At the Threshold of an Era

At the Threshold of an Era
(創世紀)
Genre Modern Drama
Starring Gallen Lo
Sunny Chan
Roger Kwok
Louis Koo
Kenix Kwok
Liza Wang
Ada Choi
Flora Chan
Nicky Wu
Maggie Shiu
Paul Chun
Joe Ma
Opening theme "創造晴天" and "天地有情" by Gallen Lo
Country of origin  Hong Kong
Language(s) Cantonese
No. of episodes 105
Production
Running time 45 minutes (approx.)
Broadcast
Original channel TVB
Original run October 11, 1999 – December 18, 1999

At the Threshold of an Era (Chinese:創世紀) was a Hong Kong epic drama series broadcast by TVB Jade Channel from October 11, 1999 to December 18, 1999 and March 13, 2000 to May 26, 2000, and was extensively promoted by TVB as its cross-milliennium, 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 pondering the trials and tribulations he went through while riding on a train in the "green city" he developed.

Contents

Premise

The drama documents the rise and fall of three entrepreneurs, who founded Lik Tien Century Construction (力天世紀) together to achieve the ultimate goal of developing a pollution-free city 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.

Speculation on production

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, Taiwanese drama Princess Pearl, 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 Princess Pearl, 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 Princess Pearl concluded. However, this still does not provide an explanation to the gap between two series.

Cost

The series was the costliest ever produced in Hong Kong television history, totalling more than 100 million HKD (12.8 Million USD), thus creating a record that no other television series has ever been able to break until The Gem of Life in 2008.

Characters

Main characters

Yip family

Yip Hau Ken's branch

Howard Yip's branch

Fok family

Hui family

Other characters

Cameo appearances by Kenneth Ma as Stanley, Lik Tien's stock broker and Raymond Lam as a Taiwanese prison guard.

Awards and nominations

TVB Anniversary Awards
At the Threshold of an Era I' (2000)

At the Threshold of an Era II' (2000)

Trivia

External links