‘Outbound Love’ is a 2014 TVB romantic comedy series of 22 episodes that starred Ruco Chan, Aimee Chan, Samantha Ko, Benz Hui, Mary Hon, Vivien Yeo, Tony Hung, Lin Xiawei, etc. What is the main reason that had me interested to watch this from the very beginning? The answer lies at this post’s title itself already. Principal filming of this series took place in two countries; Hong Kong of course, and the other one is Malaysia. Yes. That’s my country.
Overall, this series is very light-hearted. It all started when a travel agency employee, Law Sik Sik (Aimee) travels to Malaysia for work and encountered a playful tour guide, Luk Kung Zi (Ruco). She had a lot of misunderstanding and is always annoyed by his character until finally, she realized the good nature of this man. Then, love sparks as expected, and yup, another happy ending for a typical TVB drama.
I will not write a long review of this series. I will just list down what are the pros and cons of this series in point form. Quick and straightforward to keep this short.
Pros:
1) Refreshing location of shooting. It’s nice to see new background for drama scenes. And Malaysia do offers great stuff as shown in this drama (mural paintings in Penang, KLCC, Pavilion KL, Batu Caves, durians as king of fruits, beach, Penang’s heritage town, etc) of which some elements are essential or linked to the story’s development. And sorry for those annoying BN flags everywhere as the time of this series’ shooting nears our country’s general election.
2) Ruco Chan as lead. He is known to portray strong acting skill, and he as the main lead here had no problem on carrying the series, or even helped to enhance the series. A very interesting character for him to take on, and he did it exceptionally well.
3) Many new faces in this series which can be good or bad. Luckily, the newbies managed to work on their character well too.
Cons:
1) Lack of attention to details, particularly sense of geography. In a moment, the characters are at Penang, then the next scene shows that they are in KL. Distance between these two places are over 300 km. Also please be reminded that Malaysian Chinese seldom speak Malay among themselves. We will speak Chinese; Mandarin, Cantonese, or own Chinese dialects, or English, and last option would only be Malay Language).
2) There isn’t exactly any much drama going on throughout the series. No intensity. The storyline isn’t engaging. Quite boring at certain point.
3) Aimee Chan’s character. I know in the series that she had to get annoyed by Ruco’s character most of the time. However, her way of overdoing it, turns out makes me annoyed of her in the end. Her acting is still not solid or convincing enough as first female lead.
3 pros and 3 cons. Hence, I can only say that this series was just average. Not poor but also not great. Worth watching to spend your time every weekdays after work. Out of 10 points, I rate ‘Outbound Love’ a total of 6.5. A relaxing drama that disappointingly comes with not much drama. Luckily, the ending didn’t turns out bad and looks good, but things are a bit rushed to conclude the story as seen in the final episode.
(Images in this post are from various sources throughout the world wide web)
