TVB Last One Standing Review (Ep 01-07)

Well I gotta keep myself occupied somehow, not just writing cover letters everyday right?

Anyways being subjected to Moonlight Resonance’s “everybody gets what they deserve” lollipop ending, I needed something darker.  Last One Standing delivers.  *Spoiler alert*  Scenes like somebody finding his dog severed head in the same bed as him and some guy getting beaten to death in a bloody pulp surprised me for a TVB production, garnering a few viewer complaints.

Kevin Cheng does well in this series.  As a character who just spent 10 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, he looks every bit like it.  Unshaven, unkempt, violent and hot-tempered, completely different from any role I saw him in before.  Gunning for Roger Kwok, he was a complete bad-ass the first 2 or 3 episodes with nothing to lose.  That is until Roger Kwok does some fancy manipulating to throw him off the trail.

Roger Kwok plays a character who’s a conniving, manipulative man.  Of course nobody knows this, but we do thanks to a clever use of a flashback to when he was an child orphan.  He was already using his shady ways to get his new family to adopt him at such a young age.  As an adult, he almost successfully convinced Kevin that somebody else framed Kevin, not him.

It was at this point that I was afraid TVB would drag this out where Kevin would keep believing this lie while we, as viewers, would know better.  Thankfully TVB doesn’t treat the characters as idiots this time, and Kevin finds out soon enough.  What then follows is a sort of cat-and-mouse game between Kevin and Roger, similar to Tony and Andy in Infernal Affairs (what a clichéd analogy, I know).  Kevin needs to find more evidence, but can’t let Roger know.  Roger still keeps his eye on Kevin, so Kevin needs to stay on his feet.

The murder mystery is another thing I’m enjoying about this series.  TVB tries to lead the viewers to believe Roger framed Kevin for the murder, but to this point this was all based on Kevin’s speculation.  There’s no direct proof shown at any point of the series to say Roger did it.  Maybe there’s a twist at the end where the murderer is somebody we all never suspected (if TVB is clever enough to pull it off).

Good

• Elaine Yiu – always liked her
• Yoyo Mung – hated her, but like her in this.  Did her acting get better or does this role fit her more?
• Soundtrack – not recycled from other series
• Kevin’s unhealthy obsession with Yoyo – shows he’s a broken man, clinging to a shred of hope

Bad

• Yvonne Ho – Kevin’s sister, annoying voice and horrible acting