Culture Club | Triumph in the Skies, failure in Hong Kong

Recently at a dinner party that was well-attended by some members of the cultural sector, a very obscure thing happened. The conversation of the night evolved around, surprisingly, not the pro-Beijing lawmaker Christopher Chung Shu-Kun’s recent controversial attack on the West Kowloon arts hub’s hire of Western talents at Legco, or that the Hong Kong Ballet is looking for yet another new executive director, but, errr, TVB drama series Triumph in the Skies 2 (衝上雲霄II).

“I adore Captain Cool,” one arts administrator in her late 20s commented on the airline pilot/ womaniser Jayden Koo, the show’s lead played by Julian Cheung Chi-lam (張智霖), also known as Chilam. “Chilam is hot at his age.”

“But Francis Ng (吳鎮宇) is a much better actor,” another 30-something arts manager cut in, rating Ng, a Hong Kong Film Awards best actor-winner, for his performance as the other lead Sam Tong, a pilot living with regret after his ex-lover died in the previous season aired on TVB 10 years ago.” Either way I couldn’t understand why both of them fell for Fala Chen (陳法拉). “She can’t act,” said one grumpy middle-aged critic. Chen plays the female lead Holiday Ho in the series.

Video: Trailer for Triumph in the Skies 2

My jaw dropped not only because I naively thought people from the arts world were more into high brow conversation of arts and culture, but because I was a complete mute almost the entire evening. Yes I have read everything about the show in local entertainment pages and frequent social media posts about the racy love scenes, but I haven’t watched a single episode of Triumph in the Skies 2. The same old narrative and well-worn love triangle just doesn’t interest me any more.