18 September 2007

TVIEW

lianyi@sph.com.sg

METAMORPHOSIS
STARRING: Chen Hanwei, Terence Cao, Rui En, Yvonne Lim, Thomas Ong
SHOWING ON: Channel 8, weekdays, 9pm, starting tonight
RATING: ** ½

IN case you can’t tell from the very large number of gun-pointing and car-leaping in the trailer, the new drama Metamorphosis is all about action.

Woo hoo, right?

I love action. But I don’t expect a local TV production to have Donnie Yen standards of punch ’em ups.

Despite this, I expect some acting, and plot development, which isn’t at all obvious in Metamorphosis, especially its pilot episode, which is simply awful.

CRAMMED

The producers try to cram too much into 45 minutes.

The story – the first of three major arcs – is about how the death of a gang boss leads to in-fighting.

His former henchmen, now battling for the pai kia (Hokkien for bad boy) throne, are being murdered by a mysterious knifeman.

It’s up to CID officer An Xiao Qian (Rui En) and her team, dominated by brutish hothead Ouyang Li (Chen Hanwei) and the thoughtful Di Lun (Terence Cao), to find out what really is happening.

Metamorphosis adopts the shaky cam school of action filmmaking, which is rarely good for extended fight scenes.

The major fight of the pilot episode includes waving coloured fluorescent tubes in a dark alleyway.

Watching it from the perspective of a jittering camera, I thought I was going to get seizures.

The most hilarious part was when the producers set up a motorcycle to skid into some barrels, which resulted in a huge fireball.What was in the barrels? Heated petroleum? TNT?

The best action scenes are the ones that tell a story, guys.

And if you want to have action just for action’s sake, it helps if the audience can actually see what’s happening.

As for the acting? Not much of that, since it mostly consists of actors talking harshly to each other. Huang Yiliang is perfect as a sleazy gangster though.

Fortunately, the second episode gets a lot better, as the focus switches to the story and fleshing out of the characters.The star is undoubtedly Hanwei, who looks like he had fun channelling his inner Ah Beng.

UNCONVINCING

As a loving, friendly and witty psychiatrist, Yvonne Lim is a welcome diversion from the endless gloominess and tough-guy posturing.

Rui En has a bad deal though.

She doesn’t really get to do much other than look angry at people. She also looks a little too slight to be convincing as a leader of men.

So, a pretty poor start for Metamorphosis. On the other hand, there’s a good chance it could get a lot better.

After all, it does take some time for a caterpillar to turn into a butterfly.

WHAT THOSE TICKS MEAN
***** Excellent
**** Good
*** Average
** Mediocre
* Don’t bother

Source: The New Paper

Categorised in Metamorphosis 破茧而出, The New Paper.