Saturday, October 27, 2012

TVB to implement ‘One Vote Per Person’ method to choose TV King/Queen; Spokesperson won’t rule out possibility that ‘loopholes’ exist

As most people are probably aware by now, TVB ‘officially’ made the announcement last week that the winners for 3 of the award categories at this year’s Anniversary Awards will be determine entirely by audience vote (they call it ‘One Vote Per Person’, aka OVPP). Which 3 categories? The 3 main ones of course: TV King (aka Best Actor), TV Queen (aka Best Actress), and Best Series.

Since the beginning, I had stated that I feel having 100% audience vote for TV King and Queen is a stupid idea because it makes the awards lose even more credibility (not that they had much credibility to begin with, but with this OVPP thing, the little bit of ‘respectability’ that the awards still had went completely down the drain). It pretty much turns these awards into a ‘popularity contest’ whereby the artists with the most number of fans voting for them wins, since we all know that most fans will vote for their idols out of loyalty, irregardless of how they actually perform acting-wise that year.

Despite how much I oppose the OVPP thing, I must say that I also hate TVB’s previous method of determining the winners – combining the ‘votes’ from audiences, TVB producers, and TVB management (aka the ‘high up execs’).  To me, TVB management has no place in determining the winners because they are so biased, it’s not even funny – plus many of the execs are ‘business people’ who have no experience in actually ‘making series’ (acting / scriptwriting / producing / directing, etc.), so what right do they have to ‘judge’ who does the best job in acting?

For the record, my ‘preference’ when it comes to determining the winners of these types of awards is to have a professional judging panel consisting of industry ‘experts’ (i.e.:  producers, directors, scriptwriters, fellow actors/actresses, etc.) who can truly judge the quality of the acting and the series without bias.  It’s just like with singing competitions, where the ‘judges’ are usually singing teachers, music producers, songwriters, veteran singers, etc. – that type of judging panel makes sense because those people are ‘qualified’ to judge singing skill, technique, etc., due to their expertise in ‘making music’.

As for the article below about TVB’s decision to implement OVPP for the Anniversary Awards – the only thing I have to say is that I felt Mr. Tsang Sing Ming’s responses were extremely LAME…in fact, I actually feel that he didn’t really answer some of the question and instead gave one of those general, vague responses that doesn’t truly address the issue.  But oh well – I’m already used to those types of answers from TVB, so no point in getting worked up over it….let’s just wait and see what happens come awards time!

.****.


TVB to implement ‘One Vote Per Person’ method to choose TV King/Queen;  Spokesperson won’t rule out possibility that ‘loopholes’ exist

Source:  SinaNews
 
Translation:  llwy12
 
 
Despite the fiasco created by the voting failure at the Miss Hong Kong pageant earlier this year, TVB is still very much interested in continuing to utilize the ‘One Vote Per Person’ (OVPP) method for future programs.  On October 25th, via a phone interview, our reporter was able to obtain confirmation that TVB will once again be utilizing the ‘One Vote Per Person’ method at this year’s TVB Anniversary Awards to choose the winners in 3 categories:  Best Actor (TV King), Best Actress (TV Queen), and Best Series.
 
Earlier, when TVB utilized the OVPP method for the Miss Hong Kong pageant, the process failed due to ‘technical problems’, resulting in severe criticism from the general public.  Even with the ‘technical problems’ seemingly resolved now, new questions surrounding the OVPP process have arisen – including the biggest question of all:  “If the audiences vote to determine TV King and Queen, what happens to the ‘professional’ aspect of the awards?”
 
 
Audiences vote for ‘the Best’, rest of the awards don’t change
 
Heading into anniversary season, the yearly TVB Anniversary Awards has become a hot topic of discussion as usual.   A few days ago, TVB released the results of the investigation into the Miss HK voting failure – the report stated that the voting outage had nothing to do with hackers [as previously suspected], but rather resulted from ‘technical’ problems. [TN: according to the official report, users attempted to vote multiple times in order to increase their chances of winning the car, resulting in a high volume of transactions that exceeded a predefined limit for the specific time frame and thereby crashing the system.]    With the investigation complete, TVB has plans to continue utilizing this method in future events.
 
On October 25th, our reporter called up TVB’s director of external affairs Tsang Sing Ming (曾醒明).  He expressed that TVB has already confirmed that they will utilize the ‘One Vote Per Person’ method to determine the winners of the Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Series awards at this year’s ceremony, however the method for determining the rest of the awards won’t change for now.  Mr. Tsang also revealed that the anniversary awards ceremony itself will likely go through a process change this year – the ‘other’ awards will be determined more in advance so that the last 3 days leading up to the ceremony will be reserved for audiences to vote on the 3 ‘main’ awards:  “By giving audiences 3 days to vote, we can avoid the issue we had during Miss HK where too many people voting at the same time paralyzed the system.”
 
Mr. Tsang continues:  “Nowadays, many younger audiences prefer using the Internet rather than television --  the HK television industry is considering a better way to attract these younger audiences to participate.  The ‘One Vote Per Person’ method can be conducted over the Internet, which is more convenient compared to the ‘old’ way of having to fill out a form.”  From the Miss HK pageant to the Anniversary Awards, it seems that TVB has become especially fond of the ‘audience vote’ method – Mr. Tsang explains that this will become a ‘trend’ in the future of HK television.
 
 
The ones with most fans win, lacks credibility
 
In the eyes of many industry insiders, the method of OVPP becoming a more formalistic ‘trend’ in the industry is definitely cause for concern.  TV Series Magazine’s《電視劇Editor Sui Chak () [specializes in writing about TVB series and artists] expressed that he does not see a good future for the OVPP method.
 
Sui Chak states that a bit of ‘controversy’ already existed in the previous method of choosing the winners for TV King / Queen [TN: previous method was a combination of audience, TVB producers, and TVB executives votes], but at least the “underlying basis for determining the winners was based on acting -- plus in the past few years, non-management contract artists, such as Sheren Tang (鄧萃) for example, were able to win, which is proof that things were getting better. Applying the OVPP method would cause the awards to become ‘popularity’ awards instead where the artist who has the most fans wins – this lacks credibility and is unfair to the older, ‘talent-path’ veterans who may not have such a large fanbase.  In terms of Best Series, many audiences don’t consider whether the series is truly good or not – most of the time, audiences will support a series merely because of their idols.  Fans will likely vote for a series because their idols star in them, but do they really think that the series is good?  Probably not.”   According to Sui Chak’s analysis, if TVB utilizes the OVPP method, the winner of the TV King award will “without a doubt be Raymond Lam because when it comes to popularity, no other artist can surpass him.”
 
Sui Chak continues:  “The ‘One Vote Per Person’ method should actually be used for the ‘Favorite Male / Female Character’ awards – there would be no problems with 100% audience vote with these 2 awards because by virtue, these are ‘popularity’-based awards anyway.  As for the other awards, those should be determined by the management team and producers – the ‘professional’ versus ‘popularity’ awards should remain separate.”  Sui Chak feels that by implementing the OVPP method [for the Anniversary Awards], TVB seems to be going in the wrong direction.
 
 
Q & A with Tsang Sing Ming
 
The ‘concern’ over the OVPP situation seems to have divided on-line fans of TVB series into 2 groups:  while some netizens / fans feel that using the OVPP method can reduce the ‘cannon fodder’ resulting from TVB’s notorious ‘party politics’, an even larger group of netizens / fans are worried about the ‘fairness’ factor [TN:  artists winning based purely on number of fans rather than performance].  The concerns of these netizens can be summarized into 4 main questions, which our reporter took the opportunity to ask TVB’s spokesperson Tsang Sing Ming over the phone (see below).  Mr. Tsang admits “that ‘loopholes’ definitely do exist in the process, however we won’t know [how it’ll turn out] until we try it.”
 
Question 1:  Certain artists have large fanbases, so naturally they will receive the most number of votes.   However, wouldn’t this be unfair to those artists who truly perform [act] well but don’t have as many fans?
 
Tsang’s response:  We cannot deny the fact that artists with large fanbases have more of an advantage.  However if these artists were truly able to gain so much support and ‘influence’ so many people to rally behind them in the first place, then it proves that the artist must already have a certain solid foundation – in that case, winning the award is understandable.
 
 
Question 2:  Prior to this, there were already 2 ‘popularity’ awards chosen mostly by audience votes – the ‘Favorite Male Character’ and ‘Favorite Female Character’ awards.  Now that the TV King and Queen awards will be decided by audience vote as well, then wouldn’t the 2 awards essentially mean the same thing?
 
Tsang’s response:  For the ‘Favorite Male / Female Character’ awards, we will be utilizing a combined audience vote + professional judges method to determine the winners, which will help differentiate them from the TV King / Queen awards.  As to the specific criteria that the judges will utilize, we will continue to study it and hopefully come up with the most suitable solution.
 
 
Question 3:  What about the possibility of overzealous fans voting repeatedly for their idols, thereby creating duplicate votes?
 
Tsang’s response:  We will be using the same system that we did for the Miss HK voting earlier – each person must register using their HK identification card number and each ID number will only be allowed to vote once.  This will be able to prevent people from voting multiple times.
 
 
Question 4:  For the ‘Best Series’ award, won’t the series that air closest to the anniversary period have the greatest advantage, since these series will still be fresh in audience’s minds?  So this means that series such as The Hippocratic Crush OnCall36小時, which aired close to 6 months ago, won’t have much of a chance, since audiences have likely forgotten about those series already?
 
Tsang’s response:   That’s why we arrange for certain grand production ‘anniversary series’ to air around anniversary time.  Anniversary series do have a little more advantage, since audiences usually pay more attention to them.  True, other series might possibly be affected a bit, but if the series are truly ‘good series’, we believe that audiences will still have a deep impression of them.
 
.---.
 
Producer Chong Wai Kin responds:  “It’s only a ‘program’!”
 
Compared to the many ‘concerns’ that netizens have, people within TVB seem to have a more ‘relaxed’ attitude toward the OVPP issue.
 
This year, producer Chong Wai Kin (莊偉) has anniversary series Silver Spoon, Sterling Shackles《名媛望族in the running – the series just started airing and already, it has received much acclaim from the general public.  However, in the face of the new ‘One Vote Per Person’ method this year, whether the series will be able to hold its own against the series manned by the younger, popular idols remains to be seen.  Towards this, Chong Wai Kin candidly states that it doesn’t matter to him:  “We have to give it a try in order to know if it’s going to work!”  The way he sees it, the purpose for implementing this type of method is to attract more audiences:  “After all, the previous method was used for too long already – audiences are tired of it.”  As for netizens’ concern that using OVPP will cause the awards to become ‘popularity’ awards, Chong Wai Kin admits that he is not too concerned with it:  “Actually, whether a series is good or not, everyone already has their own ‘conclusion’ about it.  Therefore, the way I see it, this awards thing is merely a ‘program’!” [TN:  My interpretation of Chong Wai Kin’s last comment:  ‘people are making a big fuss over this unnecessarily…]

Thursday, October 25, 2012

News Article: Anger at delay in bidding process for new TV licences in Hong Kong

Here’s a pretty good article that I came across today about the whole free TV license thing. What I like about this article is that it not only gives an update on the latest ‘status’ of the licenses (which is pretty much the same as before – the government is still sitting on their butts doing nothing), it also gives some history about the HK television industry in general as well as some background on the other 3 applicants.

All the information it contains pretty much matches the information that I had in previous posts about the issue.

Very informative, well-rounded article!

.****.
 
Anger at delay in bidding process for new TV licences in Hong Kong
Article published October 26th, 2012 (HKT)
Written by Vivienne Chow


If the bidding process for new free-to-air television licences was a long-running drama series, Ricky Wong Wai-kay would have taken over the director's chair and yelled, "Cut".
The chairman of City Telecom, one of three bidders, has blasted the government for leaving bidders waiting more than 1,000 days for a decision, saying it's unreasonable and infuriating.
At stake is a huge expansion in viewer choice. Wong alone wants to offer up to 30 channels within six years, and a massive investment in programming. While most of the shows would be in Cantonese, each of three bidders is prepared to offer an English language channel.

Since the saga began in 2009, the telecoms boss has been restrained, patient and hopeful. But having invested more than HK$300 million, completed production of four drama series, built a new 400,000 sq ft multimedia centre, and even sold his core telecom business, including Hong Kong Broadband Network, being "Mr Nice Guy" no longer works.

"Protracted procrastination is not only an act of irresponsibility but, as some might say, a sin," he said last week.

Wong's frustration is not surprising. The organisation that initially considered the licence applications has even had time to change its name from the Broadcasting Authority to the Communications Authority since giving them the nod. The applications are now with the Executive Council - but why the government's top advisory body continues to delay on the issue is unclear.

For three consecutive days, Wong put the issue of the new licences upfront - speaking out after a Legislative Council meeting and then doing the rounds of morning talk shows on Commercial Radio and RTHK.

"Public opinion could be his last resort, even though playing this card might cause a backlash," said Chinese University political scientist Ivan Choy Chi-keung. "He has been burning cash and making zero revenue. This is critical for him."

Wong is not the only one sweating over a bid. Fellow applicant i-Cable Communications, bidding under the name Fantastic Television, made a scene in May - two months before it was forced to share its coverage of the London Olympics with existing free-to-air broadcasters ATV and TVB. In what was seen as a protest against the endless wait, i-Cable demanded a new consultation to find out whether the public wanted new stations.

While i-Cable's HK$120 million purchase of the Olympic rights - bought in the belief that it would have a free station of its own to show them on - has added to its frustration, Wong's need for a licence is the most urgent.

"They [i-Cable and fellow bidder PCCW] are still running pay-TV channels. But Wong has even sold Hong Kong Broadband Network," said information technology sector lawmaker Charles Mok, who has questioned Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Greg So Kam-leung about the licences.

It is understood that Exco has not discussed the applications since the new government took office on July 1.

The present and previous administrations were put off by ATV's legal challenge to the licensing process, according to a source familiar with the matter. Although ATV's request for a judicial review was rejected in March, the government is reassessing the licensing procedure, the source said.

Choy believes politics may be the ultimate problem.

"ATV is backed by mainland investment and TVB [Television Broadcasts] is diluting political content. This is the most ideal scenario for the current government," Choy said.

New licences could tilt the balance, especially as i-Cable's Cable TV and PCCW's Now TV are known for their current affairs programmes, he said.

But Wong says drama and variety shows will be the staple diet of his new venture.

Politics aside, three new television stations would be significant for the development of Hong Kong culture as well as the city's creative industries.

Hong Kong's first station was Rediffusion Television - a subscription cable channel established in 1957. A decade later came Hong Kong's first free channel TVB, which launched the hit variety show Enjoy Yourself Tonight.

The golden era came in the 1970s when Rediffusion, the forerunner of ATV, became a free channel in 1973. Two years later Commercial Television was inaugurated, although it only ran for three years. Intense competition led to innovation and the production of some creative shows.

TVB not only showed long series, such as the epic 129-episode Hotel (1976), but it also produced TV films such as Seven Women: Miu Kam-fung (1976), a bold attempt by Patrick Tam Ka-ming who drew inspiration from French New Wave auteur Jean-Luc Godard.

Television became an important cultural export and also drove the growth of Canto-pop in the 1980s, allowing Hong Kong stars to dominate Asia's entertainment scene. However, TVB came to dominate the domestic industry.

Mok says audiences are not happy with TVB's monopoly and question the quality of its productions. ATV has weak finances from prolonged shareholders' disputes, and the station is no longer actively producing programmes, Mok said.

Professor Anthony Fung Ying-him, director of Chinese University's School of Journalism and Communication, said opening up the market would enhance diversity in the city.

"People in any big mainland city have more choice of TV channels than Hong Kong," said Fung. "Dragging out this issue will make Hong Kong look inferior."

Sports, performing arts, culture and publication lawmaker Ma Fung-kwok said more competition locally would help companies compete outside the city.

The two terrestrial broadcasters now operate 11 digital channels. Cable TV, PCCW (Now TV) and TVB Pay Vision are the three licensed pay-TV providers.

"Now, Hong Kong TV productions are of mixed quality and face competition not just from the mainland but also from other places," Ma said. "Despite the new digital channels, there has not been a significant growth in TV [content] production."

Questions remain over whether the market can support more free stations.

While ATV has reportedly suffered financial difficulties, rival TVB has been a big winner.

According to TVB's 2011 annual report, the broadcaster had a 17 per cent increase in profit from HK$1.3 billion to nearly HK$1.56 billion.

Of a total turnover of nearly HK$5.3 billion, TVB generated more than HK$3.4 billion net income from advertising.

While TVB executive director Mark Lee Po-on previously argued that the overall advertising pot had remained flat for 15 years, Wong said a HK$1.56 billion profit would be enough to sustain three more TV stations.

Wong argues that the influence of Hong Kong television has declined so much that it has lost its edge compared to Korean and even Thai dramas in the mainland market.

But TVB's books show significant income from overseas. Profit from programme licensing and distribution grew 12 per cent to HK$598 million last year.

A television industry insider said that because ATV was not producing dramas, TVB had become the only source of drama exports, selling around 400 episodes each year to mainland stations. However, Hong Kong series could not be aired during prime time, which is reserved for mainland productions.

The insider said Korean, Thai and Hong Kong dramas were among the most popular imports. "The number of Thai dramas exceeds that of Hong Kong [on the mainland] only because one station acquired a large amount of Thai shows, but Hong Kong shows are sought after by many stations," said the insider.

Mainland audiences still liked Hong Kong shows because the pace was much faster. "They also like to watch shows depicting the lives of professionals such as lawyers and doctors because it's something that they do not have.

"The mainland production houses steal ideas from Hong Kong dramas and produce their own versions, so that they can be aired during prime time. It allows them to make three times more profit."

Choy said the approval of the new free television licences will be a test of the government's credibility. The government should deal with the applications quickly.

Mok said the government could face legal consequences if it kept dragging its feet, because "this is not meeting a reasonable expectation".

"It is impossible to let it die down, falsely believing that people will forget about this. Applications for free TV licences cannot be a black hole."



FANTASTIC TELEVISION

A general entertainment channel in Cantonese targeting a mass audience with news, entertainment, children's programmes and films. Some 70 per cent of prime-time programmes to be locally produced. English-language channel focuses on acquired documentaries, lifestyle, news and finance

HK Television Entertainment

A Cantonese channel with news, current affairs, variety shows, sport, music and movies. Lifestyle programmes to be locally produced. Will offer an English-language channel "if required"

City Telecom

(Channels not named)

Some 12 analogue and digital channels at launch, two of which will be self-produced. Plans to produce 260 hours of drama this year and 650 hours next year. It has not indicated which channel will be designated for screening in English

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

News Article: Veteran TVB actor Chan Wing Chun reveals that Felix Wong signed with CTI because of him

I came across this article about veteran ‘green leaf’ actor Chan Wing Chun (another artist I grew up watching) and since interviews like this with him are very rare, I decided to share this one.


The first series that I saw of Chan Wing Chun’s was The New Adventures of Chor Lau Heung (the Michael Miu / Barbara Yung version from 1984). That was one of my favorite ancient series from back in the day and definitely a ‘classic’ MUST WATCH series for those who haven’t seen it (personally, I’ve watched this series so many times, I’ve lost count already…LOL!). The entire cast did excellent jobs with their roles, but Michael Miu and Chan Wing Chun were especially memorable in their roles as ‘Chor Lau Heung’ and ‘Wu Tiet Fa’ respectively – in fact, to this day, no matter how many times the Chor Lau Heung story is re-made, the 2 of them will always be the only ones I remember for those 2 roles!

I remember reading about the death of Chan Wing Chun’s wife on his Weibo awhile back ago and how devastated he was over it. I actually got teary-eyed when I read the post he wrote about his wife – it was obvious that he loved his wife dearly and so took her passing especially hard…..I didn’t know though that he had considered taking his own life because of it! I’m glad that everything worked out in the end and that he has some true friends in the industry who helped him through the difficult time.

Oh, and I’m glad he clarified that piece about the reason why Felix Wong decided to join CTI – my respect for Felix just went up a few more notches after reading this interview (if that’s even possible, considering how much I already loved and respect Felix prior to this…haha!). I remember awhile back ago, when I saw Felix having a conversation with Ricky Wong on Weibo about joining his company, I thought it was kind of random at the time, especially since right before that, Felix was posting about a gathering with the Celebrity Soccer Team….now, those posts finally make sense for me….

Ok, so now that the ‘real reason’ behind why Felix Wong decided to join CTI has finally been revealed, can all those Ricky Wong / CTI haters FINALLY stop bashing Felix for supposedly ‘betraying’ his mother home [TVB] and joining a rival station? THANK YOU!!!

..****..

Veteran TVB actor Chan Wing Chun reveals that Felix Wong signed with CTI because of him

Source:  HK Channel

Translation:  llwy12



If you were to search the name ‘Chan Wing Chun’ (陳榮峻) on the internet, the description of him likely to come up is that he specializes in playing sinister, ‘small potato’ type characters – however, in real life, he is the exact opposite: just like his good friend Felix Wong (黃日華), he is honest, straightforward, and very easy to talk to. Having worked at TVB for 28 years, Chan Wing Chun candidly states that in recent years, TVB has lost its ‘human interest’ element – everything has become more ‘institutionalized’ and as a result, they continue to lose more and more talent. Asked about Felix Wong signing with CTI, Chan Wing Chun took the opportunity to clear his good friend’s name: he indicated that Felix agreed to sign with CTI not because he wanted to ‘pave the way’ for his daughter to enter the industry, as had been widely rumored – in reality, Felix signed with CTI entirely because of Chan Wing Chun.

.--.

In his 28 year career at TVB, Chan Wing Chun has taken on so many ‘green leaf’ roles, most of us have lost count already -- even though he never got the chance to get to ‘first line siu sang’ level in his long career, Chan Wing Chun indicates that he does not regret the path he took. When he was young, Chan Wing Chun was actually quite good-looking, so he often got the opportunity to play young, handsome martial arts heroes in ancient series. Later on, he got typecasted into playing sinister, ‘small potato’ villain characters and as he got older, he got roles ranging from old timid men to impulsive tough guys. Asked why he decided to go into acting, he expressed that it was purely because of interest: “Before I entered the industry, I was an air conditioner mechanic – I made 2000 HKD a month with a 16 month salary…it was a pretty steady job. But I also had an interest in acting and since I didn’t have children yet at the time, I decided to give it try – it has been my career ever since.”


Laments TVB’s loss of ‘human interest’ element

Chan Wing Chun started in the industry working for [the now defunct] Commercial Television (CTV 佳藝電視) and joined TVB in 1984 when he entered their Acting Class that year. Asked how TVB has changed over the past 28 years, Chan Wing Chun stated that in the past, TVB had much more concern for human interest: “In the past, the company truly had a genuine concern for human interest – whether it was the cast working in front of the camera or the behind-the-scenes crew, everyone was very united and worked together as a team. Also, the seniors were very willing to teach their juniors and give them advice. Back then, I constantly collaborated with actors such as Michael Miu (苗僑偉), Austin Wai (惠天賜), etc. –they were never concerned that other actors might overshadow them or get in their way and were always very willing to give advice to others.” [TN: Sadly, this is very true – Chan Wing Chun isn’t the first veteran artist to talk about this kind of thing….seems that artists nowadays don’t care for advice from seniors anymore.]

Throughout the interview, Chan Wing Chun constantly talked about how good things were back in the day, so the reporter bluntly asked whether the TVB of today is ‘not good’ – towards this, he lamented: “There was more human concern back then – nowadays everything is more institutionalized. For instance, in the past, there was never the policy of requiring artists to pay a fine if they did not participate in enough ‘shows’. I could be at TVB City waiting for work, but sometimes the company doesn’t give me any work to do and then later they tell me that I didn’t have enough ‘shows’ and end up having to pay a fine!” [TN: Chan Wing Chun also isn’t the first one to complain about this ‘policy’ – it’s actually one of the reasons why many of the veteran artists left TVB…]

Chan Wing Chun expressed that he is the type of person who will fight for things that he feels are just and within reason. For instance, whenever he needs to travel outside of HK for work, the company [TVB] gives him a $10 USD per day allowance – this is something that he had to fight for: “Before, when I used to travel outside of HK for work, we never had that benefit – I had to fight for it, as I felt it was unreasonable that we would do work for the company outside and have to pay out of our own pocket. That’s why I say the company had more concern for human interest back then – they were willing to sit down and discuss these types of things with us! Compared to now [with current management], I don’t even bother bringing things like this up anymore!”

Asked about his friends in the entertainment industry, Chan Wing Chun unhesitatingly counted Felix Wong as a good friend who has helped him out a lot, both in his career and personal life: “Wah Gor [Felix] is someone I respect greatly! He constantly looks out for me and my family and always buys things for my children. I want to take this opportunity to clarify that he signed with CTI not because he wanted to pave the way for his daughter to enter the industry as people believe – in reality, he signed with CTI because of me!”

Chan Wing Chun indicated that he was part of the first batch of artists poached by CTI – when he received the phone call from them to discuss the details, he was actually in Mainland China with the Celebrity Soccer Team for a soccer tournament. Since there were a bunch of artists present at the time, he responded vaguely to the person over the phone, but Felix Wong was able to tell from his facial expression that something was going on, so Felix grabbed the phone and started negotiating the details for him with the CTI representative: “Of course, CTI grabbed the chance to invite Wah Gor to join as well – to my surprise, Wah Gor told the person: ‘Sure, but we have to finish discussing about Chan Wing Chun first!’”

He also revealed that a few days after the phone call, Felix went straight to CTI headquarters and sought out their chairman Ricky Wong to personally discuss the details: “He told Mr. Wong that as long as Chan Wing Chun is satisfied with the terms and agrees to join CTI, then he [Felix] will also join and sign a contract to film 2 series for them! I am truly very grateful to him!”


Devastated by wife’s death

With all the details worked out, Chan Wing Chun was prepared to leave TVB and join CTI -- however, in December 2010, his beloved wife unexpectedly passed away and with that, everything changed. Thinking back to his wife’s sudden passing, Chan Wing Chun’s eyes started to tear up: “My wife’s passing was very sudden and unexpected – at the time, I was so devastated that I didn’t know what to do…I had even thought about committing suicide at one point! Luckily, at the time, I had friends such as Sunny Chan (陳錦鴻), Power Chan (陳國邦), etc. who would come over and talk to me, console me. I’m also grateful to Tsang Jeh (TVB’s head of production Catherine Tsang曾勵珍) for calling me that morning to offer her condolences and helping me re-arrange my work load so I could take care of my wife’s funeral.”

This little bit of ‘human concern’ left at TVB was what caused Chan Wing Chun to make the decision to renew his contract with them: “At the time, I had thought about retiring, since I had already finished paying all the tuition for my children’s educations and didn’t have much burden financially. But my eldest son gave me some advice and in the end, I decided to renew my contract with TVB one more time.”

Even though the circumstances had changed and Chan Wing Chun ended up staying with TVB, he praised his friend Felix for being a ‘real man’ and honoring his promise: “In the end, I didn’t join CTI, but Wah Gor still kept his promise and signed a per series contract with CTI. Currently, I have another year and a half left on my TVB contract – Wah Gor told me that once my contract is up, if I want to stay, then stay but if I want to leave, then leave…it’s up to me!”

.****.

Chan Wing Chun is 57 years old. His real name is Chan Wing Kei (陳榮基) -- he started in the industry working for Commercial Television (CTV), then in 1984, he joined TVB’s Acting Class and after graduation, started working for TVB up to the present. Throughout his 28 year career at TVB, he has played numerous supporting (‘green leaf’) roles, with majority of those roles being villains. Amongst those roles, the ones that audiences are likely most familiar with include his portrayal of ‘Wu Tiet Fa’ in 1984’s The New Adventures of Chor Lau Heung 《楚留香之蝙蝠傳奇》, ‘Chuan Guan Ching’ in 1997’s The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils 《天龍八部》, crooked cop ‘Ng Kwok Siu’ in 1996’s The Criminal Investigator 《O記實錄》, and ‘Uncle Kan’ in 2011’s Ghetto Justice 《怒火街頭》.

Friday, October 19, 2012

My ‘TVB Rant’ # 23: Recap of My Thoughts on 2012’s TVB Series

I know this post might be a little ‘early’ considering there are still 2 TVB series for 2012 that have yet to air [the 2 anniversary series Silver Spoons Sterling Shackles (名媛望族) and The Confidant (大太監) ] but I wanted to do this post anyway, especially since all the other series have already aired (for the most part) so I feel it’s appropriate to share my thoughts on those – plus I’m only interested in watching 1 of the 2 anniversary series anyway and there’s no point holding back this post because of that one series.

Before I go into my commentary on this year’s series, there are a few ‘disclaimers’ that I have to make (yes, I’m anal about this kind of stuff, so my apologies if this seems too long-winded):

** When I refer to ‘2012 series’ in this post, I am using TVB’s Anniversary Awards as the ‘basis’ for the timing – so that means the series aired right after last year’s Anniversary Awards (which took place at the beginning of December last year) are considered 2012 series, even if they technically aired in 2011 (which is why I included both Bottled Passion and When Heaven Burns in this post) .

** Those who’ve been following my ‘rants’ for awhile probably know that my definition of ‘watching’ a series is different from most people’s and the ‘criteria’ I apply for whether I like a series or not is most likely different from mainstream audiences. This has especially been the case in the past decade or so when the quality of TVB’s series started to decline year after year and so I couldn’t bring myself to continue watching their series as ‘religiously’ as I used to (hey, my time is precious nowadays so I’m not going to waste it).

Out of all the series that aired this year, I’ve only actually ‘watched’ 4 to 5 of them in their entirety -- meaning that I watched the entire series from the beginning to end without skipping a single episode or a single scene. All the rest of the series I either only watched partially (which could range from a few episodes only to as much as 2/3rds of the series) or didn’t even bother watching period.

** As with all of my TVB rants, the below is strictly my personal opinion and doesn’t represent majority opinion. Therefore, those reading this post are welcome to disagree with me, as I respect different opinions and don’t mind hearing what others have to say (that is, as long as you don’t bash me for having an opposing opinion). It most likely won’t change my opinion, but it does give me some good ‘food for thought’.

** The below is only a summary of thoughts that come to mind about each of the series and is NOT considered a review of any of the series whatsoever (actually, this ‘recap’ is my LAZY way of sharing my thoughts without having to write a lengthy review…LOL). However, if I did happen to write a review for any of the series mentioned, I included the link to it as well in case anyone was interested in reading it.

** Note that I didn’t comment on every single series aired – only the ones that I felt like saying something about. However, I did list the rest of the series that aired this year at the bottom of this post just as a point of reference.

**Lastly, there is NO particular reasoning behind the way I listed the series – I pretty much just went with what came to mind as I was writing up this post.

Ok, so with all that out of the way, here’s a recap of my thoughts on some of this year’s series:


1) Bottled Passion (我的如意狼君)
Now that majority of 2012’s series have aired, I can safely say that BP was definitely my favorite series of the year! True, the ending absolutely sucked and I wish producer Lee Tim Sing (as well as the scriptwriters) would have done a better ending because of how negatively the ending detracted from the series – but overall (with exception of the ending), the series was quite well-written and pretty much the entire cast put in excellent performances (if it weren’t for the ending, I would have voted this series as the ‘Best Series of the Year’ in terms of awards and such…LOL). Also, this is the first series in probably the last 5 years or so that was truly an emotional roller coaster for me when watching it – I cried a lot during most of Raymond Wong and Niki Chow’s scenes (especially near the middle and end of the series) as well as some of the other heartwarming scenes in the series, but at the same time, I also couldn’t help smiling at some of the ‘light-hearted’ moments interspersed throughout the series (most of the Raymond Cho / Claire Yiu scenes as well as the Raymond Wong / Eric Li scenes).

I’m actually not going to comment too much on the series in this post, since I already wrote a lengthy review about it back in January after the series finished airing. But I will say that I’m currently re-watching BP again and enjoying every minute of it (it’s been less than a year since the series debuted and this is already the 3rd time that I’ve re-watched the series…goes to show how much I liked the series…LOL). Too bad that this series (and its cast) won’t get much recognition at the Anniversary Awards, since most audiences seem to have forgotten about this series already due to it airing so early (and in a ‘cannon fodder’ timeslot I must add)…such a pity!

Link to Series Review: Bottled Passion
Link to Themesong Lyrics translation: ‘Dawn Blossoms Picked at Dusk’


2) The Hippocratic Crush (On Call 36小時)
Out of all the series that have aired this year so far (not counting the 2 anniversary series), I feel that this series truly deserves to be called ‘Best Series of the Year’ because it was the most well put together in so many aspects -- from the near flawless script (a lot of the dialogue in this series was very beautifully written), to the logical plot and flow of storyline (the flow actually made sense and I found very little to criticize), to the good performances from majority of the cast (with a few exceptions of course)….combined with a great ending, this series had all the elements necessary to make it ‘best series’ in my opinion! It’s rare to have a series (especially nowadays) that blends all the elements so well (usually the cast is great but the script sucks or vice versa or both), plus have an ending that is very well done and ties up most of the loose ends without using the traditional cheesy TVB formula (i.e.: tragic ending, group BBQ, wedding scene, etc.) – in my opinion, the ending to THC was the best ending of the year!

Again, I won’t comment too much about this series here because I already said most of what I wanted to say in the review I wrote several months ago. In all likelihood, I will probably be re-watching this series again very soon (especially if the upcoming new series being aired don’t pique my interest). Oh, and just for the record – I am NOT looking forward to the sequel…in fact, I probably won’t even watch the sequel out of ‘protest’ because I was so adamantly opposed to TVB doing a sequel in the first place (I list out the reasons why in my review).

Link to Series Review: The Hippocratic Crush
Link to Themesong Lyrics translation: ‘Serial Drama’


3) Witness Insecurity (護花危情)
Despite a lot of the bad reviews for this series and the fact that the script was hugely flawed and the ending sucked as well, I actually did like this series overall – especially the first half of the series (I do state in detail in my review the reasons why I liked this series, so again, not going to say much here).

Currently this series is still in the number one spot on the ratings chart for this year (whether the series deserves it or not is another story) and if it can maintain its spot, it’s probably a good sign that the series or its cast will be a force to be reckoned with at the Anniversary Awards in December (though to be honest, I highly doubt that WI will stay in its position given that Highs and Lows is still airing and the 2 anniversary series will very likely be ratings winners – all 3 have the potential to knock WI out of the number one spot). Either way, I personally don’t really care, since ratings are not a factor that I consider anyway when I watch series (though of course it’s a driving force in the entertainment industry and for TVB when they determine who to give awards to). To me, whether the series is enjoyable to watch is more important…

Link to Series Review: Witness Insecurity
Link to Themesong Lyrics translation: ‘The Most Blissful Thing’


4) Tiger Cubs (飛虎)
This was another series this year that I liked enough to watch from beginning to end – and pretty much the only one where I will look forward to watching a sequel WITH THE ORIGINAL CAST if they decide to make one (if you haven’t figured it out already, I’m generally very much opposed to making sequels to series – especially TVB series – so the fact that I’m advocating a sequel to this series shows that it makes sense to do one).

It has actually been a long time since TVB has taken a production this seriously – from the costumes to the script to the action sequences, etc. – it was obvious that a lot of effort had been put into research and prep work. I also liked the fact that they (the production team / scriptwriters) stayed true (for the most part) to the concept of what the SDU truly does (tactical operation team that doesn’t get involved in the investigation of cases) rather than try to change things to suit their needs (like other series sometimes do).

Oh and I’m definitely glad that for this particular series, TVB chose to forego the whole romantic storyline thing and instead put most of the focus on the actual profession itself (SDU team) – the way that they kept the romantic storylines at a minimum (they touch on it, but don’t develop in detail) and focus more on the SDU missions and the police investigations made the series more fast-paced and meaningful (I actually learned a thing or two from watching this series…LOL!).

Too bad this series was aired on the weekends though because that timeslot really killed the ratings overall…true, it ‘broke records’ in terms of ratings for that particular timeslot, but the overall ratings sucked – the series didn’t even make it into Top 10, which means it likely won’t get much recognition at awards time (not that I care much about the awards anyway….but it annoys me to see good performances possibly not get recognized…)


5) When Heaven Burns (天與地)
I will admit that I barely watched a third of this series because, well, frankly speaking, the series that producer Jonathan Chik + scriptwriter Chow Yuk Ming have come up with in recent years just don’t appeal to me (I can’t even remember the last Jonathan Chik / Chow Yuk Ming series that I watched entirely from beginning to end – last one might have been back in the 90s some time….). But the ending was pretty good though and the MV concept was quite well-done (though I actually had to read commentary afterwards in order to truly understand the ending…haha…).

Of course I didn’t write a review on this series (since I barely even watched it), but I did put together some overall thoughts about the little I did watch back when I translated and posted the sub-theme song lyrics on my blog (link to that post here). That post pretty much sums up my thoughts on this series.


6) Gloves Come Off (拳王)
Given the sports-oriented theme, I definitely would NOT have chosen to watch this series on my own accord (sorry, but I generally find sports-oriented series / movies very boring, probably because I’m not into sports myself). The main cast also didn’t appeal much to me either, but since I like most of the supporting cast (i.e. Raymond Wong, Power Chan, Nancy Wu, Eric Li, Lau Kong, etc.), plus the series came on TV, I ended up watching it. In all honesty, the first half of the series was pretty good – in fact, the first few episodes especially were very well done. Unfortunately though, in typical TVB fashion, the series pretty much ‘fell apart’ in the second half – that’s the part when they started focusing on relationship issues between the main characters and so the series started to get extremely draggy…plus it didn’t help that the main story (about the whole boxing thing) started to go nowhere and didn’t really come back into play again until near the end of the series. Also, some of the characters were very poorly written and lacked development, which was annoying and definitely detracted from my overall viewing experience with this series – basically the only character who I feel was appropriately developed and stood out to me was Nancy Wu’s deaf girl character….everyone else I pretty much found were either underdeveloped or their characters ended up being annoying. Needless to say, I ended up skipping a lot of the series – to the point that I didn’t even bother tuning in to the finale episode (though I still found out about how the series ended later on).


7) Daddy Good Deeds (當旺爸爸)
This was actually one of the more watchable series from this year -- for a light-hearted comedy, this series definitely does deliver the goods. One of the things I enjoyed most was the witty dialogue, which was delivered with the right amount of comedic timing by the cast – the unique thing about the script was the rhyming dialogue that was interspersed throughout the series, which I felt was quite clever, especially since the way they worked that dialogue in, it sounded very natural and effortless (at certain points, I didn’t even realize the dialogue rhymed until someone pointed it out to me).

The other thing I liked about the series were the pop culture references, many of which were unique to HK culture. This is where I need to give props to the scriptwriters for being brave enough to go down this route because it’s definitely risky, since having too many HK pop culture references and ‘inside jokes’ that most likely only Cantonese-speakers would understand / appreciate limits the potential for this series to break out into other markets. But I guess as long as the HK audiences are able to relate and appreciate the series, that’s what matters most, since the ratings are based on HK audiences. Oh, and I have to mention the ‘guest star’ thing that they did in this series – though it wasn’t unique (TVB has done it before in other series), it was definitely fun to see who would pop up next and under what circumstances. I had read somewhere that some audiences felt the ‘guest star’ thing was merely a ‘gimmick’ to get people to continue chasing the series (curiosity factor) -- yes, that’s probably true but my thought on this is that as long as they incorporated the guest stars in a way that made sense (and didn’t just put them in randomly for the heck of it), then gimmick or no gimmick, I’m fine with it.

One last note….originally, I decided to watch this series primarily because of Steven Ma (since this was his last series with TVB) and Ha Yu (just because I grew up watching his series…haha) – of course, both of them didn’t disappoint in terms of their performances and I definitely enjoyed watching them….but in terms of ‘breakthrough’ performance in this series, Edwin Siu was definitely the one – he absolutely deserves some praise for his portrayal of ‘Ah Yap’, as he was truly pretty funny and his ‘obsession’ with finding his long-lost sweetheart was quite cute (plus his ‘chemistry’ with Steven and the rest of the cast was quite good). Overall, I’d say that this was an enjoyable series!


8) The Greatness of a Hero (盛世仁傑)
Even though I liked this series a lot (to the point of having re-watched it a few times already), I’m not going to comment much on it in this post because I actually don’t consider this a 2012 series. The series was actually produced 3-4 years ago and had already aired overseas (outside of HK) way back in 2009. I have no clue why TVB decided to warehouse this series in the first place or why they decided to all of a sudden air this series in their ‘golden’ timeslot so many years later (especially since some of the artists in the main cast no longer work for TVB). To me, it’s kind of stupid to air a series overseas and even release it on DVD, then ‘premiere’ it in HK years later as though it were a ‘brand new’ series -- given today’s technology, most HK audiences probably already saw the series on the internet back when it aired overseas anyway, so what’s the point of airing it as a ‘new series’ in HK? Kind of awkward if you ask me….seemed more like a space-filler series than anything else….


9) King Maker (造王者)
I’m generally not into ‘political thriller’ type series, but I decided to watch this one primarily because of the strong cast (when I say ‘strong’, I’m referring to the ‘acting’ piece, since the main cast consisted of established character actors who are known for their acting skills). Plus this was supposed to be a ‘follow up’ series to The Greatness of a Hero because of the collaboration between Kent Cheng and Wayne Lai – since both actors are among my favorites, I was definitely looking forward to watching the 2 of them match wits again!

To be honest, I can’t really say that I ‘enjoyed’ watching this series because some parts were a bit too slow and draggy, but overall I was able to ‘appreciate’ the series for the great acting performances from most of the cast (save for a few). Kent was excellent in his portrayal of ‘Tung Chiu’ and even though some audiences felt his acting was ‘exaggerated’, I actually beg to differ – his character was very complicated from a mental / emotional standpoint and in my opinion, the way Kent chose to portray the character was perfect…I actually don’t feel that anyone else would have been able to bring forth the ‘frustration and anguish’ component of his character as well as he did. Wayne was good too in his role, but I sort of felt he didn’t stand out much because the character of ‘Yu Jing’ seemed too much like the ‘usual fare’ for him – his character definitely wasn’t as complicated and interesting as Kent’s. As for the rest of the cast – let’s just say that overall, I was fine with most of the performances pretty much except for Natalie Tong….sorry, but I just can’t stand her in ancient series because she’s not a good fit for them – the way she says her lines and her body language, etc. are just way too ‘modern’ and it makes her performance unconvincing (just like she did back during Life and Times of a Sentinel, I felt that she was ‘reciting’ her lines rather than actually ‘performing’ her lines – maybe that’s why I felt there was little emotion to her performance…).

In comparisons to its supposed ‘sister’ series TGOAH, I have to say that King Maker is on a completely different level altogether – the plot and storyline for KM was way more complicated and the dialogue was more arduous. Both series are worth watching though!


10) Divas in Distress (巴不得媽媽…)
Ok, I will be honest and say that I initially had absolutely no intention of watching this series whatsoever, since I can’t stand Liza Wang (never liked her, both as an actress and as a person) and I knew she would be playing another one of those irritating bxxch characters again in this series, which meant that I would be forwarding through majority of her scenes so I wouldn’t get a headache from listening to her yell and scream at people (LOL). I also wasn’t too fond of most of the cast either (um, sorry, but Chin Ka Lok and newbie actress Eliza Sam being cast as the leads in the series really turned me off)…. so even less motivation to watch.

I actually decided to watch this series primarily because of producer Poon Ka Tak (he also produced THC as well as a lot of my favorite series from the 90s, such as DIF and UE) and even though I was disappointed with the series overall (the script was all over the place and a few of the characters were underdeveloped….plus there were other things as well), there were some good things that came out of the series – for example, the overwhelming support and recognition that veteran actor Koo Ming Wah got for his portrayal of ‘So Kei’! He was absolutely the highlight of this series and if it weren’t for him, I definitely would not have even bothered sitting through the series at all (I did forward through majority of the episodes though, so I guess I technically didn’t sit through the ‘entire’ series per se…LOL). I also did end up liking some of the other supporting cast’s performances too though (i.e. Lee Sing Cheong, Mimi Chu, King Sir, etc.)

Interestingly enough, the series got high ratings and surprisingly, even made it into Top 3 on the ratings chart! Though on the one hand, the high ratings is a ‘good’ thing for supporters of Koo Ming Wah (like myself) in that it raises the chances for him to get the Best Supporting Actor award at the Anniversary awards ceremony (he’s pretty much the most deserving one to snatch that award so far this year), but on the other hand, that also means the other less outstanding (and less deserving) performances in the series also have a bigger chance at getting an award (not going to name names but I’m sure most people know which ‘performances’ I’m talking about). Ah well – I’m probably not going to like the results of this year’s anniversary awards anyway, so it doesn’t really matter, I guess….


11) Highs and Lows (雷霆掃毒)
I wasn’t planning on watching this series either since I don’t like majority of the cast, but due to Michael Miu and Ben Wong, plus a potentially interesting storyline, I decided to give the series a shot. Quite honestly, the series did start off pretty strong with the action-packed scenes and the interesting first case, but the plot really started to drag around the 5th or 6th episodes and unfortunately, it continued to drag throughout the rest of the 2nd week of airing. Also, the ‘wishy-washy’ nature of the plot – especially the whole thing about trying to figure out who is the ‘black cop’ and who isn’t -- really started to frustrate me…in addition, quite a few elements of the plot don’t make any sense and the slow pace of some of the cases made the middle part of the series difficult to sit through. I also feel that the storyline surrounding Michael is very poorly developed – it started off strong in the first few episodes with him going undercover and such, but lately, it seems the focus is more on his relationship struggles with Elaine Ng (another actress I can’t stand). Oh and maybe it’s just me, but the plot and characters in this series reminds me too much of Lives of Omission….I’m starting to wonder if TVB’s scriptwriters got lazy again and lifted ideas from LOO, then repackaged it into a different series thinking that we audiences won’t notice? In any case, I already dropped the series….though I’ll probably still tune in for the finale just to see what happens (and to see whether the ‘spoilers’ that just came out about the ending are true or not….)


12) The Last Steep Ascent (天梯)
You would think that based on producer Lee Tim Sing’s good name alone (plus seeing how much I loved his previous series Bottled Passion and TLSA is supposed to be similar in terms of the love story theme and the pre-modern genre), that would be enough motivating factor for me to give this series a try? Under normal circumstances, that probably would have been the case, especially since there are quite a few of Tim Gor’s past series that I liked – but with this series…well, um, NO. Why? Two main reasons:

.—The story: TLSA is supposed to be ‘loosely based’ on the real life story of a husband who built a 6000 step ‘ladder of love’ for his wife. I’ve read the original [real-life] story (several times in fact) and it truly is a very touching love story – it brings tears to my eyes every time I read it. Unfortunately though, the series itself pretty much has NOTHING to do with the original story except for like the first and last episodes – everything else in the story is pretty much made up. In fact, producer Lee Tim Sing himself said that he had to add other elements to the story (such as the family inheritance battle and love triangle storylines) because the original ‘love ladder’ story itself is not enough material for a 20+ episode series (he said that if he were to stick only to the original story, it would only be enough for 5 episodes or less). Call me hard-headed if you want, but I’m just one of those people who can’t stand adaptations (whether TV series or movies) that stray too far from their original works (unless I haven’t read the original story or book yet – in which case I’m less likely to care). Plus, as much as I like Lee Tim Sing, he unfortunately has a track record for taking huge liberties when it comes to producing series based on original stories / books (most of the series that I like of his are non-adaptations) – based on everything I’ve read, this series is no exception in terms of the ‘huge liberties’ part…so in order not to frustrate myself, I chose to pass on this series after only watching the first 2-3 episodes.

.—The cast: The other reason why I’m not interested in watching this series is because I don’t like majority of the main cast. Maggie Cheung is a good actress, but she’s just not my ‘cup of tea’ in terms of actresses that I like to watch onscreen (don’t ask me why, but she’s just never appealed to me for some reason) – I don’t dislike her, so I have no problems watching a series with her in it, but I definitely wouldn’t ‘purposefully’ watch a series just because of her. As for Moses Chan….well, to be honest, I’m sort of sick of him now and can’t bear to watch him onscreen anymore – he’s had way too many OTT roles over the past few years, to the point that nowadays when he tries to go back to those serious, dramatic-type roles, it’s just not convincing anymore (plus I find his performances bland and boring nowadays anyway so even more reason not to watch). Kenny Wong is a decent actor, but unfortunately, he’s extremely boring to watch (not sure if it’s him or the characters he’s given to play), so knowing that he is the second male lead in this series diminished my desire to watch. And lastly, there’s Aimee Chan, who is considered the second female lead in this series – no offense to her fans, but I really can’t stand Aimee’s acting….yes, part of it is the poor Cantonese (which is one of my pet peeves and annoys the hell out of me), but also something about her acting just comes across very unnatural and ‘fake’ to me (I heard that her acting had actually improved in this series, but um, sorry, still not interested). Outside of the main cast, I heard that the supporting cast performances have been quite good though….

** Spoiler Alert***

Even though I haven’t been watching TLSA, I’m still planning on tuning in for the finale episode, primarily because that’s one of the few episodes that actually talks about the original ‘love ladder’ story (curiosity factor for me) – plus I just found out that there will be a special guest star in the last episode: Raymond Wong will be making a cameo appearance as one of Maggie’s grown sons – I read that he will be in at least half of the last episode (I’ve been re-watching Bottled Passion again lately, so obviously I’m in the ‘Raymond’ mood right now…LOL).


13) Ghetto Justice 2 (怒火街頭2)
I started watching this series only because my mom was watching it and I was curious to see if it would live up to the ‘hype’ of the first installment (which I actually didn’t finish watching either). Given the fact that I’m NOT a Kevin Cheng or Myolie Wu fan (in fact, I can’t stand either of them in terms of acting), I’m actually not surprised that I dropped this series barely a third of the way into it (though I did continue watching some of the Raymond Cho scenes throughout the rest of the series because I just love the guy too much…haha!)

The biggest turnoff with this series for me was the fact that TVB cast so many ‘non-Cantonese’ speakers in this series and gave a few of them pretty heavy roles. As mentioned earlier, this is one of my biggest pet peeves because, well, when I watch a series, I want to be able to understand what the characters are saying without having to resort to subtitles (having to read subtitles distracts from the viewing experience and is extremely annoying!). I know people will probably think I’m anal for harping on this point, but I don’t care – to me, the language thing is a ‘basic requirement’: if you’re going to film a Cantonese series, then learn to speak decent Cantonese – otherwise, don’t take on a ‘lead’ role and ‘torture’ us audiences with having to listen to your broken Cantonese in every episode! (I’m actually more ticked off at TVB on this one than at the artists, since the casting decisions lie with TVB). For some of the episodes, I felt like I should have just put the sound on mute and read the subtitles instead (yes, it was THAT bad) – needless to say, I’m glad I dropped this series as quickly as I did!


14) L’Escargot (缺宅男女)
Obviously, I watched this series because of Michael Miu and even though his performance was good (Sonjia Kwok’s performance wasn’t bad either), the overall plot / storyline wasn’t anything to shout about. I mean, it was interesting in the beginning to see how Michael’s huge family handled living together in such a small, cramped space and the various challenges they faced because of it, but halfway through the series, that premise started getting ‘old’. Plus I felt the plot was all over the place, so not surprisingly, I lost interest in the series fairly quickly.

With that said though, there were definitely a few standout performances in the series , mostly from Oscar Leung and Mandy Wong (though to be honest, I sort of got annoyed with Mandy’s character after awhile). But the thing that REALLY ruined this series for me was the stupid love triangle storyline thing between Ron Ng, Linda Chung, and Michael Tse! Linda’s character was just downright annoying and throughout the series, I just felt like slapping her silly (I ended up forwarding through a lot of her scenes in the second half); no comment on Ron’s performance because I never pay attention to him anyway in any of the series he’s in (for some odd reason, I always find his performances bland and boring); and Michael Tse – well, let’s just say that I was still in my ‘boycott Laughing Gor’ mood back when I watched this series, so I didn’t pay much attention to him either (plus his character in the series was a jerk anyway).

Overall, I guess you could say that I didn’t like this series much so it was probably wise that I forwarded through majority of the series and only watched a few episodes here and there….would have been a time-waster for me to sit through majority of it!


15) No Good Either Way (衝呀!瘦薪兵團)
I barely watched half of this series, so I’m probably not the best person to be commenting on it. But I will say that the first thought that comes to mind about this series is that I felt like I was watching a sitcom rather than an actual series (perhaps because several of the cast members -- for example, Stephen Au, Florence Kwok, Celine Ma, etc -- are ‘sitcom regulars’?). Plus there were quite a few people from the sitcom Be Home For Dinner in this series as well, so I guess it’s not too surprising that I would get the ‘sitcom feel’ from it.

Overall, I felt that the series was decent and I actually did like the pairing of Ruco Chan and Kristal Tin – but I also sort of felt this series was a waste of their talent because the characters they portrayed really weren’t that interesting. I mean, I’m happy that both of them got lead roles, but still….I definitely prefer to see them collaborate in a more interesting series if possible…

.---.

To round out the list, here are the rest of the series (not including sitcoms) that aired this year (in no particular order)….I don’t have anything particular to say about these series because I barely watched them – I basically included them in this post merely as a point of reference :

Wish & Switch (換樂無窮)
Let it Be Love (4 in Love)
Queens of Diamonds and of Hearts (東西宮略)
House of Harmony and Vengeance (耀舞長安)
Three Kingdoms RPG (回到三國)
Master of Play (心戰)

.****.

That pretty much does it for my ‘recap’ of this year’s series….I may end up doing a follow up post after I watch The Confidant, but not sure yet at this point….depends on whether I end up liking the series or not….