Rosy Business 4 (2024)

A great entry in the Rosy Business series

I have seen all 3 previous Rosy Business dramas, and I was so disappointed with the 3rd entry. It lacked Sheren Tang, but if the replacement female lead was good it would still shine. We had Myolie Wu who did her best but yeah... it was still a very disappointing drama. The twin brother story and the lack of any real romance was a real turn off for me.

This 4th entry still did not bring back Sheren Teng, instead it brought back Nancy Wu as the female lead when she only had supporting roles in the previous entries but dang... I really liked her in the role. The comparisons with Sheren Tang are unavoidable - as expected because she was playing a strong female leader type role - but I found myself actually really enjoying myself watching her in this drama. I know, this would be blasphemy for some people, but I found Nancy's scenes of vulnerability more convincing as she openly admits her feelings to the male lead and it doesn't wait until near the end of the drama, something that Sheren Tang never really did. I also loved how Nancy had so many outfits in the drama, even if some of them made her look like a Christmas tree, but I loved that she had such a varied collection of clothes to wear as it reflected her status on the show and what lady doesn't like to have many dresses? I know I love to have many! She plays a General Manager at a bank during 1920s Shanghai and is nicknamed the 7th Elder because her financial power ranks at number7 in the whole of Shanghai. Of course, in this position she has many enemies that want her to fail, especially her brothers. Oh yes, most of the plot is driven by one of her brothers as I will explain later.

Wayne Lai is - as always - amazing here. His character Chai Sup Chat was great to watch as he played a really stubborn businessman who kept failing at business because of his bad people skills. However, as an advisor in investment opportunities, he will always give excellent advice to return a profit to those willing to listen. He spends the start of the drama butting heads with Nancy Wu, but their interactions throughout the drama made their growing romantic feelings for each other very believable to me. I know many would say Wayne looks way too old for Nancy, but I disagree because love comes in many different strange forms, and how they drag each other out of dire situations they themselves could not have survived alone was a convincing reason for them to develop feelings for each other.

Spoiler warning: A great scene that was unexpected and quite refreshing was when Nancy took Wayne out for a trip to a beautiful dock and then she outright tells Wayne that she wanted to be with him. A woman declaring her love for a man and wanting to be with them was a big deal in the past because it was nearly always the man to make the first move. Wayne's shock and subsequent rejection, because he felt he was not up to her level and therefore felt he didn't qualify, led to one of the most dramatic scenes in the drama. Nancy was very rich and very beautiful, and she put aside her pride to do it, so the rejection was a huge humiliation for her. Gosh, I really felt bad her and I was screaming at Wayne, like wtf were you doing man? He clearly liked her as well, but his low self-esteem held him back from making that step.

Next we have to talk about Joey Law. I never liked his acting in previous dramas but he has improved a lot in this one, being this retired mercenary who would kill for money. His acting is still a little wooden, but it matched the role he played as a guy trying to escape his mercenary past and trying to live a normal life so that he could be with the girl who he had loved since they were kids. The action scenes with him fighting and showing off his physical prowess more than made up for his wooden acting, and he clearly bulked up for the role.

And who was he in love with in the drama? Why, Hera Chan of course! She was okay I guess, and this time the producers knew her long neck was something quite distracting so her outfits all had collars to help reduce the appearance of that neck. Thank you so much for that! She was pretty average overall with no real captivating scenes, but earlier in the drama she got on my nerves a bit for being this girl who would run off on her own because she wanted to see Joey. Luckily, this improved later on after her family accepted Joey and his past.

But boy, the person I really wanted to talk about was Edwin Siu. He had so many roles in this drama that I lost count. He played the half brother of Nancy Wu's character and he was trying to get his revenge on her, but there are so many plot twists involving him that it made my head spin, and yet it led to him being one of the most memorable villains in TVB history. When you first meet him in the drama, you'd notice how he kept "dying" and yet somehow managed to return with the same appearance but with a different name and a completely different personality. Edwin really had me intrigued as to what on Earth was going on and every time he was onscreen you had no idea what he was going to do next, and that type of chaos was what made him such a scary villain. He nearly managed to win as well, which I found quite a nice change, but it came down to a last minute save that was a little disappointing. I'll explain why later.

Although I really liked this drama, I still had a few scenes that had me going what? for example, Wayne Lai later started working for Nancy because he helped her deal with a huge issue previously, and as part of his condition to join he wanted to fire a group of women who were bad for the company. Nancy agreed to this numerous times and yet somehow, these people who were fired all came back or never left in the first place even when all evidence proved Wayne correct. And then later, they all get along as if this never happened in the first place. That was such lazy writing like what were they thinking?

Spoiler warning: And then we have the main villain played by Edwin Siu. He was such a great bad guy to watch from beginning to end, knowing how to fight and how to manipulate people so well, however he ended up revealing everything in episode 23, and just as he was about to win he gets shot to death by his "mother" for everything he had done up to that point. What I hated about this was that we were told how poor his "mother's" eyesight was, barely being able to see 1 foot in front of herself, and yet from 20 meters away she managed to shoot Edwin accurately with her handgun. And to top it off, the drama was 25 episodes long, so we had 2 episodes after where the Director had to force something else in to keep things interesting for the viewers, so - predictably - he shoved in a Japanese invasion to raise the stakes before the end. To be honest, the 4th entry could have ended at episode 23 because despite both main protagonist hard-headedness, Nancy decided to travel to Hong Kong (watch the drama to find out why) to meet with Wayne Lai and they had a great reunion where she sang to him while he was missing her. That would have been a good ending there.

Spoiler warning: So, the last 2 episodes did drag it out a bit with Nancy suffering poor memory due to a bullet injury slowly causing memory loss, but I got to admit the ending was great and I did like it a lot. Nancy gets lost in Hong Kong later and could not remember how to get back home, so she ends up in Kowloon. Wayne spends 3 years looking for her, and finally finds her during a Japanese bombing run. He finally managed to take her home where many other plot threads are also tied up. Wayne got to spend the next 28 years with Nancy proposing to her every year, with her telling him each time she would think about it when they were clearly already together. The final scene had them really old and together, which was a very romantic scene that was very touching. It made me forgive the dragging out of the final two episodes.

I loved this latest entry of Rosy Business and I personally recommend it, and I can see myself rewatching this in future because the ending was just great. Unlike the endings from the other entries where there was no romance at all or it was very short-lived, this showed them being together happily for many years. I know many would compare it to the ones with Sheren Tang and voice their disappointment, but my opinion is that the torch has been handed over from Sheren to Nancy, and Nancy did a great job!

Leia Mais

Nancy Wu and Wayne Lai are great together in this drama 巾幗梟雄之懸崖 , 巾幗4

For those that do not know, the chinese name for this series 巾幗梟雄 is about strong heroines. Regardless of the story background, or which actor portrayed (or should portray) which character, the series overall is about strong heroines. In No Return, the 4th installment, Nancy Wu portrays the anti-heroine Seventh Master, a successful business woman. She is portrayed as strong outside, but very vulnerable on the inside. Wayne Lai is the person that helps turn Nancy from anti-heroine to heroine. The villain in the story is portrayed by Edwin Siu.

No Return is a rare drama for Nancy Wu in that she is the main focus, and given majority screen time unlike in many other dramas where she is not often given a lot of screen time despite the importance of her character. Her acting in this drama is excellent. If you watch the drama, you have to watch carefully and not just casually to see Nancy portray the nuances of Seventh Master. Her use of subtle facial expressions and eyes is important, not many actors can do it without looking unnatural. On the pier with being rejected in love, Nancy deftly portrays the feeling of a emotionally vulnerable, rejected and embarrased woman boss; one who tries to be stoic, and doesn't let her emotions show in public. We see her face subtly go from doubt and confusion to anger and disgust. She clenches her teeth [you have to look at her face to see her clench her teeth] before deciding to leave, but instead falls into the lake [she also refused a stunt double to do the scene she felt was very important] and feeling twice embarassed and refusing all help. The scene where she crys in Big Red Sister lap is heartfelt. and the four times in the drama where she drinks the 'horse piss' bitter medicine the first time she winches in disgust, later she gets used to the bitter taste and her facial expression taking the medicine changes. The way Nancy acts confident in some scenes where she is the boss, and vulnerable and weak, you can tell she puts much thought into every scene. Those that are dismissive of Nancy Wu are just biased or can't distinguish between good acting and those just reading a script.

Wayne's Lai acting in this drama is also very good, mixing a lot of dramatic acting, with a bit of comedy to portray Chai 17 the sometimes humble and obedient, sometimes self-righteous and take charge special assistant to Seventh Master. The chemistry between Wayne Lai and Nancy Wu is very heartfelt and believable; this drama also happened to be the pair's 8th collaboration together on a drama.

There were also the comedic elements of the drama between Nancy and Wayne which were acted very well by both. The one where nancy pulls out the wayne's love letter to hera chan, the timing and execution of the scene was nicely done by the two veteran actors.

For Hera Chan, she was given a great opportunity to learn from so many veteran actors, and improve for the next drama she will be cast in. Edwin Siu was good, wasn't that fond of his singular facial expression throughout the drama, but nonetheless acted competently.

Besides Wayne Lai and Nancy Wu, the best part of the drama is the costumes, scenery, and sets. Nancy Wu's character had around 30 costumes, with sets staged inside two large historic buildings, one for the bank scenes, and one for gwai faa lau restaurant, part of it being chai 17's family medicinal clinic. While there were historical inaccuracies like the Cantonese birthday song, and the singing of the Cantonese classic Red Candle Tears 紅燭淚 [written by 唐滌生 in 1951], and the occasional use of some english words, it's defensible as it adds to the stylized nature of this fiction. the english words can be thought of as a 1920s way of being hip, the cantonese birthday song can be thought of best way of showing the banding together of hing dai, and what better song than red candle tears to represent the feelings of Seventh Master for Chai 17?

Despite the good, the not so good part of this drama is the writing in some parts of it, especially at the end when the plot was rushed toward a conclusion. There were also a lot of guns being pointed directly at Nancy's head all the time including the few times she pointed one at her own head; I felt that was a bit disconcerting, but plotwise was a visual representation showing how vulnerable the Seventh Master was.

In various interviews given by Nancy Wu and Wayne Lai, this drama was mentally stressful for Nancy not just that she had to think about how to develop her character, but the almost 400 scenes and huge amount of dialogue to absorb within a truncated filming schedule of 75 days; Nancy had mentioned she lost weight filming. The screenwriter Zhang Huabiao 張華標 was also the screenwriter for 巾幗1 and 巾幗2.

Leia Mais