You're Hired

The Plot

Mak Tai Song (Dayo Wong) is a former corporate raider in the US who has a life-changing experience after his mentor commits suicide. He blames himself after his business partner Martin (Cheung Kwok Keung) crashes his car after accusing Song of selling their company to a rival and destroying his life's efforts. Song goes to Hong Kong in pursuit of the mentor's wife, She Mo Lin (Teresa Lee), his child and mother in order to make it up to them. He's now totally uninterested in making money, lives a simple life and wears the same clothes day after day (later we discover that actually he owns many pieces of the same items).

He takes over Mo Lin's debts and that brings him into contact with a rough and uncouth debt collector Lam Miu Miu (Charmaine Sheh). Miu Miu and her four sidekicks have many funny encounters trying to make Song pay up his debt. But Song is a smart fellow, he always has a lot of clever ideas and he uses his financial expertise to help many people, including Miu Miu's father, who runs a noodle shop and a rich man's son, Tong Kat (Benz Hui). Over time, Miu Miu gains a lot of respect for his abilities and even starts to fall for him.

In trying to help another rich young man, On Cho Lin (Michael Tse), who runs a rice business, he discovers the guy's his half-brother as his mother had abandoned him and his father when he was young. This brings back all his abandonment issues and the show attempts to use this as a reason for his inability to be close to anyone and have a relationship with Miu Miu.

The finale is his showdown with his mentor, who returns to take revenge on him.

Commentary
This show wouldn't get anywhere without the comedic talent of Dayo Wong, who's incredibly funny, with his outrageous comments and throwaway lines. He's also a pretty decent actor. His performance brings out the best in Charmaine, I have rarely seen her so animated. Both have excellent chemistry, especially when they're sniping at each other.

The show excels at poking fun at social issues including women who get into debt buying the latest It Bag, speculating in stocks/property and risky financial instruments. Charmaine gets into many ridiculous and funny situations over her desire for the latest branded bag. And it excels in throwing in business theories in comic situations, including Dayo teaching a noodle shop owner how to attract customers.

However, the show's pace flags in the middle. There's only so much of Dayo wisecracks that can support a show, without a solid plot to anchor the story. It just moves from situation to situation and the plot gets repetitive -- Dayo gets misunderstood, his friends think he's out to do evil, when actually he's using his skills to help others.

The supporting cast is also excellent although none of them really stands out. Benz Hui, Michael Tse, Power Chan are really just props to Dayo. Teresa Lee's performance is rather raw, but she looks so sweet, her awkwardness can be forgiven.

This is really a vehicle for Dayo Wong, so if you find him annoying, this show really isn't for you. But if you enjoy watching his antics, this is thoroughly enjoyable, especially the first third, and maybe the last third, where he goes up against his mentor.
Still, in terms of the last few Dayo Wong shows I watched, I would say I prefer "To Catch the Uncatchable" simply because it has many interesting cases for Dayo the detective to solve. In You're Hired, I got a bit tired of the show in the middle, the gags seemed never ending, all his agonizing over his parentage a bit pointless, and his inability to commit to Charmaine also got a bit tiresome.

According to reports, the show was very popular and some netizens have requested for TVB to make a sequel. Of course TVB was rather noncommittal. Personally, I wouldn't want to watch a sequel. I would rather TVB come up with new ideas.