Anonymous Signal (2025)

Mixed emotions about this drama

I am not sure what to think about this drama. I mean on the one hand it delivers great action in the first few episodes and great acting from the main cast, but at the same time it does so many things that annoy the heck out of me. This caused me to both love and hate this drama, and this conflict is preventing me from enjoying it fully. It is like a delicious chicken soup that occasionally reveals razer blades as you scoop up another spoon.

This is another modern HK cop story, and the couples are established very early on, Joel Chan with Moon Lau, Owen Cheung with Tiffany Lau, and Karl Ting with Rosita Kwok. The classic nonsense TVB tropes and typecasting are all here is full display. Joel Chan is - again - a well trained discipline cop and he shared a mentor with Moon Lau, who is - gasp - another disciplined cop. They were in love but an operation where their mentor was killed caused a rift between them as Moon blamed Joel for the whole thing. Owen Cheung is - again - an undercover cop infiltrating a triad gang, which causes major issues with his exgf, Tiffany. The guy actually did not turn up for their wedding, making her wait an entire day at the marriage registry because of his undercover work, so unsurprisingly she is really pissed off with Owen, even after he is reinstated as a cop. Finally we have Karl Ting and his love interest Rosita. These guys are the most boring couple here, just a huge yawn every time they are onscreen and Karl is this socially awkward idiot around her.

The entire plot is that these cops suddenly get strange phenomenon occurring on their phones and their AI assistant - called Julie - suddenly starts giving them tips to solve crimes and prevent disasters. This is very mysterious and weird with the team unsure as to why this is happening nor how, but just as you think it is a force for good, suddenly these terrorists get Julie assistance making you go wtf? So what is Julie doing and why?

The best parts of the drama so far have been two things: the action and the comedy. However, the action peaked at the beginning with the intense choreography when Owen goes to save Tiffany and has never reached those heights again. There is other action but it all pales in comparison to those early episodes. The comedy, though, has been great especially with the interactions between Owen and Tiffany because of Owen constantly trying to win Tiffany back.

There is one thing I found really funny even though it was not intentional, and that is the terrible wind effect against the female leads faces. They have long hair, and instead of tying it back on tactical missions, they leave it hanging down, so in close ups the director can have a fan blowing against their hair for a more dramatic effect. I noticed this very early on in Moon’s first action scene with her in full combat gear, and I kept noticing it since. It is just constant wind blasting her hair dramatically in close up shots while she is in full action stance looking down the sights of her firearm.

But now we have to talk about the bad and gosh darn it, there is a lot that annoyed me. Although there were many funny scenes with Tiffany and Owen, it got annoying real fast because of Tiffany constantly trying to shame Owen it just got real annoying. This also occurred with Joel and Moon as they constantly dance around the fact they are still attracted to each other but Moon is constantly pushing Joel away. Both of their sub-plots overlap each other and it just squares the annoyance to a new level. Dammit TVB, why?

Another thing that made me shake my head were the child actors. They are great actors, don’t get me wrong, but they had waaay too much screen time. One of them was Owen’s god daughter, who had the most sad back story in the drama, like an orphan with leukaemia and feeling abandoned by Owen because he had to go undercover, I felt her acting at the start was very convincing and tragic, but the show showed her crying and upset too many times I actually found myself going “what? Again? Ffs” and that isn’t something you want your audience to feel about a tragic kid.

Then we have the special effects. Oh gosh, how can this drama have worst blood splatter effects than dramas over 2 years ago? Watch how the main characters get sliced in areas and the fake blood gets splattered via cgi, and then the clothes are completely undamaged later.

And man… the biggest sin this drama gave us are the terrible support actors. Oh my gosh, they overacted like crazy and look completely unconvincing that I just had to cringe at how bad it was. For instance, Ng Shiu Tong pkays this forensic scientist who helps the cops perform analysis of evidence and is very calm, but all of a sudden his acting goes off the rails like he just went ham and overacted like crazy. Almost every support character outside of the inner circle is this bad, and it blows my mind like why?

I am up to episode 16 right now, so who knows what is going to happen next but episode 16 had the worst action scene in it. The terrorists run to a locked door that had a locking bar and padlock. They shoot the padlock twice, nothing happens and then they kick the door to break the door open leaving the lock intact. That was just awful.

Up to episode 23: I’m calling this now. The big bad is Cheung Kwok Keung, the police boss to Moon and Joel. Nothing it revealed yet but my TVB senses are tingling.

Completed: okay I was wrong about the big bad, but Cheung Kwok Keung was one of the bad guys as expected. He gets caught in the dumbest way possible. He gets his crypto wallet frozen with a password by the good guys, and threatens Joel to give him the password. Joel eventually gives it to him, so he unfreezes his account and begins to log in with his credentials, not even considering his computer might have been compromised because Joel and team managed to freeze it in the first place, and of course after he logs in he gets hacked and loses all his cryptocurrency. The good guys then arrest him and a few months later during a questioning session while he was in prison, he suddenly and conveniently dies on the spot from cardiac arrest. That’s it. The drama explains it as purely natural causes. What the actual f?

A lot of the misunderstandings are resolved and the couples end up together. These were some very touching scenes for Joel and Moon, and for Owen and Tiffany. But the scene when Karl and Rosita are finally together was so weak, like the way Karl did it made me cringe and yet Rosita - because if the script - accepted it.

Speaking of Karl Ting, What I also found annoying was watching Karl act. His mother, Mary Hon, suffers from crazy episodes of panic attacks and anxiety, leading to her believing she killed her ex-husband. Julie, the phone AI assistant, suddenly started threatening him with exposing his mom as a murderer if he didn’t listen to Julie, leading to Karl lifting his hand to throw his phone and stopping before actually breaking it. He does this so many times I started saying “I dare you to throw it, you coward” but he never does! It was so one-note that every scene he appeared in, I immediately lost interest.

The final few episodes were a murder fest with people dying everywhere. They throw so many deaths at you that you do not have time to process the last death and see the characters grieve when all of a sudden another one occurs. We get two cops on the ASIB team - this is the team Joel and Moon both lead - getting killed with an especially significant scene involving Brian Tse. Everybody cries and is sad. Then soon after that we have Rosanne Lui - Joel’s mom - getting sniped in the head. Everybody is sad, but before we even can process her death, Jazz Lam - another cop in the team - gets kidnapped and is also killed via a bomb vest sacrifice. Everybody is sad again, but before we can process that, Amy Fan - Moon’s cousin - gets shot in the stomach while running from the bad guys and dies. Everybody is sad, but again - for some reason - Mary Hon dies from a rigged gun connected to a truck cargo door, so she gets shot in the stomach and also dies. The deaths were too close to each other to be given enough time for us to understand the significance of the loss, so when the other deaths kept coming it made me become numb to the dying and I actually started saying “What? Again? How useless are the ASIB?” The acting from the main cast in the aftermath of the deaths were superb, don’t get me wrong, but after watching the same crying and grief stricken speeches so many times one after the other, I really started to stop caring.

One thing I really hated while watching the drama was how the ASIB team mobilized. They would stay at their HQ and discuss theories, make a break-through realization, and then ALL of them would loudly rush down as a group in a huge mass of cars to the location - which inevitably is the correct place. However, in doing this the bad guys can clearly see them coming and so could organize a counter offensive. These cops CANNOT do subtle at all, it is always booom rush A, go go go!! This strategy never changes.

And my other complaint is why are the ASIB not asking for support from the other Police departments and teams? A lot of their ops involve firearms and storming buildings, so why did they not ask for the Flying Tigers Special Duties Unit to assist? Ain’t those guys the best of the best? Instead, these guys always go alone, just the ASIB unit rushing in with their ever dwindling members, which often end in failure.

One of the most annoying things I found while watching this was how the big bad would suddenly call the ASIB headquarters out of the blue to taunt them or to gloat. Every time this happened, one of the main cast would shout at the IT guys sitting there if they managed to trace the call, and the IT guys would always say “No.” This happened so many times I sometimes wondered why those guys were even asked after the third time, or why they were even still there since they can’t investigate why they can’t trace the call and find a way around it. And it is always a different excuse each time as well. If you work in IT can cannot do something, watch this drama to pick up some excuses.

So who is the big bad then you ask? Well believe it or not, it is Brian Tse. This twist I did not see as he was such a nice guy and was part of the ASIB team. He later “dies” while protecting Joel, but this turned out to be a ruse as he was simply hiding in the shadows and waiting for an opportunity to re-emerge to taunt his former teammates. The drama tried to cement how much of a bastard he was by having him make his pregnant wife cross the street and get hit by a car, resulting in her death. It turned out he was the one controlling the Julie AI chat assistant giving the cops and the bad guys the random hints. Ultimately, he is the host of a underground game where rich assholes place wagers on players to see who would die, and all the cases the ASIB worked on up to that moment were all games he was hosting. Brian really was a crazy psychopath, and in a final confrontation, Joel managed to slash him in the chest and everybody thought he had died after a planted bomb exploded in the building they were in. Turned out he never died and went to finish off Joel while he was comatose in hospital. Brian kills the entire hospital staff on the same floor Joel was on, then went into Joel’s room to inject him with lethal poison. Somehow, after getting the needle jabbed into his arm, Joel woke up and managed to fight off Brian despite not being able to use his legs. They fight and Joel managed to get Brian in a choke hold and break Brian’s neck. This was a really stupid scene because no matter how you look at it, Joel was in a coma and suddenly woke up at the right time, and Brian had the advantage with two fully functioning legs and yet he still lost.

Talking of the explosion during the final confrontation, what made me go wtf was how the bomb went off. The building they were in had many explosions - really bad CGI explosions as well - go off and even showing a huge bang at the entrance. Everybody feared the relatives had all died, but suddenly all the relatives walked out of the entrance - the same one with the huge explosion - without a scratch. That is impossible, if an explosion that strong went off those people would have all died and not walk out all smiles. It was so fake.

Just as we think the bad guys were all taken out, the final episode had all their phones hacked and a new host is introduced. He says they are still in the game as they are chess pieces and this will never change, plus as they cheated in the last game their relatives were now also fair game. We suddenly see the new hosts’ face as being Kenneth Ma’s. I like Kenneth, but if they want a sequel series to this they better have a better script because this one was just awful. We have the actors doing their best with a script that appeared to have been rushed and was poorly paced. You can tell they spent all the budget in the first few episodes with all the best action being there, and the quality of the subsequent episodes dropped off a cliff. Did you see Jazz Lam’s whip injuries in the episodes he was tortured? It looked like cheap lipstick smeared all over his body. I would have rated this lower, but the acting of the main 4 actors kept this up as they gave us some really great scenes in somewhat of a mediocre drama. If you want to watch a great cop drama with consistent action throughout and a great resolution to a misunderstanding, watch The Invisibles instead

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Strange…

Jazz Boon dramas have always been great. However he has definitely missed the mark on this one. Personally, I did enjoy some parts of it but there was so many glaring plotholes that basically made it unwatchable at times.

Objectively, this is a 4/10. Subjectively, I don’t believe it is that bad. I feel that one of the reasons why people don’t enjoy the show is that they treat it too much like reality, while instead its really just a show about fights, justice and some psychotic AI. Although I do agree that sometimes the fabric of reality is tested (the self regenerative powers the main characters have), and that does make the show seem like a comedy, it’s not meant to be realistic. It’s sole purpose to provide entertainment. Perhaps changing your view of the context in the show will allow you to enjoy it more.

No need to talk about the plot because it’s all a waste of time. The only good thing about it is the idea of a “video game” where people bet on the outcomes of crimes. However, even that was discovered by the ASIB way too quickly and was just executed terribly. All in all the plot makes you go “WHAT” or “HUH” most of the time.

Acting and casting is fine however I wish they replaced Joel Chan to Ruco Chan as 郭柏飞. Ruco is miles better at acting and definitely will do a better job as the main lead. I just felt Joel was a little over exaggerated throughout the show. One more comment is on the villains in the individual cases. They were all so exaggerated and so fake, not helped by the “great” writing of the cases. Until now I can’t remember a single case which says a lot.

Last bad thing about the show was the editing and CGI. Editing wise was way too rushed hence many of the emotional dialogue scenes felt like they were squeezed in just to fit in the 40 minute time frame. Examples include the whole KK Cheung as a villain part as well as the deaths of many side characters. It was literally one death after another with no emotional attachment except for 刘力’s death. As for CGI, well, TVB is known for having some rough CGI over these few years…

At this point you might be thinking: if the number of flaws is uncountable, how does it still get a 7? There are 2 main reasons. First being the fresh and over the top fight scenes and second being the overall pacing of the story.

In short the fighting made my heart palpitate every single second. Yes, it may be over the top but that’s the same with all Jazz Boon dramas. I, myself, thoroughly enjoyed chasing this series on all weekdays despite it being 30 episodes long. The story itself was super fast paced. Although as mentioned it does take away some of the emotion, it definitely adds a new level of excitement. I also loved how the story twisted and turned when revealing the identity of Julie, which I will not spoil here. An added plus is the “post credit scene” which was incredible (not going to reveal anything).

夺命提示 is absolutely NOT a perfect drama. However, it’s not as bad as the reviews suggest if looked at from a different perspective. Maybe 7/10 is a little high on my part but I personally enjoyed the ride. Finally, apologies for the incredibly poor balance between the pros and cons. This drama is really a strange one.

Honestly if they do make a sequel I would gladly watch it but sadly, I do not think it will happen as viewership and feedback for this drama is quite abysmal.

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