Just Saying | Dolce Vita or Daredevil: With options like Netflix, does Hong Kong really need traditional TV?
Yonden Lhatoo says the arrival of multimedia entertainment over the internet makes it easy to give up on local fare, especially the English-language services
I am having a blast these days with Netflix, the US-based film and television streaming service that is finally available, along with options from other such providers, to long-suffering Hong Kong audiences starved for quality home entertainment.
Just the other night, I was watching the hilarious An Idiot Abroad, British comedian Ricky Gervais’ irreverent travel series featuring his inimitable whipping boy, Karl Pilkington. The show’s third season was released several years ago, so it’s nothing new, but who’s complaining when you get to simultaneously cringe and laugh all over again at classic Karl moments, such as his observation that the Great Wall of China “just goes for miles and miles ... but so does the M6” and his conclusion that maybe it should be called the “All Right Wall of China”.
The Netflix library offers a mix of old and new films and TV shows, but there’s no shortage of critically acclaimed, original content, such as last year’s excellent Making a Murderer, a documentary filmed over 10 years.
I’ve also been receiving an education catching up on important documentaries I’ve missed, such as The Culture High, a thought-provoking indictment of marijuana prohibition and America’s so-called war on drugs, and Food Matters, which questions conventional cancer treatment and raises awareness about the effectiveness of nutritional therapy.
If you’ve missed some of the best TV shows ever made, like Breaking Bad, it’s all there for a subscription fee of less than HK$100 a month. And there are plenty of other sources of multimedia entertainment over the internet, known in technical jargon as over-the-top or OTT content, to try out.
