HEALING HANDS [TVB]

Written by Funn Lim

This review was posted many years ago, exactly when I am not sure but it should be within months from the original broadcast of this series. I am posting it as I have posted it originally.

SPOILERS ... SPOILERS ... SPOILERS

How Long
Please refer to the chart.

Who’s in it
Plenty of hot actors and actresses that appeared in the successful productions, Files of Justice 1/2/3/4/5.There’s Flora Chan ,Bowie Lam, Ng Kai Wah, Soh Weng Hong, Ada Choi, in fact,99% of the cast is from Files of Justice coz they looked more educated and professional than everyone else.

What’s it about
Doctors in a very nice HK hospital. I’m not sure if it is a private/general hospital.

Really ,what’ the plot
As I have mentioned above, DOCTORS .It’s about A&E doctors, surgical doctors ,pediatrics, nurses, love, ethical issues and even deaths. Generally, there are many sub-plots here. So I’ll take it one by one.

Bowie Lam
Assistant chief of the Accident and Emergency Dept, he’s very good at his job but a failure in the commitment department. You see, he still misses his girlfriend that killed herself years ago, and he blames himself for it. So he constantly sees the girl talking to him, with plenty of flashbacks which was done very tastefully. He even took care of the girl’s younger sister(Tong Ying Ying) and grandmother. Maybe it’s guilt or true brotherly love. Anyway, he later meets and falls in love with Flora Chan(A lawyer and sister of Soh Weng Hong) but he can’t commit due to his guilt. He wants to deny his own happiness and live a lonely life as a punishment .So will he ever get out of his guilt ?His story is the most interesting and heart wrenching amongst all. The flashback was excellent to the point of poignant and classic in itself. The real reason why anyone should continue watching the serials.

Ng Kai Wah
He’s a senior brain surgeon ,good friends with Bowie and Soh, in fact they live together. His wife left him for another man coz she complaint that he had no time for her but actually, there’s something seriously unreasonable with his wife. Anyway, he gets into plenty of ethical issues, like where his fave patient got murdered and he had to perform a surgery on the murderer. Will he do it? He was misunderstood as a bad husband by Ada who later falls in love with him and he too falls in love with her but their love is one big cliffhanger. The most sensitive guy ever to be portrayed in TV other than Tou Dai Yue in DIF1/2/3.

Soh Weng Hong
A young surgeon training under Ng, and super sensitive and is gay. Yep, GAY .But he later contracts AIDS from his patient who is a prostitute and he ends up falling in love with her. Shall I mention that this is the worst scene in the serials coz I believe the producer must have edited some scene so you don’t really feel his love for her and vice versa. And you’ll love his portrayal generally.

Ada Choi
A&E doctor, independent and very opinionated. Hated Ng’s at first coz she’s the fren of his ex wife but fell in love with him only to discover she has a brain tumor. She went for the surgery but the last scene of the serials caused a meltdown to TVB’s complaints department where they had to reshoot the ending for Focus on Focus. Yep ,she was originally in a coma but in the other version ,she woke up.

Ma Chun Wai
A young A& E doctor that would be ready to sacrifice his life to save a life during a bank robbery, very dedicated and fell in love with the matron(head nurse) older than him many many years. But the woman (Chan Chi Ching) still misses her dead husband so will they have a happy ending?

Cheung Ka Fai
Nope ,not a doctor but a policeman that hangs out with them in pubs and quite low in intelligence. He fell in love with Chan Chi Ching but was pursued by Tong Ying Ying. Will they find love together? He’s the comedy element in the serials and his scenes are very funny .It’s like the doctors cannot understand why the policeman cannot grasps the medical concepts. You can see one is intelligent and the other is just street smart.

To spare you the pain, the answer to all the questions above is YES!!!!!


Any annoying factors
Yep. The first few tapes and the ending itself. Everybody seemed to be ill at ease with their respective roles, so pretentious but you get the hang of it. The ending a bit like anti-climax with a big climax.

Hate factors
That killer that killed the fave patient of Ng Kai Wah. Would you save the life whom you knew took another life in cold blooded murder? It’s an ethical issue and this is also a TVB production so everybody will be professional in their conduct. But man, will you hate that guy.

Pity factors
Soh Weng Hong. Such a nice guy and he had to have AIDS! Why??????

Cute factors
Can’t find anything cute here. In fact, this is quite a serious drama.

Fave couple
Some would say Ada and ng but they looked mismatched and no chemistry to me .I would say Flora and Bowie. Poor girl. She was a pub going and very easy woman until she met him and they fell in love but she got ditched the way no woman should i.e, the man comes home to you with another woman and proceeds to YOUR bed and do whatever things there with YOU still present. But she forgave him coz she knew why he did what he did.

Annoying couple
Ma Chun Wai and Chan Chi Ching. Another no chemistry couple probably because Ma is such a bad actor.

Mismatched couple
The above mentioned one, and also Soh with that patient of his and also Ada and Ng.All because they don’t look good together.

The award for Best Actor goes to
Bowie, Soh and certainly not Ng. I mean yeah, he got very famous after his sensitive portrayal of the Brain surgeon but he wasn’t that good .If Bobby was here. Anyway, for girls ,Flora is good too .Some may say Ada ,but Ada ,though pretty and all, but she’s still very raw in her acting skills. She could improve.

The award for,”Well,good try but not good enough” as an actor goes to
Ada for reasons above. Before you start the virtual slaughter of yours truly ,do remember this is a personal review .I’m not saying she wasn’t good but to be Best Actress at TVB bash, overrated would be more like it. I would just say she’s popular but not a true actress.

The most dramatic change
The serial itself. From pretentious to quite interesting to plain boredom. I slept about halfway but woke up when Ada got the tumor.

Fave scene
Any scenes that has the three guys, Ng ,Bowie and Soh together. They have such chemistry together,so much fun amongst them but individually, Ng would be a really boring fren.

Least fave scene
The ending. Hated it. Why can’t they just give us a definite ending?

So,the verdict
It was a huge hit in HK maybe because it’s rare to have such productions .But frankly ,I didn’t like it coz it looked pretentious to me and later, the story development was kind of stunted, like abruptly edited that the story had no flow ,especially with Soh’s story .And it gets boring after a while and very uninteresting. They should have more ethical issues but instead they emphasized on the love plot which was unoriginal and predictable. Such a wasted effort which could have been a classic. Pity.

Really,do be honest
You may be excited by the concept but story wise, nope, boring would be more like it. I can’t remember what other productions that year but personally, this is my least favorite. It has it’s moments but too short moments. I hope the sequel would be much better. I know I know, just don’t pin pins on my lookalike dolls. Curse all you want.

But it must’ve been better than…
Chicago Hope? In the drama department, nope. Technical dept ,nope .ER? No way! But for a chinese effort, it was ok but internationally ,nope. Though there were technical aspects,and Bowie was very good at muttering the medical phrases but perhaps they should have considered putting the other artists like Ada choi to medical-english phrases classes before shooting. It was really embarrassing to see her very bad pronunciations. Of course there are no drum rolls and all that, like in ER. And people hardly shoot somebody in HK. So I guess the technical aspect was limited due to geographical reasons.

Any redeeming factors
The friendship scenes and the chemistry between the lead male actors .Excellent stuff here but Burning Flame is still classic in that aspect .And I feel Files of Justice was better in that aspect too.


Any interesting facts
yep .Won best Drama that year, best Couple for Ada and Ng, very very popular. But you do know that Ng’s character was supposed to be played by Tao Dai Yue but he left for ATV .Such a pity. It would be great if Tao is in it coz he’ll be like the most sensitive doctor and has the looks to match it. And Ada would look great with him. But the last I heard, TVB is trying to lure him back to do a sequel to this serials. Let’s get our fingers crossed shall we.

A&E means Accident and emergency Department which in ER ,it’s Emergency Room(short for ER).Instead of residents like in ER ,we have housemanship here .So basically, rank still the same but the names are different. So don’t be confused .And all those medical stuffs they uttered, it’s the same. I must admit, this serial is very realistic in the A&E situation. No screaming of STAT!STAT! But the doctors are calm, cool ,and ask a lot of questions. But maybe they’re too attached to their patients. That I feel they’re much more superior than the US productions. But one this is not realistic is that I don’t think the senior surgeons/doctors are that friendly with the younger ones.