The Drive Of Life

I normally don't chase chinese TV dramas. When I do, it's usually because they are of exceptional quality in terms of storyline, acting and overall production.

The most recent one I caught was the Dicey Business (dou cheung foong wan) which revolves around a casino operation, friendship, brotherhood and betrayals. Top notch acting and storyline but of course some cheesy scripts abundant in Hong Kong productions.

Now that Astro On Demand is showing non stop repetitions of The Drive Of Life (sui yuet foong wan), I find myself gravitating toward this show. It's only at the 7th episode, but already showing the quality since the first episode. The storyline generally focuses on family, friendship and trust, and of course expounding the goodness of the Chinese government and the Chinese people.

Will I have the strength to follow through this drama? Well, let's put it this way. Even if I miss the original screening time, I can always watch the entire thing all over again via all the repeat screenings of all the episodes. Thanks to Astro On Demand, I am able to do this. Of course it comes with a price, but the price is only 99sen per episode, which is actually quite a good deal. It works out to about RM55 for the entire drama. I'm sure the original VCD's will probably cost about the same when it does get released. And from what I see, this price point is generally acceptable by most of the viewing customers.

However, there are some pain points. Firstly, there is no subtitle! How can anyone understand Hong Kong cantonese without some helpful subtitles, even if the subtitles are in chinese? The better option would be to supply on-demand subtitles. Secondly, the picture and sound quality is substandard. The picture looks like it's been compressed several times over that there are splotches of colour everywhere instead of fine detail. The sound is also quite terrible, with the extreme high trebles and extreme low basses severely muted. Often, the conversation is muffled because of this, making it even more difficult to catch what is being said (minus subtitles!). Astro should fix this, considering we are paying premium to watch this show.