Angels and Devils

How long
20 episodes

Foreword
‘Hands of Hope’ isn’t the first drama on social workers. ‘Angels and Devils’ is the first one. Do you wish to watch a serial that has 4 actors who have won the best actor awards? They are Chow Yun Fatt, Yam Tat Wah, Leung Chiu Wai and Chow Sing Chee. All have left TVB and this might be the last chance of them working together.

Story/Introduction on characters

1. Yu Fan – Chow Yun Fatt
Fan is a talkative man who doesn’t plan for his future. He is a stuntman and is eager to wait for a chance to be a big star. He finds Ho Mun a boring person and both often squabble with each other. He has a girlfriend but he takes her for granted. When they break up, Ho Mun stays with him. Ho Mun and Fan destroy a drug ring to become famous overnight. Both become idols of the youths.

2. Kwong Ho Mun – Leung Chiu Wai
Ho Mun is a total opposite from Fan. Being quiet and also timid, he is a normal employee in a small consultation company. Both don’t see eye to eye with each other. His boss keeps bullying him and steals his ideas. He gets so fed up that he quits in the end. As he has no money, he has to move in to stay with Fan. Both have different habits and take a lot of time to adapt to each other.

Later, both become as close as brothers. Ho Mun finds a job as a social worker and Fan joins him after that. Although they use different approaches, both manage to help the youths to return to the right path.

3. Song Po – Yam Tak Wah
He is a killer from Holland and a skilled sniper. Ho Mun and Fan accidentally foul up a drug transaction from taking place to bring the drugs home unknowingly. The ring master suspects that the two have seen the event and thus sends Po to kill them. He cooks up an identity of being a rich man and woos Kar Yan. He is genuinely in love with her but he has a dark past so he becomes a psychopath when he can’t win her love. Luckily the men manage to subdue him.

4. Hong Kar Yan – Chan Sau Chu
She is a social worker and is also the men’s colleague. The men like her for her pleasant nature and both woo her. But Fan is a gentleman to give up upon knowing that she likes Ho Mun. She is moved when Po shows her a lot of concern but is terrified when he shows her his horrifying side to haunt her continuously.

5. Tu Jing Ling – Yiu Wai
She is a down-to-earth person who yearns for a stable life. She doesn’t like Fan to risk his life repeatedly and often has no savings at the end of the month. She decides to leave him but later returns to him upon seeing how hardworking he becomes as a social worker.

6. The troubled youths – Ou Yueng Chun Wah, Chow Sing Chee and Ng Chun Yu
I know you will laugh when you read this line. But they are very young then and also convincing as the youths who create so many headaches for the three social workers.

Interesting scenes/facts

Initially, the role of Ho Mun was intended for Yu Chan Shun (the main actor in ‘Empress Wu’. He went through the beginning stage and waited for 3 months. It later turned out to be for Chiu Wai and his part became a cameraman in the drama. He was very disillusioned as he had wasted 4 years in TVB. Thus he moved over to ATV and became a lead actor there. He returned to TVB in the 1990s.

All would thought that Yun Fatt would regard Hui Mun Keung from ‘The Bund’ as his top favourite role. It turned out as a big surprise when he chose this role. Many youths are influenced by this drama and others were interested to know more about this occupation after watching it. They also vowed to be ‘north star’ to conquer all difficulties.

One scene had Sing Chee’s character falling for Kar Yan. He wrote a love letter and put on his table. His two friends saw it to read it aloud to mock at him. His pride was completely shattered and he went to the roof-top, intending to kill himself. Fan and Ho Mun try to dissuade him. You have never seen Chiu Wai so comical before – he sings so many praises on him to make him change his mind. Sing Chee keeps coming up and down as he changes his mind repeatedly to scare them!

One commenter later wrote this on a website after watching this scene – Sing Chee has not gone for his double eyelid operation and he looks every inch a country pumpkin. I definitely agree with this statement.

Fan and Ho Mun running away from Po. They are very frightened when they have no way to hide. Knowing that Po is very scared of his mother and this still haunts him till this day, Fan quickly takes a mop to put on top of his head as a wig. He starts scolding him like a mother scolding his son to make him fear him instead. That is sure a classic scene when we see how pale he becomes.

Song
‘I Walk My Route’ was by the late Cheung Kok Wing. A very memorable song.

Conclusion

It is fun to see how the top actors today first started out. The acting genes are already in them. It is little wonder why Tat Wah acts as bloodthirsty killers, Sing Chee as comedians while Yun Fatt and Chiu Wai are in many versatile roles in many movies.

They put up a powerful and wonderful performance to create so many laughs and yet they can make the lives of social workers so realistic. Life is more unfair to the actresses,though - they end up playing motherly roles now while the actors can still play unmarried men.

Sukting’s ratings :

On acting : **** (Scale of 5)

On story : ***1/2 (Scale of 5)

On song : *** (Scale of 5)