TVB 28th Anniversary Gala (1995): The Top 10 Highest Rated Series of All Time (up to that point)

Retrotvb's post recapping TVB's 1997 Anniversary Gala (read it here) inspired me to write this post about a particular segment of the 1995 Anniversary Gala (though I will admit that I remembered the date wrong at first and thought it was the 1998 gala, but it was really the 1995 one – shame on me!).

The show itself was great, as up to that point (prior to the start of the awards thing in 1997), the galas were still grand, all-star events. (I echo retrotvb's sentiments regarding the pointlessness of the awards, which turned the anniversary galas into lackluster events, but that's another story). The true highlight of the entire show for me (and probably for other 80s/90s TVB series fanatics as well) was the segment near the end of the show when TVB did a 'countdown' of the 10 highest rated TVB series up to that point. Almost every single one of my favorites made the list and I would venture to say that all 10 series were deserving because they were classic, high quality, well-made series.

The most memorable moment for me in this entire segment was when the "winner" of the countdown -- meaning the series that made it to the top of the list as the #1 highest rated series of all time (up until that point) -- was announced. Not suprisingly, the series that came out on top was "Looking Back in Anger" from 1989. True classic and truly deserving of the #1 spot!!! But what really did it for me was when Felix Wong, Kathy Chow, Deric Wan, and Maggie Siu went up on stage and accepted the 'award’ on behalf of the entire cast (I wonder who got to keep it? LOL!). Even though they were only up there for a minute or two and didn't say anything really, it was just awesome to see that cast together again – especially Deric, since he had left TVB long ago and made a special appearance just for that moment. Of course, I wish that Carina would have been able to make it as well (because then the cast would truly be complete in terms of the main leads), but I guess it wasn't meant to be...

The countdown was prefaced with these amazing numbers: the 10 series combined garnered a total of over 2.2 billion viewers (households), with each series averaging over 80 million viewers (households). Those numbers may ‘pale’ in comparison to the numbers today, but considering the series were of a way higher quality back then (the ones nowadays pretty much suck), those numbers were definitely something to ‘rave’ about!

I loved the way the segment was done – after the number of viewers and the series was announced, they had singers perform parts of the theme song for each series on the list while clips from the series played on the screen (though the singers weren’t the original artists who performed the songs, I was ok with it because the songs themselves were such classics that they sounded good no matter who sang them).


Here’s the countdown:

10th place: Police Cadet ‘84 新紮師兄 (1984)
(88131000 viewers)

9th place: The Big Family 大家族 (1991)
(97,916,000 viewers)

8th place: The Two Most Honorable Knights 絕代雙驕 (1988)
(98,513,000 viewers)

7th place: The Challenge of Life 人在邊緣 (1990)
(106,987,000 viewers)

6th place: The Breaking Point 今生無悔 (1991)
(117,925,000 viewers)

5th place: Love and Passion 萬水千山總是情 (1982)
(233,674,000 viewers)

4th place: Blood of Good and Evil 我本善良 (1990)
(283,266,000 viewers)

3rd place: Legend of the Condor Heroes 射鵰英雄傳 (1983)
(356,163,000 viewers)

2nd place: The Feud of Two Brothers 流氓大亨 (1986)
(388,323,000 viewers)

1st place: Looking Back in Anger 義不容情 (1989)
(431,355,000 viewers)

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My ‘quick’ recap:

.>> Deric and Maggie are the big winners in this countdown, as both of them had 3 series a piece (happened to be the same series) that made it onto the list (not to mention being part of the #1 series).

.>> Felix came in a very close second with 2 series in the countdown -- though he does have an advantage in terms of ranking in that both of his series were in the top 3!

.>> Tony, Alex, and Leon did pretty well too, with 2 series a piece in the countdown.

.>> I think that the only one I would disagree with is “Love and Passion” – I’ve seen that series and even though it’s much better than many of today’s series, I really didn’t think it was all that great compared to the other series on the list. But maybe it made it on the list because it’s such a classic (it is the oldest one of the list)? But then again, there are many other series that would fall into the ‘classic’ category….

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For those who are interested, below is the link to the 2nd half of the 1995 Anniversary Gala – the countdown starts at 33:12.

TVB Anniversary Gala 1995 (part 2)

Feel free to comment on what you think of the countdown! :o)