cdrama: Net Deception
For whatever reason, no matter how much I love TVB dramas, unless it's a wuxia, I find it hard to post on one.
Before I get started, I shall offer a brief explanation of names. TVB has a rather small talent pool, and most of the TVB dramas I watch are at
calixa's recommendation, so generally, I see even a smaller pool(not really a problem, as out tastes tend to line up.) We also talk about them a lot. Since I watch with English subs and she often watches with Vietnamese subs or dubs, we end up with different names for the characters. As a result, they get nicknames. As a result of that, I often have to force myself to learn real names. For whatever reason, I never bothered to do that here. Not an indication of liking, just laziness on my part. Anyway...
Playboy: Playboy is the male lead. He is played by Wong Hei, who I first met in Shades of Truth, where he played a playboy cop who is a reincarnation of a famous hero, and who falls for a nerdy doctor. His name will always be Playboy to me, even when it's totally wrong for the character(like here.)
Myolie: Myolie is Myolie Wu,
calixa's favorite TVB actress. We just never bother to call her anything else. Female lead.
Model: Model is Playboy's love interest. It's her profession.
Puppy Cop: Puppy Cop is Myolie's love interest. He plays an undercover cop, and a good one, but tends to have adorable puppylike expressions when not in cop mode.
Angry Cop: Playboy's old friend and now his rival. Not a bad guy, just in a bad mood because his girlfriend's been in a coma for a few years.
Triad Boss: Self-explanatory. Villain. Really only brought up here because the actor seems to specialize in fun villains.
Net Deception is about Myolie, a bicycle delivery girl who delivers a package to playboy. He opens it in front of her and she sees a family portrait that includes her father, who she's never met, only seen pictures of. She soon learns that her mother had an affair with Playboy's father, resulting in Myolie. The affair ruined Playboy's parents' marriage, and eventually led to their deaths. Though he doesn't know about Myolie, he and his grandparents have always blamed her mother for the death of his parents. Wanting to get close to her brother, Myolie gets a job at his net cafe. What she doesn't know is that he's a hacker the police have been trying to catch for years, especially Angry Cop.
Puppy Cop is a police trainee. When his friend does poorly on a test, he hacks into the police database to change his score. Unfortunately, he forgot to erase his IP address and got caught and is almost kicked out. Angry Cop notes that only one other person has ever even managed to hack in before, and he makes Puppy Cop his protegee and sends him undercover to work in Playboy's net cafe and get close to him. Naturally, he and Myolie fall in love, because falling in love with your enemy's long lost little sister he doesn't even know about is just the right thing to do in a suspense drama.
Meanwhile, Playboy finds Myolie annoying, but she's the only one who can make coffee that he likes, so he hires her. He also figures out Puppy Cop is undercover pretty quickly, because while Puppy Cop is good, he's better. He's also unhealthily addicted to cat and mouse games. Which also applies to his love life. He and Model had mutual crushes on each other in high school, but haven't seen each other since. Soon after they meet again(this is at least 10 years later) they start dating. Except Model is Triad Boss's moll now, and was (at first) only getting close to him because Triad Boss wanted Playboy to work for him. Playboy figured this out pretty quickly, too. Playboy is smarter than everyone else combined. He also views Model's moll status as a minor roadblock to True Love.
He's right, of course.
The source of Angry Cop's grudge against Playboy, incidentally, is that Playboy and and Angry Cop's girlfriend were in a car wreck six years earlier. Angry Cop's girlfriend had fallen for Playboy and planned to leave Angry Cop for him. After the accident, however, Playboy let Angry Cop think it was the reverse, so that Angry Cop wouldn't blame or be mad at her. Every day since, Angry Cop has gone to the hospital and talked to his comatose love, and played her favorite music. Just to make sure we understand Puppy Cop really is his protegee, at one point, Myolie is put into a coma and Puppy Cop stays with her every day and plays her favorite music.
Since this is TVB, almost everyone lives through it and most grudges are set aside, and OTPs end up together.
But since it's TVB, it whips out the kdrama angst near the end.
We have kidnappings. We have comas. We have amnesia. We have betrayals. We have bedside vigils. We have blindness. We have dancing while blind. Not to mention emo violin playing. And emo piano playing.
Basically, all those things kdramas love except death in snow, by car crash, or random illness...like eye cancer because you were hit by a car years ago.
Anyway, good show.
Note: It's all pretty unspoilery...everything I mention is in the credits, revealed very early on, or typical TVB final act stuff(which, like kdramas, involves comas and blindness and amnesia and such, but not death in snow.)
Before I get started, I shall offer a brief explanation of names. TVB has a rather small talent pool, and most of the TVB dramas I watch are at
calixa's recommendation, so generally, I see even a smaller pool(not really a problem, as out tastes tend to line up.) We also talk about them a lot. Since I watch with English subs and she often watches with Vietnamese subs or dubs, we end up with different names for the characters. As a result, they get nicknames. As a result of that, I often have to force myself to learn real names. For whatever reason, I never bothered to do that here. Not an indication of liking, just laziness on my part. Anyway...
Playboy: Playboy is the male lead. He is played by Wong Hei, who I first met in Shades of Truth, where he played a playboy cop who is a reincarnation of a famous hero, and who falls for a nerdy doctor. His name will always be Playboy to me, even when it's totally wrong for the character(like here.)
Myolie: Myolie is Myolie Wu,
calixa's favorite TVB actress. We just never bother to call her anything else. Female lead.
Model: Model is Playboy's love interest. It's her profession.
Puppy Cop: Puppy Cop is Myolie's love interest. He plays an undercover cop, and a good one, but tends to have adorable puppylike expressions when not in cop mode.
Angry Cop: Playboy's old friend and now his rival. Not a bad guy, just in a bad mood because his girlfriend's been in a coma for a few years.
Triad Boss: Self-explanatory. Villain. Really only brought up here because the actor seems to specialize in fun villains.
Net Deception is about Myolie, a bicycle delivery girl who delivers a package to playboy. He opens it in front of her and she sees a family portrait that includes her father, who she's never met, only seen pictures of. She soon learns that her mother had an affair with Playboy's father, resulting in Myolie. The affair ruined Playboy's parents' marriage, and eventually led to their deaths. Though he doesn't know about Myolie, he and his grandparents have always blamed her mother for the death of his parents. Wanting to get close to her brother, Myolie gets a job at his net cafe. What she doesn't know is that he's a hacker the police have been trying to catch for years, especially Angry Cop.
Puppy Cop is a police trainee. When his friend does poorly on a test, he hacks into the police database to change his score. Unfortunately, he forgot to erase his IP address and got caught and is almost kicked out. Angry Cop notes that only one other person has ever even managed to hack in before, and he makes Puppy Cop his protegee and sends him undercover to work in Playboy's net cafe and get close to him. Naturally, he and Myolie fall in love, because falling in love with your enemy's long lost little sister he doesn't even know about is just the right thing to do in a suspense drama.
Meanwhile, Playboy finds Myolie annoying, but she's the only one who can make coffee that he likes, so he hires her. He also figures out Puppy Cop is undercover pretty quickly, because while Puppy Cop is good, he's better. He's also unhealthily addicted to cat and mouse games. Which also applies to his love life. He and Model had mutual crushes on each other in high school, but haven't seen each other since. Soon after they meet again(this is at least 10 years later) they start dating. Except Model is Triad Boss's moll now, and was (at first) only getting close to him because Triad Boss wanted Playboy to work for him. Playboy figured this out pretty quickly, too. Playboy is smarter than everyone else combined. He also views Model's moll status as a minor roadblock to True Love.
He's right, of course.
The source of Angry Cop's grudge against Playboy, incidentally, is that Playboy and and Angry Cop's girlfriend were in a car wreck six years earlier. Angry Cop's girlfriend had fallen for Playboy and planned to leave Angry Cop for him. After the accident, however, Playboy let Angry Cop think it was the reverse, so that Angry Cop wouldn't blame or be mad at her. Every day since, Angry Cop has gone to the hospital and talked to his comatose love, and played her favorite music. Just to make sure we understand Puppy Cop really is his protegee, at one point, Myolie is put into a coma and Puppy Cop stays with her every day and plays her favorite music.
Since this is TVB, almost everyone lives through it and most grudges are set aside, and OTPs end up together.
But since it's TVB, it whips out the kdrama angst near the end.
We have kidnappings. We have comas. We have amnesia. We have betrayals. We have bedside vigils. We have blindness. We have dancing while blind. Not to mention emo violin playing. And emo piano playing.
Basically, all those things kdramas love except death in snow, by car crash, or random illness...like eye cancer because you were hit by a car years ago.
Anyway, good show.
Note: It's all pretty unspoilery...everything I mention is in the credits, revealed very early on, or typical TVB final act stuff(which, like kdramas, involves comas and blindness and amnesia and such, but not death in snow.)