This review may contain spoilers
Wasted potential and disappointing final boss
Had to rewrite this review because most of my thoughts about this drama changed. I really wanted to like it but so many flaws prevented me from doing so.
So this drama is about a new team that was formed by the police chief, KK Cheung, called the ASIB that consists of Joel Chan, Moon Lau, Owen Cheung, Tiffany Lau, Karl Ting, Rosita Kwok, Jazz Lam, Brian Tse and other police officers. It was formed after a Siri knockoff - Julie - gave out hints about the dangers that were happening during their missions.
The misunderstanding was more lame than The Invisibles. Also felt rushed as soon as Moon got told by the police chief, which speaking of it why didn't he tell her earlier and only told her after Joel got into a coma in Ep20 after an accident during the mission. I know he is - spoilers btw - corrupted and worked for Julie, but it's just a lazy way to reveal what truly happened. Basically, Moon, Joel and Jazz's shifu died during a mission and since Moon told Joel and the other two to wait during a stakeout, things got out of hand and their shifu died in the process. Moon thought Joel disobeyed her command to wait and took action immediately, which caused the misunderstanding and the trio to break up, but it turns out that their shifu actually went out alone and got himself killed in the process. Joel didn't want his rep to be ruined so he just kept quiet about it and took the blame. Actually such an unnecessary misunderstanding to happen and shouldn't even be one to begin with. I know Jazz Boon was trying to mimic the success of the Invisibles, but this is just lazy writing atp.
The romantic subplots were also not engaging at all. Joel and Moon's were barely existing, the only thing that was made for progression was them taking care of their shifu's daughter and the matching watches. Both were not interesting to watch at all. Karl and Rosita's love theme should not exist at all. It came out of nowhere and I don't even know when they confessed. Should've progressed as partners instead. The best one is Owen and Tiffany's with their goddaughter. It was emotional at first when it was found out Owen killed her dad and took her in, and when she found out she hated him and his farewell speech was touching enough for her to come back to him. It was actually a very heartwarming moment, along with the goddaughter not wanting to go to America, but Tiffany made it extremely annoying by crying every single episode. I cannot remember an episode where she does not cry at all. Even the goddaughter and another kid got a love subplot, which was an actual wtf moment
Now, the final boss villain. This one was quite predictable for me, but it was apparently Brian Tse who was the twist villain after faking his death to save Joel when he was accused of killing another member. I say that because in the wiki it was already spoiled that he was going to be the final boss months before the drama premiered, and because he has a track record of playing the surprise villain in Death by Zero and Against Darkness. I'll admit, he's a great villain with the crazy eyes and smile, but damn was it so predictable it didn't even make it as fun as the Candice Chiu twist in The Invisibles. I appreciate that they tried to connect all the cases together, since he was apparently the one who hacked Julie. The story worked and did a great job showcasing his tragic backstory, including connecting it to Joel and Moon's shifu's death, which apparently Joel killed his shifu's killer which was Brian's brother. However, the reason he did all of this was to satisfy the VIPs, which is just a blatant copy of Squid Game with people paying to watch people die, except it's Brian using Julie to coordinate the cases to how he wants it. Even the animal masks are inspired from the VIPs' masks in Squid Game.
The final fight was cool, making it non anti climatic unlike Ruco's death in the Invisibles, but it didn't make sense because Joel was hospitalized, and after he woke up he was able to fight off Brian like it was nothing? No way Joel doesn't have the strength to walk but still has the power to hold Brian in a choke lock and break his neck. This is embarrassing for Brian because he basically got killed by a person who should've been weakened by the anesthetics the hospital provided. Ik it's supposed to be cheesy action, but when taking the plot so seriously, it just comes off as lazy writing tbh. I do like the riddles Brian provided for the final showdown with assassins, but I feel like they were solved too quickly and didn't feel like a challenge for the officers. Like no way it took Karl 2 minutes to solve the code for the bombs, this is the same guy who was too impulsive to fall for a trap set by Brian which got his mom killed in the process. I know it was a risk worth taking, but he already knew Julie was bad, so why even listen to him??
There is another boss that is supposedly hinting for a sequel. It was advertised as a huge mystery cameo but overall a huge letdown when it was revealed to be the wonderful Kenneth Ma! This drama adds to the list of twist surprise villain roles for him, which also includes Line Walker 2 and Narcotics Heroes. So disappointing and predictable. Jazz Boon is also known to never make sequels, so this could either lead up to nothing or a different producer will take the reigns., unless Jazz has a change of heart and actually makes a sequel to this. (If he does PLEASE MAKE IT BETTER THAN THIS) Also can we talk about the poor CGI? I compared some scenes to the very very first trailer back in 2023, how tf did it downgrade so hard. They had 2 years too so instead of improving it, they somehow made it look like PS2 graphics. The explosions are cool, especially in the final episode where the whole building explodes, but are too inconsistent. Sometimes it'll look great, sometimes it'll look like actual shit. A lot of people died in this drama, only one I'm sad about was Jazz Lam. The others I didn't really care as much tbh, wasn't really emotionally impactful
Overall, had a lot of potential with a lot of cool action moments and cases like the first human trafficking case, the combustion case and the cult case, but due to some mid cases, a lot of filler scenes, and very very bad CGI, it can't be in my favorites. This is very very disappointing because I like a lot of Jazz's work including Line Walker, Fist Within Four Walls, Unholy Alliance, I've Got the Power and Invisibles, but this is one of his worst work so far. Praying that he improves upon this in his next project, otherwise is this the downfall of non collaborated TVB projects?
So this drama is about a new team that was formed by the police chief, KK Cheung, called the ASIB that consists of Joel Chan, Moon Lau, Owen Cheung, Tiffany Lau, Karl Ting, Rosita Kwok, Jazz Lam, Brian Tse and other police officers. It was formed after a Siri knockoff - Julie - gave out hints about the dangers that were happening during their missions.
The misunderstanding was more lame than The Invisibles. Also felt rushed as soon as Moon got told by the police chief, which speaking of it why didn't he tell her earlier and only told her after Joel got into a coma in Ep20 after an accident during the mission. I know he is - spoilers btw - corrupted and worked for Julie, but it's just a lazy way to reveal what truly happened. Basically, Moon, Joel and Jazz's shifu died during a mission and since Moon told Joel and the other two to wait during a stakeout, things got out of hand and their shifu died in the process. Moon thought Joel disobeyed her command to wait and took action immediately, which caused the misunderstanding and the trio to break up, but it turns out that their shifu actually went out alone and got himself killed in the process. Joel didn't want his rep to be ruined so he just kept quiet about it and took the blame. Actually such an unnecessary misunderstanding to happen and shouldn't even be one to begin with. I know Jazz Boon was trying to mimic the success of the Invisibles, but this is just lazy writing atp.
The romantic subplots were also not engaging at all. Joel and Moon's were barely existing, the only thing that was made for progression was them taking care of their shifu's daughter and the matching watches. Both were not interesting to watch at all. Karl and Rosita's love theme should not exist at all. It came out of nowhere and I don't even know when they confessed. Should've progressed as partners instead. The best one is Owen and Tiffany's with their goddaughter. It was emotional at first when it was found out Owen killed her dad and took her in, and when she found out she hated him and his farewell speech was touching enough for her to come back to him. It was actually a very heartwarming moment, along with the goddaughter not wanting to go to America, but Tiffany made it extremely annoying by crying every single episode. I cannot remember an episode where she does not cry at all. Even the goddaughter and another kid got a love subplot, which was an actual wtf moment
Now, the final boss villain. This one was quite predictable for me, but it was apparently Brian Tse who was the twist villain after faking his death to save Joel when he was accused of killing another member. I say that because in the wiki it was already spoiled that he was going to be the final boss months before the drama premiered, and because he has a track record of playing the surprise villain in Death by Zero and Against Darkness. I'll admit, he's a great villain with the crazy eyes and smile, but damn was it so predictable it didn't even make it as fun as the Candice Chiu twist in The Invisibles. I appreciate that they tried to connect all the cases together, since he was apparently the one who hacked Julie. The story worked and did a great job showcasing his tragic backstory, including connecting it to Joel and Moon's shifu's death, which apparently Joel killed his shifu's killer which was Brian's brother. However, the reason he did all of this was to satisfy the VIPs, which is just a blatant copy of Squid Game with people paying to watch people die, except it's Brian using Julie to coordinate the cases to how he wants it. Even the animal masks are inspired from the VIPs' masks in Squid Game.
The final fight was cool, making it non anti climatic unlike Ruco's death in the Invisibles, but it didn't make sense because Joel was hospitalized, and after he woke up he was able to fight off Brian like it was nothing? No way Joel doesn't have the strength to walk but still has the power to hold Brian in a choke lock and break his neck. This is embarrassing for Brian because he basically got killed by a person who should've been weakened by the anesthetics the hospital provided. Ik it's supposed to be cheesy action, but when taking the plot so seriously, it just comes off as lazy writing tbh. I do like the riddles Brian provided for the final showdown with assassins, but I feel like they were solved too quickly and didn't feel like a challenge for the officers. Like no way it took Karl 2 minutes to solve the code for the bombs, this is the same guy who was too impulsive to fall for a trap set by Brian which got his mom killed in the process. I know it was a risk worth taking, but he already knew Julie was bad, so why even listen to him??
There is another boss that is supposedly hinting for a sequel. It was advertised as a huge mystery cameo but overall a huge letdown when it was revealed to be the wonderful Kenneth Ma! This drama adds to the list of twist surprise villain roles for him, which also includes Line Walker 2 and Narcotics Heroes. So disappointing and predictable. Jazz Boon is also known to never make sequels, so this could either lead up to nothing or a different producer will take the reigns., unless Jazz has a change of heart and actually makes a sequel to this. (If he does PLEASE MAKE IT BETTER THAN THIS) Also can we talk about the poor CGI? I compared some scenes to the very very first trailer back in 2023, how tf did it downgrade so hard. They had 2 years too so instead of improving it, they somehow made it look like PS2 graphics. The explosions are cool, especially in the final episode where the whole building explodes, but are too inconsistent. Sometimes it'll look great, sometimes it'll look like actual shit. A lot of people died in this drama, only one I'm sad about was Jazz Lam. The others I didn't really care as much tbh, wasn't really emotionally impactful
Overall, had a lot of potential with a lot of cool action moments and cases like the first human trafficking case, the combustion case and the cult case, but due to some mid cases, a lot of filler scenes, and very very bad CGI, it can't be in my favorites. This is very very disappointing because I like a lot of Jazz's work including Line Walker, Fist Within Four Walls, Unholy Alliance, I've Got the Power and Invisibles, but this is one of his worst work so far. Praying that he improves upon this in his next project, otherwise is this the downfall of non collaborated TVB projects?
Was this review helpful to you?
