Marsha Maung: Write. Cook. Read. Watch. Try. Innovate.

It took me long enough to write about it. After all the #metoo moments, grand speeches, viral content, it took me THIS long to actually put my thoughts into words. Like everyone else, I obviously have an opinion but it's kind of messed up. These are the few questions that kept running through my head and I have yet to find answers for: Where's the line between flirting and being too aggressive? Where's the line between having some innocent fun with the opposite sex and soliciting or being promiscuous?  Is touching no longer permitted, regardless of gender, unless outright permission is sought? When will we ever shred the excuse of 'boys will be boys' into one million pieces? How do we educate our daughters, the women of the future, about their worth lies beyond their looks? How do we educate our sons that women are not sexual objects? Where's the line between privacy and personal protection? Will we ever just have fun for the sake of fun again wit...

This is most definitely a series that I will watch again! The stories are interesting, especially the last one involving a man suffering from Schizophrenia. In short, this series is about a team of cops who is led by an expert in body language, Bowie. Bowie was quite perfectly chosen for this role - maybe it was written for him, too. Who knows? :-) He has a good partner in the form of a lady cop played by Crystal Tin. There are quite a few new faces in this series. The tall, thin girl who looks like a model....I have no idea who she is. My radar missed her from all the series that I have been watching so far. Really love Bosco in this series!! He plays the renegade cop who is skeptical about reading body language. But he fell in love with Bowie's sister, Aimee Chan, so began his journey in trying to polish his boss' shoes, hence, learning to like the way his boss works more. The eye opener for me is seeing Susan Tse in a non-baddie role. When I saw that she was playing a...

Growing Through Life (2010) Casts: Damian Lau, Cecelia Yip, Raymond Lam, Bosco Wong, Shao Ziqi, Toby Leung, Vionn Song, Dominic Lam, Lui Yau Wai The essence of the story is there - family ties, importance of being accommodating with friends, being kind, not being greedy...that is the true essence of the story, which is good, but the writers of the script should be shot for spoiling quite a compelling story with over-the-top dramatics and unbelievable plot. To say that I don't get with China's way of filming the series with a thousand angles to one scene and pauses so long you can hear the crickets breeding in the background - that is just pure insanity. I did not pay for the DVDs to hear crickets make love in the background. I just want to watch the show, alright? Damian Lau...well, I have never been much of a fan, really but he was OK. Cecelia Yip was completely OUT OF THIS WORLD ORGASMIC!! There was a part of the series when she went a little cuckoo up there in her h...

Ghost Writer (2010) Cast: Steven Ma, Linda Chung, Fala Chen, Sunny Chan...and a whole host of other people My Rating: 4.5/5 I am deeply, deeply impressed with this series...seriously...eventhough Raymond Lam is not in this series :-) Frankly, after a whole line-up of BORING, BORING, BORING shows (I won't name them...ah heck, example Fly With Me totally suxed!!!), this is a refreshing story. Just like 'Mysteries of Love', there is more meat to the story compared to the normal 'cat dog mouse' as pet storylines which cusks like hell. First of all, there's powerhouse Sunny Chan and Steven Ma in here and the story really made good use of their talents. The chemistry between Steven and Linda remains in tact but the single person who impressed me the most in this series is Fala Chen. For once, there is something very likeable about her character and her performance. Love the sheer innocence which made me guffaw a little here and there. FYI, I bought the whol...

 The Mysteries Of Love Starring : Raymond Lam (my husband - HAHAHA!! siow), Tavia Yeung (my arch rival - BUAHAHAHA), Kenneth Ma and Bernice Liu...amongst others. My rating : 4.5 / 5 For Raymond Lam fans, this is a MUST WATCH. His character here reminds me a little about one of the first few series he starred in called 'Eternal Happiness'. In Eternal Happiness, he played this really slow person whom you would want to punch the daylights out of but he was so cute and innocent and naive that...well, you end up loving the hell outta the guy. In The Mysteries of Love, he has the same aloofness but is super smart but dumb in love. At one point in time, I truly hated Prof Kingsley for being a jerk, asshole. In the end, he sorta made up for it. Story-wise, this is a good one combining two love stories and punctuated with lots of other crime-solving stories. They were all nicely interlaced. They spent enough time elaborating on each character and why they were the way they were a...

The unique thing about this storyline is that everyone, more or less, gets a chance to be bad and then good, bad and then good again. At the end of the day, you don't really know who is the real good and bad person. I like Jessica Hsuen and think she's a fantastic actress but somehow, when you have veteran villains in there, she sorta falls short. Not by a lot, but still falling short. I mean, you have Bowie there who has been the meanest kind of baddie EVA and then there's Kiki Sheung in there. In the end, when you look at Jessica's villain parts, it's nothing to shout about. The storyline is a little over-the-top as usual but it's pretty boring in the beginning when you get confused as to who is who, what is doing what, who's for real and what's really going on. The pace picks up towards the end, don't worry. For ONCE, Savio Tsang is NOT the baddie!! Hahahaha!! He's the good guy ALL THE WAY to the end of the movie. It's sad that th...

Drearily boring. Another dog story gone wrong. The series is not really about a watchdog nor is it about watchdogs apart from the first half of the show. The writers' attempt at trying to make the 'just another dog story' tale different failed shamefully. The only saving grace is the caliber of the actors.  Well, there were funny moments but they were few and far in between, nothing to shout about. I can't even remember a single line that really made me sit up and really laugh. Lulu Sir, ok, he did good. So did Maggie Siu. As usual, the pairing of Stephen Ma and Linda Chung is a winner...they have chemistry and acts so naturally with each other.  In fact, I do question why Linda and Stephen are so natural with each other while she acts like a bloody boulder with Raymond Lam (when she is rumored to be with the latter...some promotional fanfire, I suppose). All in all, the story kinda sucks. Had to drag myself all the way through...not a smidgen of excitement...

This is the modern version of a costume drama series from TVB. Instead of having the setting in an ancient courtroom where concubines fight for power and love from the King, we have three actresses fighting for an award. One might wonder if this is the real dig-up dirt story behind the Hong Kong celeb world. Never mind that. It was good but there was an all-round over-acting. Christine Ng, wow...what can I say? She should have been casted in one of those costume dramas as a villain. Seriously, she's insane. Well, the character is insane. Kate Tsui's got a lot to learn. She alternates between good and bad throughout the show and when she is bad, she is a little OTT. But when she's good, she's natural. Now, Sharon Chan is another story. She veers, also, between good and bad but she mastered both. The subtle movement of the eyebrow, the look, the evil smile....she's got it. I must say that I am kind of impressed with her despite her experience playing ...

The storyline is hardly original but then again, it is hard to expect TVB to be original at anything. But I have to say that there were SOOOOOO many funny moments and lines. Sunny Chan is a very versatile actor although initially, I thought he was woody. He's amazing at playing his part in this series. Love him. Love his stubbornness and love him more when he acted as the old stubborn father to Ron Ng. In a way, Myolie Wu really outdid herself in this role. It gave her the chance to be bad and mean and selfish...but for a very good reason. This kind of character is often hard to portray because you're basically playing with viewers' feelings. She's hateful but not as hateful. Fine balance. Hard portrayal. Love her over-the-top acting. Ron Ng's really, really improved with his acting skills. Now, not only is he buff and quite cute, he can FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY ACT!!! It's a lot of slapstick stuff, really, and you would have to leave your brain at th...

This is the theme song for Journey Called Life sung by Steven Ma and Linda Chung. Excellent song, if you ask me. I was having a tussle in the video shop…which DVD series to buy…which one which one which one? Journey Called Life (Journey) wasn’t my favorite because of the cover. It looked like they’re going to be talking about…sigh…family life and sigh…a marathon? Sigh….please, spare me. But luckily, the sales person went out of her way to convince me that it was a very good series. I squinted at her and said, “Ya meh? Look so boring, man. I don’t want those feel-good comedy cheesy shows wan ah….” And she crosses her heart, “If this series is not good, you come back and look for me!” OK. So since she put it that way, OK lah. I bought the one with a couple of people in running clothes wan lah. It better be good. Was it good? Let’s just say I would have had to spend the sales lady a few dinners over lor…it was phenomenal! One of the best TVB series ever ….really. You know how TVB...

Bad Endings I recently wrote a short story as testing. I emailed it to a couple of people and my cousin was one of the first few to respond. He said the storyline was fine but the ending was potong steam. I am assuming that because there was so much conflict throughout but the ending was....erm, totally not in tandem with the rest of the story. If I had killed off a character, it would have been better, right? Hero Killed I am writing a screenplay for a client, he/she dictates the storyline while I pan it out for him/her. Around the middle, he/she wrote 'XXX kills off YYYY' and I went NNNNOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I can't write that . Just writing the screenplay for him/her gives me heart palpitations as it is because it is sort of like a sci-fi thing and if you know me well enough, you'll know that I'm the sort of person who hides under the blanket when the tension builds up. What makes it worse is that he/she gives it to me in bits and pieces. That means he/she keeps ...

Finally! Finally, someone's made the right move, struck the right deal and is now giving illegal DVDs and VCDs players a run for their money! Being a series addict, I was once-upon-a-time also a fan of illegal stuff SIMPLY BECAUSE the legal stuff were so darn expensive! And we're a bunch of addict quite like a drug addict. If we cannot get the real stuff for low pricing, we get the illegal stuff because we're addicted. And when you dangle a fat carrot in front of a hungry horse, it's natural for the hungry horse to eat lah, right? Normal, man. Despite my talks about supporting creativity and fight illegal downloading or illegal DVDs and stuff like that, I'll admit that I have borrowed and bought some of the illegal ones as well. I hope I am not getting into trouble for that. To my own credit, I bought whenever the series really captivated me or when I got desperate. I also borrow most of the time because not all of them are 'keepers'. Finally some sma...