"Life Art" Under Fire from Critics

Sunday March 18, 2007 Hong Kong

With a cast led by Kevin Cheng and Gigi Lai, TVB's new series "Life Art" began airing this week, but Kevin's character appears in the promotional clips trying to find a date and this has been compared to the plot of Japanese series "Densha Otaku" in which the leading male does the same thing and leading to suggestions of copying the idea.

As far as the costumes are concerned, Kevin's character has similar fashion sense to the protagonist in "Densha" too, wearing thick rimmed glasses and looking like a nerd. Gigi's shoulder length hair and costumes also show an 80% resemblance to the female lead in the Japanese series. As both couples meet on the internet, the plot is almost identical too and even some camera angles are exactly the same. No wonder that some netizens are arguing over whether TVB have blatantly copied the series entirely.

Aside from this, there have also been criticisms about the theme song being very old-fashioned, as if you are being taken down a time tunnel back to the sixties and seventies and with some people even suggesting it has a hypnotising effect. Gigi also comes under fire for acting 'too cutesy', but there are some fans who compliment her for looking so good despite being in her thirties.

Responding to the copycat comments, Kevin says: "It is a coincidence! The character is not a nerd, but an ambitious IT person and the plot was written in this way! I have never watched 'Densha' and usually I do not go on the net very often."

Also, a vote was launched yesterday for the 'Most Questionable Anniversary Male Lead Award Winners Since 1997' and Kevin's award last year for "Under the Canopy of Love" emerged as the early leader, followed by Bowie Lam in "War and Beauty" and Louis Koo in "Detective Investigation Files IV".

credits: tvbspace.