Series Review - "It Happened In Hong Kong"

Series Review - "It Happened In Hong Kong"
- Anish Mohanty Let us know what you think about this article

When a show is named after a city, you do expect it to have a generous amount of visuals dedicated to the beauty and splendour of the city. The way "It Happened in Hong Kong" has been shot; it seems as if it was supposed to be a promotional campaign for tourism. Sadly, neither does it tell a compelling story, nor does it succeeds in being a good promotional video for Hong Kong. If the Government provided them with rebates and other facilities which made things easier for the production team, they would be very disappointed with the occurrence of the latter. The film primarily revolves around Aahana (Aahana Kumra) and Amol (Amol Parahar). Aahana is on a solo trip and is busy documenting her travel experiences in a notebook when a chance meeting with Amol leads to the word 'solo' going out of the window. Amol and Aahana travel across Hong Kong talking about their lives and then, the obvious happens - they get drawn to each other.

The four episode series rests on a flimsy storyline. Perhaps, the idea was to use other cinematic decides to engage the viewer. It is a technically sound product but is that enough to make a show engaging? I doubt. The first three episodes are awfully predictable and save for a scene or who are devoid of moments that would add some spark to the narrative. The dialogues, too, are commonplace. You keep looking for elements that would give some sort of a direction to the show but that does not happen. The show ends on a relatively better note as the last episode, also the best one, offers some heart-warming moments between the two actors leaving one wishing that some of the spark that we see here was there in the earlier three episodes as well. Even if you streamed the show expecting it revel in the beauty of Bangkok, you will be disappointed. Director of photography Nikhil Tandon does a marvellous job behind the camera but one does not really see enough of Hong Kong. If there was a gripping screenplay to compensate for that one would not have complained but there was never one in the first place.

Aahana Kumra has shown what a fine actor she is right from the time she appeared in the television show 'Yudh'. She is a complete natural and does not fie you the impression for a second that she is acting. I have not seen the digital shows Amol Parashar seems to be famous for but I remember admiring him for the brie role he had in 'Rocket Singh The Salesman Of The Year'. He has been credited as the co-writer of the show. While the show fails to bring his writing abilities to the fore, he does a very good job as an actor.

The digital space seems to be swarmed with shows dealing with character from urban India and their first world problems. Some of them have been good while a lot of them have resorted to clich?s and have bright nothing new to the table. "It Happened In Bangkok" belongs to the second category.

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