The TVB anniversary drama Captain of Destiny <張保仔> ended on Sunday with a blast, reaching a peak of 31 rating points during the last few seconds of the final episode. The historical sci-fi drama, which stars Ruco Chan (陳展鵬), Tony Hung (洪永城), and Grace Chan (陳凱琳), is one of TVB’s first dramas to use a heavy amount of CGI. Although the script is panned by netizens, Captain of Destiny performed decently in viewership ratings, bringing in an average of 25 rating points per episode. The last episode of Captain of Destiny averaged 29 points and peaked at 31 points, the highest rating in the entire series. This puts Captain of Destiny’s finale as the third most-watched final episode of the year thus far, behind The Empress of China <武則天> and Ghost of Relativity <鬼同你OT>. The Empress of China’s final episode averaged 33 and peaked at 37, while Ghost of Relativity’s final episode averaged 30 and peaked at 34. Over 2 million viewers tuned in to watch Captain of Destiny’s final moment, which was a scene involving surprise guest star Raymond Wong (黃浩然), portraying a Jack Sparrow-esque pirate, landing in modern-day Hong Kong with Cheung Po Tsai’s pirate crew. Raymond’s surprise appearance, lasting only a few seconds, pushed the episode’s viewership rating to 31 points. “We took about five to six hours for the costume fitting,” shared Raymond. “On the day of filming, we spent about two hours on makeup. But the actual filming took only a few minutes.” Raymond was originally supposed to play the drama’s titular character, the pirate Cheung Po Tsai. However, the actor had to step down one week into filming due to health concerns, and Tony Hung was called in last-minute to replace him. Although unable to partake in the series, Raymond said he is happy to see Captain of Destiny win My Favorite Drama at the StarHub TVB Awards, and also congratulated Ruco Chan for winning TV King with his performance in the drama. Many viewers and netizens shared their theories on the significance of Raymond’s appearance in Captain of Destiny, sparking hot discussion online. Netizens noticed that Raymond’s face was tattooed with a curse, similar to the curse that Tony’s Cheung Po Tsai was put on during the series. Since Cheung Po Tsai in the current timeline has traveled to the future, netizens argued that Raymond may be playing a Cheung Po Tsai from a parallel universe, thus leaving room for a sequel. “It’s not a curse,” Raymond clarified. “It’s simply a [random] design. We decided to make my appearance more westernized so there won’t be a rehash of the same looks.” Raymond Wong wasn’t the only surprise. The last episode of Captain of Destiny did drop a few more unexpected surprises. As Captain of Destiny shares the same cast with 2012’s Slow Boat Home <情越海岸線>, many characters in Captain of Destiny “reincarnated” as Slow Boat Home characters in the last episode. Evergreen Mak (麥長青) also made a brief cameo appearance, playing Raymond Wong’s role in Slow Boat Home. Creds: Oncc
I think Raymond Wong would've done a better job at playing the pirate...thought his westernized pirate look, looks legit...but then again Tony wasn't exactly horrible...not his fault TVB made the pirate storyline a joke rather than something serious...I do however blame both TVB AND Grace for both bad storyline involving her character and her being a shitty actress who made the character even worse...
Hope to see a sequel to this with Raymond Wong cast. It was a good series. Ruco Chan emotional act is great.
I didn't watch this series, but seeing Raymond in other series I think he def would have made it better.
i couldn't bear watching another ep after they went back into time and suddenly cannon balls don't kill people anymore, but guns did in the first ep. but seriously... what's up with the mike tyson tattoo?
