披荊斬棘 - Call Me by Fire - Season 2 - Premiere

披荆斩棘 (Call Me By Fire) Season 2 is a 2022 variety show out of Zhong Guo. The premise of the show is 32 "brothers" whom come from different walks of the entertainment industry come together to form a final group. In essence, it is a survival show format.



The second Season premiered this pass weekend. I was able to watch it and see a lot of folks I grew up watching. In my opinion, this second season is more to my liking than the first season. I just know more people from the second season so I react to them more.



For me, I really like Will Pan and Darren Wang. Those two are among my favorites. Will Pan has been a regular IQIYI guy these last few years. Darren Wang is just a funny dood.

I’ve played the Will Pan Group performance multiple times this week.

披荆斩棘的哥哥 - Call Me By Fire

披荆斩棘的哥哥 (Call Me By Fire) is a 2021 variety show out of Zhong Guo. The premise of the show is 33 "brothers" whom come from different walks of the entertainment industry come together to form a 17 member final group. In essence, it is a survival show format.

The show is a spin-off of the "sisters" show, Sisters Who Make Waves (乘风破浪的姐姐). But the format is vastly different. Instead of eliminations every week, elimations came more sporatic. The groups also had repeating "Captains" through the entire show.

The chatter online were that these folks were beyond their prime and trying to get attention. I love it. Get attention, get work again! I love some of these 33 folks and watched them for years. My favorite is Jerry Yan, whom they focused on a lot in week 1, but went more low key later on. Terry Lin started out as annoying to me, but ended up being one of my favorites at the end. The Canto group was so funny.

There were folks I was not as familiar with so I fast forwarded through their segments. That's the beauty of watching via Youtube. The ads sucked doe.

Youku did a similar show called Shine! Super Brothers (追光吧哥哥) with 21 brothers that was in a more dance and sing kind of way. I also liked that show. It's all about getting away from the real world for a brief moment every week and Call Me By Fire did it in spades.

Bet to Basic - 打雀英雄傳

Bet to Basic (打雀英雄傳) is a 2006 film out of Hong Kong. The movie stars Jordan Chan and Rain Li.

The movie is a spoof of some of the more popular HK movies of around the same time. A play on Election and Kung Fu Hustle are very apparent. The other ones need a little more thought.

Based on God of Gamblers storyline, but with Mahjong. The story of a people that want to be the God of Mahjong.

The movie runs at a fast pace of around 89 minutes. Any longer and you're heading for the doors.

Skip it if you can.

Wo Hu - 臥虎

Wo Hu (臥虎) is a 2006 film out of Hong Kong. The movie has a huge cast.

The movie starts with some gangsters telling cops that they can't do anything to them. So the police force decides to send 1000 undercover cops to the triads to take down the big bosses. Fast forward some time and we find out that the triads have heard a rumor that there are 1000 undercover cops. They find out and take him out. The police now start to move so as to prevent more cop killings. This puts the leaders of a particular triad on edge and suspicions start to rear its ugly head.

In the end, this was a standard triad movie for the mid 2000. On the heals of Infernal Affairs, there was a lot of projects that played that "undercover" angle. A lot. From 2007 to now, those type of movies have apparently gone out of fashion.

You should give it watch if you're into the HK triad films.