Weibo Fever # 7: The Return of a Classic – E.Y.T. Skit “The Shrimp Family (蝦仔爹哋)”

70s/80s TVB fans take note! Those of you who miss TVB’s famous long-running flagship variety show “Enjoy Yourself Tonight” (known as E.Y.T for short), which ran for 27 years (from November 1967 to October 1994) are in for a treat – one of the most popular skits from the show is coming to a theater near you! Well, sort of….

Long time TVB fans may remember “The Shrimp Family (蝦仔爹哋)”, a hilarious skit within the E.Y.T. program that starred veteran comedic actor Lo Hoi Pang, comedic (and serious) actress Meg Lam, singer/actor Louie Castro, singer/actor Tam Bing Mun, and actresses Jamie Chik, Helena Law, and Sandra Ng (main cast) plus cameos from many famous HK stars throughout the 70s, 80s, and early 90s. The skit played out live in front of audiences every week (the E.Y.T. program aired every night, Monday to Friday, back then) and much of the dialogue was ad-libbed right on the spot by the actors and actresses (especially the immensely talented and funny Lo Hoi Pang) each time.

I pretty much grew up watching E.Y.T. and I remember laughing so hard at the skits (especially “The Shrimp Family”) that my insides would hurt afterwards! And it was definitely a lot of fun to see which famous celebrity would ‘guest star’ each time and also see how Lo Hoi Pang would make up dialogue on the spot and ‘trick’ the other artists, causing them to burst out laughing instead of saying their lines (that’s the beauty of doing the skit live!). The skit was definitely one of the highlights of E.Y.T. and will go down in HK entertainment history as one of the “classic” skits of all time.

As a treat for us ‘old-timer’ fans, the cast of “The Shrimp Family” will be re-uniting next this month (September 20th to 23rd) and the skit will be turned into a stage play, complete with musical numbers, singing, and dancing. And that’s not all – due to Louie Castro and Jamie Chik’s connections in the industry, they have invited many of their famous friends from within the HK entertainment industry to participate in the stage play, taking on cameo roles!

In addition to the regular cast consisting of Lo Hoi Pang, Meg, Jamie, and Louie, plus ‘newer generation’ artists Hanjin Tan, Jerry Lamb, and Oscar Leung, here’s just a partial list of some of the ‘guests’ who will also be participating (I’m sure that long-time TVB watchers will recognize most, if not all, the names): Dodo Cheng, Teresa Mo, Felix Wong, Michael Miu, Eric Tsang, Nat Chan, Susanna Kwan, Annie Liu, Elvina Kong, Michelle Yim, Yu Mo Lian, and Mak Jing Ting (formerly known as Mak Lai Hung). It was recently announced that a few famous singers will also join the cast with cameo roles, including Eason Chan, Miriam Yeung, and Sammi Cheng.

Wow such a stellar veteran cast and so many great guest stars, this will definitely be an awesome event! Just reading the cast list and seeing all of the ‘behind the scenes’ pictures (as well as reading all the articles and posts on Weibo) already made me feel as though I have been transported back to the ‘Golden Era’ of the 1980s and definitely brings back so many awesome memories! My only regret is that I don’t live in HK, so I won’t be able to watch the stage play live (darn!) – I guess all I can do is read up on it and also hope (more like pray hard) that they will end up doing a tour of sorts and perhaps come to the U.S. to perform (pretty please with a cherry on top?!?!?!). NOTE TO THOSE WHO LIVE IN HK: If you’re a long-time TVB fan and/or HK entertainment follower, you have to go watch this!

Anyway, here are a few pictures from the behind the scenes dress rehearsals and practices in preparation for the ‘main event’ in a few weeks (courtesy of Louie Castro’s Weibo).

There will definitely be more follow up posts to come on this...but in the meantime, enjoy!!

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All Photos credited as listed.

My Thoughts on “Beyond the Realm of Conscience 宮心計”

I finally got around to watching this series, but only because it happened to come on TV -- for the longest time, I refused to watch this series because I hated how TVB overpromoted it (it totally turns me off when they do stupid stuff like that), plus I had also said that I would not watch this series until after I watched "Rosy Business" and "Born Rich" (and I've finally watched both series, so I guess the timing was perfect).

Anyway, I must say that I totally do not understand the hype over BTROC at all -- it's way overrated and is pretty much all stuff that I've seen before (goes to show that this is yet another example of TVB running out of ideas and overhyping this series solely because all of their favorite sons and daughters are in it).

Since this series has probably been analyzed to death already (by netizens and audiences alike, no doubt), I don't see the point of wasting my team with an in-depth review -- so I am just going to state my opinion on certain parts (mostly the dislikes) and then move on....

Ok, so back when this series aired in 2009, the biggest 'hype' with the series was the supposed 'stellar' ensemble cast and also Tavia's 'breakthrough' performance as a villain. I'll talk about Tavia's performance later....but first, the cast -- the biggest selling point of the series was supposedly the story surrounding the main leads Charmaine, Moses, Kevin, and Tavia (and of course TVB had no qualms about sticking this point in our -- the audience -- faces...or should I say, ramming it down our throats?). Anyway, I personally was not impressed by any of the main leads' performances because to me, it was the same old stuff: Moses in his Emperor role again trying to outsmart the evil generals who are constantly trying to usurp his power; Charmaine in her 'goody-two-shoes' role again who is unrealistically nice to everyone and everything and let's people walk all over her without a word of complaint; Kevin in another typical 'nice guy' role that honestly, put me to sleep; and Tavia in her first evil villain role that really was not convincing at all (to put it less midly, she came across very fake to me).

So first, let's look at Moses and Charmaine's characters in the series. To be honest, I found it really weird watching this series and seeing Charmaine as Moses' love interest (though it's mostly one-sided, since Charmaine is paired with Kevin) because I had just finished re-watching "Perish in the Name of Love" not too long ago and the 2 of them were father and daughter in that series (true, that series was made like 7 years ago, but still....). Luckily, Moses and Charmaine weren't really a couple in this series because that would have just totally grossed me out (sorry, but I'm a bit slow when it comes to switching relationships like that). But actually, there's another reason why I bring up the series PITNOL -- because I really felt that both Moses and Charmaine's characters in BTROC (Charmaine's especially) reminded me of their characters in PITNOL, a series that I absolutely HATED with a passion because almost all the characters (except Steven's) were so utterly stupid (I mean, come on now, how many times does someone have to "hurt" you before you 'wake up' and stop continuing to 'believe in' that person??). I think this is why I absolutely hated Charmaine's character in this series because just like in PITNOL, she kept forgiving her friend/sister for doing bad things and kept believing her when she said she would change, but actually don't (though I have to say that Charmaine's character in PITNOL was 10x worse). I mean, come on, no normal person is like THAT DENSE in real life (even in the imperial days)! Personally, I think that the writers didn't develop Charmaine's character on purpose because remember that TVB's whole point for this series was to push Tavia for TV Queen, so of course the focus should be on her rather than Charmaine (plus Charmaine had another popular series in contention that year anyway, so it didn't really matter -- she would make it in either way). For Charmaine, playing the role of Lau Sam Ho was probably a piece of cake, since she's constantly playing those types of roles anyway....As for Moses, well I don't have much else to say about his character except that it's another 'typical' role, one that he's done before, so it totally lacked creativity....

On to Kevin's character....in my opinion, Kevin was really boring in this series -- I honestly was wondering what the point of his character was except as a love interest for Charmaine. Yes, his job was supposed to be protecting the emperor, but hey, there weren't very many action/fighting scenes in the series anyway (why would there be when the focus is supposed to be on the evil schemes of the women in the inner palace?). His character (and to some extent, his performance) was so boring that it pretty much put me to sleep. And I'm sorry, but I did not sense any chemistry at all between Kevin and Charmaine in this series (in constrast, as much as I hated PITNOL, I was really able to feel the chemistry between Steven and Charmaine there) -- I'm actually starting to think whether it's Kevin's problem because I noticed that in most of the series that I've watched with Kevin in it, I always feel like there is zero chemistry between him and his female co-stars (at least on screen).

And finally, Tavia -- who is supposed to be the central figure in this series. My personal opinon is that Tavia does not do 'evil' or 'villainess' very well at all -- she came across as very fake and forced to me...pretty much, I think she tried too hard (especially with her supposed 'evil' stare and laugh). I've heard arguments from people (Tavia fans no doubt) that we should cut her some slack because it's her first time as a villain so there are bound to be flaws -- well, my response to that argument is that 1) I never said she had to be perfect in her role, but she has to be at least CONVINCING and 2) there are many artists in the past who did convincingly awesome jobs in their first villain roles, to the point where they were able to completely turn their 'good boy/girl' image around (Michelle Yim and Susanna Kwan come to mind on the female side and Gallen Lo as well as Deric Wan for the males -- though there are undoubtedly many more). I think this just goes to show that Tavia doesn't have enough depth as an actress yet to be able to pull off these types of difficult villain characters with success -- she definitely needs more work in this area....

Ok, now that I've vented my frustrations with the main leads, was there anything that I actually liked about this series? Yes, of course -- I really liked the supporting cast in this series and totally feel like they stole the show. Lee Kwok Lun was downright evil as General Ma (I've watched his series since the 80s and he is an absolutely awesome actor -- and terribly underrated), Michelle Yim and Susanna Kwan were great in their roles as heads of their respective departments, and I absolutely loved Ram Tseung in his eunuch role (another one of my favorite supporting actors who is so totally underrated). Oh, and of course, I have to mention Susan Tse and Mary Hon in the Empress Dowager roles, which were very fitting for them and the acting was superb. Even KK Cheung was great, even though he only had a small role in the series. For some odd reason, I actually felt that the storyline surrounding these supporting characters had way more depth and was alot more interesting than the main one involving the 4 leads. The supporting cast and the storyline surrounding them was definitely the primary motivating factor that made me continue to watch -- otherwise, I probably would have given up on the series a long time ago.

“Reaching Out (美麗人生)"

** Warning: This post contains spoilers – read at your own risk. **

Just finished watching an old TVB series from 2001 called "Reaching Out". It's actually airing on TV right now on the weekends, but because it's a pretty good series and I went ahead and watched the rest of it on my own.

There are many things to like about this series, one of them being the cast, which is quite well-balanced between newbies and veterans. The main/supporting leads in this series are Gordon Lam, Kenix Kwok, Benny Chan, Nicola Cheung, Michelle Ye, Ha Yu, Michelle Yim, and Sammul Chan -- plus a pretty solid cast of 'green leaf' veterans such as Gordon Lau, Wu Fung, Luo Lan, etc. The story primarily revolves around childhood friends Gordon, Benny, and Nicola, who grew up in an orphanage together and have a close-knit brother/sister relationship. It's interesting how different each of their personalities are, despite growing up together -- the chemistry of the 3 together in this series was also very well done:

> Gordon plays the quintessential 'big brother' Fook Sung who always has an optimistic and positive outlook on life no matter what happens to him (and alot does happen)...even when people wrong him, he always forgives them and always tries to put a positive spin on a negative situation -- his life philosophy is to "be the match that illuminates other people's lives". I actually liked the way Gordon portrayed the character because he was able to bring forth the essence of the character without going overboard and making it look cheesy. And I think that whoever cast him in that role knew that he would be a perfect fit because I've always felt that Gordon is good at portraying 'positive' characters that have a certain ‘boy-next-door’ 'naiveness' and 'aloofness' about them -- in fact, I sort of saw his character in this series as a modern day equivalent to the character he played in the ancient series "Crimson Sabre" (Yuen Sing Chi). The personality and character attributes are very similar.

> Benny plays 'second' brother Yee Sook who is pretty much a lazy bum with a big ego who likes chasing after pretty girls. I was a bit annoyed by his character at first, especially with how he constantly tries to take advantage of Gordon’s kindness and also his attitude toward his father, Ha Yu. But later on in the series, he redeems himself (after some things happen of course), gets a job, quits the ‘chasing pretty girls’ bit, and becomes more likable. He also brings a bit of ‘comic relief’ to the series, especially in his scenes with Ha Yu as well as Gordon.

> Nicola plays ‘little sister’ Ting Ting who has a secret crush on Gordon’s character but ends up becoming a couple with Benny’s character. She is a feisty reporter who is also very hard-working. She has a bit of that ‘little girl’ innocence that causes her to sometimes get ‘worked up’ over minor things and overreact at times, but her intentions are always well-meaning. I rarely ever watch any of Nicola’s series and frankly I’ve never really liked her because I always felt that she has an arrogant attitude. But I must admit that she did a good job with the character (though to be honest, I also found her character annoying at times because she would try to be ‘overly’ righteous and stubborn about a particular issue when she should just ‘let up’ a little).

In terms of the other artists / characters in the story, I will make a brief mention of the main ones:

> Kenix Kwok – she actually has a dual role in this story, as she plays the character Yuk Hiu Gwan as well as her older look-alike sister Yuk Hiu Nga. Kenix’s acting skills really shine in this series because the 2 characters she plays have completely opposite personalities: older sister Hiu Nga (who is plagued with an incurable hereditary illness) is very reserved, quiet, reasonable, extremely nice (the typical ‘school teacher’), and is the ultimate optimist, whereas younger sister Hiu Gwan (who is portrayed as a rich, young socialite with a complicated background) is loud, stubborn, can be mean and obnoxious at times when she wants to be (ex: making a production company ‘delete’ all their film just because they accidently captured her on film as she was walking by, filing lawsuits against people for minor issues, etc.), and is the ultimate pessimist.

Hiu Gwan’s relationship with Fook Sung is very interesting and actually quite enjoyable (it’s sort of a ‘love/hate’ relationship that ends up blossoming into true love). Ever the pessimist, Hiu Gwan’s goal throughout most of the series is to prove to her older sister that there are no ‘good’ people in this world and that Fook Sung – whom her sister regards very highly – is no exception. So she constantly tries to do stuff to ‘hurt’ Fook Sung (ex: trying to sabotage his relationships with his friends, etc.) in the hopes that he will reveal his ‘true colors’ (aka get mad at her and cut off all ties with her), but of course he never does. Instead, he sort of ‘plays along’ and uses his goodness and righteousness to change her (obviously, they fall in love and end up as a couple).

I’ve always enjoyed Kenix’s acting and have liked almost every single series she has been in. Her acting was absolutely awesome in this series and her pairing with Gordon was very unique and refreshing (I don’t think they were ever a couple in any other series). My only complaint is that she appeared way too late in the series – her character wasn’t ‘in the picture’ until episode 26 or 27…..since the series is 50 episodes (very long!), she was pretty much there for ½ the series, but I would have liked to see her more, especially since I enjoyed the scenes she had with Gordon.

> Michelle Ye – she played Gordon’s first girlfriend Shuet Yi who later leaves him and falls for Sammul instead (who is young and rich). Her character is very arrogant and also has a big ego – I hated how she ‘used’ Gordon’s character as a “shui po” after her failed relationship with her cousin and tries to ‘use’ him again after she breaks up with Sammul. Her character was the only one that I couldn’t stand throughout the entire series, especially in the last few episodes when she tries to ‘come between’ Gordon and Kenix.

If I remember correctly, I think this was one of Michelle’s first series, so for a newbie, she wasn’t bad in terms of the acting, though there was definitely lots of room for improvement. I still didn’t like her character though and to be honest, I don’t think she’s a good match for Gordon – she has more of that ‘childish’ look that is better fitted with Sammul than with Gordon. Plus, seeing Gordon and Kenix as a couple was much more endearing to me.

> Ha Yu / Michelle Yim – knowing nothing about this series going into it, I wasn’t expecting Ha Yu and Michelle’s pairing at all (I had thought that their first ‘official’ collaboration as a couple was in “Moonlight Resonance”). But I’m glad that they were in this series because – as usual – their acting was brilliant! Ha Yu played Benny’s father and Michelle played Gordon’s mother (though we find out later in the series that she is not really his mother). I love the chemistry between these two and how they would constantly bicker one minute then be friendly with each other the next minute….it was actually kind of funny at times. And their acting is “perfect” as usual -- just the right amount of delivery to get the characters’ personalities across without going overboard…..2 great veterans and a great pairing that I’m looking forward to seeing more of in the future.

In terms of the storyline and series itself, I feel that this is definitely one of the better ones that TVB has done. It has the perfect balance of comedic and dramatic elements and also sends a very positive message of hope, optimism, and the power of love. The series is very heartwarming and I personally was really touched by the storyline and what some of the characters go through. This message / theme was really brought forth through the evolvement of Gordon and Kenix’s relationship in the series, especially with the sacrifices that they had to make in order to find true love and happiness.

The last 10 episodes or so of the series were an emotional roller coaster for me, as there were moments of light humor and laughter (Ha Yu/Michelle and Benny / Nicola), but also moments of poignancy and tears (Gordon / Kenix). The last episode where Hiu Gwan (Kenix) was on the brink of death due to her hereditary illness and the sacrifice that Fook Sung (Gordon) made for her was especially touching – I cried when watching it, which is rare for me, especially with TVB series (the only other 2 series where I’ve gotten teary-eyed while watching are “A Kindred Spirit” and “Remembrance” – both of which happened to have Kenix as well….)

Anyway, even though this series was extremely long (50 episodes!) and there were parts that sort of dragged out unnecessarily (some of which I skipped), overall, it was very well-made! I definitely recommend this series to anyone who wants to watch a good quality series!