A Journey Called Life Review

A Journey Called Life- 金石良缘

No. of Episodes: 20

Main Cast:
Steven Ma as Shing Yat On
Linda Chung as Sze Ka Ka
Kent Cheng as Kam Sek (Fat Boss)
Fala Chen as Shing Mei Sum (Vicky)
Raymond Cho as Kam Wing Loi (Roy)

Synopsis:
SZE KA-KA (Linda Chung) becomes disobedient since her mother passed away at her young age. KA desperately searches for her mother's cremains which she has no idea why they have gone missing. Eventually, she is able to find the cremains in SHING KAM-SHEK's (Kent Cheng) stone factory. KA's love to her mother impresses SHEK and his disciple SHING YAT-ON (Steven Ma) a lot. ON helps KA to solve many of her problems, he also finds her a job in his sister SHING MEI-SUM's (Fala Chen) company. KA appreciates all the things ON has done for her. Clearly, she adores him, but she does not confess her love to him because of her self-contempt. The love chance comes by the time when SHEK is staying in the hospital. KA replaces SHEK as the Marathon trainer to ON.SUM is a money-oriented woman who wants to marry a rich man. She involves herself in a threesome with SHEK's son KAM WING-LOI (Raymond Cho) and her boss TUNG KA-CHEUNG (Cheng Tse Sing). She gets pregnant accidentally. Later, she has an abortion because she does not want the baby to ruin her chance to getting rich. The family is bitterly disappointed in SUM. SUM does not repent what she has done. SUM injures KA whom is pregnant by drunk driving. ON loses his battle for life since then.

Credits: Astro On Demand

Reviews:
Firstly, I was not all that hyped over this series in the beginning due to the fact that I have not heard of it until a few days before it aired. Haha. So I thought, "Yeah, why not? Let's just give it a try. It's just another series to while away my time". Oh boy! I was so wrong. This series not only got me so hooked on it, it even make me open up this blog to share my thoughts on it. If you'd noticed, it's the first series which I have done proper screencaps and write ups on. The title was really appropriate for it as the show really brings out what life is about: Happiness, Sadness, Love, Career, Money etc.

Steven Ma:
I'm a total fan of Steven so I was quite glad that he was chosen to be in it. It also seems that he had been working out and going for tanning sessions for this role. His character is a total Mr. Nice Guy; he plays a great brother, a loving husband and father and basically just a great guy belonging to the group of extinct men just like Linda said in this series. This role really matches Steven as he is a great character actor and has the type of look I would expect from Shing Yat On's character. He couldn't have been replaced by anyone else. Great job!

Linda Chung:
Haven't seen her for a very long time so I was quite interested in seeing her on screen again. She plays a gangster girl turned good girl after a series of hardships she had to go through. Linda has improved tremendously in this series and everybody would agree that this is one of her breakthrough performances. She had loads of crying scenes in this series that was carried out so naturally that the audience really felt for her. In other words, even if you're not a fan of Linda Chung, you'll become one after this series.

Kent Cheng:
Ah! The veteren specially called back for this series. As usual, I haven't seen Kent in a long while. The producers did a correct decision of bringing him back for this series. I just can't see how another actor could fit the role of "Fat Boss". Kent brings it across naturally with his pet phrases like, "Bad Boy", "Low IQ", "Looking from the point of a philosopher" etc. Having Kent in this series just makes it more fun to watch.

Fala Chen:
Hmm. I'm not really a Fala fan to begin with. Haven't watch many of her shows yet. This is not the first time that Fala is acting as a materialistic and beautiful type of girl (Steps) so I wasn't expecting much from her character. Fala is seen in too many of these roles so her performance just bored me in this series. However, she did a good job towards the ending when she aborted her baby and died from overdosing on sleeping pills and alcohol.

Raymond Cho:
Another actor who I don't see very often and he looks like he's playing the same roles all the time. Not much comment on his character cos I wasn't really paying attention. Sorry.

Couples:
Steven & Linda:
It's been 3 years since their last pairing in Virtues of Harmony II. I totally loved them in there. They were so natural and cute so I was quite excited to hear that they were going to be together again. Their relationship starts of really hard and tough from rejection by their family members to conceiving difficulties to a tragic miscarriage. Nonetheless, the performance by this two actors were stunning. They looked completely comfortable and natural together. Definitely one of my favourite pairings ever.

Fala & Raymond:
Er.. Totally not interested in their story. They were cheating on each other with their own motives (one wanted to marry a rich guy and one wanted to make the most money possible). Didn't get their relationship at all. Hope I won't see their pairing ever again. Period.

Overall Ratings:
4.5/5

It's most definitely a must watch for everybody of all ages. The storyline flowed really well and it showcased the ups and downs of life and thus the title of this series. This is also one of the few series that does not have a rushed ending and instead everything ended well. The producers did a super duper job on filming the emotional scenes especially in Episode 19. A round of applause for them! The cast did a commendable job as well save for a few. All in all, please watch this series. =)