Saturday, December 21, 2013

BREAKING NEWS: Ricky Wong abandons free-TV dream for digital one with HKTV relaunch

Those of you who have continued to follow the whole free TV license thing will probably already know the latest news about HKTV by now...but in case you don't, below is a pretty detailed article on it.  

Personally, I'm thrilled to hear that Ricky Wong found an alternate way of 'launching' his TV station, since it means that the long-awaited series that HKTV already has in their inventory will finally get to see the light of day very soon.  Of course, the best news of all is that Ricky Wong has decided to re-hire all 320 of the HKTV staff that were laid off 2 months ago...not only that, he's also got plans to expand his staff even more by hiring several hundred more people to work for his company (and it's not just actors and actresses, but also behind-the-scenes crew as well).  I'm definitely very happy for those staff who now have a job again and don't have to worry about what their futures (and their families' futures)  are going to look like with no income.  There is indeed HOPE in this world after all!!

*****

Ricky Wong abandons free-TV dream for digital one with HKTV relaunch

Source:  South China Morning Post



Hong Kong Television Network chairman Ricky Wong Wai-kay says the company will press ahead with its broadcasting plans, despite the rejection of its bid for a free-to-air licence, by launching TV services that can be viewed through the internet from July 1.

HKTV will begin offering content on three to five channels in the form of what is known as "over-the-top content", similar to that offered by Netflix, Hulu and WhereverTV.

"Hong Kong needs free television," Wong said yesterday. "Free isn't just about free of charge, but also freedom."

Wong also said he would not give up on pursuing a judicial review of the decision to reject HKTV's licence application.

At least one of the channels to be offered from July will be a 24-hour news channel. The content of the rest is yet to be decided, but most will be free, except video-on-demand services.

Wong unveiled his plan following the company's HK$140 million acquisition of China Mobile Hong Kong Corporation, a subsidiary of state-owned China Mobile which holds a unified carrier licence that allows the licensee to offer mobile television services through its broadcast spectrum.

The platform will be free from the rules covering content and advertising now regulating free-to-air television.

The public will be able to watch the programmes through internet-connected devices. Audiences will have to buy a connection device before they can watch the channels through spectrums that are more stable than normal internet connections. Most programmes will be available for free while some will be shown on a paid basis.

Without giving the exact amount invested, he said HK$200 million had been spent on buying a site in Tseung Kwan O and a further several hundred million dollars would be needed for the development of a multimedia production building there. He said that the company was financially sound and had over HK$2 billion in capital.

HKTV plans to recruit the 320 staff who were axed when its application was rejected. All the productions previously suspended will be resumed.

Wong said HKTV will offer 260 hours of drama in the first year. This will be doubled to 520 hours in 2015.

Wong denied the idea for the move had been given by mainland officials at the Liaison Office or by the Hong Kong government. He said the decision was a pure business idea.

When asked if he had any plans to acquire beleaguered station ATV, Wong said he would consider any reasonable business acquisition or merger.

Melanie Lo Ka-wai, chief executive of media agency Group M Hong Kong, said Wong's new plan would interest advertisers because the television saga had generated attention from the public. Compared to ordinary free television, HKTV might reach a younger and more upmarket audience who were willing to try new technologies, she said.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

TVB Anniversary Awards 2013 – Recap of Winners + My Thoughts

This year’s awards show took place on December 16th and I will say from the get-go that from a ‘results’ perspective, this was one of the ‘fairest’ TVB awards shows I’ve seen in years (meaning that TVB decided to go with awarding talent this year rather than submitting to their stupid politics).

There were many things that were ‘different’ about this year’s award shows as compared to the previous few years.  First and foremost, the awards show actually took place even before one of the series with multiple nominations finished airing (the series Bounty Lady starring Dayo Wong and Kate Tsui).  The past couple years, TVB pushed back the date for their awards ceremony to mid-December in order to ensure that their anniversary series finished airing so that those artists could be in a better position to contend for the awards.  This year was no different in that regard (meaning that the awards show was held after the 2 anniversary series finished airing), however the part that was unexpected is that TVB included nominations for currently airing series Bounty Lady, despite the fact that there are 5 episodes left before the series finishes.  The reason I bring this up is because several of the major winners in this year’s awards ceremony are from that particular series – but since the series hasn’t finished airing yet, then technically we don’t have a ‘complete’ performance to judge from, right?  Perhaps this doesn’t matter much in the larger scheme of things, but figured it was an interesting point to make.

The other major difference is that this year, the ‘rules’ for the awards were changed (again).  The 2 major awards of TV King (Best Actor) and TV Queen (Best Actress) were determined by 50% audience vote + 50% professional judging panel consisting of TVB personnel while the 2 awards of Favorite Male Character and Favorite Female Character would all be determined by 100% audience vote.  The remaining awards would be determined the ‘traditional’ way (by TVB execs pretty much). 

It’s important to note that TVB also tried the 100% audience voting thing last year, but to me, last year was an ‘epic fail’ in terms of the voting thing whereas this year it looks like they actually got it right.  Why?  Two main reasons:  1) last year, they tried to do the 100% voting thing for the TV King and Queen awards, which was absolutely dumb because it turned the 2 awards that should be based on ‘acting’ into ‘popularity’ awards instead – and since they already had 2 ‘popularity’ based awards (Favorite Male/Female Character), it turned the entire thing into a popularity contest; and 2) TVB refused to reveal the vote count last year (their excuse was that they didn’t want to hurt any artists’ feelings, but of course most of us think otherwise) – this caused a big controversial mess and accusations of the results being ‘rigged’ immediately went flying around.  In a year when TVB needed to ‘prove’ themselves as still being ‘relevant’ and ‘credible’, they instead made themselves look like fools and pretty much ‘flushed’ their credibility down the toilet.

This year, TVB ‘redeemed’ themselves with their awards ceremony.  Without saying it, they actually ‘addressed’ the 2 main issues that made the voting thing fail last year:  they applied the 100% audience voting to the Favorite Character awards instead of TV King/Queen (which is appropriate because the FC awards are popularity awards, so having audience vote makes sense) and they also revealed the vote counts for the TV King/Queen categories (top 3 only, though no names were attached to it so there’s no way of knowing who came in 2nd or 3rd) as well as the Favorite Character awards.  Either TVB learned from their mistakes last year (which is hard to believe) or someone at the exec level finally ‘woke up’ and realized how ‘screwed up’ things had gotten and so went into ‘damage control’ overdrive mode….whatever the case, looks like their ‘method’ worked because this year’s awards seems to be the least ‘complaint-worthy’ in years.

Before I start my recap of the winners, there is a general comment I want to make about the awards ceremony itself – from a ‘results’ perspective, this was one of the ‘best’ ceremonies in years, however from a ‘production’ perspective, this was one of the ‘worst’ I’ve seen.   The entire show came across very disorganized and hastily put together – the timing was off (everything was too rushed – it seemed like as soon as a presenter or award winner opened their mouths to speak, they were being signaled to wrap up), the music was all over the place (loud during some segments and really low during other segments – to the point that I actually ‘heard’ moments of awkward silence), the hosts (Dodo and Amigo) seemed to not really know what they were doing at times, etc.  Overall, the ‘feel’ of the show was very choppy and awkward – I didn’t get the ‘grand, elegant show’ feeling that I used to get with some of the previous year’s awards shows (ironically, I feel that TVB’s Sales Presentation this year was done way better from a ‘production’ standpoint).  If TVB truly wants to show that they are the ‘best’ in the HK television industry, then they definitely need to invest more money and effort into making their awards show into a ‘grand event’ rather than a sloppy small-scale production.

Ok, so with all that said, here are the list of winners plus my thoughts/opinions of the wins as well as certain aspects of the show itself…

.***.

Lifetime Achievement Award:  Lau Siu Ming
(Award presented by TVB’s Deputy Chairman Norman Leung)

.—When I heard that TVB was giving this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award to Ming Sir, I was absolutely ecstatic!  Over the past 30-40 years, Ming Sir has contributed greatly to TVB and the HK television industry as a whole, not just in terms of acting / performing in TV series, but most importantly, his role as teacher / instructor for TVB’s Acting Classes back in the day.  Ming Sir is long overdue for an award, so TVB definitely made the right choice in recognizing him this year.

.—Overall, TVB did a good job with this segment.  Even Norman Leung’s introductory speech was much better than previous years (he seems to speak faster and more coherently now than in the past).   Also, the clips that they showed during the introduction segment were pretty good – not as comprehensive as I would have liked, but at least they did show a good amount of scenes from Ming Sir’s older series.


Most Improved Female Artist:  Eliza Sam
(Award presented by Oscar Leung and Mandy Wong)

.—First, regarding the presenters:  Of course it was appropriate for Oscar and Mandy to present this award, since they were the winners of this award from last year.  Presentation speech wise, I feel they did pretty well – I liked their banter back and forth….it wasn’t tremendously funny, but was appropriate enough to elicit some laughs from the audience.  From a fashion standpoint though – all I’m going to say is:  what the hell did Oscar do to his hair????

.—The winner in this category was Eliza Sam, which was actually already ‘expected’, so no surprises there.  I actually have no opinion on Eliza’s win in this category because I don’t care much for any of the actresses nominated.  With that said though, if I had truly had to choose a winner in this category, I probably would have chosen Grace instead because I feel she had more of a ‘breakout’ year and there was more versatility in her performances (outside of filming series, she also participated in Voice of Stars, so we got to see her singing talent in addition to acting).  And I feel that Grace actually improved more than Eliza did from an acting standpoint (all of Eliza’s performances this year and last seemed the same to me, whereas Grace’s performances were more varied).  Other than that, not much comment…


Most Improved Male Artist:  Vincent Wong
(Award presented by Oscar Leung and Mandy Wong)

.—Just like with previous years, this was one of the few categories that I actually cared about because most of the time, there are a few nominees in this category whom I like and care for.  As I said in my previous post, the nominations in this category were a bit ‘odd’ because none of the actors are actually ‘newbies’ – most of the actors in this category have been in the industry for quite some time already and I would even say are already past the ‘Most Improved’ stage.   And I hate how every year, it’s almost always the same few actors nominated in this category (for example – Him Law has been nominated in this category for 4 years straight).  I though this category was to help TVB discover younger potential talent, yet most of those who get nominated are already ‘established’ actors who should be competing at a higher level (i.e. supporting actor level).  I really hope that next year, TVB adjusts this category so that the appropriate actors are nominated (i.e. Stanley Cheung, Ronald Law, Fred Cheng, etc.).

.—Vincent was the ‘hot favorite’ in this category and he won as expected.  I’m definitely glad that he won and am truly very happy for him, but honestly, his acting is way beyond Most Improved already.  I still think TVB screwed him over by not nominating him in the Best Supporting Actor category (even though I know he wouldn’t win) because he truly deserved a nomination in there as well – besides, 3 out of the 5 actors nominated in Most Improved also got BSA nominations this year as well (some of which were not deserving), so why not Vincent?  Anyway, glad to see that Vincent finally got this award, as now he can officially ‘graduate’ to higher level categories with future performances.

.—I definitely enjoyed Vincent’s acceptance speech.  It was so sweet of him to thank his wife Yoyo Chen at the end of the speech for ‘giving him a family’.  Very heartwarming speech from a well-deserved winner!


Best Supporting Actor:  Benz Hui (Bounty Lady)
(Award presented by Nancy Wu)

.—I’m sort of surprised that they gave the BSA awards out so early this year – I was expecting these to be given out later on in the ceremony like last year….but I guess it makes sense that the BSA awards weren’t as ‘important’ as they were last year, since there was less ‘hype’ (there was a lot of hype surrounding the BSA awards last year due to the brilliant standout performances on both the male and female side)….plus the focus this year was more on the ‘big’ FC and TV King/Queen awards.

.—First, about the presenter – of course it makes sense for Nancy to present this award as the Best Supporting Actress from last year.  I enjoyed her presentation speech overall, especially her ‘jab’ at Kenneth Ma, who is like a brother to her….that part was pretty funny.

.—Unlike previous years, I actually wasn’t too interested in this category this year because I felt so strongly that TVB was trying to set up the BSA category for their ‘favorites’ to win (see my previous post about the nominations list for an explanation on this).   I still feel that TVB played some ‘nasty politics’ in this category with their decision to include certain artists and shut out others, but seeing that the result turned out opposite of what I thought would happen, I’m not as ticked about it anymore.

.—The interesting thing to note is that this was the only award category where all 15 of the nominees were in attendance – definitely a very rare moment that was well-worthy of recognition (I would consider it one of those ‘Kodak moments’…LOL).   To emphasize this point, the hosts Dodo and Amigo especially set aside some time to let every single one of the nominees in this category give a ‘thank you’ speech, which I felt was a nice gesture.  And to be honest, I enjoyed some of these ‘short speeches’ more than some of the actual acceptance speeches themselves (Ram Tseung gave the best ‘short speech’ in my opinion…haha!)

.—Needless to say, the winner in this category was a huge shocker:  Uncle Benz!!!  Don’t get me wrong – I love Uncle Benz and I am absolutely thrilled that he won (thank you for getting it right for once, TVB!).  But I was totally not expecting Uncle Benz to win because I was so sure based on the horrible nominations list that TVB was going to ‘finish what they started’ and give the award to someone they favor or are planning to promote (i.e. Edwin Siu or Him Law).  This is why I was so shocked that TVB actually went the opposite direction and decided to give it Uncle Benz, who is more than deserving of the award (they should have given him this award a long time ago).   In the end, I went from ‘hating’ this category this year to ‘liking’ it once again.  Good job TVB for turning this category around!

.—Uncle Benz gave one of the absolutely best acceptance speeches of the night!  I love how he ‘dared’ to mention the free TV license thing as well as that lame ‘Turn off TV’ movement, but put it in a context where it was humorous rather than awkward.  My favorite was of course the last part of Uncle Benz’s speech when he apologized to his wife and kids for not being able to go on vacation with them due to his busy schedule, then ended it with:  “No worries, though!  I’ll be able to go now because after getting this award, I won’t get any more work!” (haha…funny, but true!).


Best Supporting Actress:  Elena Kong  (Triumph in the Skies II)
(Award presented by Koo Ming Wah)

.—Again, having KMW present this category was appropriate, since he was BSA winner from last year.  I like how he took the time to thank some of the people he forgot to thank in his acceptance speech last year.  Nice speech – short, simple, and sweet.

.— For me, the expected winner in this category from the getgo was Elena Kong and I am extremely happy that she finally got the award after 4 years of waiting.  Elena has been absolutely deserving of this award since 4 years ago when she was first nominated, so even though I felt that her performance in Triumph 2 wasn’t her best role (should have been nominated for Bounty Lady instead), I’m still fine with her winning – I guess you can say that this makes up for her previous ‘losses’.

.—Elena delivered a very touching acceptance speech – I almost shed a tear or two when she talked about how she wasn’t able to get tickets for her parents to come watch the show this year and how she almost gave up on acting several years ago.  She was quite emotional during her speech and understandably so.  Definitely glad that Elena finally got her long overdue award!


Outstanding Artist Award:  Shuet Nei, Mary Hon, Anderson Junior, Helen Ma, Lau Kong
(Award presented by TVB’s Assistant General Manager Peter Au)

.— Similar to last year, I’m very happy to see TVB recognizing green leaf veteran artists by giving out the Outstanding Artist award again.  Like I’ve said before, whether TVB is sincere or not in doing so really doesn’t matter to me because the fact is that these artists are finally getting the recognition long overdue to them – no matter what their intention is, the fact that TVB is making the effort should be applauded.

.—In terms of the presenter of the award this year, I’m actually fine with them having Peter Au do it, as he seems to be one of the ‘better’ execs at TVB and is probably the most eloquent (I actually like reading / listening to his interviews because he doesn’t come off as ‘condescending’ or ‘arrogant’ like some of the other execs do).  And he’s probably the only TVB exec who I feel has a good sense of humor and is able to utilize it at the right time in the right situations.  I liked his introductory speech overall, though I have to say that I didn’t really like the video clip summaries / introductions for each artist this time, as I felt those clips were very lacking – TVB definitely did a better job in this area last year.

As for the ‘winners’ of this award, again, I feel that all of them were well-deserved.

.—Shuet Nei – I’m neutral towards Shuet Nei as an actress, so not much comment from me on that piece, however I’m glad to see her getting recognition for her years of dedication to the industry. I’m actually not as familiar with Shuet Nei’s pre-TVB works, but I do remember quite a few of her roles in TVB series.  Congratulations to her for finally getting some recognition!


.—Mary Hon – I must say that TVB made an excellent choice in giving Mary Jeh this award because it’s way way overdue.  Mary Jeh has contributed to TVB in more ways than just acting, as she also used to be a host (back in the old days) as well as a dance instructor – she has serviced TVB for so many years without much recognition, so I’m definitely happy to see TVB finally recognizing her talents! 

Mary Jeh is actually quite a versatile actress, as she played a variety of different roles back in the days, including villain roles in both modern and ancient series.  Unfortunately, it looks like Mary Jeh has pretty much been typecasted into ‘benevolent mother’ roles the past few years, which isn’t good from an acting perspective – luckily Mary Jeh doesn’t mind and continues to put 100% effort into everything she does.  Also, I really enjoyed Mary Jeh’s acceptance speech, where she expressed that there was nothing special about herself and that there are plenty of outstanding artists out there who deserve recognition as well.  She also gave some words of encouragement to the artists there, many of whom had played her son or daughter in various series throughout the years.  See, these are the kinds of veterans I love the most – they’re passionate about their craft, yet at the same time, they are more than willing to share their experiences with others…not only that, they are also very selfless when it comes to their careers and often times, are more concerned with helping their juniors succeed than advancing their own careers.  Thank you Mary Jeh for your contributions and congratulations on a well-deserved award!


.—Anderson Junior – Anderson is another artist who has done a lot for the industry as well as for society, but rarely gets much recognition.  He actually doesn’t film a whole lot of series, as his focus is more on variety shows and hosting, but whatever the case, he is absolutely deserving of the recognition.  From an acting perspective, his most memorable performance for me was in both Witness to a Prosecution series – sure, his acting is oftentimes exaggerated, but then again, he’s not really a full time actor (acting is something he does on the side), so I don’t really expect him to have great acting skills….regardless, I still enjoyed his performance just as much as I enjoyed Bobby’s!   The introduction they gave Anderson was actually spot on because he truly is a friendly, fun person whom others enjoy being around.  One of the things I like best about Anderson is his good attitude – he doesn’t mind constantly being in the shadows or being made fun of by others and is always a good sport about it.  And he may have a loud voice and may look physically overbearing, but don’t let that fool you – he’s actually a very kind person in real life!


Helen Ma – Now here’s an actress who deserved recognition a long time ago!  Helen has been in the industry for longer than I’ve been alive (I believe she entered the industry in the 1960s) -- she is a former Shaw Brothers actress and had worked for other TV stations in the 70s prior to joining TVB.  Helen is one of the few versatile female ‘senior’ actresses that TVB still has left, as she is able to do all types of roles – from comedic to serious to villain and everything in between.   What I like about Helen is that she also has a great attitude and doesn’t care about image – she’s willing to take on the ‘ugliest’ of roles and bring life to them or do scenes that others might not want to do.  I always find Helen’s performances enjoyable, even if I might not like the characters she portrays. 

Absolutely well-deserved winner and also great acceptance speech – the advice she gave at the end of her speech is actually very true….hope that the younger generation takes her advice to heart and learns a thing or two about the value of constructive criticism!


Lau Kong – the 5th Outstanding Artist award went to veteran actor Lau Kong (aka ‘Teacher Lau’ as everyone calls him).  Honestly speaking, this was one of the most deserving awards of the night -- though of course, I feel he should have gotten an award a long long time ago!  I grew up watching Uncle Lau Kong on TV (I’ve probably seen almost all of the 100+ series he’s done over the past few decades) and to this day, he’s still one of the few artists whose acting I’m never able to find fault with….he always comes across to me as very natural in each of the roles he plays, which is rare nowadays with the current generation of actors.

Uncle Lau Kong actually gave the best acceptance speech of the night – I was close to tears when he talked about how he hopes the company cherishes the elderly/senior actors/actresses they have (such as himself, Helena Law, Teresa Ha, etc.) and also try as much as possible to accommodate their hours while incorporating adequate rest.  Well-said, Uncle Lau Kong!  I truly hope that TVB listens to these veterans and cherish them more! 


Best Host of a Variety Program:  Tony Hung and Priscilla Wong (Pilgrimage of Wealth)
(Award presented by Luisa Maria Leitao)

.—Hmmm…ok, I will admit that this was one of the few categories that I felt was actually ‘rigged’ in that the winners also happened to be TVB exec Sandy Yu’s ‘favorites’.  I actually felt that Dodo and Amigo deserved this award more for Voice of Stars (especially since their hosting job was more ‘difficult’ due to a few of the episodes being live broadcasts).  I’m not sure what the criteria was for this category, but I sure hope that there was a legitimate reason why Priscilla and Tony won when they weren’t necessarily the ‘best’ in my opinion. 


Best Variety Program:  Three Amigos Bon Voyage
(Award presented by Lawrence Cheng and Cheung Tat Ming)

.—First, a word about the presenters:  Lawrence and Tat Ming were absolutely my favorite presenters of the night!!  Their presentation dialogue was truly funny without being rude or crass and it came off so natural – not ‘rehearsed’ like with other presenters.  I actually wish they could talk more because I would much rather hear them speak than some of the others (plus I really miss seeing both of them onscreen, especially Tat Ming due to his illness).  Ah well….I’m sure there will be more opportunities to see them in the future.

.—As for the winner in this category – I will admit that I was shocked because I honestly felt that Voice of the Stars had this award in the bag already.  From a popularity and ratings as well as overall impact on audiences standpoint, Voice of Stars was definitely number one amongst all the shows nominated in this category, so I was very very surprised that the show got zero recognition at the awards.  Don’t get me wrong – I have nothing against Three Amigos Bon Voyage….in fact, I enjoyed that show as well (and I love ‘godfather’ Wu Fung…LOL) – but it just doesn’t make any sense to me how that show was able to beat out VOS for the award.

.—In any case, I’m still happy for the cast and crew of the show.  The highlight for me was when Wu Fung went up to accept the award along with Joe Junior and Tat Ming rushed over yelling out:  “I want to give the award to Daddy, I want to give the award to Daddy!” (Wu Fung played Tat Ming’s dad in both installments of the Justice Sung series).  Aww, that was a sweet moment – it was definitely heartwarming to see that ‘reunion’ of sorts between Tat Ming and Wu Fung!


Best Informational Program:  Pilgrimage of Wealth
(Award presented by Lawrence Cheng and Cheung Tat Ming)

.—Not much comment from me in this category, since I don’t have much opinion about the programs nominated.  I watched most of nominated shows, but I’ve never been very keen on informational programs, so for me, this is one of the categories I care the least about.  Overall, I sort of expected Pilgrimage of Wealth to win in this category because its ‘sister’ production Pilgrimage of Hope won in this category last year. 


Best Series:  Triumph in the Skies II
(Award presented by Patrick Kong)

.—Of course, I’m not surprised at all that TITS2 got Best Series – this was actually expected given the series’ popularity and high ratings.  Though I don’t necessarily agree with Triumph being the best series (I personally would have chosen Inbound Troubles instead), I don’t have a problem with the win since most of the series this year were mediocre anyway and I don’t feel strongly about any of the series.

.—One thing that I was a bit surprised about was that they didn’t do a ‘Top 5’ or ‘Top 3’ in this category like they did in previous years – instead, they played a minute and a half clip containing scenes from all 22 series aired this year and then announced who the winner was.  It would have been interesting to see which series made it into the finals…

.—Of course, the highlight here is that Sam Gor himself (Francis Ng) showed up out of the blue at this exact moment and went on stage to stand with the cast and crew accepting the award!  I’m sure everyone was shocked to see Francis (especially since he rarely attends these types of functions and he had already said beforehand that he most likely won’t be able to make it because of work).  I personally was happy to see him and I’m sure everyone else was too!  Bummer that Francis didn’t get a chance to say anything though – I’m sure they would have let him speak if there was enough time….after all, Francis WAS the ‘spirit’ of the series and the main reason why the series came about.


Best Actress (TV Queen):  Kristal Tin (Brother’s Keeper)
(Award presented by Anthony Wong)

.—Top 5 in this category:  Fala Chen (Triumph in the Skies II), Kristal Tin (Brother’s Keeper), Linda Chung (Brother’s Keeper), Tavia Yeung (The Hippocratic Crush II), Kate Tsui (Bounty Lady)

.—My reaction upon hearing the winner in this category was probably the same reaction that many others had:  shocked, but in a good way.  Most of us were expecting that TVB was going to play their ‘politics’ again this year as they did in previous years and give the TV Queen award to one of their favorites.  Indeed, leading up to the awards, it was difficult to tell which way TVB would go, but most of the Media hype was about Linda being the ‘hot favorite’ for the award (much to my chagrin).  Kristal was very much a ‘dark horse’ in the race and even though she was the most deserving of TV Queen in most people’s eyes because of her standout performance in Brother’s Keeper, none of us were expecting TVB to actually award talent.  Since I’m the type who has to give credit where credit is due, I have to say this:  Good job, TVB!  Finally they did something right and chose the most deserving actress out of the 5 to award!

.—It was definitely an emotional moment seeing Kristal crying throughout her entire acceptance speech.  I’m not a fan of hers by any means, but I like her well enough as an actress (she’s definitely got acting talent) and also as a person.  For someone like me who had lost all confidence in TVB already, it was satisfying to see Kristal up there finally getting the recognition she deserved!  I actually really liked Kristal’s speech, as it was very heartfelt and really showed what her path was like getting to where she is today.  I’m extremely happy for her!!

.—In terms of presenter…um, the first thought that came into my mind was:  what the heck is wrong with Anthony?  The presentation speech he gave didn’t make a whole lot of sense and I actually thought it was a bit crude, especially the last part when he makes a comment about each of the actresses.  He started off ok with the joke about feeling like an elderly patient being escorted in by a nurse and even the part about college level versus elementary level competing seemed fine….the last part of his speech fell apart big time though….

.—Biggest highlight for me:  prior to the TV Queen segment, the hosts Dodo and Amigo did a quick ‘interaction’ thing with the nominees where they gave the TV King and Queen nominees a tablet-like thing and asked them to choose who they felt would be TV Queen out of the 5 nominees (they put the pictures of the 5 nominees on the screen and when each artist ‘voted’, their names were listed under the picture of the person they voted for).  Of course, all eyes were on Francis, since he was the ‘biggest name’ there – he was the last one to submit his vote, which Dodo jokingly gave him a hard time about…Dodo asked him who he was trying to vote for and why it was taking so long -- in a hilarious ‘Kodak moment’, Francis squinted at the screen and said “I’m trying to vote for Sze Kei Jeh!” (veteran actress Louise Lee).  Everyone burst out laughing….apparently, Francis had mistook Kristal for Louise!  Hahaha….silly Sam Gor!  (the sheepish look that Francis had on his face after he realized his mistake was PRICELESS!!).


Best Actor (TV King):  Dayo Wong (Bounty Lady)
(Award presented by Fennie Yuen, Loletta Lee, and Gloria Yip)

.—Top 5 in this category:  Dayo Wong (Bounty Lady), Francis Ng (Triumph in the Skies II), Julian Cheung (Triumph in the Skies II), Ruco Chan (Brother’s Keeper), Kenneth Ma (The Hippocratic Crush II)

.— I was just as shocked as everyone else was when Dayo’s name was announced.  No, I wasn’t ‘shocked’ because I felt he didn’t deserve it – in fact, my sentiment all along is that the 2 most deserving actors for TV King this year are Francis and Dayo.  The ‘shock’ was because 1) Dayo didn’t attend the awards and according to TVB’s unwritten ‘no attendance = no award’ policy, that would have automatically eliminated him from the race, and 2) Dayo was the ‘black horse’ going into the race in that there was zero Media hype for him – he might have been deserving, but NO ONE was expecting TVB to actually recognize talent and give him the award.

.—I’m absolutely fine with Dayo winning the award, since he is a brilliant actor and absolutely deserves it…though of course, I would have also been fine if Francis had won because he’s also a brilliant actor and just as deserving.   I know that there has been a lot of ‘talk’ out there after the awards about Dayo winning the award versus Francis, but in all honesty, all that talk is kind of pointless because both actors have different acting styles and focus on different genres (Dayo’s focus is more comedic while Francis is more dramatic).  Both deserve the award and it shouldn’t make a difference who ended up winning as long as it was one of the two (plus the two of them are good friends anyway and both of them don’t care about awards, so whether they receive one or not is no big deal….I hate how the fans on both sides are making such a big deal about the whole thing!)

.—Since Dayo was in Shanghai for work, Dodo accepted the award on Dayo’s behalf…however, she didn’t just leave it at that – instead, she took out her personal cellphone and attempted to call Dayo on live TV to notify him of the win (haha…so it looks like Dodo still has Dayo’s number from when they collaborated on War of the Genders back in 2000).  When Dayo picked up the phone and heard who was on the other line, he sounded very surprised and said:  “Dodo, you haven’t called me in 1-2 years!”  When Dodo told Dayo that he had won TV King, he was obviously stunned because he asked her “Huh? Best Actor?  What award is that? Is that TV King?” (I could swear that I heard Dayo ask something about TV Queen too, but it was too noisy so I couldn’t hear really well)….after he figured out which award he won, he asked Dodo who had chosen him and how the award was determined, to which Dodo replied explaining the 50% audience + 50% professional judging panel criteria.  Dayo’s response was:  “Wow, that award is truly very professional then!”  There was some more brief chatting and it ended with Dodo telling Dayo that she was going to have someone personally deliver the award to him once he returned to HK. 

.—The phone conversation between Dodo and Dayo was definitely one of the highlights of the night for me and also one of the funniest moments of the entire night.  Interestingly enough, this was also the segment that got the highest ratings – the overall ratings for the anniversary awards show was average 34 points, peaking at 40 points….the 40 points occurred during the Dodo/Dayo phone segment.

.—Lastly…just like they did previously, there was a quick segment prior to announcing TV King where the hosts again had the artists choose who they felt would be TV King.  Most of the artists chose Francis (of course) while Francis himself chose Dayo (it sounded like he did that as a joke, since he’s good friends with Dayo).  In addition to Francis, 2 other 80s veterans who attended were Lawrence Ng and Kathy Chow (since both had returned to film a series for TVB this past year and both were nominated in the TV King and Queen categories) – I have to say that I was happy to see them attend, though kind of a bummer that they mostly sat there doing nothing….I’m sure they knew they had no chance at the award, but it was nice of them to still come and support the ceremony (I sure hope TVB is grateful and treats them better).  Anyway, Dodo said that she wanted to ask Kathy who she voted for, as she had collaborated with Kathy in the past and was happy to see her in attendance – Kathy said that she voted for Francis because they had collaborated on series in the past.  Upon hearing that, the sentimental side of me came out (being the ‘TVB old-timer’ that I am) and I couldn’t help thinking:  aww, so sweet of Kathy to still remember her collaboration with Francis and ‘vote’ for him….of course, at that moment, the image that came into my mind immediately was the series that Kathy and Francis collaborated on (which just so happens to be one of the same series that Dodo had collaborated with Kathy on back in the day):  The Price of Growing Up from 1987. [Sidenote:  On a related yet separate note:  coincidentally, the other major series that Kathy and Dodo had collaborated on back in the day was The Feud Between Two Brothers from 1986, which also happened to star Lawrence Ng – who, as I mentioned earlier, was also in attendance at the awards.  Seeing Dodo, Francis, Lawrence, and Kathy all there together (along with other old-timers such as Benz Hui, Lau Kong, Ming Sir, Elliot Ngok, Mary Hon, etc.) definitely brought back feelings of nostalgia for me!!]


Favorite Female Character:  Kristal Tin (as ‘Yiu Man Ying’ in Brother’s Keeper)
(Award presented by Dodo Cheng and Amigo Chiu)

.—TVB saved the two ‘Favorite Character’ awards for the end this year – my guess is that they did this to highlight the importance of these 2 awards this year due to the 100% audience voting thing.  Those who’ve followed the anniversary awards the past few years will probably know that these 2 awards have traditionally been viewed as ‘consolation prizes’ for not getting TV King/Queen, so I guess TVB was trying to ‘wash away’ that negative stigma by doing something new with the 2 awards this year.

.—Kristal winning this award was kind of expected in my opinion, since there was a lot of positive feedback for her character after Brother’s Keeper aired.  This is one of those instances where I actually believe TVB did not ‘rig’ the results because if they did, Kristal would not have gotten a double win (for TV Queen and Favorite Character).

.—Of course, Kristal was very emotional again, and rightfully so too, since she wasn’t expecting to win again.  I actually didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to Kristal’s speech this time around since she had already said most of what she wanted to say during the TV Queen acceptance speech – but regardless, still very very happy for her!!


Favorite Male Character:  Julian Cheung (as ‘Jayden Koo’ in Triumph in the Skies II)
(Award presented by Kristal Tin)

.—Of course, no one is surprised by Chilam’s win in this category, as it was expected all along and most of us are fine with the win (I personally don’t have a problem with it, since I do like Chilam and feel that his character in TITS2 was truly deserving of Favorite Character).  The part that surprised me was the ‘controversy’ that erupted after the awards ceremony….

.—By now, I’m sure most people have read the Media reports about how Chilam sounded so ‘ungrateful’ with the acceptance speech he gave and how he was expecting to win TV King but got ‘robbed’ by Dayo (plus Chilam’s actions after the awards ceremony didn’t help things either, since he left without doing the customary TVB Magazine photoshoot and interview). 

Since this topic has been discussed to death already in various forums these past few days, I don’t feel like rehashing everything again here.  The only comment I want to make is this – though I didn’t really have a huge problem with Chilam’s speech (I personally gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was ‘just joking’ like he said he was, though I also feel he’s not good with words so the ‘joke’ didn’t come across the right way in general), I AM a bit disappointed with Chilam’s actions after the ceremony.  Though part of me feels that the Media did blow up the issue more than they really needed to (I don’t really feel it was a big deal honestly), I also feel that Chilam sort of ‘fed’ into that with his speech and his actions afterwards. 

For the record, I don’t blame Chilam for feeling ‘used and abused’ by TVB as well as the Media (after all, he was hyped up as the ‘hot favorite’ for TV King all these months by both) and no doubt, a lot of what he said during his speech about how TVB operates is very true….BUT, the fact of the matter is that it truly was the wrong time and place for such a ‘sarcastic rant’ – to me, this was really the reason why Chilam received so much backlash afterwards and is being labeled as a ‘sore loser’.  To me, it's not really what Chilam said that's the problem, it's the time and place of when he said it…. if he had said what he did at any other time outside of 'that moment', he probably would not have gotten as much backlash. 

Let me just put it this way….

Sure, what Chilam said was the truth, but was it really appropriate to ‘talk crap’ about TVB at their own awards ceremony with all of their employees and execs sitting right there, especially when you were just given an award by them which, even though 100% audience voted, is still a TVB award nonetheless?   And to add insult to injury, majority of the artists sitting there didn’t win ANYTHING and had to sit through the entire ceremony like a prop, just like Chilam did.  Why create such an awkward situation for the hosts and other artists present, especially if TVB was the one who wronged Chilam, not the hosts and others?  Basically, my feeling is this:  whether we agree with it or not, there's a time and place for everything and as much as we may not like it, sometimes we just have to ‘bite the bullet’ and wait to deal with things at a more appropriate time….rather than give a sarcasm-laced speech and provide ‘fodder’ for the Media to make a big story out of it, why not just give a simple, grateful-sounding speech and fulfill the necessary post-award obligations (photoshoot and interview), then show his ‘disappointment’ later by not filming for TVB again or refusing to attend their events?  To me, that would have been a more appropriate way to deal with the situation (again, my opinion only…).


CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:

.—My overall sentiments towards this year’s awards ceremony:  shocked but satisfied.  Obviously, some of the winners in a few categories may not have been ‘my choice’ necessarily, but since majority of the winners were well-deserving of the wins, I’m fine with the results overall.

.—The results this year does restore a little bit of the confidence that I had lost in TVB over the past decade or so, though I will also have to see what happens in the coming year to determine whether TVB is truly sincere about making changes or it’s just a temporary thing.

.—One last comment overall – I had made this comment last year and will make it again:  I was disappointed once again with the lack of ‘meaningful’ presenters at this year’s award ceremony.  Every year, the presenters and their speeches are 2 things I look forward to each awards show, but so far, I’ve been disappointed for 2 years straight.  Better luck next year hopefully….


Tuesday, December 10, 2013

My Thoughts on TVB’s Anniversary Awards Nominations List

This post might come as a surprise to most long-time followers of my blog, since I usually don’t bother writing up posts about TVB’s Anniversary Award nominations (I view it as a waste of time and would rather save my comments for my recap post of the award results).  So why did I choose to write one this time?  Well, the main reason is because several people, including a few dedicated readers of my blog, asked what my opinion was toward the nominations – since I was asked several times and I happen to have quite a lot to say about this year’s list, I decided to go ahead and do it this time.

One thing to note about this post is that it is NOT ‘all-encompassing’ -- meaning that I didn’t write down ALL my thoughts on EVERY nomination.  Instead, for the sake of time, I focused primarily on some of the more ‘obvious’ problems I saw with the nominations list when it first came out.  So in other words, just because I didn’t talk about a particular nomination, doesn’t necessarily mean I was ‘ok’ with it – could be that I just didn’t get around to talking about it….

Also, I didn’t bother with talking about the ‘Favorite Character’ nominations because to me, those 2 categories are ‘consolation prize’ type awards that are not worth discussing – besides, those 2 awards are ‘popularity’ awards that are based on likability of the character / artist rather than acting, so to me, it’s a waste of time discussing them.  I don’t care who wins in these 2 categories honestly.

Below is the ‘official’ nomination list that TVB released.  I actually didn’t bother with translating any of the nominations though, so hopefully those who can’t read Chinese are able to figure things out based on the pictures (though I’m sure most people who follow HK entertainment news already know who the nominees are by now).









Picture courtesy of HK Channel’s weibo
 .------.

Before I talk about the individual categories, there is a general comment I would like to make about the nominations / selection process that TVB utilizes for this awards show:

Yes, I do understand that there are more series aired in a year than there are ‘allotments’ to nominate artists, so unfortunately there will be artists who are ‘left out’ of the nominations list.  But then again, it brings me to the question I had last year when TVB started doing the nominations thing for each category (most likely to make it easier for public voting by narrowing down the choices) – why limit the list down to 15 ‘management-picked’ artists in each of the major categories?  Why not allow all artists to be ‘in the running’ and have people (be it audiences or TVB staff) choose from the entire playing field?  

Sure, I understand that TVB is trying to ‘emulate’ other reputable awards shows (i.e. HKFA, Golden Horse, etc.) by having a nominations process and having the winners determined from those ‘select’ few who are nominated – there’s nothing wrong with that concept overall, but unfortunately, it DOESN’T WORK in TVB’s case because the dynamics are so different.  Most of the film award nominees for example are chosen by a committee of judges and professionals from across the industry who are knowledgeable about film and are ‘qualified’ to make those types of determinations (and, most importantly, those professionals have WATCHED all the films in contention that year).  On the contrary, the ones ‘choosing’ the nominees at the Anniversary Awards are limited to the ‘top execs’ at TVB (small group of less than 10 people), most of whom are business people who don’t know a thing about TV production or acting and most likely haven’t even watched any of the series…..with that being the case, how are these ‘execs’ even ‘qualified’ to determine which artists should be nominated and which ones shouldn’t?  What are they basing those ‘determinations’ on??   And sorry, but the management can’t say that they are basing the nominations on the artists’ performances because there are people nominated whose series haven’t even finished airing yet (which means that those artists don’t even have a ‘complete’ performance for us to determine whether they should even be nominated).  

Therein lies the biggest FLAW with this entire nominations process (which I’m surprised no one has questioned TVB about these past couple years) -- I find it absolutely ridiculous that an artist or TV series is even nominated when that series hasn’t finished airing…..there’s no other awards show I know of that does such a thing, so as far as I’m concerned, TVB is the only one such a ‘ludicrous’ criteria (if anyone knows of another non-TVB affiliated awards show that comes out with nominations prior to the program even airing, please let me know!!).

This is why I’ve always said that no matter which way they try to slice it, the Anniversary Awards are, and will always be, a ‘closed-door political game’ – even if the artists who end up winning are the ‘most deserving’ or are the ones ‘expected’ to win (based on majority opinion of audiences), those wins still involve TVB politics in some way, shape, or form.  I wanted to make this point clear because I’ve heard in the past how some people claim the Anniversary Awards are ‘fair’ because the ‘most deserving’ artists won – my rebuttal to that is:  1) whether an artist is ‘deserving’ or not is very subjective, so basing any awards show’s ‘fairness’ on this is absolutely stupid, and 2) even if the ‘win’ may not be ‘hotly contested’, still doesn’t mean it was ‘fair’, since the ‘criteria’ for the nominations as well as the winners being chosen was never made clear in the first place (for example, that person may have been ‘most deserving’ out of those nominated, but what about those who weren’t nominated…how do we know they weren’t ‘most deserving’ of the award as well but were unfortunately ‘shut out’ of the race due to political factors?).

Sorry for getting on my soapbox, but this is one part of the Anniversary Awards that has always annoyed me – though unfortunately, it’s also the part that most mainstream audiences fail to see (which is why, once again, I ask why no one has questioned TVB about their ‘fuzzy’ nominations criteria).

Ok, so now that I’ve had my ‘mini-rant’ on the selection process, let’s move on to the original purpose of this post…..


.1)  TV King (aka ‘Best Actor’)

There were a few nominations in here that were expected, but also a few surprises that, personally, I probably would NOT have chosen to be in this category. 

In terms of SNUBS in this category (actors who SHOULD HAVE BEEN nominated but WEREN’T), below are a few I would have chosen to be on the list:

Eddie Cheung – to me, Eddie definitely should have been on the nominations list for TV King.  Why?  Well, because he was pretty much the only ‘shining light’ in that otherwise boring, forgettable series called Sniper Standoff.  Despite a horrible script, poor casting, and some ‘boring as heck’ performances from a few of his co-stars, Eddie managed to still pull off a convincing, engaging performance and actually ‘stand out’ in this (again) boring series.  So why was he not nominated then?   Was his performance truly not worthy of a nomination?  Or was it because he actually spoke out in support of HKTV in a few interviews (after the license decision was announced) and did highlight some of the ‘problems’ that TVB had?  Or could it be that TVB just doesn’t care about him (if that’s the case, then why invite Eddie back to film for them)?  It just doesn’t make much sense.  The series itself was a failure, but Eddie’s performance was actually quite well-received and also complimented (whereas the series overall got poor word of mouth as well as poor ratings)….besides, Eddie’s co-star in the series – veteran actress Kathy Chow -- was nominated for this series on the female side (TV Queen), despite the fact that her performance didn’t even stand out (for the record – I love Kathy, but her performance and character in this series were both only so-so….Eddie definitely deserved a nomination more than Kathy did).


Michael Tse – ok, I will be the first to admit that I’ve taken a disliking to Michael over the past couple years (ever since he became ‘Laughing Gor’) because I can’t stand his arrogance and narcissistic self-confidence (I honestly think the fame he’s gotten in recent years has gone to his head).   BUT, setting aside how I feel about Michael as a person, at the end of the day, he’s still a pretty solid actor (better than a lot of the siu sangs that TVB currently has) who gave pretty consistent performances this year.  Michael had 3 series ‘in the running’ this year (Friendly Fire, Sergeant Tabloid, and Sniper Standoff) and even though I could still see/feel a little bit of his ‘Laughing Gor’ persona in each of the performances, he still performed better than some of the others who were nominated.  Of course, I would not have chosen him as the ‘winner’ of the award, but a nomination would have definitely been appropriate given his consistency and solid performance overall this year.


Raymond Wong – call me biased (since I’ve taken a liking to Raymond ever since Bottled Passion), but I actually do feel that Raymond should have gotten a nomination this year, as he did well in both Slow Boat Home as well as Karma Rider (didn’t really care for his other series Day of Days though).  I’m thinking that Raymond probably didn’t get much consideration this year because there were too many actors that TVB needed to include on the list from the ‘big budget’ series so they probably decided to sacrifice the ‘little’ people/series (though Aimee Chan DID get nominated for SBH in the TV Queen category, which I thought was ridiculous).  In a sense, I’m not surprised that Raymond didn’t get nominated, it’s just sad that he had to be the ‘sacrificial lamb’ again this year (in fact, TVB actually hasn’t been doing much with his career the past 2 years, casting him in one low budget forgettable series after another….).



.2)  TV Queen (aka ‘Best Actress’)

I actually had more of a problem with this list than I did with the TV King one, partly because, as with previous years, there were very few ‘good’ performances from the actresses this year (meaning that only a few actresses stood out who actually deserved to be in the running). 

In all honesty, out of all the award categories, this is probably the only category where I would personally only be able to choose a ‘handful’ of actresses to nominate (probably less than 10) because, well, like I said earlier, most of the performances on the female side weren’t that impressive.

Before I get into the ‘questionable’ nominations, there was definitely a major SNUB in this category that is worth talking about:

Sheren Tang – Sheren is the most obvious ‘snub’ from the list and of course we all know why, so no need for me to elaborate.  While it definitely wasn’t surprising that TVB wouldn’t nominate Sheren because of the situation that occurred, part of me was hoping that TVB would at least TRY to salvage their image and actually SHOW audiences that they aren’t as petty as people say they are – in fact, this would have been the PERFECT opportunity to gather some good PR and show those ‘doubters’ out there that they CAN be the ‘bigger person’.  BUT of course, once again, TVB’s management acted foolishly and let their ‘pettiness’ affect their decisions (boy, TVB really does need a good PR person working for them because their PR moves lately have sucked big time).

Sure, it’s expected that TVB wasn’t going to include Sheren in the nomination list, but what I didn’t expect was that they would nominate Christine Ng instead.  Don’t get me wrong – I like Christine and feel that she’s a solid actress overall….but her performance in BAW wasn’t anything special…plus she was only 3rd female lead in the series behind Sheren and Ada, both of whom acted well in the series.  If it was already a ‘given’ that Sheren wouldn’t get nominated, then why not just nominate Ada and leave it at that?  Why ‘rub salt in the wound’ by nominating Christine instead for the same series?  I would have been fine with TVB nominating Christine if it hadn’t been done at Sheren’s expense – but doing it the way they did now (nominate Ada and Christine but not Sheren) serves no purpose except to reinforce in audiences’ minds just how ‘petty’ TVB truly is.  If TVB really wanted to nominate Christine, perhaps do it for Will Power instead, since, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter which series they nominate her for because it’s already a given that Christine has no chance for TV Queen whatsoever (which brings me back to my original point that very few actresses were able to ‘shine’ with their performances this year).

As far as ‘questionable’ nominations goes – well, to be honest, pretty much half the list was ‘questionable’ to me because, once again, few of the actress’ performances stood out in my opinion.  If I had to choose the nominees for this category, the list would actually be quite different -- first off, I wouldn’t include any of the series that haven’t finished airing yet (sorry Tavia and Kate) and second, I wouldn’t include any ‘space filler’ nominations (i.e. Aimee)….my list would actually only consist of about 7 to 8 actresses because that’s honestly all I feel deserve to be on the list period...but of course, it’s a moot point now, since the official nominations are done already.



.3)  Best Supporting Actor

For me, this is my favorite category every year because the nominees here are usually ‘cream of the crop’ in terms of acting and it’s always difficult for me to choose who I want to win because they are all so deserving usually.  This year however, TVB did a horrible job with the nominations for this category – to the point that I don’t care about this category at all this year because all of those who I felt deserve to win weren’t even nominated!! 

If I had to choose a WTH category this year, the BSA category would be it – there were way too many “WTH was TVB thinking” nominations in this category and even more SNUBS than I care to count.

In my opinion, here’s the list of SNUBS in the BSA category (believe it or not, I actually only listed a few SNUBS below – there were more that I didn’t list because I ran out of time):


Power Chan – I will be very honest and say that I don’t know if I’ll be able to forgive TVB for excluding Power from the nomination list.  He is an AWESOME actor – very versatile and convincing in all his roles….not only that, he’s also widely recognized as a great actor by his peers as well as majority audiences (he’s definitely amongst the ‘cream of the crop’ in terms of green leaf actors on my list and one of the few talents that TVB still has  left).   He did a great job in Will Power this year and his performance was definitely worthy of a nomination in my opinion (plus add the fact that he was ‘robbed’ of the BSA award last year – no, I’m not saying that Koo Ming Wah didn’t deserve it because he did and I absolutely rooted for him as well…but as I said in my ‘review’ of the results last year, I strongly felt that TVB should have made that category a ‘tie’ and give the award to both KMW and Power). 

Of course, we all know why Power wasn’t nominated this time around….when Power and his wife Mimi joined the HKTV protest a couple weeks back, most of us already knew that he had committed ‘career suicide’ at that point due to everyone’s knowledge of how ‘petty’ TVB is.  Even though Power had made it very clear that he wasn’t there to support HKTV, but rather to protest against the government, it doesn’t look like TVB ‘bought’ it.

To be honest, I actually feel that TVB already stopped ‘caring’ about Power awhile back ago, even before the HKTV protest thing.  Otherwise, how else would you explain the ‘kelefe’ roles that Power has gotten this year (to me, Power is an established second tier actor already, so for him to get ‘kelefe’ roles in his position, it’s absolutely an insult!).  In Missing You, he was one of the guest stars, but his screen time was ridiculously little (I would say that amongst all the ‘guest stars’ in that series, Power had the least screen time – if I had to quantify it, I’d say he only had a combined 10-15 minutes of screentime max).  But I guess that 10-15 minutes was better than what he got in Triumph in the Skies II:  a 1 second, ‘blink and you’ll miss him’ non-speaking cameo!!  TVB should have just pulled an ‘extra’ off the street to put in that role instead of wasting Power’s talent like that!!!

Bottom line – just like other artists before him, Power is yet another “victim” of TVB politics and pettiness.  Argh!


Vincent Wong – ever since the nominations were announced, I’m still scratching my head wondering why in the world Vincent didn’t get nominated.  If anyone is deserving of a nomination, Vincent is definitely the one – he’s done a great job this year in all his series and his performance in Will Power was quite a ‘breakthrough’ role for him, one that is absolutely deserving of a nomination in my opinion.

Instead of nominating Vincent in BSA category, TVB chose to put him in ‘Most Improved’ category, which I sort of feel is ridiculous because Vincent is way past ‘Most Improved’ already.  Besides, 3 out of 5 of the ‘Most Improved’ nominees are also nominated in BSA as well, so why not include Vincent in that too?  Why was he shut out of BSA but nominated in Most Improved when he was more deserving of a BSA nomination?  Is it because he has a high chance of winning BSA this year and so TVB decided not to put him in that category so that the person whom they want to win will win instead? 

I actually liken Vincent’s ‘snub’ in the BSA category this year to Ben Wong’s ‘snub’ in the same category last year (remember all the backlash that erupted when Ben was shut out of the BSA nominations despite his awesome performance in Highs and Lows?).  Definitely another ‘WTH was TVB thinking?’ moment!

I don’t know about you guys, but the nominations for the BSA category this year actually reeks of ‘setup’ and ‘rigging’ to me (actually, the entire list gives me this feeling, but the BSA category this year especially did…).


Chung King Fai – in terms of the senior veteran actors, King Sir deserved most to be nominated because he really was the one to watch in Will Power (I actually feel that TVB should have taken out Elliot Ngok’s nomination for SBH and put King Sir in there instead).  King Sir was VERY convincing in his role as a devious lawyer who, even in the end, didn’t feel that he had done anything wrong despite being convicted and going to jail.  I enjoyed King Sir’s performance immensely in the entire series and to me, he was one of the main reasons why the finale episodes of WP were so great to watch.  I honestly don’t know why King Sir didn’t get nominated – I can only attribute it to TVB management’s ignorance in terms of not being able to differentiate good acting from bad (all the more reason why TVB management shouldn’t be the ones determining who gets nominated and who doesn’t).


Raymond Cho – ok, this is probably my personal bias talking again, but Ray is definitely way overdue for a nomination/award.  He’s another one of those great ‘green leaf’ actors who is versatile (can do villain, comedic, dramatic roles, etc.) and is able to portray his roles in a convincing manner.  This year especially, I feel that Ray should have been nominated because he had 2 major roles that were at opposite ends of the spectrum and truly allowed him to showcase his acting skills:  first was the ‘super serious’ role in Beauty at War (he was one of the reasons why I even bothered with the series) and second was the funny, comedic role in Awfully Lawful (which I admit I didn’t even finish watching) – he did well in both roles (actually, he did way better than many of those nominated in the BSA category) so why no nomination?  Of course, I have my suspicions on why he wasn’t nominated, but I’ll just leave it at that…


Evergreen Mak – another deserving actor who did well in all his series this year but failed to get a nomination.  Actually, I feel that ever since he won BSA several years back, TVB hasn’t given Evergreen very many ‘good’ roles – yet he’s still been able to take those ‘mediocre’ roles and run with them (which already says a lot about Evergreen’s skills as an actor).  Not sure the exact reason why Evergreen wasn’t nominated, though my guess is that he was in 2 relatively low budget dramas and neither of his roles really stood out or generated any hype (though I can actually say the same thing about several other actors who were nominated in this category).  Whatever the reason, he definitely would have been one of my picks in terms of nominees for BSA.


Derek Kwok – if there were ever an award for ‘most underrated green leaf actor’, I think Derek should get it!  I’ve liked Derek as an actor since he debuted in the 80s and to me, he is still as solid as ever where acting is concerned.  I would have liked to see Derek get a nomination for his villain role in Friendly Fire (his performance was one of the few things I actually remember from the series) -- he did his job well as usual, but of course, he didn’t get much recognition.  Derek has always been tremendously versatile as an actor (he’s another talented actor who can handle any type of role) and performs well in all his roles, yet he’s also one of the least recognized.  I actually don’t understand what TVB has against Derek because it seems to me that he’s been pretty much ‘neglected’ over the past decade – though I guess he still fared a little better than let’s say Savio Tsang and Deno Cheung, both of whom were ‘neglected’ to the point that they were pretty much playing ‘kelefe’ roles during their last year with TVB.  I think that if Derek gets to that point, he should definitely leave because it’s not worth it – I mean, why toil for a company for close to 30 years only to see yourself ‘dropped’ from 2nd/3rd tier actor to a basically dispensable ‘kelefe’? 


WTH nominations’ in the BSA category (these are nominations that I feel were the least deserving in this category – I actually had a problem with a few of the other nominations as well, but these 2 stood out the most for me):

Jason Chan – Seriously???  TVB chose to pass up both Power Chan and Vincent Wong (both way better actors than Jason) in the BSA category and put Jason in there instead???  WHAT THE HECK??  Jason is a horrible actor (didn’t like any of his performances in any series so far) and even though some people say he improved slightly in Will Power, I would beg to differ – to me, he still has the same ‘problems’ that he’s had in all his past performances:  lack of emotion and expression (I swear, he has the same expression on his face whether he’s happy, sad, angry, etc.), stiff and wooden composure (he always seems to look uncomfortable, like he’s being ‘forced’ to do a job that he’s not good at or doesn’t like…at least that’s the way it comes across to me), reading / reciting of dialogue rather than ‘acting’ it out, etc….plus he also ‘slurs’ his speech, especially when doing those heavy emotional scenes.  Basically, I try to resist the urge to turn off the TV whenever he’s on (because he happens to be in most of the series that I actually like).  Luckily, he didn’t ruin WP for me, but that’s only because everyone else in that series was so good to the point that I could essentially ignore Jason in that series (or pretend someone else was in his role instead).

To me, nominating Jason in the BSA category is TVB politics at its ‘finest’ – obviously TVB is planning to heavily promote him, so they have to give him multiple nominations in various categories to try and ‘sell’ him to audiences.  No offense to Jason, but he is nowhere near ‘siu sang’ material at this point – he still has a long long long way to go where the acting is concerned.  If this is the kind of ‘up and comer’ that TVB will continue to shove in our faces the next couple years – well, thanks but no thanks – I would rather turn off my TV….


Kenneth Ma – Um, ok…is there really a need to put Kenneth in both TV King and BSA categories (and in Favorite Male Character as well)?  I know TVB does that kind of stuff (give certain artists multiple nominations) to ‘heighten’ their chances of winning, but seriously, putting Kenneth in BSA is such a waste because we already know he’s not going to win.  I mean, COME ON – Kenneth is considered one of the ‘hot favorites’ for TV King this year (that’s according to the Media, which is different from my personal opinion), so we already know FOR SURE that TVB isn’t going to give him Supporting Actor award because that would be a serious ‘downgrade’…..so basically, Kenneth is in this category as a ‘filler’.  Knowing that, why waste space by putting artists in this category that don’t belong there??  What purpose does that serve, especially when there are so many other actors who could have taken that spot? 

In my opinion, TVB should have removed both Kenneth and Jason and fill both their spots with Power and Vincent!!  But of course, that’s just me speaking – TVB most likely doesn’t give a damn.



.4)  Best Supporting Actress

Interestingly enough, I actually don’t have much opinion towards this category.  For some reason, this is one of those categories every year that I really don’t pay much attention to – I’m thinking that’s because the past few years, TVB has given this award to undeserving actresses (except last year – pretty much the only year they got it right in my opinion).  Though part of it also goes back to the fact that over the past few years, there really haven’t been too many actresses – whether lead or supporting – who’ve ‘stood out’ in terms of their acting, so who TVB decides to nominate in this category doesn’t matter as much anymore, at least not to me.  As far as the award goes, I’m pretty sure it’s down to a ‘battle’ between Elena Kong and Nancy Wu (the 2 most deserving of the award this year), so as long as one of them receives the award, I’m fine with it. 


.5)  Most Improved Male Actor

I normally don’t care much about this category either, but I noticed this year that TVB put some actors in this category that actually don’t belong in here.  After seeing the list of nominees in this category, I just have to ask the question:  does TVB not have other newer generation male actors who fit this category?  Why is it the same people nominated every time (Him Law is nominated every year and I believe Vincent Wong is too – in my opinion, they’re beyond ‘Improving’ level already)?  Oh and what is the point of putting Edwin Siu in this category, especially since he is already nominated in TV King, BSA, and Favorite Character categories (is it really necessary to give him 4 nominations??).  To me, Edwin is ‘beyond’ ‘improving’ level as well….he’s pretty much a ‘filler’ in the Most Improved category, so why not give that space to someone else?   All 3 of them are already ‘established’ actors who should really be competing at a higher level rather than still ‘lingering’ at the ‘improving’/newbie level.

If I were to choose the nominees in this category, I would pick actors such as Stanley Cheung and Ronald Law – to me, they fit the category more appropriately because they are more ‘newbie’ level in terms of acting, hosting, etc. and are just starting to get recognition from audiences. 

Also, since this category isn’t just for acting (it includes hosting and participation in other programs as well), I honestly feel that Fred Cheng should have been nominated as well.  Sure, he wasn’t in too many series this year -- I counted 2 series so far this year, plus the whole Voice of Stars thing – but hey, who says he needs to be in a lot of series?  Didn’t MC Jin win a few years back despite only participating in 1 series the entire year (though he had other ‘hosting’ programs to make up for it)?  Fred has 13 episodes worth of performances in Voice of Stars – doesn’t that count for anything?


.5)  Most Improved Female Actress

This is another category I don’t care too much about, primarily because every year, I’m not fond of the actresses who are nominated, so whoever ends up winning doesn’t matter much to me.  This year is pretty much more of the same, so no opinion on my part in terms of nominations list….


LAST BUT NOT LEAST……

.6)  Best Series

Outside of Best Supporting Actor, this is pretty much the only other category I’ve cared about over the years.  To be honest, this category has been a ‘hit and miss’ in the past few years – some series that have won I feel were undeserving while others were spot on.  Since this is the only category where ALL series aired this year are in contention (no top 15 nominees like the other categories), at least the ‘playing field’ is even – though I will be curious to see which series end up making it into the final top 5 or top 3 (because I’ve had issues with which series end up making the final stretch in past years).

In terms of which series I would want to win – well, it’s a tough question actually because none of the series this year were that good (in fact, I didn’t even bother finishing most of the series because very few of them were able to capture my attention and I had better things to do).  With that said though, if I really had to pick, I would probably choose Inbound Troubles.  Sure, that series wasn’t perfect (no series is perfect) and not all of the performances were ‘great’, but to me, that didn’t matter as much in the scheme of things –what I liked best about the series was its attempt to be ‘different’ from TVB’s traditional comedies (which have the tendency to lean too heavily on the ‘crude’ side and try too hard to be funny).  The series covered an ‘eclectic’ mix of issues and themes – from the usual family and love relationship issues to the more sensitive social topics such as the strained relations between HK and Mainland China…the nice thing about it though was that the series addressed all those issues in a lighthearted, fun way that made the series a refreshing, enjoyable, and definitely welcome departure from TVB’s traditional fare.  Oh and of course, for me, the ‘music’ and the ‘retro’ elements that the producer/scriptwriters cleverly incorporated throughout the series were the 2 biggest draws – for someone like me who grew up during the HK entertainment industry’s ‘golden’ era, imagine all the memories this series brought back with all the music it used from the 80s/90s era as well as the other ‘old’ entertainment references.  And yes – call me biased if you want, but I did give ‘brownie points’ for all the Jacky Cheung related scenes that they incorporated into the earlier half of the series….LOL!!


Concluding Thoughts:

I honestly feel that this year’s list of nominations is way more ‘unbalanced’ and ‘politically motivated’ than last year’s list.  To me, it doesn’t make much sense that certain artists have as many as 4 nominations spread across various categories, while others who are way more deserving don’t even have 1 nomination in any category.   How messed up is that???

Yes, I understand how ‘difficult’ it is too come up with a nominations list like this and I don’t doubt for a minute that a lot of ‘thought’ was put into determining who should be on the list – but the problem is the ‘thought’ was in the wrong areas, which leads me to question the motivation behind the nominations.  I would be more willing to ‘accept’ the nominations list if those who are making the determination are more ‘credible’ and ‘qualified’ (a point that I already elaborated on at the beginning of my post).  But instead, since these nominations were primarily ‘politically’ driven rather than a true ‘judgment’ of performance, it’s hard for me to attach any value or credibility to the nominations.

I may sound contradictory when I say this, but I’ll say it anyway:  I’ll definitely be watching the Anniversary Awards on December 16th to see who ends up winning in each of the categories, but my motivation for doing so will mostly be out of curiosity than anything else. 

Lastly, I’ll be writing up a recap post of my thoughts towards the results just like I did last year, so stay tuned for that next week….

Monday, December 2, 2013

My ‘TVB Rant’ #27: The ‘Big Bad Bully’ strikes again…..

I haven’t done a ‘rant’ in a while, but after reading about some actions that TVB took recently, I decided to take some time out of my busy schedule to write up this post about it.

As I’m sure most of you have heard by now (since this ‘news’ technically came out last week but only got widely reported on the last day or so), TVB submitted a requested to the trademarks and patents bureau to ‘trademark’ the HKTV name (in Chinese and English) alongside their own logo – AND THE REQUEST GOT APPROVED!   So basically, this means that the ‘HKTV’ name now ‘belongs’ to TVB, so anyone who attempts to use the name without authorization from them could get sued for copyright infringement (yes, that means Ricky Wong and all the artists / behind-the-scenes people who work for him aren’t allowed to call themselves ‘HKTV’ employees anymore otherwise they risk being ‘fined’ or even going to jail..).  

So what was my reaction the first time I read about this?  I’ll be blunt – my first reaction was:  WTF?????  Damn bastards!!

Of course, anyone with even half a brain knows what TVB is trying to do – since it’s not like TVB is ever going to use the HKTV name anyway, it’s obvious that they are making this move to ‘spite’ Ricky Wong and in so doing, ‘kill off’ any chance his company may have had to make a comeback, which is why I find TVB’s actions absolutely shameful and abhorrent!!  I mean, come on now – TVB already emerged victorious from the TV license battle and they already have a monopoly on the entire HK television industry, so why is there a need for them to make such a ‘low-blow’ move?  Since TVB already won the war, why not just leave it at that and win graciously rather than ‘beat a dead horse while it’s down’ like they’re doing now?

Sure, people can argue that TVB has a legitimate claim to the ‘HKTV’ name, since they used that name in the 70s and 80s – I’m not disputing that fact at all.  To me, the issue isn’t whether TVB has the right to lay claim to the HKTV name because it’s obvious they do have the right – the issue I have is with the TIMING of it all.  If TVB truly intended on keeping the HKTV name or if they are making this ‘trademark’ move without any ulterior motives (as they claim), then why didn’t they do it back in the 80s or even 90s?  Heck, why didn’t they do it 2 years ago when Ricky Wong announced that he was changing his company’s name from CTI to HKTV?  It’s not like Ricky did it in secret or anything – he actually held a press conference event announcing his decision and even mentioned the fact that TVB had used the name in the past.  Why wait until now to make such a move?  (Honestly, I would like to see TVB ‘explain’ their way out of this – to me, no ‘excuse’ that they manage to come up with is going to make any sense).

The part that ticks me off the most about this whole issue is the impact this will now have on HKTV’s artists.   I guess it’s not enough that many HKTV employees were already forced out of a job because of the TV license decision – in addition to worrying about their futures and how they’re going to put food on the table, now they also have to worry about the ‘legal’ ramifications involved if they do something as simple as ‘associate’ themselves with HKTV.   So I guess it’s also not enough that TVB screws over their own employees and mistreats them to the point of being inhumane – now they feel the need to screw over another company’s employees as well!   Honestly, where is the logic in that??  I don’t care how much TVB hates Ricky Wong and wants to get back at him for ‘poaching’ from their company – the management on both sides can battle it out and kill each other for all I care, but they shouldn’t drag their innocent employees into the fray and compromise those employees’ livelihoods, reputations, and dignity!  

Obviously, I’m frustrated and, once again, disappointed in TVB.    At times like this, I’m reminded of Felix Wong’s ‘Totally Very Bad’ moniker for TVB…well, I’ve come up with a moniker of my own for them:  BBB – BIG BAD BULLY!!