The post’s title above already best summarizes what I felt about this Hong Kong drama which had just aired its last episode a moment ago. ‘Barrack O’Karma’ (金宵大廈) is hands down the best Hong Kong series of the year, one of the best I have seen in recent years, and I highly recommend you to watch it if you haven’t (it’s in Cantonese by the way).
The drama, with 20 episodes, follows the supernatural journeys of several residents living in an old apartment building full of mystery and strange happenings. The drama starred Joel Chan, Selena Lee, Lau Kong, Alex Lam, Samantha Ko, Billy Luk, Kelly Cheung, Gloria Tang, Bob Cheung, etc.
The journey of each residents are categorized into different mini-stories and each one delivers deep and thoughtful meaning to viewers. Some comes with happy ending while some ended with sad note and that well resonates to our real life out here too where not all things will be good in the end. The main story arc involving the two main characters, a security guard (Ah Siu, portrayed by Joel Chan) and an air stewardess (Alex, portrayed by Selena Lee) that spans over to their past life is very moving and engaging.
This is the first drama for Joel as the main male lead. While there is still room of improvement for him, I find that he did quite good already. He is usually excellent in supporting roles in the past and I find that this is a great step for him to be the lead. He needs to brush up on his crying scenes and I find that he couldn’t put it all in yet in those scenes. On the other hand, Selena Lee delivered a remarkable performance here. Her emotional scenes are all well executed and I always find her acting already on par to previous best actress winners. Hence, I wish for her to win the best actress at TVB Anniversary Awards end of this year. She certainly deserves it. It is absurd to know that she never gets any award before from TVB. She is overdue and this is her best role to win it.
All the other supporting cast also performed very well and delivered their mini-stories convincingly. I admire the script and the execution of each stories, and I am surprised and impressed with the unprecedented approach the drama has in place. For instance, the series dealt with sensitive issues like same-sex relationship, transnational love, love with older woman, etc (there is even a sex doll involved). By just the mention of these things, you would think that this looks like an adult drama, but you have to watch it to know that the drama is very profound and simply using those to convey fresh perspective to our life.
I am also fascinated with the amount of details placed into every scene that reveals a little hint to what’s coming next. You have to pay close attention to the wall, floor, the background, or some small character’s expression that reveals some important plot point. This is a brilliant step by TVB as it has not done much in this area before in its past dramas. I also like the part where this drama links to another supernatural drama aired early this year called ‘Our Unwinding Ethos’ (surprised and felt cool to see Rosina Lam from that drama in this one as well making a guest appearance). It’s like a shared universe thingy just like Marvel films. That’s interesting, isn’t it?
I am disappointed that this drama is way too short. 20 episodes is simply not enough for such a high quality series. The drama is full of suspense and got me very engaged and eager to know what’s going to happen next. The new rendition of a classic song used for this drama in both Mandarin and Cantonese version that plays at the beginning and ending of each episode is also very addictive and suits perfectly well to the mood of the story. Unconventional, daring, touching and thought-provoking, ‘Barrack O’Karma’ (I believe the one who created this English title wants a bit of humor by linking it to the name of former US president, Barack Obama…haha, that’s weird but cool though) really surprises me.
Out of 10 points, I rate ‘Barrack O’Karma’ a total of 8.3. Best drama of the year. I don’t need to watch the remaining other dramas of the year to come to that conclusion. It’s that easy. While the series isn’t perfect (there is still some poor areas like frequent disconnectedness between stories, rushed progress to some mini-stories, over complexity of plot – I still cannot digest what’s the ending means, too many unanswered questions at the end, etc), but this drama marked a bold and successful step forward for TVB.
(Images in this post are from various online sources)