‘Oh My Grad’ is the third installment in ‘Inbound Troubles’ series franchise that is spearheaded by Wong Cho Lam. I remember the first one is very funny and do have a chance to compete for best series that year although it ended up losing to the more popular ‘Triumph in the Skies II’ that year. There was a sequel after that. It didn’t perform as good as the first one. And now, here comes the third one. What am I expecting? Getting more bad? Yes, it is. Wong Cho Lam is no longer taking the lead role here as I read some news that he was very busy with something else during the production of ‘Oh My Grad’. Hence, he only appeared for some scenes and taking on two very minor roles.
With him not around most of the time, I’m bored. He is the funniest people to watch in the past two series. There is no doubt that he is a very talented and humorous guy. His crazy obsession to curry fish balls in this drama is not hilarious at all. This third drama eventually loses its main selling point; being funny. It instead going on for a more morally point of view by spreading great messages on the issues revolving education in Hong Kong. But, if you are focusing on a school setting for this drama, then have the effort to hire more ‘really young’ actors to portray as students. In this whole 30-episodes drama, I only see about 20 same students for the whole school. And they are so matured and irrelevant to act as students in my point of view.
The plot is boring. There is nothing interesting for me to catch up to in every episodes. The only reason I stayed till the end of the drama is because of Ada Choi. I haven’t seen her in TVB dramas for a while. She is still delivering solid performance. Roger Kwok is good as usual but his character as the headmaster appeared so unimportant. Babyjohn Choi is a film actor and this is his first work in a drama. He is actually not bad in this. His partner in the drama, Mag Lam is a bad casting. Her acting is below average and she only put on 2 faces for the whole show; acting cute and being angry. Joyce Cheng is annoying as she overacted and she was unnecessarily too loud in this drama. Bob Lam portrays a bad person in this drama and he is well suited to the role. Why? Because every time I see him, I really wanted to punch his face. It means that he did his role well as he successfully made us hate him. Koni Lui is doing well in here too. Other minor cast in this drama includes Louis Cheung, Helena Law, Bowie Wu, Cheung Chi Kwong, Eliza Sam, Mary Hon, Angela Tong, etc.
I can’t believe the fact that this is one of the anniversary dramas this year to celebrate TVB’s 50th birthday. It is such a lousy production. With school /education as the theme, this drama can be very vibrant and funny at the same time. The drama just couldn’t find the right path. This drama franchise should end. Out of 10 points, I rate ‘Oh My Grad’ a total of 6.2. I’m now just looking forward to the ‘Heart and Greed’ which is also the third installment of the very successful ‘Heart of Greed’ franchise. It will start airing on 27th November. I can’t wait for it. I didn’t expect it to be as good as the first two, but I’m hoping at least it is watchable.
(Images in this post are from various sources throughout the world wide web)