Call Me By Fire is back, premiering its fourth season in 2024! This blog post will be a speed review of all Round 1 performances. Enjoy!
Human Is_ (人是_)
Elder Brother: Hacken Lee (李克勤), Yan Yi Kuan (严屹宽), Sammy Sum Chun Hin (沈震轩) and Charlie Qin Hao (秦昊)
Probably the best stage design of Round 1, offering the best visuals to accurately convey the song's emotion. There was no improvisation: the four brothers delivered the song as it originally was, but their vocals were pretty solid. I'm looking forward to more action from them!
Score: 7/10
Fly in Freedom (自由飞翔)
Elder Brothers: Liang Long (梁龙), Akira (黑泽良平), MIYAVI and Jacky Heung Cho (向佐)
This… is an odd combo of Miyavi’s rock guitar and Liang Long’s flamboyant singing yet weirdly complementary of each other!
I love the juxtaposition of brother MIYAVI in white and behind him is a large shadow in black (duhh) by his Japanese friend, Akira. All three brothers nailed their roles and expected style perfectly. Now you may ask… What about the fourth brother, Jacky Heung?
This is precisely my main issue. I don't know what Jacky is doing, since I barely see him on stage. They switched his role in the eleventh hour from dance to wushu, and even then, the wushu scenes are heavily edited, overshadowing his contribution and Akira's.
One bonus point for this team for their daring costume of feathers… It's difficult to look cool when everyone's dressed like a bird.
Score 6/10.
Iron Armour (铁衣)
Elder Brothers: Allen Lin Yi Lun (林依轮), Jerry Yuan Cheng Jie (袁成杰), Evan Yo Tsai Min You (蔡旻佑), Fu Xin Bo (付辛博) and Du Hai Tao (杜海涛)
A dramatic start of Allen Lin commanding a lion dance. Would be so much more impactful if the lion dancers were brothers!
This is an energetic music choreographed with minor dance moves (mostly walking formation and hand movements). The singing delivered the oomph spirit pretty well, however, their dance seems lacking. This is just Round 1, so perhaps the brothers aren't warmed up enough!
The X-part features two brothers, Allen Lin and Evan Yo, playing the Chinese drums to officiate the duel of lion dancers on stilts. Astounding!
Score: 8/10
Gibbering (呓语)
Elder Brother: Reno Wang Zheng Liang (王铮亮), William Wei Li An (韦礼安), Joe Xu Hai Qiao (徐海乔) and Li Ze Feng (李泽锋)
This is a stage heavily inspired by the psychological concept series in Season 3! This time, the producers delve into the filming industry as the backstory.
Despite the convincing props, I don't quite understand the storyline. The acting is mediocre, probably because I'm confused by their theme. Even though it seemed like a miss for now, I reckon this concept will continue throughout the competition and dominate.
Score: 8/10
Love is Doubt (爱是怀疑)
Younger Brothers: Azora Chin You Zhang Jing (尤长靖), Rhydian Vaughan Feng Xiao Yue (凤小岳), Dylan Xiong Zi Qi (熊梓淇), Zao An (早安) and J.zen Zhu Xing Jie (朱星杰)
This version is an extensive improvisation from the original song. Kudos to Azora Chin for the creative flair!
Overall performance-wise, this is a typical boy band standard with two outstanding candidates: Zao An firing his rap like no one's business, and Azora Chin hitting the high notes effortlessly. Formidable pair of the competition!
Score: 9/10
Who (谁)
Younger Brothers: Fox Hu Xia (胡夏), Ning Huan Yu (宁桓宇), Wang Yi Zhe (王一哲) and Jiao Mai Qi (焦迈奇)
Yet another performance heavily inspired by The Walking Fish in Season 3, and it definitely showed.
The play with colours (or, the lack of one) of black-and-white graphics, assigning colours only to a few components. The play with lights, fading the brothers into the background to draw attention to the next. The artistic choreography shows how Ning Huan Yu played each note to reveal one music stand.
Did I mention Ning's piano led 80% of the song? While simultaneously singing and reaching the higher pitches!
Overall, it is an emotional song with perfect execution. Impressive for a Round 1 performance!
Score: 10/10
Tomorrow's tomorrow's tomorrow (明天的明天的明天)
Younger brothers: Alan Aruna (阿如那), Jing Long (井胧), Shi Kai (石凯) and Caelan Moriarty (庆怜)
A strong start by singing on a suspended platform and only joining the runway towards the end of the song. Overall, an honest and straightforward performance, because the four brothers delivered the song as it originally was. It got a bit noisy at one point. Their singing was spot on, but no "wow" factor.
Score: 7/10
IMMA GET IT
Younger Brothers: Jason Fu Long Fei (符龙飞), Huang Xiao (黄潇), Austin Li Jia Qi (李佳琦) and Nine Gao Qing Chen (高卿尘)
A very modern song (as hinted by the song title's urban language LOL), which is the Younger Brothers' domain. The song and stage play is a typical K-pop arrangement of pop music, mandatory English one-line chorus and highly synchronised dancing.
All four brothers nailed the moves. This also simply means no one stands out, including Huang Xiao, a close friend of Season 3's Derek Ma. Which is unfortunate, because he's the only participant who is a dancer by trade. He'll need to do what everyone else does not have--yes, the true dancing soul--if he wants to go far in the competition.
Score: 7/10
Why why why
Elder Brothers: Jerry Yuan Cheng Jie (袁成杰) and Evan Yo Tsai Min You (蔡旻佑)
Younger Brothers: Nine Gao Qing Chen (高卿尘) and Caelan Moriarty (庆怜)
This is a collaboration between the Elder and Younger Brothers to collect bonus points for each age group. Again, no musical improvisation; the four sang the song like the original piece.
All three but Evan Yo pulled off the dance moves convincingly. Backstage, the rest of the brothers also danced to the song and I found the backstage dancing is more entertaining than the actual performers.
Another flawless performance, but nothing impressive. Just... Why, why, WHY?! Pun intended LOL!
Score: 7/10
Which Team has the Best Performance?
Fox Hu's "Who". So simple, yet so impactful!
Any outstanding brothers?
This is only Round 1, so it's a bit too early to pinpoint now. For easy comprehension, I think all 6 leaders are worthy mentions. They definitely have their own merit on stage, so let's see how they expand their leadership skills in the coming Rounds!
The leaders were:
Hacken Lee, Reno Wang, Liang Long, Azora Chin, Fox Hu, and Shi Kai.
Final Score and Elimination
After adding all the groups' scores, the Younger Brothers won Round 1 by merely 3 Firepower. Firepower, or 火力值 (huolizhi) in Mandarin, is the competition's jargon for their scoring system.
While the juniors are safe, the seniors will have to bid goodbye to three of their members. The elimination process is based on the lowest individual popularity votes:
Jacky Heung (31st) and Sammy Sum (34th) were eliminated from the competition, leaving Hacken Lee the only Hong Kong celebrity of the season.
Reno Wang probably has the most bitter pill to swallow, considering he has the highest score of the Round yet losing one teammate. This unfortunate brother is Li Zhe Feng, who stood in the 30th place.
Judging from the bigger picture, I'm not surprised to see a handful of Elder Brothers in the lower quartile... The majority of the audiences are from a newer generation anyway. Being younger also simply meant the Younger Brothers had more stamina to handle new skills, expectations and stress.
All in all, this elimination simply reminded everyone to play the long game: of unison and teamwork.
It doesn't matter if a particular group heaped a high score. One is never safe until they beat the other collectively. Take the scoreboard as an example: Li Zhe Feng and Jacky Heung wouldn't leave the competition this early on if not for their age because it would be the Younger Brothers, Wang Yi Zhe (32nd) and Huang Xiao (33rd)!
Thank you for reading and see you in the next blog post!
Disclaimer:
All published media are screenshots of 披荆斩棘的哥哥 Call Me By Fire and China HunanTV Official Channel 湖南卫视芒果TV官方频道 YouTube channels. Kindly contact me should you wish to remove any of the published media.
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