Golden Forest (2025)

Meh.

This drama had me excited because Roger Kwok was back! But omg it was a huge disappointing load of crap. Roger plays a very rich gold retailer but he had a bunch of really dumb kids who have no idea wtf they are doing. To top things off, Roger also had a brain tumor so was slowly dying from it. To combat this, he decided to marry Hera Chan, this assistant of his that was also 100% in love with Roger. The classic family anti-marriage arguments ensued with all the classic boring tropes. The most interesting part of the drama at the beginning was literally the intro sequence, which had each member of Roger’s family wearing jewellery that had an animal that represented their personality. I thought that was pretty clever, but it was a shame that every single person in the drama - outside of one or two people - suuuuuucked.

Roger in the drama had 3 sons and a single daughter. Two of the sons played by Matthew Ho and Andrew Chan were completely useless and stupid, to such a degree that I actively hated the scenes they were in. Andrew Chan is definitely not ready for a main role. The third son played by Joey Law was smarter but his wooden acting made his scenes boring af to watch. And man the daughter, she was boring I couldn’t even bother looking for her name.

So all the sons and their wives hated Hera Chan as they thought she was only with Roger for his money. The hate for her was constant, with Hera getting always getting bullied because she was trying to be a good person. I got so angry at how Hera would put up with so much abuse and not retaliate. She only got interesting in the final 5 or so episodes after her husband was murdered and she had enough so decided to stick up for herself. She openly challenged the family after this and it became much better, but it was too little too late! You don’t have a 25 episode drama and have the only good part at the end! That’s insanity!

The best part of the drama was actually with Him Law. After watching him in roles where it he was this stubborn and impulsive idiot, this drama had him play a role of a very intelligent and level headed man who can solve nearly any problem. He ran a financial consultancy firm that helped rich people invest their money and he really helped Roger Kwok out to deal with his family matters. When we watch the drama we suspected he was out for revenge on Roger’s family because his ex-gf married Matthew Ho, but it turned out Him Law discovered Roger had recommended business to him when he was starting out to help him get back on his feet. Him Law saw Roger Kwok as a benefactor and was repaying his kindness.

So who was the big bad? Weirdly enough it was Mimi Kung. She was in love with Roger but he never paid her any mind, so she ended up with his older brother instead, who was heir to the family business. Later when her husband died in an accident, Roger became the new heir as the rules were it had to pass to a male member of the family, and Mimi only had a daughter. This pissed Mimi off enough to plot for decades and take over the business by having Roger poisoned so his brain tumor would burst, and then having a trust fund with her as the named executor so she could take it all. Her plot was obviously foiled but man the ending was so crap that I stopped caring.

If you wondered why Roger Kwok never appeared in the TVB 2025 awards, this is why. He knew this drama sucked.

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