Booking Your Time - My Date with a Vampire 1 & 2

Well, dug out the VCD (VCD!) of this ancient TVB drama with a vampire theme. Probably one of the better ones where TVB vampire shows are concerned, and I did kinda fell in love with the main theme song for the first series.

For serious vampire viewers, stay away from this series. This is more of a romantic drama with some (maybe low-end isn't a good description) not-so-impressive special effects; it is however, in my opinion, 100000000x better than the glittering ones.

The story follows Fang Tian You, whom was a freedom fighter back during the Sino-Japan war in the 30s, and he was attacked (along with a 10-year old kid) by the most ancient of vampires (Jiang Chen) while he was fighting off a Japanese officer (Shan Ben Yi Fu). Both of them were then turned (for whatever reason(s) Jiang Chen had, apparently he was just in the mood for a snack).

Many many years later he is now a police officer in Hong Kong, along with his little vampire kid friend, he got himself into battles against the plots of Shan Ben, whom wanted to turn the world into a vampire-only playground. He got romantically involved with 2 (reasonably good-looking) girls, which is the main romantic plot in the show, one of them being Ma Xiao Ling, an exorcist (or bounty ghost hunter, for the lack of a better description) whom in series 2 had a multi-generation romantic involvement with him.

Nevertheless, the story isn't too complicated, or, actually, it became completely unfollowable by season 2 when time travel and multi-generation (of the same actor) became involved in what appears to be nothing more than trying to prevent a bad lightning storm.

But one of the redeeming factor in this series is the psychology (specifically the romantic inclination) of the characters that at least tried to be a little unique. Fang's decision not to turn his girlfriend into a vampire to save her life (this is in season 2, in season 1 that seems to be the norm whenever there is a need to heal anybody), knowing that she doesn't want to become a monster - completely against the normal selfish and evil nature of vampires. The curse of the Ma family about losing their powers if they shed tears for anyone was also a pretty interesting depiction of Ma Xiao Ling's (the latest one, not the future, nor the previous ones) subtle feelings for Fang (whom is the boyfriend of her best friend at that point of time).

All in all I threw the VCD set away after going through it in fast motion for the last time. But I think tribute should be given to probably the most successful of Hong Kong Vampire drama series. And the theme song is nice.

(o.o)