The awards ceremony this year was largely lackluster similar to previous years. One thing I will applaud TVB for though (no, I don’t just criticize TVB – I will give praise where I feel it’s due) is the fact that this time around, they did not let the current political situation in HK influence them – not only did they agree to let Anthony Wong film one of their series (sure, he returned purely because of Amy Wong, but still, TVB had to agree to it), they also did the right thing by giving him the TV King award which he rightfully deserved. Amid all the controversy with Occupy Central and the so-called Mainland China ‘boycott’ against Anthony, good to see that TVB forfeited kissing Mainland China’s butt for once and instead gave Anthony the recognition he deserved.
Ok, now for the criticisms (lol):
- The awards ceremony left a sour taste in my mouth from the getgo with the Lifetime Achievement Award going to Nat Chan. When my family and I were watching the awards presentation and Nat’s name was announced for this award, our jaws literally dropped – the only reaction I could muster was WTF???? Come on TVB, REALLY???? Of all the more deserving veteran artists out there, they choose to give this award to Nat, who, to be honest, didn’t really contribute to TVB as much as the ‘senior’ actors did? I can actually rattle off at least 20 to 30 artists who deserve the award way more than Nat. I mean, ok, fine, many of the ‘senior’ (what we call ‘gam cho’) artists have either retired, left TVB, or even passed away, but still, that shouldn’t stop TVB from giving the award to someone more deserving (unless the artist currently works for a rival TV station, which yes, in that case I definitely understand). How about Kenneth Tsang or Lau Kong (can’t remember if Lau Kong received it before – I don’t think he did)? Or Lau Dan? John Chiang? Chun Wong? Elliot Ngok? The list goes on and on. I would’ve even preferred that they give this award posthumously to an artist who already passed away but had made huge contribution to TVB in terms of acting (i.e. the late So Hang Suen). What a joke! (Sidenote: I thought this was the Lifetime Achievement in ACTING award??? Nat Chan only acted in a few TVB series and mostly early on in his career, like in the 70s – not nearly as many as the veteran artists have. If it was for hosting, um, well, he’s even less qualified, as there are way more ‘senior’ hosts than him who’ve contributed more to TVB than him – like Ivan Ho, Lawrence Cheng, Eric Tsang, etc.). I really want to know what TVB was thinking with this award….
- Most Improved actor/actress – I guess I wasn’t as pissed off with this award category as others were, since I already expected TVB to play favorites and give this award to the least deserving of the nominees. Nowadays, this is pretty much the only category where TVB can blatantly do their favoritism thing without getting as much as backlash from audiences as, say, the TV King and Queen categories, since it’s the one category where it’s obvious the artist who wins is usually the one TVB is trying to promote. Personally, I didn’t think Tony Hung deserved to win, as a few of the others nominated were way better than him (i.e. Mat Yeung), but since his acting truly has improved from his earlier series, I can at least swallow the fact that he won. Grace Chan on the other hand, did NOT deserve the award at all – there has been absolutely no improvement in her acting (in fact, her acting has actually gotten worse), so for TVB to still gave her that award, it’s obviously rigged.
- As has been the case for many years already, the awards show was hugely disjointed and disorganized. What the heck was up with the Best Supporting Actor/Actress segment? One minute the hosts state that the next award to be presented is Best Supporting Actor and then they interview the 5 nominees for the award, but then right after that, they go into announcing the presenters of the Best Supporting Actress award – huh? And I hate how they stopped doing the top 5 nominee thing for all the categories except TV King/Queen and Favorite Character -- putting myself in the artists’ shoes, even if they don’t win the award, I’m sure they would’ve wanted to know if they had at least gotten into top 5 because that’s still recognition to some extent. Oh and on the topic of the awards show being disorganized – why does TVB have to rush things every year? Why can’t they just have one year where they let everyone say what they want to say? Also, those interview snippets they did in between various categories were badly done – they were obviously time-fillers that had no meaningful purpose and instead make things come across awkward every year.
- I was seriously disappointed at the lack of ‘decent’ presenters once again this year. Gone are the days when TVB was able to invite big-name presenters to give out their awards – instead, in recent years, they’ve had to resort to their own artists or those who are affiliated with them in some way either by filming series or a variety program for them. To me, that shows how irrelevant TVB is nowadays, as very few non-TVB artists are willing to give them the time of day (which of course I don’t blame the artists for, since I would do the same thing if I were them). In the past, I would always look forward to the presenters and their speeches, even more than the award winners’ themselves, but this time around, such a huge disappointment. Pretty much the only presenter speech I enjoyed was Benz Hui’s ‘humorous jab at TVB’ speech (love Benz – he’s basically one of the few artists who can say whatever he wants about TVB and still be highly valued by them). And is it just me or did Nancy Wu present twice? I wasn’t really paying a whole lot of attention but for some reason I felt that she had gone up there twice to present…
- The hosting sucked again this year, though part of me feels I should blame TVB rather than the hosts because they’re merely going off a script and since the ceremony itself was so disorganized, they had to do the best with what they had. With that said though, the hosting in general has been largely lackluster for most of TVB’s ‘big event’ shows the past couple years (that includes anniversary gala, anniversary awards, charity shows, etc.). Really makes me miss those good old days (the 80s/90s) when TVB’s shows were truly grand events and the hosting was just as much a ‘highlight’ of the show as the performances themselves!
- Acceptance speeches – again, nothing exciting with the speeches and definitely no ‘moved me to tears’ moments this year. I basically had no feeling towards most of the speeches (probably because I didn’t really give a care about the awards this year, so couldn’t really muster up much emotion / feeling towards anyone winning, whether deserved or not). The only 2 acceptance speeches that caught my attention were Ruco Chan’s (definitely liked his speech) and Anthony Wong’s (his speeches are always exciting to listen to though, whether he’s presenting or accepting awards). In comparisons, last year’s speeches were much more heartfelt and emotional. Oh and I swear, if I hear one more artist ‘thanks Sandy’ (Sandy Yu, TVB’s director of variety programs) in their acceptance speech, I think I’m going to start busting out the curse words! Sure, I understand if those in the variety department thank Sandy (since she does oversee that department) or those who were singlehandedly pushed up by her (i.e. those artists who worked with her at i-Cable and jumped ship with her to TVB), but there were artists in the drama department thanking Sandy when she actually had nothing to do with them or their careers! (this is one reason why I loved Benz’s jab at people’s acceptance speeches in general, lol). I’ve always hated how most TVB award winners are kind of ‘forced’ to thank upper management – some feel it’s a PR move, others feel it’s necessary in order to stay on TVB’s good side….whatever the reason, it comes across as fake to me. I prefer the acceptance speeches where the artists thank who they truly want to thank – i.e. those people who truly helped them in their career – rather than some management person out of fear of what might happen to them or their career if they don’t thank that person. Argh – major pet peeve!
- Classic series category – just wanted to add this part in, as I’ve seen some confusion in the forums about this category so felt I should clarify. The classic series category was actually added due to all the hype surrounding TVB’s midnight timeslot this year. All of those series nominated were ones that had aired in the midnight timeslot series in recent months. When the nominees first came out, I thought it was very interesting that out of all the ‘classic’ series that aired in the midnight timeslot this year, TVB would choose to slide in some of their ‘non-classic’ series such as Lives of Omission and Brother’s Keeper for example – go figure! Though I totally agree with the sentiment that TVB created this category just for the heck of it, I’m glad to see that at least they didn’t screw it up by giving the award to a series that didn’t deserve it. As I said elsewhere in a different forum (prior to the award ceremony), the winner in this category hands-down should be The Greed of Man – this is a ‘no-brainer’ choice and any other series winning in this category would’ve been a travesty. Reason being is that TGOM single-handedly ‘resurrected’ TVB’s midnight time slot and therefore is the main reason why TVB was even able to add this category in the first place! When the series aired in that timeslot back in April/May (I think those are the right months – too lazy to go look it up), it broke all records in terms of ratings (for all series aired in that timeslot) and also brought about a deluge of hype and attention (due to all the nostalgia no doubt) that no one expected and TVB absolutely benefited from. During the months that the series aired, it was the ‘talk of the town’ and literally EVERY SINGLE WEEK there was some tidbit about the series in the newspapers, whether it was interviews with the cast (they managed to find and interview practically every single main cast member), resurrecting cut scenes from the series, rekindling the careers of largely forgotten artists (i.e.: David Siu). Since the beginning, it made the most sense for TGOM to win and definitely glad that it did!
Overall, the awards ceremony was boring and if you didn’t watch, you didn’t miss out. There was actually way more to criticize than what I listed but I figured I would just hit the highlights (well, I guess ‘lowlights’ is more appropriate in this case) in this post. If I think of anything else more pressing (which I doubt, as I don’t intend to waste any more time on such a meaningless award ceremony), I’ll be sure to add. Those who did watch the awards ceremony though, feel free to post your thoughts/comments.
Undoubtedly, Anthony Wong is a deserving BA winner, in fact, he's in a league of his own. I was riveted both by his performance in Lord of Shanghai and the tv series. I also enjoyed Liza Wang and Damien Lau's Limelight Years. I watched on FF "Ghost of Relativity" but didn't like it, the actresses turned in average performances and the drama was totally lame, worse MC's acting was terrible. From the 3 series I've watched this year, my BA choice would be Liza, and my favorite actress award or Supporting BA would be Alice Chan for her LOS's performance, which has generated lots of noise for her on weibo.
ReplyDeleteDisclaimer: This is mere speculation on my part, but given TVB's pettiness and vindictiveness, I wonder if LC got snubbed for BA award or even a Favorite Actress award (since all the awards were given at TVB's whim, and imo, LC's Limelight performance was no worse than Nancy's in GOR.) because of her nov get-together with LKH and MSC at their home, which TVB might have taken it as a betrayal. MSC posted their photos on weibo for all to see though LC prudently did not repost same on her weibo. It could be that I overthink.
@tamaya: Totally agree with you. My choice for TV King was definitely Anthony without a doubt, but on the female side, I couldn’t choose anyone because I was not impressed by any of the performances. If I really had to choose, I probably would’ve chosen Liza as well, even though I generally don’t like her acting due to it not being my cup of tea, but she was quite good in Limelight Years (though part of me wants to say that the chemistry between Liza and her old partner Damien Lau played a huge role in that series being decently enjoyable). I also was totally shocked that Kristal won Favorite Character, as there was very little noise about her character and performance in general and it’s not like that character was anything special – unlike Ruco Chan’s 11th Prince, which totally made sense, since there was no question at all that many people loved the character and also his performance. There was way more ‘noise’ over Alice Chan’s character/performance in LOS than Kristal’s in GOR, so I’m definitely baffled as well at the result.
DeleteRegarding Linda Chung – I wouldn’t be surprised if your ‘theory’ is actually true, as TVB has done such stuff in the past, though Linda is lucky it was just a snub and not something more drastic, probably due to the fact that she IS fadan status after all so TVB can’t make it too obvious. Remember what happened to Benji Chiang? Similar situation in that there was a photo published in a magazine of him in attendance at an HKTV dinner with his sister Lesley (he attended as her manager, since she had signed with HKTV and Benji is the one who managed both their careers at the time). The next day, he was ‘removed’ from his hosting duties (and TVB did it underhanded too by calling in someone else to replace him last minute without even telling him and he only finds out when he shows up for work) – TVB didn’t even bother to get clarification from him or ask him what happened….instead, they just ‘fired’ him based on that one picture in a gossip mag (well, it’s more ‘force fired’ if we think about it, since TVB didn’t outright say that he was fired – but they took away all his work and treated him like dirt, forcing him to quit). Given that HKTV is no longer a threat, but NowTV definitely is with their official issuance of a license, so there’s no doubt in my mind that TVB would treat any artist with any remote association with NowTV the same way they treated anyone associated with HKTV at the height of their rivalry.
Yes, Benji's unfortunate situation totally exemplifies TVB's pettiness and vindictiveness.
Delete@tamaya: Yup. Did you hear about the comments that TVB’s GM (actually, I think he got promoted so he’s like vice-chairman now or something like that) Mark Lee made at that staff dinner thing a few days before the awards ceremony? He made some arrogant remarks about TVB being the best and annihilating the competition – also took a jab at the other ‘troubled’ stations (mostly referring to ATV but could be applied to HKTV as well) and said something about them having to deal with all sorts of ‘problems’. Obviously kicking ATV while they’re down when just a year ago, they were teaming up with ATV to force out HKTV. Hate that guy! He’s nothing but an arrogant bastard who isn’t even qualified to be in his position, yet talks as though he owns the world. I don’t like any of TVB’s management from the past few years, but at least their previous chairman Norman Leung was a decent guy – sure, he was kind of useless and senile and let his underlings walk all over him, but at the very least, he had basic respect for people (he took jabs at rival stations too in some of his speeches, but was much more reserved and still acknowledged TVB’s own shortcomings in the process). Since the current management took over, seems to me that the pettiness and vindictiveness have reached new heights, especially in the past year – perhaps TVB is getting overly cocky now that HKTV got eliminated and ATV got their license taken away. Even with NowTV’s entrance into the playing field, it will be years, maybe even decades, before they are able to ‘catch up’ with TVB, plus they aren’t even focusing on HK market, so no wonder TVB can be so smug.
DeleteNo, I did not know about it. But that's tvb from bad to worse.
DeleteBtw, I didn't watch the award ceremony, not gonna.
ReplyDelete@llwy12, The Greed of Man won Best Classic Series, is it new category for TVB Awards? It's simply the best and quite predictable that one of this TVB masterpiece TGOM got the trophy, who's other nominees by the way?
ReplyDelete@jadul80: I don’t really know if it’s a new category meaning whether TVB will continue to have that category in future awards ceremonies. From what I had read, the only reason why TVB created this category this year was due to all the hype and attention that the midnight timeslot series brought, so they felt it was appropriate to acknowledge that. If midnight timeslot goes back to being lackluster next year as it has been in previous years, then TVB most likely won’t have this category at next year’s awards.
DeleteThe other nominees were: Lives of Omission, Brother’s Keeper, The Justice of Life, The Final Verdict, War of the Genders, Triumph in the Skies, Time Before Time.
I actually hope that TVB doesn’t have this award category next year, as I highly doubt they will do it justice. There was an obvious winner this year in TGOM, which was a shoo-in from the beginning (yes, it can be said that the category was created just to give TGOM an award, which I’m totally fine with), but next year, I don’t know – knowing TVB, if there isn’t an obvious ‘shoo-in’ winner, they are probably going to rig it somehow. Plus, I’m still pissed at TVB for not airing LBIA in that timeslot as they promised and if they decide not to air the series at all next year, that means they are probably setting it up to have another series win next year (perhaps A Step into the Past, since they decided to air that next and skip over LBIA completely). We don’t need another award category that TVB can just blatantly rig….
I'm not sure, but didn't Lau Dan won something a few years ago? The only one I can rememeber was Paul Chun.
ReplyDelete@Hani: I had to go look it up, as I honestly couldn’t remember off the top of my head. Here are the past winners of the Lifetime Achievement Award:
Delete2001: Kwan Hoi San
2002: Helena Law
2003: Wu Fung
2004: Lily Leung
2005: Teresa Ha (Ha Ping)
2006: Chung King Fai (King Sir)
2007: Lydia Shum
2008: Paul Chun
2009: Lee Tim Sing
2010: Louise Lee
2011: Lee Heung Kam
2012: Liza Wang
2013: Lau Siu Ming
2014: Tam Bing Man
In our opinion, TVB Best Classic Awards should be presented to their golden era's drama/wuxia series as they're still memorable to date. Talking about Lifetime Achievement Awards, can't see Kenneth Tsang Kong name is in the list. This high-calibre veteran actor who has top-notched and undoubtedly excellent acting often appeared in Jin Yong adaptation and TVB blockbuster dramas, really fishy here.
DeleteI remember back in the late 90’s when TVB had the award ceremony take place during the anniversary gala. And the first three best actress awards went to Esther Kwan, Ada Choi, and Jessica Hsuan. Ada and Jessica were only in their 20’s back then. When they received the award was there any negative press about them receiving it? Because I know that negative press’ are bound to happen just like with Gigi Lai winning the award in 2004 for War and Beauty and having Sheren Tang losing out on it for her character Yu Fei in War and Beauty as well. There were negative press with Charmaine Sheh for winning it in 2006 as well. I acknowledge the fact that the qualities of TVB drama has gone down and so has the artist’s acting skills. But was there any flaws with the earlier TV Queens? Did Ada and Jessica do a great job in Healing Hands and Detective Investigation respectively? This by no means that I’m bashing on their status because without a doubt they were known as the 90’s fa-dans. But how come in 2010 when the fadan’s return to TVB, (Ada Choi for Fly With Me, Maggie Cheung for Beauty Knows No Pain, Jessica Hsuan for Sisters Pearl, and Flora Chan for Suspects in Love) they did not get as much recognition in their series? As a matter of fact, they didn’t even attend the award ceremony. Has this been TVB’s strategy? They promote the one’s that got a “market” If that’s the case why has Grace, Sisley, and Moon not improve from their first debut. What is lacking at the moment? Meanwhile for the Best Actor awards, besides Louis Koo for being the youngest male artist to win the award, everyone else are of age. Think about it, Bobby, Gallen, Roger, Bowie. TVB initially did well with promoting Bosco, Ron, Raymond and Sammul when they were young. But from recent years all the awards were awarded to all the seniors, Ha-Yu, Wayne Lai (x3), Kevin Cheng, Dayo Wong and Roger Kwok. Mind you these people are all in the 40’s to their 60’s(<-Ha Yu). Now you hardly even see Bosco, Ron, Raymond attend the award ceremony. They always tell the artists not to give up over and over again, but as you can see it’s tough when you see all your hard work go to waste with no recognition. With Gallen, Louis, and Roger receiving the awards more than once in the earlier anniversaries has already been a wrong choice. That just discourages all the other male artist to even continue their work at TVB, for example like Frankie Lam, Gordon Lam, Benny Chan, Sunny Chan, Eddie Cheung, and Nick Cheung. On an average recently actresses become TV Queens in their 30s meanwhile the TV Kings are in their 40’s. Compared to foreign drama’s especially in Korea, all lead actors are in their late 20’s and early 30’s. TVB really got to start promoting new people but by using the right source and spend more quality on their scripts to get the best out of these people. I feel like the reason why t newbies nowadays can’t act is because TVB just throw them out to the sharks. They have not really train them at all. What’s the point with TVB’s Acting Class anymore. You hardly see anyone come out from that now. All they care is their Voice stars, and Ms/Mr Hong Kong.
Delete@Anonymous: Keep in mind that back in the late 90s, especially during the early years of the awards (i.e. 1997 to about 2000 or so), it was still too fresh a concept for one and two the awards were treated as ‘just another segment’ of the anniversary gala. So in a sense, there really was no need for anyone to get all worked up over who got what award, since it wasn’t really that serious of a thing back then. Yea, sure, it was a means of encouragement and of course artists were happy if they received an award, but it wasn’t the whole controversial, hyped up thing that it is now. Plus most of the award winners early on were quite ‘deserving’ in that their roles and the series they won for were truly ‘the talk of the town’ and from an acting perspective, there really wasn’t a point of comparison. As far as I remember, the ‘controversy’ / negative press aspect truly started in the early 2000s era when TVB started having veterans competing against their juniors and then further heightened after the awards were separated from the anniversary gala in 2005, because then it truly became a formal ‘awards ceremony’ rather than ‘just another anniversary gala event’.
DeleteAs far as the question of whether Jessica and Ada were truly that good in their respective series – well, to be honest, everyone’s opinion will probably be different. From an acting perspective, they did fine, but of course, by that time, they already had quite a few years of acting experience under their belts and had already played a variety of roles that allowed them to fine-tune their acting. Plus they were indeed the ‘top fadans’ at TVB at the time and since their acting was pretty decent, there really wasn’t need to ‘question’ in a way.
In terms of why these same fa dans who returned in 2010 did not get much recognition – well, just take a look at the series they returned to film and the answer should be quite clear. Those series you listed were ridiculous series with poorly written scripts that even the best of actors/actresses couldn’t save. It was just like when Ray Lui, Jamie Chik, Gallen Lo, Anita Yuen, Kenix Kwok, etc. all returned to TVB to film Born Rich back in 2009 – all-star ensemble cast with award-winning actors/actresses (main cast as well as supporting consisted of some of the HK television industries biggest names as well as MANY seasoned veterans), yet the script for that series sucked so bad, the great cast was not able to save it no matter how hard they tried. In fact, that series got so much negative criticism, it impacted the actors and actresses in that series too, since there were – and still are – a lot of audiences out there who can’t tell the difference between badly written script and poor acting and so a lot of them wrongly blamed the cast instead of the scriptwriters and producer (one thing I’ve always hated is how the actors/actresses are always the ‘easy targets’ for criticism towards a series because they are the ones on the screen that audiences are familiar with, whereas most audiences have no clue who the behind-the-scenes people are). So basically, the blame should really be placed on TVB for the crappy way the company was managed during that period (starting around 2004 or so), with the new management promoting people left and right who didn’t deserve to be promoted and putting the veterans (I’m referring to the artists who were pivotal to helping make TVB a powerhouse back in the 80s and early/mid 90s) on the back burner.
@Anonymous: Regarding the Gigi Lai vs Sheren Tang thing in 2004, all the negative press and backlash that Gigi and TVB got were valid in my opinion because Sheren truly did deserve the award more. The general consensus at the time (not saying everyone thought this way but a good majority did) was that both Sheren’s role Yu Fei as well as her superb acting far outshined Gigi, Charmaine, and Maggie, plus she was the most ‘senior’ actress out of all of them AND her character was the most memorable (to be honest, when I watched War and Beauty, the only 2 roles that I still remember from that series were Sheren’s Yu Fei and Bowie Lam’s Dr. Sun) -- so to me, the audience’s wrath over the results that year made perfect sense and was absolutely justified. As for 2006 with Charmaine and Kevin winning – well, let’s just say that was a totally messed up year, as the TV King and Queen winners made no sense at all…that was also the year TVB received the most backlash for their anniversary awards, which was most appropriate. I think the other controversy that year in addition to Kevin winning (which was met with so much negative press that even he himself said later that he doesn’t want to win the award if he doesn’t deserve it and would rather get audience’s recognition instead) was Sheren once again losing the TV Queen award (I think that was the year she got nominated for La Femme Desperado and once again, she was the hot favorite and the one everyone thought would win – but TVB pulled an upset and gave it to Charmaine instead).
Delete@Anonymous: As far as the TV King awards being awarded to mostly veterans in recent years – well, a lot of that was due to the huge backlash that TVB got in 2006 and 2007 when they handed the awards to Kevin Cheng (2006) and Moses Chan (2007) when there were veterans who acted superbly in their series but were shut out. To me, the TV King and Queen awards shouldn’t have anything to do with age, but rather, acting skill – shouldn’t matter whether the artist is 20 years old or 60, as long as their performance in those years’ series was superb and their acting/role/performance stood out, then that’s all that should count. TVB was the one who made the awards into an ‘age’ issue when they started ‘rigging’ the awards to let their favorites win (usually the younger artists who did not have much acting skill or experience yet and whose acting was nowhere near on par with other more solid actors/actresses).
DeleteSIDENOTE: I’ve actually would like to comment on the second half of your post too, but I’m pressed for time today…more to come tomorrow… :-)
@jadul80: I agree with you about the classic series thing…but therein lies the problem with TVB. They totally named that award wrong – not sure if they did it on purpose to cause controversy (I wouldn’t put it past TVB to deliberately mislead audiences like that) or Sandy Yu and her cronies are really that dumb. That category really should have been: “Best Series Aired in the Midnight Timeslot” because that’s EXACTLY what all those series were….by naming the category “Best Classic Series”, they essentially opened themselves up to criticism, since I’m sure EVERYONE was scratching their head on why Lives of Omission and Brother’s Keeper (both series from recent years) could possibly be considered “classics”. To be honest, I don’t trust ANYTHING TVB does in terms of “classic” series nowadays because they’ve screwed it up too many times – it’s almost as though they have NO FREAKIN’ CLUE what the word “classic” truly means!
DeleteIn terms of your suggestion of Kenneth Tsang for Lifetime Achievement Award, he is actually a GREAT choice! He played so many memorable roles throughout his TVB career, plus he is a universally acknowledged great actor who is also highly acclaimed, so there would’ve been no argument there. But typical TVB, they chose to overlook ALL of the qualified veterans and instead give that award to someone who nowhere near deserves it. I mean, I would’ve even preferred for TVB to give the award to deceased voice actor Lam Po Chuen (who passed away this year) rather than Nat Chan!! Lam Po Chuen (or Uncle Chuen as most peopled called him) had worked for TVB for at least 3 decades (he left for like 2 years somewhere in there to go to ATV, but returned to TVB after a short while) and up until the moment he died, he was still a TVB contracted artist. Most people may not recognize Lam Po Chuen’s name, but if I were to say he was the voice of Ding Dong (aka Doraemon), every Hong Konger who grew up in the 80s would know who he is (he didn’t just voice Ding Dong – he did other cartoons too but is most known for that particular role) – he is actually “icon” status in the voice acting world and with his contribution not just to TVB but also to all of HK, it’s unfathomable that TVB didn’t even think about honoring him.
Now I’m really starting to wonder who made the decision to award Nat Chan. Could it be Sandy Yu, since she oversees variety department (anniversary awards is a variety show and falls under Sandy’s jurisdiction) and if the reports are true, her party has ‘taken over’ as the main team ‘calling all the shots’ at TVB. If she’s the one who made that decision (or heavily favored it), then she needs to be fired (not just because of this but for all the other stuff she’s done the past few years, which I won’t get into here), as she is basically sending TVB into its grave.
@Anonymous: I’m back! :-)
DeleteRegarding the second half of your comment about the way TVB promotes its artists – you basically hit the nail on the head! One of TVB’s problems is that they are constantly investing their money/time/resources in the wrong places and then when everyone starts criticizing them, they cry a river and claim that they are doing everything they can when they actually haven’t. Even us ordinary folks can see that TVB should really be investing their resources in producing more quality scripts (meaning they need to hire better scriptwriters) as well as acting training for newbies – but yet, TVB themselves don’t see that and instead of investing money in their own productions, they would rather fork out millions to buy broadcasting rights to sports events or popular series from other countries.
At the end of the day, it goes back to the way TVB is being managed – the current management unfortunately doesn’t know how to manage properly, which is obvious to everyone except themselves of course. They are essentially treating TVB like a factory that needs to fulfill a quota of how many series to churn out each year and so are constantly rushing to meet those quotas without regard for quality. This is one reason why I was such a huge supporter of HKTV back when they were in the running for a license – regardless of what people thought of Ricky Wong as a person, it was obvious that he had business sense and made all the right moves when it came to managing a TV station. He pretty much did everything that TVB DIDN’T do (or, more appropriately, TVB was CAPABLE of doing but REFUSED to do) and it was refreshing to see someone finally come in and change the antiquated system as well as breath some life into the dying HK television industry. Too bad they didn’t succeed in getting a license due to corruption in the government….
The other problem is TVB holding fast to their antiquated policies and strategies/tactics that no longer work in today’s day and age. Their promotional tactics (throw the artist in your face 24/7) have essentially remained the same over the past 40+ years – the difference is in the quality of the artists they have. Like I said in that article on Jaynestars, at the end of the day, the fingers point back to management. Sure, the overall caliber / quality of the actors/actresses nowadays (even some of the supporting ones) pale in comparisons to those from the 70s/80s/90s, but they could still get close to that level if TVB knew how to manage it right. But since current TVB management is either too stupid or don’t care, the result is that we get actors/actresses every year that are only mediocre at best.
@Anonymous: Oh, one thing I wanted to add. In terms of male artists being discouraged due to not winning TV King and therefore wanting to leave the company – while that is a true sentiment, it technically doesn’t apply to most of the artists you listed except Gordon Lam (he actually said so himself in an interview that one reason why he left was due to the lack of recognition with awards, amongst other things) and the later generation ones such as Ron, Bosco, Raymond, Sammul, etc. Sunny Chan left TVB because of the way they treated him overall, not because of the awards (he’s actually the type who cares more about the acting than the awards, though of course he would be happy if he got one). Nick Cheung’s departure from TVB had nothing to do with awards – in fact, he had gotten quite a few awards when he was at TVB and a lot of promotion as well – he basically left (back in the 90s) because he wanted to focus on filming movies, which proved to be a wise decision given all the success he has achieved in that field. Eddie Cheung’s departure also had more to do with lack of opportunity and unfair treatment than it did with awards (though no doubt awards probably played a role too) – as one of TVB’s top siu sangs in the 80s and early 90s, he was later relegated to playing supporting roles (some that even bordered on ‘kelefe’, like his role in Cold Blood Warm Heart for example). He definitely made a wise decision to leave, as he was able to focus on expanding his beauty products business with his wife (which is such a lucrative business that rumor has it he is a millionaire now) – plus he got to dabble in movies, which also paid off for him, as he received 2 Best Actor awards at International Film Festivals a few years ago (honors that are way more impressive and prestigious than TVB’s crappy awards), which is something he wouldn’t have been able to achieve if he had stayed with TVB. Frankie Lam left for similar reason I believe, though to be honest, it’s not like Frankie was ever really a serious ‘lead actor’ at TVB to begin with so doesn’t make sense that he would be bitter about not getting awards…plus he has said in interviews recently that part of the reason why he was not given as many opportunities at TVB was due to his own personality, as he sometimes argued with producers/scriptwriters over the script and also had a fiery temper. Don’t know about Benny Chan, since I don’t even like him so I don’t bother following his news….
Delete@llwy12, just wondering how TVB will produce their grand-series in 2017 when this very powerful tv station in HKG will celebrate their 50th birthday, my wishful thinking : the reunion of all 5 Tigers + Chow Yun Fat :D They did it before, back to 1985's The Yang's Saga when TVB Siu Sangs & Fa Dans took part in this wuxia series :)
ReplyDeleteOh I totally agree with everything you say llwy12! Really glad to have a blogger like you who criticized the same things I did! Yes I was so annoyed by everyone thanking Sandy Yu. Some I can understand since they worked with her before such as Kristal Tin, others were obviously out of fear of not being favored.
ReplyDeleteRecently "politics change in TVB" news by OnTV explains alot. Catherine Tsang is pushed aside and so will the artistes on her team while Sandy Yu's team will rise. If this news about Ruco ChanChinPang not being favored by Sandy Yu is true then I hope his contract will be up soon so he can leave! His recent roles that haven't aired yet all sound non-creative and a bore! TVB's series ratings will only continue to plummet (eventually below 20 just like what happened to ATV in the past). The faster quality actors can leave the better! I love Ruco since his ATV days but I just can't bring myself to support such an arrogant, ignorant, rude, and horribly managed company like TVB, producing plastic series like a factory.
http://tv.on.cc/hk/index.html?s=4&i=OEN151217-13097-106M&d=1450395887
When watching the show, me and my parents were criticizing the results from start to finish!
Yes it's obvious every year the Most Improved Awards is really just the "You will be promoted as lead actor award" If it was fair Matt Yeung and this another actress would've won not HungWingSing and Grace Chan who both can't act nor have the leading actor/actress look!
Even my dad was like "Why give it to Nat Chan, he's a host not an actor!!" There are many other veteran actors more deserving of this.
The Green Man win was predictable, if any other series won it would've been an outrage. But only Kenneth Tsang Kong was there to accept the award. If TVB was sincere they would've invited Sean Lau and Amy Kwok but of course even if they tried I doubt they'd give TVB a look.
My only complaint is TVB obviously blacklisting Felix Wong and not airing Looking Back in Anger which was voted no.2 as most desired series to re-air by audience.
Yes the in between interview this year was sloppy and pointless, not even funny like previous years. I was also wondering whether Amigo has lost favor since he's been kicked aside from hosting the award show this year. But Wong Cho Lam and Sammy Leung (Sum Mei) are better choices.
I noticed that unlike previous years they don't have every nominee arriving in luxurious cars and walking the red carpet together. And yes this year they didn't have top 5 nominees for some awards which is very disrespectful. My guess is that many top 5 nominees are no longer with them so...they decide not to air the top 5.
It was very sad when one of the most improved female nominees didn't even show up?!
The award presenters this year were by far the worst with mostly their only actors and hosts presenting the awards. Goes to show how people don't really give a rat's ass about "CCTVB" anymore.
You'd think that with Oscar Leung being so hated by the public and netizens you'd think TVB would had the common sense to omit him from even being at the show but instead he was an award presenter with Jerry Lam and had a rap segment?! I was like WTF?!
Yes Most favorite female character should've gone to Alice Chan, her role definitely garnered more attention! I like Kristal Tin but her role was nothing special. Both her and Nancy Wu's acting in there were average from the snippets I saw when my dad was watching. That Ghost OT series was dumb, the only good thing was Nancy Wu finally being female lead. Yes Moses' acting in there was his worst performance. he was so wooden and he was trying to act the same way as he did in Moonlight Resonance, trying to be "funny", but failing miserably, coming off as awkward.
ReplyDeleteAs for Best Actress there weren't really any choices and no one was outstanding. But I'm happy they gave it to Nancy Wu, she deserves getting recognition.
Quite frankly TVB's awards are even less meanginful this year with all their series averaging low 20s and not breaking 30 pt average rating except maybe the series with Anthony Wong? (didn't check but I assume so due to alot of people watching the series for Anthony).
Also anyone who watches other media news knows very well HKTV's series especially The Menu, The Election, and To Be Or Not To Be won TVB by miles this year! All 3 series successfully help pushed the main leads into the spotlight and propel their careers further!
Oh also I was happy right after TVB's award show was Yahoo Buzz Award show and The Menu won Most Popular tv drama while Gregory Wong won most popular local male artiste. Yahoo Buzz gave separate category for "TV artistes" awarding both Ruco Chan and Nancy Wu. TVB can award to their own people however they want but everyone knows HKTV's The Menu and past artistes especially Gregory Wong dominated the entire year!
ReplyDeleteTVB has their attention focused in the wrong places
ReplyDelete1. Playing politics instead of improve production, equipment, nd overhauling their filming process! How ignorant and arrogant can you get when Ricky Wong wrote a book about what he did to improve HK productions?
I don't know who this new vice chairman is but if he think "HKTV" is over he's in for a surprise. Sure NowTV won't be competition but LeTV and Netflix sure will be! If I remember correctly llwy12 you said Netflix will also film series in HK actors or was it another online network?
The only thing keeping them from getting a license is CY Leung. Ricky Wong won't give up and the production station will be completed in 2017! License or not it's inevitable that internet tv will be the future! Look at people airing ads on TV Most (parody network that makes fun of TVB and recent events) rather than wasting ad money on TVB where no one watches!
Oh and TVB has completely loss their young generation audience! When you lose the young population you've already loss your future! TVB is just sitting duck waiting to die slowly.
ReplyDelete