutes or so, and the camera so intent in pushing the lens right up to her face, I can even see her flawless blushing skin right up close, and sometimes too close for comfort. It was to me an average performance.
Joe Ma was again the lead actor, only this time he is more like a surfing dude permanently on vacation on some beach resort because he was permanently dressed that way with his hair, looking like he just surfed and his body like he just went for some tanning. I have no complaints about the healthy surfing dude look nor the bermuda pants. But his acting is totally the usual. He fared better here because there isn't much drama, just look suspiscious, irritated, annoyed, relaxed, happy, cool, suspiscious of everybody else and well, just look the look. His character had little to do .. no no that would be unfair to say that he had little to do. More like running around the town with Joyce, trying to placate her from pointing fingers at everybody whilst he himself investigated the matter. And of course to fall in love with her. I find Joe Ma utterly boring when the entire series focus on him and when he is the lead actor. I find him interesting as a secondary side line actor, I find him quite captivating when on game shows but when the series concentrated on him, I find him simply uncaptivating, uninteresting and darn boring as an actor. He just didn't seem to exude the presence of a lead actor, or even having the charisma as one.
Mark Kwok was surprising in here in so far as his character not ended up being the jerk of all jerks. That is the only surprise this character has and this only proves how typecast this actor has been all these while.
Margaret Chung gave a surprisingly convincing performance as a young step mother who genuinely cared and loved her teenager step son. I find her relationship with the rebellious step son very heart warming because well, it's rare to have such a relationship and the woman genuinely cared for the son when she was not much older than he was. That to me is the only part worth watching.
The rest gave average performance for a series that is offering nothing new nor interesting.
Verdict
Avoid it like a plague, even if you love Joe Ma or Joyce Tang. It is simply a series about nothing much in particular except to fill in those time slots where there aren't any shows being shown.
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