C'est La Vie, Mon Chéri

I just finished watching C’est La Vie, Mon Chéri 新不了情 (HK/Mainland collaboration, 29 episodes)…sigh…

C’est La Vie, Mo Chéri Synopsis: (written [badly] by me)
Kit, a talented composer with a temper but without luck and recognition is breaking up with pop star girlfriend Tracy. He moves to Temple Street and befriends with neighbor Mun and her family and slowly adapts to the simple life of that area. Friendship turns very fast to love for them. Mun is a bubbly and cheerful girl who was once diagnosed with bone cancer but miraculously survived now lives happily with her mother Oi, uncle Sang and Ling, Oi’s “see mui”. Just when everybody is happy, Mun’s rich businessman father Wan reappears again to complicate matters and when Kit is going to propose to Mun, she is once again diagnosed with bone cancer…

Cast:
Fiona Sit – Lau Mun
Aloys Chen – Cheung Siu Kit
Candice Yu – Lee Joi Oi
Hui Siu Hung – Lee Joi Sang
Alex Fong – Lau Ho Wan
Chen Xiao Yi – Hui Pui Fun
Zhao Rong – Pang Chui See (Tracy)
Lui Kit – Man Siu Ling
Elena Kong – Ada

My comments:
Man, choosing to watch C'est La Vie, Mon Chéri after work is not going to lift up your mood. I remember watching the movie version starring Lau Ching Wan and Anita Yuen 15 years ago and cried my eyes out back then. Now, the drama version for me was a sob fest, especially during the last 5 episodes. If you are a regular viewer of TVB dramas, you might think this drama is not fast-paced enough. However, I think what this drama stands out compared to the ones from TVB is that it really focuses on the details, dialogues and character development. Every character has their own little story and the minor characters are not just background boards. No one is evil here, even if they did annoying things, everyone changed for the better.

The thing that touched me the most is how the family relationship is portrayed. I cried mostly for the mother(s)-daughter relationship between Oi and Mun and Fun and Mun; you can see how both moms love her so dearly. Even the flashback scenes of their younger days showing their interactions made me finish a pack of tissues. The love between Kit and Mun is touching as well but I felt that the chemistry is not quite there probably because of Aloys’ dubbing (the dubbing is already not bad, I’ve seen worse). The tiny glitch about this drama is occasional dialogue spoofs, and the drama is sometime choppy and does not flow well. The acting is great from the cast, even Fiona managed to do well although I’m still a bit bothered by the way she talks. The ending, it is expected to end it that way but I felt that it was somehow incomplete. When the credit rolls at the end, I was like “That’s it?!”

* Themesong of the drama