‘Dead Wrong’ (致命復活) is a Hong Kong television drama by TVB that revolves around Vincent, a man who was abducted and imprisoned on a deserted island in Vietnam for ten years. After being rescued, he struggled to adjust to his new life, but soon learns that there was more to his abduction than it meets the eye. It is the last of the three anniversary dramas this year to celebrate TVB’s 49th anniversary. It is also the last drama this year in contention for the TVB Anniversary Awards to be held tomorrow.
Before the series started, I look forward to watch it because I read a number of news about it, highlighting that Roger Kwok (portraying as the main lead, Vincent) has filmed several challenging scenes particularly on his abduction and has also purposely lose down weight for this role. There was hype even before this drama’s release and everyone is anticipating for Roger Kwok’s performance in this one.
Yes, Roger did well in this drama. His acting experience and determination to get into the character enabled him to shine again. However, I have to say that this is not a breakthrough role for him as he is already professional enough and has set a bar that is almost impossible for him to achieve further. He nailed the abduction scenes, he nailed the skinny look, he nailed the crying times, and he also nailed the scenes when he has to carry out his revenge. However, there are times when I find that he overacted slightly and that some of his expressions are a bit forced and exaggerated. Just a bit. But that’s the bit that pull him down in best actor race tomorrow. Well, that is just my opinion. He still stand a strong chance as a dark horse contender for the best actor race tomorrow in the TVB Anniversary Awards while Ruco Chan is the current frontrunner. He has won the prize three times in the past, and so I think it is better to award best actor to Ruco this year for his equally well-received performance in ‘A Fist Within Four Walls’.
Joey Meng also did very well in ‘Dead Wrong’. I don’t really like her in her past TVB dramas but this one changed my mind. She is also a great actress and she still looks young despite her current age. Vincent Wong also did incredibly well as the supporting character who helped Vincent (Roger) a lot in this storyline. He is one young talented actor that I think TVB can give more opportunities to him than many other ‘younger-generation’ artists who are not up to the standard yet. Kenny Wong, taking on the villain’s role in the story, is as expected, unlikable. I don’t enjoy seeing him in any dramas as I always find his acting to be slightly wooden. I would prefer other actor to replace him for this role.
As for the storyline, the first few episodes look quite intense. However, the plot goes slow and draggy after that unfortunately. This series tried too hard to extend the whole story into a 28-episodes drama. It would be better if they shorten it to 20 or 25 episodes so that there would be something intense or exciting for audiences to catch on in every episodes. Hence, it started to feel a bit boring in the middle. The final 2 episodes aired just now was good and saved the day. It was a good ending and the plot twist at the end there is quite shocking yet predictable too.
Overall, this drama still has chance for best actor award (Roger Kwok), and Vincent Wong is snubbed for a nomination in best supporting actor race from his role here, and in the end not the quality yet for best drama honour. I also find it annoying to keep seeing flashback scenes repeating over and over again. Those were too much. I think I saw flashback of the abduction scenes for more than twenty times throughout the whole series. Out of 10 points, I rate ‘Dead Wrong’ a total of 7.6.
(Images in this post are from various sources throughout the world wide web)
