Plot Rating: 5/10

Artist Rating: 6/10

The series focuses on how Felix Wong and Mark Kwok adjust to changes in life after coming out of jail and how society views people like them.

Episode 1-8

Coming from a lower class family, Mark Kwok Yiu Ming works hard to become a very successful architect. He is married to Charmaine Sheh.

Felix Wong is a hired contractor in charge of removing and installing underground drainage pipes at the construction site Mark is supervising. He is a single parent and a very stubborn man. Therefore, Felix's relationship with his 2 children (daughter and son) are on bad terms. He is constantly getting into arguments with his older daughter.

One day at the construction site, one of Felix's co-worker (friend) dies on the job. Felix is furious. He believes that the manager in charge of them indirectly caused his co-worker (friend)'s death by urging his friend to take the job (offering him more money) when the manager knew that the job was dangerous. As a result, Felix hits his manager over the head, leaving him in critical condition.

Meanwhile, the death of the worker has left Mark with problems of his own. The manager removed him from the project and he was forced to resign his position at the company. Unable to take all the pressure, he goes out drinking one night and while driving, he runs over a pedestrian, killing the pedestrian.

Feeling guilty for his own actions, Felix admits to injuring his manager and is sentenced to 9 months in prison. Mark, on the other hand, has no choice but to admit to his wrongdoing after consulting his brother-in-law and lawyer and is sentenced to 6 months in prison. In court, Charmaine faints upon hearing that Mark has to serve time in prison and is taken to a hospital. She loses the baby.

At first, Mark and Felix are placed in different cells, but later on Felix is placed in the same cell as Mark because of fights that Felix had with other inmates in his previous cell. Felix adjusts quickly to life in prison after a couple of days, but Mark does not. He does not communicate to any other inmates and is always being picked (hit and teased) on by them. The only thing he wants is to make a phone call so that he could find out about his wife's condition, but his request is denied.

Monica Chan Fa Yung is a social worker. She has just come back from the States and is working for one of her mom's friends (who's suppose to look after her). Anyways, on her first day at work she and her co-workers made a visit to see the inmates in prison to promote the program (program which helps inmates find jobs and adjusts to society again) they offered to inmates after coming out from prison. She treats the prisoners as her friends and tries to help them, going overboard in many cases. Also, the functions that she holds for the prisoners always turn up disastrous. For example, she found out that Charmaine was seeing Cheng Zhi Sing (Charmaine's ex-boyfriend in the series) and she misinterpreted, believing that Charmaine was cheating on Mark when they were really just friends. Therefore, she's constantly following Charmaine around, keeping an eye on her. In one incident, she followed them to Cheng Zhi Sing's mansion and tried to climb over the gate to see what was going on inside but got arrested instead.

As the days go by, Mark adjusts to life in prison. In one case, when Felix was being beaten badly by another prisoner, Mark and this other inmate (in their same cell) try to help Felix. As a result of this incident, Mark, Felix, and this other inmate become friends.

Monica frequently pays the inmates a visit in prison. Each time she speaks to Mark, he's always talking about his wife, whereas Felix doesn't have much to say to Monica. During one of functions that Monica and her co-workers hold for the prisoners, one of the inmates takes Monica hostage, but Felix saves her, and gets injured. Feeling responsible for causing Felix to be hospitalized, she decides to look after Felix's daughter, who dreams of becoming a model. At the end, Monica asks her friend to help pull Felix's daughter out from some lesbian that she was working for and finds her a part time modeling job.

Mark has difficult time finding a job after he comes out of jail, but eventually finds an architect position somewhere in China. However, he is later fired after his boss finds out that he had served sometime in jail. Mark also faces problems at home. When he returns home from China, he catches his wife with Cheng Zhi Sing and thus believes that something is going on between the two. In reality, they're just good friends. Charmaine has helped redesign Cheng Zhi Sing's mansion when Mark was in prison. Cheng Zhi Sing has expressed that he wants to be back with Charmaine, but she has told him off. Cheng Zhi Sing even offers $3 million to Charmaine so that she can pay off the mortgage loan on their (Mark and Charmaine) apartment, but Mark doesn't want his money. Therefore, they end up selling the apartment. Realizing that they are drifting apart, Mark wants a divorce.

Felix is unable to find a job after coming out of jail. His old co-workers want to offer him his old job back, but are unable to, for fear of losing their jobs. Life at home is not any better. He continues to have arguments with his daughter and his temper is worse then before he went to jail. He constantly yells at his daughter and son. In one incident, after having an argument with his daughter, he moves in with his friend for a couple of days. His 10 year old son, missing him, skips school and goes and sits at the soccer field without anyone knowing. After finding his son, Felix starts yelling and hitting him. Monica reprimands Felix about not knowing how to teach his children. After this incident, Felix's son starts to have some psychological ( does not talk to people and does not want to see his dad) problems. Felix moves out and Monica helps find him a job and a place to live. She continues to visit Felix's son and daughter who are now living with Felix's older sister.

Episodes 9-16

The series picks up a little in these couple of episodes

Mark and his wife, due to misunderstandings caused by Charmaine's mom and brothers, end up getting a divorce. Mark had to sell his apartment and move into the place especially designed to help people who get out of jail. This is the same place where Felix is living. Mark has pretty much given up on himself and spends most of his time drinking and wandering. At one point, he even tried to commit suicide, but was saved by Felix and Monica, who encouraged him to start a new life.

Felix meanwhile is still having problems with his children. His son is still seeing the psychiatrist on a weekly basis and is very scared of Felix. However, with Monica's help, his son slowly begins to recover and accepts Felix again.

A really funny part in the series is when Monica's roommate, "Connie" starts to fall in love with Felix. She's very funny and always harasses him. She even offers to bring his son to the clinic and Felix's son thought she was kindda funny too.

Felix and Mark's friend from jail, "Liu Gor" gets out. He also has a very funny personality. At first, he went to Felix's house to find him and he lies to Felix's sister, saying that he's a cop that worked at the jail. However, he ends up stealing money from her and when she finds out, its really funny because she makes him do all these household chores for her as repayment of interest for the money he owes. "Liu Gor" isn't really bad, he's just more of the lazy type that takes things for granted.

The place where Monica works has an ongoing program that supplies funds for a "jailmate company". I'm not quite sure how to explain this but people recently let out of jail work for this company and they provide cleaning services for businesses at a lower cost. However, due to numerous incidences, the company now has no more business and was on the verge of closing down. However, Monica urged her boss to keep the company going. They end up signing a contract with Cheng Zhi Sing's company because Charmaine's younger brother was pursuing Monica. (Charmaine and her younger brother, "Thomas" (played by Tse Tin Wah) work for Cheng Zhi Sing.) When Charmaine sees Mark cleaning the company, we can see that she still likes him.

Felix begins to develop feelings for Monica during this time. However, he sees Mark and Monica together a lot and knows that they're better suited because Mark is a college graduate. Mark and Monica soon begin to date. (However, I get the feeling that Mark still has some feelings for his wife.) After Cheng Zhi Sing relentlessly pursues Charmaine, she starts to date him. However, her feelings for him aren't 100%. She feels awkward around him and mainly dated him because she felt bad that he was being so nice to her.

Charmaine's older brother, played by Cheung Kwok Keurng, doesn't want Mark cleaning the company. Charmaine's mom and older brother want Cheng Zhi Sing and Charmaine to get together because he's rich. Also, they were illegally stealing money from Cheng's company. They want Mark out of the way. Therefore, "Thomas" turned on the vacuum humidifier that Mark was using when Mark was out of the room. The steam from the vacuum cleaner caused the sprinklers to go off and all of the computers and floor plans that Charmaine was working on were destroyed. This got the "jailmate company" in serious trouble.

The inmate that was Felix's enemy from jail was released. After Felix saved him, they became friends and he moved in with the rest of them. Before this guy went to jail, he worked with distributing newspapers. He decided to go into this business again and with the help of Mark's ex-father-in-law, they were able to acquire a zone to distribute newspapers in. At first, the business was unsuccessful. However, Mark was able to come up with another plan and soon they earned profits and were doing quite successfully. However, the mafia in that area wanted half of their profits but the group refused to give it to them.

Felix's ex-wife returns and they went out for dinner. Mark and Charmaine went to his mom's house for dinner to help celebrate her birthday. Monica had gone with Mark but she left because Mark's mom thought she was just the social worker and urged Monica to help get Charmaine and Mark together again. After dinner, Charmaine offered to drive Mark back to the office because he couldn't get a taxi. At Mark's office, the mafia (the ones that wanted half the profits) had started a fire. Mark was trying to put out the fire and Charmaine urged him to leave. The bookcase fell on her just as the episode ended…

Episodes 17-20

Mark and Charmaine end up in the hospital, but neither of them was seriously hurt. As always, Charmaine's mom yelled at Mark for causing her daughter to get injured and ordered him out of her room. However, Charmaine's father ( who has always been on Mark's side from the beginning ) allowed him to stay. During the 2-3 days that Mark was at the hospital, he took care of Charmaine. His relationship with Charmaine turned to the better ( they held conversations about their past, recalling the time when they first met and dated). Monica began to have doubts about her and Mark's relationship. She could tell that Mark still has feelings for Charmaine.

After finding out about Charmaine's hospitalization, Cheng Zhi Sing returns early from his business trip to L.A to visit her. He proposed to Charmaine, but she did not accept his proposal saying that she still needed time to think. Mark then drops by Charmaine's room to tell her he was leaving the hospital. Meanwhile, Monica was in her car waiting for Mark to come down. However, she got pissed and left him. Mark did not even realize that Monica wasn't downstairs waiting any longer.

Cheng Zhi Sing had a conversation with Mark. He offered Mark a position as project manager (same sort of position he held earlier before going to jail) at his company. Cheng Zhi Sing wanted to give Mark an equal opportunity to go after Charmaine as well as to take that extra challenge. (Besides, Cheng Zhi Sing sensed that there was something wrong with the construction project that his company has been working on, but he didn't know specifically what was wrong since he doesn't have that much experience with the technical aspect as he does with the business aspect). Mark accepted the position after thinking it through. At first, Monica wasn't too happy about it, but later she came to realize that Mark only loved his wife. Therefore, they broke up and became good friends.

Felix's ex-wife wanted the kids back. At first, Felix was reluctant to let his ex-wife have custody of the kids. However, after an incident (in which his son almost got ran over by a car in order to run from Felix), Felix decided that it would be better for his children to be with their mother. During this period of time, Monica was by Felix's side consoling him. Not long after, the two started going out.

Charmaine's two brothers were embezzling funds from Cheng Zhi Sing's Company. Cheng Zhi Sing was starting to get suspicious about the development of the project which he left Charmaine's two brothers in charge of. Therefore, Mark was also put on the project. Charmaine's two brothers wanted Cheng Zhi Sing to continue with the construction of the building, but Mark objected to the decision saying that there was something wrong with the foundation of the building (if this part of the construction isn't done correctly the entire building could collapse killing many people). The only way to correctly prove Mark's theory was to actually take a sample of the soil underneath the construction site ( I don't really know what it is actually in English terms) but this was actually considered a very dangerous task. Felix offered to help Mark and the rest of their inmate friends are there to support them.

Charmaine's two brothers thought of every possible way to prevent Felix from obtaining the sample underground. First, Charmaine's younger brother,"Thomas" (played by Tse Tin Wah) accused one of Felix's inmate friends of stealing his watch. Thereafter, they were all taken to the police station and were questioned. However, Felix's inmate friend admitted to taking the watch (thinking that it was no one's since it was left in the public bathroom ) and the rest were released. Not long after they return to the construction site, Felix was able to obtain the sample from underground. He also told Mark that the chemicals of the foundation wasn't correct. When Felix's old co-workers tried to pull him out from underground, the broads that were holding up the only opening collapsed. Mark tried to help but fell underground with Felix, who had been making his way up. The opening was covered with mud and the two had a 30 minute oxygen tank before they ran out of oxygen and died. Felix and Mark's inmate friends, Charmaine, along with other firefighters tried to dig the two out from underneath. Then, it started to pour. The firefighters, afraid of a mud slide, stopped the rescue, but the rest of the people continued to dig. With them digging on top and Mark and Felix climbing up, they were able to escape safely.

Because of this incident, Cheng Zhi Sing realized that Charmaine still loved Mark. Therefore, he wished them all the best and told them he was returning to L.A. to continue with his business there. He left Mark in charge of his business in Hong Kong. Charmaine's brothers were sentenced to 2 years in prison. As for Felix, his kids realize that they don't want to leave him. At the end, Felix and his ex-wife were on good terms. His ex-wife felt that with Felix dating Monica, her children were in good hands.

I really don't think this series met my expectations. I've adjusted the ratings accordingly. For Mark, this was a poor start for him because the series didn't really have a plot. Charmaine's acting was so bad, that I could barely bring myself to watch her parts. She had the same expression throughout the entire series. Felix, as usual, did a good job and Monica was ok too. This is my recommendation: don't rent the series unless you're bored out of your mind. I wonder why TVB always releases the bad series in the US first…just like Simply Ordinary.

1/24/99

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