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 Caption: Although "The Drive of Life" featured popular artists and veterans, the series' word-of-mouth has only been lukewarm.

TVB and CCTV's collaboration, "The Drive of Life" 《歲月風雲》was broadcast in China on Saturday, June 30th. Unfortunately the broadcast clashed with the performance of the Four Heavenly Kings (Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok, Leon Lai, & Jacky Cheung) in a show celebrating the Hong Kong handover.

Since viewers were eager to watch the Four Heavenly Kings, the ratings and word-of-mouth for "The Drive of Life" was adversely affected. Also, mainland viewers were dissatisfied with the Mandarin dubbing. As a result, ratings were only average.

However, TVB was full of confidence in "The Drive of Life," deciding to broadcast it in China first. The series will be broadcast in Hong Kong on July 16th.

According to the initial clips posted online, the first episode opens with and focuses on Michael Miu Kiu Wai and Damien Lau Chung Yan. On the other hand, Jessica Hsuan, Joe Ma Tak Chung, Raymond Lam, Charmaine Sheh, Myolie Wu and Ron Ng only had 2 seconds of screen time.

The intial story centers around Damien's relationship with his 2 brothers, which made the scenes quite boring. Perhaps due to the success of "Heart of Greed," TVB focused the initial story on veteran actors, hoping to produce another hotly discussed series.

Actually, the mainland press did follow the initial broadcast of "The Drive of Life." The Beijing Morning Newspaper said that the audience was dissatisfied with the actor's voice overs, pointing out that Damien Lau's Mandarin dubbed voice did not match with his physical appearance.

Michael Miu plays the second brother in the Wah family. In the first episode, his character gave off a nonchalant air. He was only interested in playing golf all day.

Due to the betrayal of one of his father-in-law's friends, Michael pretended to be drunk to evade elder brother, Damien Lau. Michael laughed, "My character is responsible for adding some relaxed moments. If everyone were as serious as Damien's character, then it would be quite dull. Actually my character undergoes a dramatic change, going from seriousness to nonchalance."

Was the first episode very boring? Michael explained, "The initial story focused on the 3 brothers in the Wah family. The plot will grow more exciting."

Regarding the dissatisfaction over the Mandarin dubbing, Michael said audiences will become accustomed with the voices over time. Reading the comments left by netizens, Michael said there were both positive and negative feedback.

Source: Mingpao

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