Title: Go fighting! 
Native Title:极限挑战 (Direct translation: Challenge the limit)
Country of Origin: China
Airing Date: 14 Jun 2015
Episode Length: 110 minutes

Go Fighting! is a variety show by Dongfang Channel 东方卫视 and airs every Sunday at 9pm. It stars Show Luo, Huang Bo, Huang Lei, Sun HongLei, Wang Xun and Zhang Yixing as the permanent members and will have guests coming each week. I never heard of this show and chanced upon it when a phone notification from one of my drama watching apps popped up with the name “罗志祥” (Show Luo) and caught my interest. 

In case it’s still not clear yet, my ultimate bias and forever love is and will always be Show Luo (2nd from right). Sadly, he hasn’t been taking on much dramas, with his last 2 real drama works being Shenzhen in 2014 and Hi My Sweetheart in 2009. (Nope, I don’t count Heartbeat Love because it’s a 5 short episodes mini drama which adds up to be even shorter than a movie). While I used to get my (almost) daily fix of him from watching Entertainment 100%, real life caught up with me and I barely have time to watch that variety show at all any more. Doesn’t help that there are now 5 hosts, Show Luo, Alien Huang, Butterfly, Aoquan and Wei Lian (from Lollipop F) which means less Show-time. But really, it doesn’t matter cause I love all 5 of them. (With more love for the former 3 because they were the ‘original’ hosts for the time period I was watching aggressively)

 
From left to right, top to bottom: Zhang Yixing, Wang Xun, Sun HongLei, Huang Lei, Huang Bo, Show Luo Zhixiang

Ok, big digression but back to Go Fighting! Before this show, I have only seen Show Luo and Huang Bo in other projects. Other than hearing of Huang Lei’s name, I had no knowledge of the 4 other cast members. After watching the episode, I concluded that Huang Lei is the brainiac, Zhang Yixing is the ever-so-innocent one that is so silly it’s cute, Sun Hong Lei is apparently the ‘Big brother’ 大哥, probably due to his age and while Wang Xun doesn’t seem to be impressive, he actually won the game. Huang Bo is just in this to have fun (and mess with Zhang Yixing’s innocent and gullible nature) and Show Luo, even though competitive by nature, seems to be rather distant and respectful of the others (but still funny), probably because he’s younger and not on ‘homeground’ (Taiwan).

Go Fighting! has the ‘running man’ concept and involves loads of running around and catching people and plotting against each other. What I liked was that how they put in the concept of ‘time’ into the game. If not for the fact that this is a variety show, I would have thought it was a deep life story about cherishing and fighting for time.

For the pilot episode, there were 2 segments of the game. The first segment is the individual segment where everyone is given a limited time and a task to complete. The task for everyone is to eliminate one particular person. After successfully eliminating the person you are tasked to, you will gain your victim’s remaining time and their victim will become your new victim, just like a food chain.

The whole thing was extremely funny because the cast were blindfolded and brought to an area where most were not familiar with (Shanghai Bund stretch). They weren’t given instructions on what exactly to do. All they know was they were led to a place, and told to count to ‘100’ before removing their blindfold. It was downright hilarious when everyone started questioning ‘what am I supposed to do’ after taking off their blindfold. From there, we also realised who were the smarts one and who were the not so bright ones…

Everyone had a suitcase cuffed to them, with the mission inside the handphone of the suitcase. Some realised immediately while others still went around blindly and running with the rest without even knowing they are supposed to open the suitcase (read: Wang Xun). I couldn’t help but burst into genuine laughter.

After there were 2 contenders remaining, we move onto the 2nd segment of the game. The two remaining contenders were then promoted to be captains and each led a team of 2. Team Red consist of Wang Xun (captain), Zhang Yixing and Sun HongLei while Team Blue consist of Huang Lei (captain), Huang Bo and Show Luo. The captains were then able to transfer a certain amount of time to each member in order to complete the ultimate mission – to set off Time Portal 12. The amount of time given to each team member is kept secret as part of strategy and time can be passed from the captain to members anytime through physical contact.

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Quite silly but looked pretty funny with all the special effects added. Before setting off Time Portal 12, the teams will have to set off Time Portal 1 to 11 in consecutive order. Each Time Portal can only be set off once so both teams will race to set off each and every Time Portal. Setting off each Time Portal will give them an advantage, be it adding more time for themselves or deducting time from their opponents.

Team Blue (left) led by Huang Lei was initially leading as they managed to set off 8 out of the first 11 Time Portals with Huang Lei‘s smarts and Huang Bo and Show Luo‘s perseverance and hard work but they were eventually overthrown by Team Red whom managed to set off Time Portal 12 first, winning the game. I must say Team Red had really good, albeit silly, strategies.

Their first main strategy was to send one of their men, Sun Honglei, to stalk captain brains, Huang Lei. Throughout the whole episode, Sun Honglei stuck close to Huang Lei and basically repeated everything Captain Huang told his team to his own team. He annoyed the hell out of Captain Huang and Huang Lei had no choice but to waste time by sitting around and waiting for Sun Honglei‘s time to run out before he can continue making moves. Thankfully, Team Blue’s Show Luo and Huang Bo were good sports and managed to work well and set off quite a few bombs, putting their team in the lead.

At certain Time Portal stations, there were tasks to be completed before they could set the Time Portals off. Watching them complete the task, and being sabotaged was downright hilarious. Especially at Time Portal 6 where Huang Bo completely tricked Zhang Yixing and poor Yixing still didn’t know and was stuck washing dishes until Time Portal 8 was set off.

There was also a ‘plot twist’ in the end which led to Team Red’s victory but I will leave that for you to see on your own. While 110 minutes is towards the long side, it’s worth the laughter and I would recommend you to watch Episode 1 of Go Fighting!, if not just for Show Luo and cutie Zhang Yixing. (Oh dear, I didn’t even realise Zhang Yixing is Lay from Exo before this but this is not going to convert me into an Exo fan so easily…. or will it? Let’s wait and see.)

[Update: Eng subs of Go Fighting Episode 1 is now available! Guess having an EXO member in the cast does work wonders. The subs are pretty efficient but from what I see, the comments section is bombarded with Lay fans so consider yourself warned!]

Cheers.