Fly With Me (TVB 2010)

Fly With Me <飛女正傳>

Genre: Science Fiction, Modern
Producer: Jonathon Chik
Number of Episodes: 25

Cast:

Ada Choi as Leung Hau Chi (Yvonne)/Janetbin
Moses Chan as Kan Ming Hin (Wallace)
Kenny Wong as Yeung Ho Yin (Edmond)
Raymond Cho as Tsui Wing Fai (Frankie)
Queenie Chu as Kwok Hui Lam (Cathy)
Chan Hung Lit as  Yung Bak Keui
Catherine Chau as Tsang Cheuk Nga (Selina)

Plot (Warning! Spoilers ahead! This might not be a complete summary since I did not watch every single episode.)

The series starts in 1991 where Yvonne was younger and she was being held hostage by an admirer. She tried to convince the guy to give up. She promised that if he were imprisoned, she would go and visit him. The man was arrested and the series then fast-forwarded to 2003; Yvonne was at her cousin’s wedding during the SARS period. In 2008, she got dumped by her boyfriend who went for someone younger. Finally, in the present situation, Yvonne was a single woman in her 30s with  failing career, no figure and possibly breast cancer. Life got worse when Cathy (Queenie Chu), the girl who she thought had no brains became her boss. Her admirer was released from prison and found her. He chased her up to the top of the building and kissed her. She fell down the building and was taken to hospital. In hospital the doctors pronounced her death. However, the lights in the hospital switched off and she turned into a different woman, much prettier with a better figure and a purple butterfly tattoo on her chest. She realised that every time she kissed a man on the lips, she would transform into an attractive woman with super powers but her powers only worked for a period of time. She named her self Janetbin when she was transformed.

Janetbin became a well known hero and saved many people in different disasters. Kenny Wong (Edmond) was a police man and he was very curious about Janetbin. He was very fascinated by her but ended up being saved by her in many situations. Since saved by Janetbin, he developed mental problems and became mentally weaker. The only way he could recover was by protecting Janetbin instead.

Yvonne met a cosmetic doctor named Wallace (Moses Chan) who always seemed very unhappy. Yvonne often thought about him and admired him. However, Frankie (Raymond Cho) always liked Yvonne and even joined her company. His sister did not want him to join because the Director of the company was Mr. Yung, who was actually his father. Mrs. Yung knew that Frankie was Mr. Yung’s son. Mr. Yung and Frankie were kidnapped by Mr. Yung’s eldest son. Frankie protected Mr. Yung and Mr. Yung told the kidnappers that Frankie was his illegitimate son. Janetbin saved them but Mr. Yung went into a coma. However he pretended to be paralysed because he suspected that his sons were trying to harm him.

Meanwhile, Edmond was very curious about Janetbin and tried to investigate her real identity. At first, he thought Janetbin and Yvonne were the same person but he later believed that they were just friends. He pretended to date Yvonne but his girlfriend Selena (Catherine Chau) always checked on him.

Mrs. Yung did not like Frankie and blamed him for stealing information from the company. He became imprisoned and his sister died. Life was really bad.

Janetbin and Yvonne became two different people and they fell for different men. Janetbin liked Wallace while Yvonne liked Edmond. Edmond was only with Yvonne to try and find out about Janetbin. One day, a man went to Wallace’s home and tried to shoot him but shot Janetbin instead. Janetbin realised that she had a weakness and lost all her powers when she pressed the tattoo on her chest.

Meanwhile, Frankie was released from prison and became a different person. He plotted to get into the Yung’s business and managed to get rid of Mr. Yung’s sons. He became the Chairman of the company and moved in with Mr. Yung.

Edmond really wanted to know what Janetbin’s weakness was and tried to find out. He pretended that he was in an accident and consequently Yvonne revealed that Janetbin’s weakness was her tattoo. Edmond invited Janetbin for dinner and tried to reveal Janetbin’s weakness but was kissed by Janetbin immediately in front of Selina. Edmond thought that Yvonne had lied to him. Edmond’s girlfriend was not happy but he proposed to her and they got married.

Janetbin lost interest in Wallace and fell for Frankie instead who was richer. Yvonne discovered that Edmond had been two timing her and was very upset. However, she felt sorry for Wallace who was in love with Janetbin.

Yvonne lost control of Janetbin and decided that she will no longer transform into Janetbin. She told Edmond everything about Janetbin. However, she was accidently kissed and transformed into Janetbin. Janetbin invited Edmond to her house and attacked him. Janetbin refused to transform back to Yvonne and moved in with Frankie. She had to kiss him regularly to maintain as Janetbin.

A group of Janetbin haters were formed to try and give bad publicity of Janetbin. They intended to reveal the flaws of Janetbin but Wallace helped publicise Janetbin and used her image to promote perfection. However, Janetbin realised that Frankie was just using her and wanted to take over the Yungs’ business. He accidently killed Mr. Yung and Yvonne was blamed instead.

Yvonne was taken into court. She wanted to admit that she killed Mr. Yung but Janetbin came to court and  blamed Yvonne. Mr. Yung had faked his death so that his son Frankie would succeed to the whole business.

Janetbin decided to leave for good since Yvonne no longer needed her. Frankie returned back to his old self and continued to run his father’s business. Wallace realised that the person he loved the most was Yvonne and they got married. However, when he went to Yvonne’s house, he got stabbed by Yvonne’s admirer. Thus he had developed superpowers and would transform every time he was kissed. He and Yvonne got married and the series ended with them flying together.

CAST AND COMMENTS

Ada Choi as Yvonne and Janetbin

Yvonne was a woman in her middle age and had a career but no boyfriend. She had no figure and was considered to be ugly. On the other hand, Janetbin was attractive and was well liked. I think the moral of this series was that appearance was not really an issue. Yvonne at the start thought that she needed Janetbin’s look and figure to get male attention. However, at the end of the day, Yvonne found true love through herself. I think Ada portrayed these characters really well and her comedy skills were evident in this series. The characters were very different from her previous roles.

Moses Chan as Wallace

His character was not that exciting and was overshadowed by the other characters. Also whats with the gray hair? It does not really make sense.

Kenny Wong as Edmond

Quite liked him here. He played a policeman who wanted to find out about Janetbin and did not want to be saved by her. I think he did a good job here.

Raymond Cho as Frankie

His character was much more exciting to watch and liked his storyline more. I think he had liked Yvonne right from the beginning. I found that there was a slight imitation of Stephen Chow in his acting.

Best Female Character: Ada Choi as Janetbin (Well there wasn’t really much of a choice).

Best male character: Raymond Cho as Frankie

Best Chemistry: Yvonne and Wallace

Most improved: Queenie Chu

I did not really watch the whole series and some parts were not really that good to watch. I think the main idea of the series was that you are loved for what you are and you do not have to be attractive to find love. The series was not that good all the way through and was rather confusing. This was the first time TVB produced a science fiction series and it really was not that successful. I do not think that viewers like this type of series.

Series Rating : Give it a shot if you have time

Review written by Colly

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Responses

  1. I only watched 3 episodes of Fly With Me, which I enjoyed a lot.

    The plot did get convoluted and I found the illegitimate-rich-heir-background of Raymond Cho’s character to be a much over-used plot device in TVB series. Makes you wonder how common illegitimate children among rich families in Hong Kong are. Raymond Cho did experience a popularity spike in his career after this role though. I did not watch the latter part of Fly With Me, so can not judge his performance here. But in At a Threshold of a Persona (which was filmed around the same time), I thought he portrayed his character’s transformation into a relentless career-climber who sacrificed his love and friends quite poorly.

  2. ‘Fly With Me’ is a parody of other TV series and movies. It’s precisely because it’s an overused plot that the ‘illegitimate-rich-heir-background’ plot is used in this series.

  3. I agree with Kidd.. most of Raymond’s scenes are parodying a handful of popular ‘illegitimate-heir-family-struggle-revenge’ series in the 90’s.

  4. Agreed.. it was quite fun and refreshing to see TVB parody itself for once but for me, it got old pretty fast and the storyline didn’t manage to hold my attention.. (I watched the first 11 episodes of it).. The parody was nice but not for a 20 over episode series.. it would have been better off as a movie like how Enchanted parodied popular Disney themes..

    1. i really don’t like the idea, i hear its a copy cat of a japanese version is it not??

  5. I disagree, the story plot was poor. Very crappy special computer graphics that could have made Janetbin more looking Superwoman. The comedy was ok except they od on some parts that was cheesey and cliche. But really, If you have time to kill, you can watch this drama. But if you dont like this fantasy crap and non realistic, dont watch it.

    Ada’s character was pretty a mixed bag, you hate or love. Moses can not really acted in his character in that white hair…Raymond was awful annoying.

    I have high praises for Kenny and Queenie Chu, they both acted very good and really good looking. It is really sad the main lead actors look like piece of crap but hold up their acting quality.

    Producer Chik drama at this point, most are bad. I give him props that he is getting ideas outside of TVB normal story field. But, the drama execution needs to be improve a lot if he wants to keep his job at TVB.

    My last thoughts….
    Chan Hung Lit who passed away around TVB’s 42nd Anniversary show, acting is great. It is one of the last two series he’ll be in a role 30 episode drama “When Heaven Burns”. Sad that this drama wasnt as the best.

  6. ^ I agree. The series is poor and boring. I think only Raymond Cho is good to watch. Moses is a pain, why is his acting got so horrible after he won Best Actor? Now I’m questioning his win. It’s a shame that Ada accepted to act as Janet Bin.

  7. This series is so horrible to watch. I am very disappointed in Ada and Moses. Love them both. This is the 1st movie I watched from Ada after her wedding and hate it so much that I stopped watching after a few episodes. I don’t know why Moses in the movie. Doesn’t think he can act at all in this movie and his white hair is so silly. When I watch him in this movie I thought this is his very 1st movie debut.

  8. I really disliked this series! The majority of the series was plotless and very boring and I got so sick of yvonne saying wa-hooo and then flying off…I do not recommend this series.

  9. It’s a good attempt at contemporary black comedy, I can see that producer Chik has some great and fresh ideas in his mind, unfortunately the execution part didn’t give justice to the fresh attempt, and viewers are too familiar with TVB traditional exaggerated laugh out loud comedy to accept a new concept.

  10. I hated this series. I fast forwarded a lot of parts. Moses’ acting is so so bad.

    Ada just couldn’t save the lousy plot.

    But I thought Raymond Cho and Kenny are good though.

  11. Good premise bad story- as some have already pointed out. The problem of this series is the same as the recent CBML- a series without a point. Events occur with no real consequence. And what the hell were the producers thinking- series about a superhero without an actual villain?

    The comedic aspects is more nuanced/quirky and not your typical HK in-your-face fair so might be strange to some. The style is closer to USA drama-edies. But as said- bad execution.

  12. I thought this was a great parody of other TVB series. It was entirely a game of spot the plot hole or cliche – definitely not to be taken as an “original” or serious story.

    It utilised every possible device every known in modern family drama.

    I always thought it was an inside joke to make Kenny impotent or with some kind of “fault” in all of his Chik series.

    Dance of Passion – impotent
    Gem of Life – in closet gay
    Fly with Me – Golden Right Hand made impotent when he meets Janetbin

    I liked the series.

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