A Journey Called Life was one of Linda Chung’s ‘bad girl’ role for this year. Her other one is in Jewel’s Splendour but that one she is rich spoilt brat that has a bit of high class in her badness while this role is just vulgar. As usual, I was skeptical at first about this series - sure I wanted to see how ‘bad’ Linda could portray and what exactly the Mongkok girls in Hong Kong acted like but the lack of promotion and hype about this series was practically zero. However, I gave it a go thinking that too much promotion over a series can often lead to high hopes but a massive dissapointment in the end.

Maincast: Linda Chung, Steven Ma, Kent Chen, Fala Chen, Raymond Cho etc
Episodes: 20
Broadcast period: 2008-Mar-31 to 2008-Apr-25
Genre: Modern
Themesong: Small Stories (小故事) by Steven Ma and Linda Chung

Synopsis

Linda Chung plays the role of Sze Ka Ka, a girl who has gone out of control ever since her mother passed away. Lost in a world of drugs, lies, and sex…Ka meets Sing Yat On (Steven Ma), who is deeply moved by her love for her deceased mother. However, due to a series of past events, Ka and her family have gotten into an almost unfixable relationship. As she spends more time with On, she realizes that she’s been going about her life the wrong way. They fall in love with each other, but come across many obstacles due to Ka’s old lifestyle.

TVB brings you a story of atonement, sorrow, hope, and redemption.

My Thoughts

This drama blew me off my seat. The ratings were average but I really liked this series. Maybe because it WAS really ‘modern’ - it included rape scenes, teenage pregnancies, drink driving, deaths, accidental pregnancies, abortion, drugs, sex etc. I thought this series really relates to our modern world and espicially teenagers. There were many female characters who all had at least two of the modern society elements that I’ve mentioned and they all portrayed it really well. However, this series was a teeny bit sexist IMO because most of those stories roamed around women, how they handled it, consequences and them being the target of the ‘bad things’.

Steven Ma portrayed another type of ‘Dak Dak Dei’ from Heart Of Greed. He loved and cared for his family, humorous and was always willing to help whoever and whatever. I loved his character, he was so loveable and cute and his relationship was Linda Chung was breathtaking. They have awesome chemistry (these days it seems like whoever Linda Chung acts with they have great chemistry) and both portrayed great charisma and was so pleasant to watch throughout the whole series.

Linda Chung - woah. First time I’ve seen her with belly piercings, dyed purple streaks, many abortions, skimpy clothing, dealing with drugs and being rude and improper. All of this was of course acting and I must say, she did a great job in her character. Her gestures and the way she talked was badass and watching her grow from a Mongkok girl to a simple, natural and smart girl was breathtaking. Her transformation was done really well and although I love her being a innocent and simple girl, I think she still looks gorgeous if she portrays a bad girl because I believe she still holds this little bit of innocence.

Kent Cheng finally came back to the screen after how many years of leaving the entertainment industry. He’s a great veteran and his acting is applaudable as usual. However the english that he tried to say like five times in each episode was really annoying, and it doesn’t help if he keeps saying the same words but pronounced it wrong. ‘Bad boy’ and ’so good’ are his reknown quote. He adds humour to this series and it’s pleasant to watch him back on screen again.

Fala Chen was the money greedy women who plans to marry into a rich family with her beauty and body. From the beginning to the end, she turns more evil, even betraying and neglecting her family in hope to marry rich. Her acting has improved a lot. From her first series (Forensic Heroes in which she acted as a murderer) to now, where she is the second leading lady, not only has her fluency in Cantonese increased, her acting is not as exaggerated and it’s great to see such a beautiful lady filled with potential to appear on screen.

There was hardly any boring parts through the series. The whole series was exciting and can really relate to all ages. From family to sex - this series covers alot of modern society. How the series underlying message focused on running and marathons, this shows that TVB was trying to show to the audience that life is a marathon with times that we are coming first, middle or last. The end of the series got me in tears. Deaths and regrets summarised the whole entire series but as usual, in the end it ended with a happy note.

Overall
9 out of 10. I rarely give marks as high as this with the exception of grand production but this series, even without the hype and rumours it managed to grasp my attention throughout the whole series.