Series: A change of heart 好心作怪


Ratings:
    

How many stars would you rate this drama?


 
*Contains spoiler*
Episodes 1 to 30:

Nikki Chow (Yuen Siu Kat 阮小吉) is a HK police officer and commander of her own investigative squad. A dutiful cop, she works hard to maintain order and justice, however, secretly, she's on a personal quest to find her mother's killer. Unfortunately, her journey would lead to many tragedies as well as revelations to the people around her and the unusual connections of her past, present, and future.

Nikki's mother was once a showgirl that had fallen on hard times. Desperate for financial survival for both mother and daughter, Nikki's mother became a prostitute to survive; it was a life she wanted to leave and planned for a fresh start once she had saved enough money. Unfortunately, it was believed that her mother was robbed and killed for her money. Thereafter, Nikki became an orphan and that anger and need for justice drove her to become a cop. The only clue she had was a man with a dragon shaped tattoo on his left arm running out from her apartment before her mother was killed. However, she was never able to resolve the case and continued her career as a cop.

Nikki eventually have a romantic relationship with Bosco Wong (Dr Yiu Yat San 姚日山),  a cardiologist and loving boyfriend. As the two gotten closer, Bosco wanted to marry Nikki, but she always resisted as she could not get over her mother's case. However, she eventually confided her past with Bosco and Bosco wanted to help her move forward with her life, but she only felt he was interfering in her personal matters. After learning that Bosco also tragically lost his mother (drowning accident while attempting to save someone), she became more understanding and the two later reconciled over their differences and even agree to marry, but it wouldn't be so as Bosco died after saving an old lady from falling roof tiles. He suffered a fractured skull and was proven to be brain dead, as his final wish, he was a registered organ donor and his heart would be given to one of the most powerful businessman in HK, Michael Miu (Fong Chi Lik 方自力).

Michael Miu is the ruthless CEO of Lik Chi Ko (LCK) Enterprises. He's a raging executive that uses his power to dominate and force people to bow to his will in order to realize his capitalistic ambitions. His greatest vision is to reclaim a series of old estates to re-develop those territories into the latest commercial zone as Sleepless City; unfortunately, he suffers from a coronary heart condition which causes his health to be deteriorating. His wife, Joey Meng (Tong Sin Hang 唐善行), is a trained nurse and has been managing his health. As time passed, Michael's health declined drastically and he was near death when he got news that they have a donor, a turning point in his life. The donor as mentioned earlier was Bosco but it was unforeseeable that his heart would be transferred onto Michael.





With a new heart and a second chance on life, Power returned to LCK with a new perspective on life. Through a combination of a renewed chance for life and inheriting the goodness from Bosco's heart, Power began to show a change in personality. He's no longer as ruthless and unforgiving as he used to; he began to focus on social development of his enterprises even treated his staff around him with a more pleasant attitude. He also inherited Bosco's taste for sweets and his sense of moral/ethical responsibilities. It was because of his change of heart that would become the prelude to many things, including atoning for his past.

While Nikki was devastated over Bosco's death, she was surprised to meet her fiance's younger twin brother, Bosco (Yiu Yuet San 姚月山) who look and sound exactly alike like big brother Bosco, however, Bosco appears to be the less responsible one. Bosco personally watched his mother drown because she tried to save someone; moral responsibility became a joke afterwards as it cost his mother's life. He became a wandering vagrant. After big brother Bosco's death, Bosco wanted to do more for his great aunt and unofficially replaced Bosco; he moved into his brother's apartment and even lived with Bosco's best friend and roommate, Vincent Wong (Eason, Tong Sin Chi 唐善知).


Because of his brother's memory, both Nikki and Vincent would voice disappointment over Bosco's nonchalant irresponsible nature. Things would change dramatically for Bosco when Michael decided to hire him to work as a bartender at his night club perhaps out of a sense of life-debt to big brother Bosco and/or a connection with Bosco.

Over time, Michael sees highly of Bosco and had promoted him multiple times and fast-tracked him as his new right hand man in his operations. However, all of Michael's recent actions, along with Bosco's fast career advancement did not agree well with Joey and his subordinate, Benjamin Yeun (Martin, Ting Chun Ping 丁俊平), .

Joey is the elder half-sister to Vincent, however the pair relationship was very bad. Vincent's father made a selfish decision to abandon his previous family for the sake of greater financial gain with his new one, however, his actions would indirectly lead to many tragedies. Joey watched her mother die from illness (her father wouldn't see her mother in her final moments before she died) and the fact her father chose Eason's family over hers made Joey into a resentful person. Although she had other relatives to help raise her, she was often abused; all of this negativity shaped Joey into the manipulative, ruthless, and spiteful woman that she is today. She loves Michael greatly and would do anything for him, but she begins to distant herself from him as she couldn't stand Michael's new sense of social and personal responsibility for his many years of wrongdoings.

After Michael recovered from his heart condition, Joey developed a more powerful seat with the board at LCK Enterprises and she began to lust for more power. She originally teamed up with Benjamin, Michael's original right-hand-man, to help Michael maintain his CEO position as well as to gather funds for the Sleepless City project; Michael showed gradual disinterest in the project and focused more on philanthropy and dedicating funds to more social responsible causes, a series of disappointing decisions from the perspectives of Joey.

Around that same time, Nikki also developed an unusual friendship with Power as she was partially drawn to him because big brother Bosco's heart lives through him. Their odd semi-friendship lead Joey to misunderstand and she started an affair with Benjamin.


Concurrently, Power assigned Bosco to go undercover for him to keep tabs on his wife's activities, however, that lead to misunderstands and negative feelings from Bosco's friends and family, thinking that he is a changed person.

In between, Nikki started to date Bosco; it was a challenge for her due to his resemblance to big brother Bosco and she admitted that sometimes it was hard not to think about big brother's Bosco while dating Bosco.



She later put their relationship on hold while investigating her mother's death. Secretly, Vincent and Benz Hui (Yip Sai Kau 葉世九), (Nikki's subordinate and godfather) started to look into the case for Nikki and later collaborated with her. At first, the trio had circumstantial evidence to suggest Michael had something to do with Nikki's mother's death due to the similar tattoo he had. Due to Nikki's overzealous nature, she had Michael arrested and he confessed that he stole money from her mother, but never killed her. Michael was jailed for a couple of months on the charges of robbery and assault.

By chance, a piece of jewelry from the crime scene was found and it linked to Benz Hui's wife as the killer. Benz Hui tried to help his wife escape, but Nikki caught up to them and learned that his wife had stole money from her mother, and while Nikki's mother tried to stop her she was accidentally pushed to the floor, where she landed on top of a glass shard that killed her. The revelation was heartbreaking to Nikki as she loved her god-father and his family; both Elaine Yiu (Yip Wing Yan 葉詠恩) (Nikki's best friend and Benz Hui's daughter) and Benz Hui kneel and begged for mercy, but his wife was ultimately arrested and sentenced for secondary degree manslaughter.

Joey and Benjamin eventually put themselves in a difficult situation. In their quest to help Michael sourced more funds, they aligned themselves with a triad boss. The deal was that Joey would help use LCK Enterprises to help clean his dirty money in exchange for his resources to keep the Sleepless City project afloat, but things went awry when Michael was released from jail and realized what was happening; Michael seized those assets and threatened the triad boss with the police to end their ties. The triad boss didn't take things well and decided to teach Power a lesson by slashing his wife's beautiful face, causing Joey to have a 4-inch scar on her face. To return a favor, Michael had his agents attack the triad boss's house in Thailand and threatened to kill him and his family; Michael ultimately had them released as he reasons his death would result in a vicious cycle of vengeance and reminded the importance of learning to let go of things.

Joey's life would continue to fall apart as her web of deception unraveled. Oppa, a cop under Nikki was desperate for money and found incriminating evidence containing Joey's confession that she threw the tiles that killed big brother Bosco; he blackmailed Joey. However, things did not go well for Oppa after Nikki suspected him and he ran for it. He tried to blackmail more money out of Joey to escape the country, but the two ended up in a struggle when Vincent came to try to rescue his sister; he ended up with a serious head injury. As Oppa was running, Nikki caught up to him. He was then knocked down by a car while crossing a road, resulting in his death. Although Joey felt guilty for Vincent who was hospitalised and in critical condition, she pretended to show no remorse. Later on, Joey met her father as the two looked after Vincent, but it was there she said some hateful words, enough to encourage his father's heart to fail and died, leaving Vincent the only family member still alive.

Taking advantage of Joey's fragile mentality, Nikki staged a fake supernatural event in the parking lot, by having Bosco put on a doctor's robe to resemble his big brother, to fool her to think karmic forces are after her. In a confrontation with her weakened will, she revealed to Nikki that it was she who threw the tiles that lead to big brother Bosco's death. Because she confessed while the police were recording her, it was used as evidence on top of other alleged crimes and she was sent to jail for processing. However, not long, the cops that was transporting her through a rainy day lost control of their van and it slipped right into the sea and Joey's body was never recovered; she was presumed dead.


With Joey gone and justice served for both her mother and big brother Bosco, Nikki's quest for justice left her police record tarnished while she was fulfilling her goals. Nikki deemed it as a non-regrettable outcome and she chose to leave the police force for some time off.

One year later, Vincent has married Elaine (the two always had feelings for each other throughout the story) and Bosco continues to wait for Nikki's return. Not long after, the two found each other and Nikki finally agreed to marry Bosco. Shortly after, Michael received an unusual text message from Nikki, with her telling him she doesn't really want to marry Bosco, but wants to be with him. Nikki then appears before Michael, wanting him to answer about his feelings about her. Michael admitted feeling something for her, but he explained he loves his wife very much and can't be with her. It was because of his love for Joey that Nikki reveals she's really Joey.


Through plastic surgery, Joey re-made herself a replica of Nikki, believing this would please her husband; she was happy to know that Michael still loves her and abandon her thought of planning to kill Michael and commit suicide afterwards since she realises that she had misunderstood Michael all this time. However, Joey complicated matters as she's still mentally/emotionally unstable and had kidnapped Nikki earlier and hidden her inside a cargo container. She planned to use Nikki's identity permanently and continue her rest of the her life living with Michael. However, Michael was against the idea and demanded Joey to tell him Nikki's whereabouts. Bosco and Nikki's police crew later joined in to help locate Nikki. Unfortunately, Joey died as she sacrificed herself to save Power from heavy-falling cargo.

Further time has past and Michael has since focused heavily on social work and his fate within LCK Enterprises is unknown. However, while working on a farm site with some children, he encountered a loving teacher that had a strong resemblance to his dead wife, Joey (also played by Joey Meng), suggesting he'll try to start a new life with her. Elsewhere, at the grand opening of the LCK Community Centre, Nikki and Bosco are now happily married. It was never revealed whether Nikki return to the police force, but she quietly says to Bosco that she's in a better place.


References: Wikipedia

My thoughts:
A recommended drama to watch for year 2013 other than Triumph in the Skies II. It has an unexpected turnaround in the final episode although most of the plot can be easily guessed as it was made too obvious by characters in the drama.

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