At the Threshold of an Era
| At the Threshold of an Era (創世紀) |
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At the Threshold of an Era promo poster
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| Genre |
Drama Financial thriller |
| Screenplay by | Chow Yuk-ming Leung Man-wah Chin Lo Leung Chi-yin Choi Suk-yin Andrew Fung Fung Ching-man Siu Wai-yee Ku Yee-wai Cheung Siu-fong Cheung Chung-chai Au Kin-yee Ho Kwan-ngo Tang Chi-san Tsang Po-wah |
| Story by | Sandy Shaw |
| Directed by | Chung Kwok-keung Mak Koon-chi Joe Chan Cheng Kei-sing So Man-chung Man Wai-hung Lam Chi-wah Wong Wai-sam Ng Ka-kan |
| Starring |
Gallen Lo Roger Kwok Sunny Chan Louis Koo Kenix Kwok Liza Wang Ada Choi Flora Chan Nicky Wu Maggie Shiu Paul Chun Joe Ma |
| Theme music composer | Yukiyo Nakamura (Part I) Andrew Tuason (Part II) |
| Opening theme |
Creating a Bright Day (創造晴天) by Gallen Lo (Part I) A World with Passion (天地有情) by Gallen Lo (Part II) |
| Country of origin | Hong Kong |
| Original language(s) | Cantonese |
| No. of episodes | 107 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Jonathan Chik |
| Location(s) | Hong Kong Taiwan Macau Guangzhou, China Philippines |
| Running time | 45 minutes (approx.) |
| Production company(s) | TVB |
| Budget | HK$100 million |
| Release | |
| Original network | TVB Jade |
| Original release | 11 October 1999 – 26 May 2000 |
| External links | |
| Website | |
At the Threshold of an Era (Chinese: 創世紀) was a Hong Kong epic drama series broadcast by TVB Jade Channel from 11 October to 18 December 1999 and 13 March to 26 May 2000 and was extensively promoted by TVB as its cross-millennium, one-hundred-episode-long epic. The series composed of two parts, with a gap in between the airing.
The entire series took place in a continuing flashback, with one of the main characters, Tim Yip (Gallen Lo), pondering the trials and tribulations he went through while riding on a train in the "green city" he developed.
The drama documents the rise and fall of three entrepreneurs, who founded Lik Tin Century Corporation (力天世紀) together to achieve the ultimate goal of developing a pollution-free town in Hong Kong. Vendetta and love serves as strong subplots throughout the series, with the vendetta between two families being the most prominent.
The stories covered a span of 20 years, from 1990 to 2010, and featured many technologies that came to age during this time, including the nascent internet, and a bulkier tamaguchi virtual pet device (shown as a device similar to Game Boy in the series), which was developed by one of the entrepreneurs before his entry into construction.
It was speculated that the show was not originally meant to become a cross-millennium event, and was rushed into development and broadcast by TVB because of a slump in ratings.
In Hong Kong, TVB is the predominant TV station in terms of ratings, often receiving 90% viewing shares. During the summer of 1999, the Mainland-Taiwanese drama My Fair Princess, aired by rival broadcaster ATV, took away a significant portion of TVB's audience, and came out on top in the ratings battle during certain hours.
It is speculated, but never confirmed, that the managements of TVB drafted its top actors and actresses to perform in the series, and rushed the production into broadcast as a weapon against the resurgent ATV. Supporters of this theory point to the splitting of the series into two parts, with a gap in between the broadcast to allow for production time. Opponents of the speculation assert that ATV only had a one-off hit with My Fair Princess, and there were no other series afterward that could have retained the audience that eventually returned to TVB. The opponents also allude to the fact that even during the lowest point of the entire crisis, TVB still retained a competitive edge in ratings, and would have been able to defeat ATV right after My Fair Princess concluded. However, this still does not provide an explanation to the gap between two series.
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Wikipedia