The Drive of Life

This is another mega-production from TVB, this time in conjunction with mainland artistes, set against the backdrop of the automobile industry. It was the years when Hong Kong was about to be returned to China and China wanted its own automobile production so as to prove that their products are just as good, if not better, than imported cars.

In comes three brothers. The eldest brother owned a company trading in steel, the second owned a factory producing car parts, and the youngest initially helped his eldest brother but migrated to Canada to start over with his wife and daughter.

The story spanned about ten years or so, from the early nineties to the early twenty-first century. Thoughout, there were setbacks - quarrels and falling out amongst the brothers, setbacks in the business as it was hard to stand out and compete against the bigger automobile companies of the world, love and relationship problems, saboteurs.

As time went by, the brothers made peace and worked together to come up with the first automobile production plan in China. Of course, with every protagonist there will be an antagonist. It used to be this unscrupulous businessman who later got his retribution by dying of cancer (actually he was dying of cancer, but his death was accelerated by his nephew). After his demise, his nephew became the main antagonist.

He tried to take over the company and production plant just to get his hands on the family fortune, and not really for the good for the plant as stated. He set fire to the factory and blamed it on his sister-in-law. In the end, the best laid plans of mice and men will still surface.

His wife found out and stood by him despite what happened, all in a bid to ask him to change. He continued sabotaging until his wife gave birth in the end before he realised his folly and turned over a new leaf. That part was the most intense part - how his father in law and the two uncles tried to talk sense into him and advised him to turn himself in for all his misdeeds.

So China has its own automobile industry and the scene at the end is a drive by where the stadium for the Beijing Olympic games were being constructed. It seems that from the show, the end message is that China, too, has shown the world that it has arrived!

Overall it is a great production. The acting was good, and I like the way the brothers stood by each other despite the differences in characters and methods. The eldest is the bossy one who thinks he's always right, the second is the one that always feels cheated by the eldest, and the youngest is generally the spoiled one who always gets taken care of by his two brothers.

Personally I watched it because of the cool cars involved. The fashion is good too, all of them seem to dress well and nicely, no matter whether they just got out of bed or in the plane for so long! However, the storyline is great on its own too. Hence its a perfect show from beginning to end!