Pretty unique concept, and nice message :)
"Hello Missfortune" is a short fantasy drama, with a romance-centered plot without any love triangle. The concept seems rather unique, and the story was very interesting.Story
The story starts with our FL, Yu, arriving in the futuristic 2nd dimension, which is like a first stage of the afterlife, after having died in the real world, which is the 1st dimension. Here she has to work to gain points for moving up to the 3rd dimension. She wants to quickly move up to follow her parents, who have died a long time before her. The work is to either bring luck or misfortune to the humans in the human realm. Yu draws our ML, Pei-Ho, whom she has to bring a certain amount of misfortune every day. As he is poor and depressed already, she starts feeling bad for him, and also, through PauPau, finds a way to meet him in person. She falls in love with him. But things are not as they seem at first.
Cast & Characters
Yu (Female Lead), played by Erica, is a kind-hearted, sweet, and rather optimistic spirit. She has a big heart for others. Her goal is to follow her parents to the 3rd dimension.
Pei-Ho (Male Lead), played by Hubert Wu, is a kind-hearted but depressed person in the human world. He is very poor, and luck doesn't seem to be on his side. A past event made him feel unworthy of many things.
Pau-Pau (Second Lead Character), played by Mayanne Mak, is also a spirit in the 2nd dimension, and a total foodie. She is quite courageous and carefree. She is all talk, yet has her heart in the right place. She resembles an older sister, who leads you on to do forbidden things. xD I honestly like Mayanne a lot as an actress.
Tino (Second Lead Character), played by Mark Ma, is a boastful and carefree spirit in the 2nd dimension. He is a poser and a flirt, until he regains his memories of his life in the human world, that is. I liked him a lot too! ^-^
My Opinion
Although the romance stands in the center of the drama, the fantasy is still the main theme – Which I loved, since I'm a fan of fantasy anyway. Also, there is no love triangle or annoying character whatsoever. I liked all the main characters, as well as the acting of the respective actors and actresses. The emotional backstory of each character made me get attached to them easily.
I found the story about dimensions and "bringing misfortune" pretty unique. It was definitely interesting. Not only the story of the main leads, but also the stories of the second leads had me curious the whole time.
There are some scenes that felt slow and a little draggy at the beginning. It also had its fun parts, tho! The second half of the drama was a little darker. That's when elements of mystery, crime and suspense were added, much to my liking. I also liked the messages the drama delivered.
There were some things that bugged me a little, but overall I enjoyed the drama a lot. It was totally binge-able! If you like fantasy, and have some time to spare: Watch it! :)
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Finally, I want to end my review with my favorite quote of the drama, that describes the story quite well:
"When one, two, three and four coincidences come together, they can't be coincidences. It's all meant to be. It's just that you are being too ignorant, or you don't know yet. When it's time for you to know, you will."
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A twist towards the end
I chose to watch this drama because it is in the fantasy genre with a simple plotline.After finished watching, yes, it was fantasy, yes, it was simple, nothing complicated, but what surprised me was the twist towards the end as stated in my headline. That twist actually made me gave more points to this drama. It was already quite good, but the twist kind of made me sit up and look forward to watching.
As for negative remarks about this drama, they would be, illogical part whereby the female lead, after having drunk the potion to forget all her unhappiness with the male lead, could just recall her past with him by just looking at a piece of biscuit the male lead often ate and on that piece of biscuit was magically written her name and that of the male lead, like xxxx love yyyy. Seriously I thought that was like huh? just like that she remembered EVERYTHING about him?? That simple? ok, perhaps the scriptwriter thought that part wasn't important but what happened after was more important, so how she remembered him was just quickly and effortlessly done and over with. Kind of illogical to me.
And the kissing scenes between the male and female leads were not that good, especially the ending when the female lead was going to leave the male lead for good, that was a goodbye kiss which was supposed to be filled with utmost sadness, but it was just closed lips touching, no passion or sadness, they were really just 'acting', I didn't feel touched at all. These minute details do not seem much but because they were the main leads and this romance and love between them does make up a huge part of the entire drama.
Nevertheless, all in all, I still enjoyed this drama with the simple storyline, the twist towards the end, the heartwarming aspects, the funny scenes were entertaining enough, these were enough for the total enjoyment of the drama, but no wow factor, no fantastic feel, no unforgettable love or romance, no particularly terrific acting by the cast, just a simple storyline, normal pacing, not boring, with some heartwarming scenes and a twist at the end.
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Finally a decent TVB drama in 2021!
"Short and sweet with a bitter aftertaste" - that's how I would describe this TV series. Although I have not finished watching "Hello Missfortune", based on the 7 episodes I have seen, I already know I'm going to be entertained.Without slagging off nearly all of the other TVB dramas in 2021, it's great to finally see coherent, well-thought-out and creative storytelling in a TVB drama. In my opinion, the cast and crew finally pulled off a TVB TV series that deserves awards.
If we were to compare short TVB TV dramas, I can honestly say "Hong Kong Love Stories" (a 2020 TVB drama) could not hold a candle to "Hello Missfortune". The former had far too many superfluous characters (namely Fred) and storylines and tried to do far too much. I reckon the series would have been much better if, in the editing room, they trimmed down the fat (i.e. the university students) and reduced the number of episodes to say maybe 5.
The other 2 TV series I thought were good this year are "Used Good" (still ongoing - will write a separate review for this) and "AI Romantic". Surprise, surprise the latter didn't win anything because "Netizens" (I call them Trolls) are vehemently against Ali Lee having any form of success, even if she deserves it for a pretty decent performance as the leading actress. Glad I got that off my chest. Back to the review.
Without ruining the plot, I'll just say "Hello Missfortune" has suspense, romance, comedy, tragedy and a surprising amount of gore. "Hello Missfortune" (a decent pun I might add) is definitely not for the faint hearted and touches quite a few serious motifs such as the afterlife, the housing problem in HK and violence so maybe tuck the children in bed before turning on VOD on your TVB box/TVB app.
The 2 theme songs are also pretty good and worth downloading on Apple Music (both singers are in the drama).
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Good Enough
Hong Kong Drama "Hello Missfortune" is a bittersweet fantasy drama.The story centers around the main couple of a boy who is battling with misfortune all his life, and a girl who is assigned to give him a fair amount of misfortune as his life manager from the afterlife. The relationship matures smoothly, with a nicely handled fantasy element and great presentation of the afterlife imaginary. And after a cute start, the drama takes a turn towards the darker, with the leading lady's murder case taking the focus. And truly, the crime case was pretty intense and bloody, with a psychological element to it. The ending, in addition, was pretty realistic and worked nicely with the outcome of the story.
Finally, the performances were great from everyone in the cast and the main couple had smooth chemistry that worked to the drama's advantage. The side characters were delightful as well.
So, overall, 8.5 out of 10.
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good good short show.. makes you think about life good and bad
this was a decent tvb series..it took many old school asian thinking about ghost and reincarnation and stuff..
took that did a 21st century twist and made it relavent to the younger generation.. which i thought was kool..
the twists as this story develops.. isnt really super shocking.. those the twist involving the main leads.. is surprisingly dark..
the 2 mains had ok chemistry.. for me the FL needs a bit more seasoning.. the ML was ok..
the "love story" between them was cute.. kinda.. it jumps or rushes development.. whether its their character or not.. it shows growth but sometimes it feels forced...
the supporting cast was good... as was their stories..
nothing grounding breaking but a good story told by the writes..
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