Series Title: At the Threshold of an Era
Length: 104 Epi
Series Rating: *
Music: ****
Overall Acting: ***
Maggie's Acting: *****

Link to TVB site for ATE

Tim (Gallen), Bill (Sunny), and Keung (Roger) are good friends. Tim is like the older brother who wishes to become rich so he can challenge his uncle. Since his rich uncle frames his father to jail and they lost all their wealth, Tim will do anything to get rich, even in illegal ways, to go against his uncle. Bill is a righteous architect who already has a good girlfriend (Tina) but he has a lot of family problems. When he was very young, his parents were separated and his mother had another son (Cheung Ge Lik). Even though they are not all related, he takes good care of his young brother who live in Taiwan with their mother. Keung is the lucky one compared with his two friends because he has good parents and they never has any financial problem since they own a wanton restaurant. Keung is very nice but not very smart though. When Tim and Bill have arguments, he is usually the one who stand in the middle and he will try to help his two best friends solve their problem.

Keung falls in love with Wing Yun (Kenix) at first sight but she likes Tim. Even though Tim usually screams at her, she always help him. When he found out how she feels, he is scared to love her because he doesn't want to hurt another woman and he knows he is not a good boyfriend. He did accept her love later but since he is afraid to hurt her, he broke up with her.

Bill and Tina (Maggie) are having problems in their relationships. Tina is a smart lady and she has dated Bill when they were very young. She has a lot of suitors but she only like Bill. But since Bill gets jealous easily and he knows Joe (Nicky) likes Tina, he usually gets into arguments with Tina. Because of their misunderstandings, they broke up. He later marry Yun.

Helen(Flora) is from a rich family but her parents got separated because her mother (Fong Kin Ping) found out her husband has an affair with her best friend. Helen is a timid lawyer. She likes Tim and helps him often. They even slept together even though Tim doesn't love her because he only loves Yung. He used her a lot of time so she gave up on him and marries Barry. But she is still in love with Tim so they got divorce.

Bill kills a robber when he was about to departure from Hong Kong to Taiwan. He helps his brother from the loan sharks. Since a lot of unlucky things happen to him and he can not control himself, he starts to become like Tim who will do anything to get rich. His personality has changed completely and he became very evil but the only thing he never changed is his love for Yung. He even killed Keung's mother.

Since Joe likes Tina a lot, he tries many ways to court her but she didn't accept his love at fist since she still likes Bill. But when Bill betrayed Tina by lying to her, she finally gave up on him completely. She feels very guilty at the things she has done to Joe but Joe still love her a lot. She starts to have feeling for him and they start going out. But this couple is not very lucky because they were capture and bring to the Philippine.

When Tim knows what Bill has done, he was very mad at him. They even became enemies. But at the end, Tim found out the importance of their friendships. He decided to get the old Bill back with the help from Yung. When they went to Taiwan, Bill was killed and Yung was accused of murder…..

After Yung got killed, Tim blamed himself for her death. When he found out Joe's second brother was the one who causes Yung's death, he decided to take revenge. He used Helen again which cause her stepbrother's (Joe's second brother) death, she gave up on Tim completely and left Hong Kong.

Joe and Tina was finally save and taken back to Hong Kong. Even though Tina was forced to become a hooker in the Philippine, Joe didn't mind her past. They got marry and immigrated to the United States.

Lik (Louis) thought Tim was the one who kills his brother so he decided to take revenge. He went to Hong Kong and start working at Joe's father's company. He even met his biological father and they live together. His stepsister likes him but he already has a girlfriend (Ling).

Ling (Ada) is Tim's ex-girlfriend and she starts to help Lik in his revenge so she works for Tim as his secretary. Tim found out Yung actually has an identical twin sister (Mei Nei) but their personalities are very different. But since she looks like Yung, Tim helps her a lot. She likes Tim but he didn't accept his love at first...

Keung likes Ling but she doesn't like him. But she got into an accident and lost all her memory. Since Keung treats her very nice, she starts to accept his love since she doesn't remember Lik. When she remember her past, she told Tim about Lik. They try to help Lik and tell him that Bill was killed because he was allergic to some medicines, which cause his death. Even Lik found out the truth and Tim wasn't the one who killed his brother, he still want to takes revenge on Tim...


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Even though this is a big production series, there are a lot of problems in this series. The plot is not well focus and most scenes are not elaborate or mention clearly, which make the whole series very fake. The relationships are too messy to mention and the characters are not interesting. I can't stand Tim because he acts like a mad dog but Gallen did a good job at performing the character. The turning point on how Bill became evil is too dumb or stupid. Keung is not a believable character, I mean how can he forgives Bill when he found out he kills his parents but he still tries to fulfill his dream, so fake. Joe is a sweet character but not too develop though. As for Yung, Helen, Ling, and Mei Nei, their characters are not important. They are just there to be the men's love machine. I found out most of Chik Kei Yee's series are always like that. The main leading actresses are always innocent and nice and their roles are usually not important to the plot. Well, Tina is a good role but too bad TVB didn't elaborate or develop her character further. Even though I don't like the series, I do like the two English songs.

* These are only based on my opinion, not on real rating for the series! The more stars mean the better. Five stars are the maximum!