Interview with Raymond Wong: “A magazine once asked me to collaborate on fake rumors!”

This is a pretty interesting interview with an actor whom I've started to notice more and more the past few years -- Raymond Wong (黄浩然).  Raymond actually isn't a 'newbie' in terms of acting, as he has been in the industry for over a decade already (started in the industry in 1997) -- however he only started gaining popularity a few years ago after joining TVB (in 2007)...prior to that, he had small roles in movies and  had a few supporting roles during the few years he worked for ATV.

I actually started noticing Raymond back in 2010 with the series "When Lanes Merge" (even though he had filmed quite a few series prior to that).  I really enjoyed his performance in that series and so far, I've liked his performances in the series I've seen of his after that (even if I don't like the series itself, I still like his performances).  Oh and of course, due to my 'obsession' with the series "Bottled Passion" earlier, it made me pay attention to Raymond even more (LOL...)!

The newest series of Raymond's that I'm watching right now is "Gloves Come Off" (拳王), which has so far been a decent series (though I'm not too fond of the storyline or some of the characters in the series). I'm not as excited about the series as I was with some of the other earlier ones, but at least the acting is decent, so that has helped keep the series going for me.  However, I haven't decided whether I'm going to write a review for this series or not (I'm leaning toward 'not'), so for those interested in this series, hopefully the article will give some insight.

In this particular interview, Raymond shares some of his experiences filming GCO and also talks about his [relatively] new role of becoming a father.   After reading this article, my respect for Raymond actually went up a few more notches (he was relatively high on my list already due to his good acting skills), especially when I read the part about his dedication to his son and also refusing to collaborate with tabloids to create rumors for himself.   In the competitve world of entertainment, an artist like him who is so well-grounded and would rather reduce his media exposure (keep in mind that his acting career is still very much active right now) so that he can spend more time with his family is definitely very very rare!  Kudos to Raymond for his good work ethics as well as dedication to his family!  :-)

******

Interview with Raymond Wong:  “A magazine once asked me to collaborate on fake rumors!”

Source:  Information Times

Translation:  llwy12

Handsome guys may not necessarily know how to fight,however in TVB series Gloves Come Off《拳王》, Raymond Wong not only shows off his sturdy build, he also demonstrates his physical prowess – after many years of practicing martial arts, he is finally able to put his skills to use. From his reserved, scheming character in his previous series Bottled Passion《我的如意狼君》, Raymond turns into the character of ‘Bat Ka Sing’ in Gloves Come Off – a ‘big kid’ at heart with a fearless nature. Towards his role in Gloves Come Off, Raymond expressed that filming the series has been one of the most difficult of his career – at the time, his baby son had just been born and after becoming a father, he realized that it was time for his lifestyle to change: “In the 5 years that I joined TVB, I had not taken a single day off, not even when I was sick. However, after filming Gloves Come Off, I decided to take 3 months off work because after having a baby, I realized that life isn’t just about rushing blindly forward with a career.”

The day before yesterday, Raymond Wong accepted an interview with Information Times during which, in addition to sharing his joy at becoming a father, he also reveals how he was once contacted by a magazine and asked to ‘generate’ fake news for them.


Partner: Kevin Cheng filmed Gloves Come Off while injured

In the series, Raymond Wong and Kevin Cheng go from a ‘brotherly’ relationship to ‘enemies’ fighting to obtain the ‘boxing champion’ title. Outside of the series, action scenes consultant Sin Ho Ying blasted Kevin Cheng, accusing him of questioning certain sequences and refusing to do them because he was afraid of getting hurt. In response to this, Raymond Wong put in many good words of support for his ‘brother’, stating that Kevin filmed the series while already injured and so being especially cautious with the action sequences was very normal: “Before filming on the series started, Kevin had accidentally injured his back when he was filming Startling with Each Step 《步步惊心》in the Mainland. Therefore, when filming for Gloves Come Off started, he had to see a doctor to get therapy for his back at the same time. All of Kevin’s action scenes were actually filmed at the end – the first half of the filming focused primarily on his scenes with his son and also his romance storyline.”

Raymond continues: “When audiences watch on TV, our boxing sequences appear so easy, but in reality, filming those few minute scenes actually took us hours – it was normal for us to film from 4pm in the evening to 4am the next morning just on that one scene.” Raymond expressed that most of the scenes in the boxing ring were filmed on a specially built set at TVB City. Oftentimes, in order to let the equipment [used in the series] cool down, the air conditioning would be turned on full blast, to the point that some of the crew actually had to wear down jackets in order to keep warm: “Despite the cold, we had to film the boxing scenes shirtless – not only that, we also sprayed water on our bodies to make it look like we were sweating. We were so cold, we would be trembling!” In order to make the boxing sequences look as realistic as possible, they would often film each scene at least 10 times – and that didn’t even include NG scenes – which obviously consumed a lot of the actors’ physical strength and energy. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to prepare much for the role ahead of time, as I started filming Gloves Come Off almost immediately after I finished Bottled Passion – I didn’t have time to get into shape. Luckily I had a little bit of martial arts background and generally kept up with exercising, so I was satisfied with the end result in terms of how things turned out physically.”

In the series, Kevin Cheng’s character ‘Tong Sap Yat’ has a reserved, quiet type of manliness to him while Raymond’s character ‘Bat Ka Sing’ comes across like a big kid who still has not grown up, with exaggerated facial expressions and constantly moving about, unable to stay still for a minute. Raymond expressed that the series’ producer [Marco Law] wanted the huge contrast between the 2 characters: “I exaggerated some of the movements on purpose so that later on in the series when my character’s personality changes, the audiences will notice the changes more.” So far, his performance has been both praised as well as criticized, however Raymond expressed that he does not mind either way, as he is already satisfied that he got the chance to play such an interesting character. Most importantly, with his performance in the series, Raymond gained a lot of little kid fans – as a new father himself, this made him especially happy.

Starting with this week’s episodes, the relationship between Raymond and Kevin in the series will slowly start to deteriorate – when the friendship between these 2 ‘brothers’ starts to rupture, it cannot be mended in a short amount of time: “There’s the saying that ‘sincere advice is jarring on the ears’ – unfortunately, both men allow the bad advice of the people around them get to their heads, causing the misunderstandings between them to deepen.” Raymond bluntly stated that his own personality is very different in that if he were to encounter a similar situation, he would clear it up with the person face to face and not allow the misunderstanding to fester: “Communication is a mutual thing – how much you give is how much you’ll receive. There are some people that it’s easy to become ‘brothers’ with and confide in them about all matters, while there are others who are only suitable as ‘acquaintances’. Each person has their own ‘list’ in their hearts.”


Father: Return home to accompany son every chance he gets

In the series, Raymond marries his girlfriend (played by Natalie Tong) after she becomes pregnant and he ends up ‘reluctantly’ becoming a dad. In real life, Raymond and his wife have been together 10 years and are still a loving couple -- 3 years after the couple married, Raymond became a dad and almost instantly, he went from being a ‘workaholic’ to a devoted father. The filming schedule for Gloves Come Off was quite intense and there were days where they filmed for 20 hours straight, so by the time Raymond returned home, his son was already asleep, which definitely caused him to feel guilty about ‘neglecting’ his family. As soon as the subject of his son came up, Raymond’s voice became softer and with a smile, he expressed that his son is just learning how to walk – seeing him teetering back and forth as he learned to balance himself was extremely cute: “After my son was born, I realized what it truly meant to have a sense of responsibility. I don’t want to miss a single minute watching my son grow up! In the past, I always felt that my career was the most important thing in my life and so I never wanted to take time off, but now, whenever I have even a 2 to 3 hour break, I rush home to be with my son.” After a 3 month hiatus, Raymond’s first ‘job’ upon his return was filming the series The Confidant《大太监》, which required him to be away from his family for a few weeks due to filming on location in Hengdian [China]. As soon as Raymond left HK, he received word from his wife that their son was sick: “It’s one thing when they’re by my side, but when I’m away, of course I worry about my son being sick and whether my wife will be able to handle the situation by herself – therefore, I chat with them via webcam every night.” Raymond feels that parents have a huge impact on their children, so he insists on sharing in the responsibility of taking care of his son right alongside his wife, even if it means sacrificing their personal time. Raymond states that he often waits until after his son is asleep before he studies his scripts or he and his wife chat about their days: “There are only 24 hours in a day and now with an additional person in our lives, it’s inevitable that we’ll have less personal time.”


Rumors: Refuse to collaborate with tabloids in creating ‘false’ news

Raymond Wong is an ‘infrequent visitor’ when it comes to tabloids, as he rarely has any gossip reports or rumors surrounding him. Raymond revealed that one time, a tabloid reporter called him up to ask if he was willing to collaborate with them in ‘making news’ – for instance, having him ‘photographed’ holding another woman’s hand while walking down the street or eating dinner together: “This kind of thing is actually very common within the industry -- everyone knows it and a lot of artists will actually go along with it, since they know that the tabloids need to have something to write about. However, I absolutely refuse to go along with this kind of thing! I would rather have less media exposure and go slower [in terms of career path] than to be involved in these types of negative reports. I have enough pride and confidence in myself! I’ve never had to purposefully generate rumors like that and I’ve still been able to survive on my own for this long – I have not let myself down!” Raymond expressed that he normally only agrees to interviews during the promotional periods for his series – when he became a father, he especially wanted to dedicate more time to his son, so he purposefully reduced his media exposure even more.


Low point: Practicing ‘dai sing pik gwa’ martial arts helped bring positive energy

In the series, Raymond’s Thai boxing moves are very nimble and agile – part of that can be attributed to him practicing ‘dai sing pik gwa’ martial arts in real life with Master Sin Ho Ying: “I started practicing martial arts back when I was experiencing a low point in my career – it was during a time when I didn’t have much work and was constantly unhappy.” Later on, he discovered that physical exercise, jogging, practicing martials arts, etc. all made him feel happier, so he continued on this path and now exercise is as natural to him as eating: “When I have time, I go practice martial arts and on days when I don’t need to film, I get up at 6am to go jogging, then shower and start my day with attending events and such. I realize now that happiness truly cannot be bought with money!”

Review of TVB series “Bottled Passion 我的如意狼君” (2011)

Cast (partial list of the main & supporting cast): Raymond Wong (黃浩然), Niki Chow (周麗淇), Elaine Yiu (姚子羚), Jack Wu (胡諾言), Rebecca Chan (陳秀珠), Katy Kung (龔嘉欣), Eric Li (李天翔), Joel Chan (陳山聰), Raymond Cho (曹永廉), Claire Yiu (姚嘉妮), Ching Hor Wai (程可為), Samuel Kwok Fung (郭峰), Vin Choi (蔡淇俊)


I will admit that I had doubts about watching this series at first because I’m not too keen on Niki Chow as an actress and since she is the female lead in this series, I wasn’t sure how things would turn out -- plus I'm not a fan of Elaine or Katy either (their acting has always fallen in the ‘tolerable’ category for me). However, I decided to go ahead and give the series a try primarily because of 3 reasons: 1) I’ve always liked Raymond Wong (male lead in this series) as an actor plus I like majority of the supporting cast, so I figured even if I don’t like the female leads, the rest of the cast would make up for it (and I was right to some extent); 2) I knew this was produced by Lee Tim Sing (which means there will be a certain level of quality to it) – plus Tim Gor is usually quite involved when it comes to writing the scripts for his series and I’ve enjoyed many of the series he has done in the past, so that gave me more confidence that this would be a decent series at least; and 3) the ‘pre-modern’ genre of this series is one of my favorite genres.

I’m actually very glad that I decided to give this series a chance because it turns out that I ended up LOVING this series (I know, it’s hard to believe given how particular I am with series nowadays). In fact, this is such a great series and I enjoyed it so much that it has officially become my absolute favorite series of 2011 (as well as one of my all-time favorite series from the entire decade)! To be quite honest, it has been years since I’ve encountered a series that took me on such an emotional roller coaster as this one: majority of the series made me cry (literally went through an entire box of tissues!) while some of the scenes made me laugh and others made me angry – still others had me sitting on the edge of my seat in anticipation of what was going to happen next (the suspense factor)….very few of TVB’s series in the recent decade have been able to balance all these elements so well in 1 series (usually, 1 or more of the elements is sacrificed), which is part of what made this series so memorable and awesome.

Before I go further, just a word of warning…this review will most likely be quite long, as I enjoyed this series so much that it had sort of become an ‘obsession’ of mine lately (LOL) and so obviously I have a lot to say about it…..therefore, to those willing to spare time reading this review, I sincerely thank you in advance!

.--.

STORYLINE / SCRIPT

Normally, when doing a series review, I would talk about the cast and characters first, since most of my thoughts regarding the storyline / script will usually become apparent in the discussion about the cast. But for this particular review, I felt it was appropriate to talk about the script first because in my opinion, the absolutely well-written script and engaging storyline were amongst the biggest reasons (in addition to the fine acting from majority of the cast) why this series was so enjoyable and successful on many levels. I definitely have to applaud the scriptwriting team for putting together such a great script (and of course, part of the credit goes to producer Lee Tim Sing as well, since he always plays a huge part in writing of the scripts with all the series he produces).

One of the (many) things I like most about the script / storyline is the way the love story between Raymond Wong and Niki Chow’s characters was written (more on this piece later). I like how their relationship in the first half of the series is not the 'obvious' love relationship thing that TVB is so famous for doing, but rather, a more 'subtle romance' approach that really drives up the emotional factor. Indeed, in my opinion, the beauty of this series is in the ‘subtleness’ of the script – there were quite a few scenes where the dialogue was replaced by simple actions by the actors (hand gestures, body language, facial expressions, etc.) that in and of itself, already conveyed a wealth of emotion. With that said however, the important thing is that the writers / producer did a great job of keeping the ‘subtleness’ balanced throughout the series – meaning that they were careful to include just enough of it to keep the emotional level high, but didn’t overuse it (there were other parts of the script that were similar in style like this). Now don’t get me wrong – the careful dialogue was just as important and there was definitely a lot of it in this series -- in fact, there were many memorable lines in my opinion that really contributed to the overall effectiveness of the script.

As the article from Nan Fong Daily News stated so well, one of the biggest attractions of this series is the way the producer Tim Gor handles the storyline / script: “the plot is fast-paced and the story-telling effect is strong, which often evokes in audiences the desire to ‘chase’ each episode – each time, he incorporates just enough ‘tension’ in the series to draw audiences in and the more they watch, the more ‘flavorful’ the series gets.” This quote absolutely suits this series almost perfectly, as I can honestly say that the way the script was written and the series was produced, there wasn’t a single boring scene in this series -- from the moment I watched the first episode all the way up through the tragic finale, I was absolutely hooked! Normally, in most series, even the ones I like, I usually will find some scenes boring or draggy – but that was not the case here…every minute of this series was absolutely worthwhile (to the point that I felt like this series flew by way too quickly).

Now of course, the script wasn’t perfect by any means (no script ever is) and this one definitely had some flaws (the ending itself is a bit contentious, but more on that later) – however this script overall was definitely one of the best that I have seen in years! Once again, great job to the writers and to Tim Gor for such a wonderful script / storyline!


CAST / CHARACTERS

This series absolutely proves that you don’t need to have an ‘all star’ cast in a series to make it successful and accepted by audiences! Even though this series did not have any ‘big name’ artists in it (well, what most people today would consider ‘big name’ anyway), the cast was definitely strong in terms of acting, as most of the cast were truly high caliber actors and actresses who were able to carry this series extremely well with their brilliant acting. It’s rare to have a series where almost every artist who participated pulled off their roles extremely well, to the point that it’s actually hard for me to choose a favorite character in this series because all of them did such fine jobs and there were so many of them that I liked, especially on the male side (though if I truly had to choose, my top picks would be Raymond Wong’s Tung Boon Sin, Eric Li’s Law Yat, Jack Wu’s Dr Yuen, and Raymond Cho’s Tsui Ping).

The other thing that I really enjoyed about the casting in the series (and part of what made this series so great in my opinion) was the awesome chemistry that existed consistently throughout the entire series – not just in terms of the romantic pairing (between Raymond and Niki), but also in the other areas as well (such as the relationship between Niki and her family, the friendships between Raymond and Eric as well as between Niki and Jack, etc.). I truly believe that one of the most important things in a series is the chemistry of its cast and this series definitely illustrated that all across the board. One of the reasons why this series moved me so emotionally (in addition to the script and the acting) was because the chemistry came across so genuine that I truly felt a connection to each of the characters and when things happened to them, I truly felt for them.

Anyway, here’s my take on each of the characters and the artists’ performances:

Raymond Wong (Tung Boon Sin / Lee Ho) – Raymond’s character is actually quite complex. His real name is Lee Ho and when he was 8 years old, he was adopted from an orphanage and therefore had to separate from his childhood friend Ngau Nai Tong whom he was very close with and took care of, since she was crippled. Little did he know that the couple who adopted him did so as part of a plot by Dong Kwok Hing (played by Rebecca Chan), who was planning to use the child to deceive her husband Ko Siu Tong (played by Kwok Fung) so that he would stop looking for the illegitimate child he had with another woman. Afterwards, when the plan falls through and Lee Ho is kicked out of the house, Dong Kwok Hing tries to kill him by pushing him into a ravine so that her husband would never find out she was behind the plan. Amazingly, Lee Ho survived and later ends up in Nanjing, where he has to rely on deceiving people and performing magic tricks in order to make a living. He encounters a kind elderly man, Uncle Shek, who is the butler to a wealthy family – Uncle Shek becomes like a father to Lee Ho and when the master of the house Mr. Tung and his young son dies, Lee Ho takes on the identity of the young master Tung Boon Sin. Using this identity, he returns to Guangzhou to take revenge against Dong Kwok Hing and the entire Ko family for what was done to him as a child. As part of his plan to ruin the Ko family, he deceives Ko Yee Kiu (played by Elaine Yiu) into falling in love with him while at the same time, pretends to make a play at her younger sister Yee Nga (played by Katy Kung) so that the sisters would hate each other. Yee Kiu falls into his trap and ends up losing everything she has – plus the rest of the family gets the punishment they deserve as well. During this process, Tung Boon Sin meets Tsui Sum (played by Niki Chow) and decides to use her as part of his revenge plan, since the Ko family was interested in the land that her family’s soy sauce factory was built on – however he never anticipated that he would actually fall in love with her. Later on, he finds out that Tsui Sum is actually the childhood friend that he had been looking for over the past 20 years. Most of the series from this point pretty much revolves around Tung Boon Sin’s revenge against the Ko family as well as his relationship with Tsui Sum. Even though the character of Tung Boon Sin is billed as a ‘bad guy’ of sorts because of what he does to the Ko family (especially the innocent Yee Kiu), he’s actually a good guy at heart, it’s just that his suffering as a child caused him to want revenge.

Raymond Wong did an EXCELLENT job in the role of Tung Boon Sin -- his performance in this series was absolutely amazing and convincing! Tim Gor once said in an interview that Raymond was well-suited for the role of Tung Boon Sin – well, I would actually venture to say that he wasn’t just ‘well-suited’ for the role, he was actually PERFECT for it! It’s obvious that Raymond put a lot of effort into the role, as his acting in the series was so METICULOUS -- from the first time his character appeared in episode 1 all the way to his tragic end in episode 21….every facial expression, hand gesture, even the crying scenes were all absolutely well-executed, to the point that I truly felt he was the one carrying the whole Boon Sin / Tsui Sum storyline and it’s really because of his fine acting that all those scenes between him and Niki were so emotional (for me at least). Also, I never realized it before, but those eyes of his sure can act! The wealth of emotion that Raymond conveyed with his eyes – whether it’s anger, happiness, playfulness, sadness, etc. – was so amazing, it definitely was difficult not to be drawn in to his character in the series. Raymond definitely deserves a lot of credit for making the character of Tung Boon Sin SO MEMORABLE!

Even though Raymond has been in the industry for a long time, I never really knew much about him until he joined TVB a few years ago. I watched most of the TVB series that he was in prior to this one and even though I liked his performances and always viewed him as a solid, talented actor, I didn’t realize his true potential until now. I absolutely loved Raymond in this series – his performance impressed me so much that I’ve become somewhat of a ‘fan’ now and am definitely looking forward to future performances from him!


Niki Chow (Tsui Sum / Ngau Nai Tong) – Niki’s character Tsui Sum is the adopted daughter of the Tsui family (though this fact is not revealed until halfway through the series) who takes on overseeing the family’s soy sauce factory after her (adopted) father dies. She has a strong-willed personality (which makes sense given that she has to oversee an entire factory), but at the same time, she also has a kind and compassionate heart. When Tung Boon Sin first enters her life, she is moved by his story of his childhood friend Ngau Nai Tong, whom he has been waiting for 20 years to be reunited with and even tries to help him find her. Not surprisingly, Tsui Sum is smitten by Boon Sin’s charm and even falls for him after he repeatedly helps bail her family out of trouble. He persuades her to sign over the rights to her family’s soy sauce factory to him, hoping that he would be able to save the factory from demise, but he ends up selling the factory to the Ko family as part of his revenge plot. When Tsui Sum finds out that the person she trusted with all her heart was deceiving her all along, she is devastated -- but with the help of her family and the doctor friend (played by Jack Wu) she meets at the hospital, she eventually overcomes the pain and starts anew rebuilding the soy sauce factory (that is, until she and Boon Sin cross paths again). Without going into detail, of course Tsui Sum and Boon Sin eventually become a couple, but the twists and turns that occur in between is truly what makes their love story so poignant and memorable.

Contrary to popular opinion, I actually think that Niki did a decent job in this series. Sure, her acting wasn’t great by any means, but it wasn’t horrible either – I actually did not get as annoyed with her performance in here as I have been in her past series. The problem I’ve always had with Niki’s acting in the past is that she’s too wooden at times, which makes her acting look forced – plus she has a certain intonation in her voice which sometimes makes it sound like she is reading the dialogue rather than reciting it, which is why her acting always comes across as very unnatural to me. That being said though, I will say that she has improved A LOT in this series because even though she still had the same problems (yes, I was able to detect it right away), it was not as pronounced as in previous series. And I have to admit that Niki does crying scenes way better than most of the actresses at TVB nowadays (it’s kind of ironic that I find Niki’s crying scenes quite natural and convincing, but her acting overall doesn’t have the same effect).

I think that overall, the reason why I found her character tolerable was because of the chemistry that Niki had with Raymond Wong in this series – I actually enjoyed almost every single scene that the 2 of them had together. Perhaps because of Raymond’s great acting in this series, he was able to bring out the best in Niki because I felt that each time the 2 of them interacted in a scene, the emotional impact was very high. I actually think that NIki and Raymond make a great onscreen couple – for me, this was one of the best pairings that I’ve seen in years!


Jack Wu (Yuen Yau Hin) – Jack plays an established young doctor who actually turns out to be the illegitimate son that Ko Siu Tong (Samuel Kwok)had been looking for and eventually found. He’s a very kind-hearted person whose main goal in life is to be a good doctor and help as many people as possible. Though he and his father reunited many years ago, he does not want his father to acknowledge him publicly because he has no interest whatsoever in the Ko family fortune or their business. However, due to various things that happen, he eventually returns to the Ko family and helps out with the business. He meets Tsui Sum (Niki Chow) after she becomes his patient at the hospital where he works and he helps her through the illness that was brought on by Boon Sin’s deception. Even when he returns to help take care of the Ko family business, he still continues his ‘job’ as the Tsui family doctor. The two of them end up developing a life-long friendship. Also, he is pretty much the only good person in the entire Ko family.

Jack Wu has always been one of those actors whom I’ve found to be extremely underrated. He’s quite solid in terms of his acting skills and I’ve always found his performances consistent and likable. In the past, I always felt like Jack was typecasted into those ‘boy next door’ type roles -- perhaps because of his boyish looks -- and never really given a chance to play more mature, ‘professional’ roles much. That’s why I feel that Tim Gor made the right choice to cast Jack in this series as Dr Yuen because the character is quite different from the roles that he used to play in the past and it gives Jack a chance to show his acting skill. Of course, he still needs a little bit of polish in the role, but overall, he put in a fine performance!


Eric Li (Law Yat) – Eric plays Tung Boon Sin’s best friend Law Yat who is also his ‘partner’ in helping him carry out his revenge plans. His role is more behind the scenes, as he does a lot of investigative work for Boon Sin and reports back his findings, then, based on this, the two of them plan out their next moves. The reason why Law Yat is so devoted to helping Boon Sin is because he saved his life a long time ago, so he swore he would follow him from that moment on. The unique thing about Law Yat and Boon Sin’s relationship is the great chemistry between the two – they understand each other so well that oftentimes, they seem to know what the other is thinking and they are able to execute their plans effectively. The bond that these two share is unique and their relationship is similar to that of brothers rather than simply friends, which becomes more obvious as the series progresses (especially in the last few episodes when Boon Sin’s life is in danger). Law Yat has a playful personality, but when it comes to helping Boon Sin execute his plans, he takes his responsibilities very seriously – once the serious discussions are over however, Law Yat never passes up the chance to ‘tease’ Boon Sin about Tsui Sum. I love watching these two interact – the ‘teasing’ scenes between these two are especially hilarious and provide a welcome comedic respite from the otherwise serious / tragic nature of the series.

I was thoroughly impressed with Eric’s performance in this series! His portrayal of Law Yat was so well-executed and natural, I couldn’t help finding his character endearing and charming. Actually, this isn’t the first time that Eric has pulled off an impressive performance, but unfortunately, most of the roles he’s had in the past were insignificant ones where he never really got a chance to showcase his talent, plus he was mostly typecasted into minor villain roles as well (most audiences probably recognize Eric for his villain roles). His role in this particular series was probably one of the first ‘meatier’ non-villain roles he was given and without a doubt, he absolutely excelled in it!

I actually read up a little bit on Eric after watching this series and was surprised to find out that he has actually been in the industry since the mid-90s – he actually graduated from TVB’s Acting Class in 1995 and has been in numerous TVB productions since then (another actor who has toiled at TVB for numerous years without much recognition). Boy, I really hope that TVB gives him more significant supporting roles to play rather than the usual ‘villain x or y’ because it’s obvious that he has good acting skills and great potential (come on now, he’s 100x better than those Mr. HKs that TVB keeps putting into their series!).


Rebecca Chan (Dong Kwok Hing) – Rebecca played the role of the main ‘villanness’ in the series, Dong Kwok Hing. She is the matriarch of the Ko family and has a significant amount of ‘clout’ because she came from a well-to-do family and her husband Ko Siu Tong (Samuel Kwok) was able to build his business based in large part on funds provided by her family. She and Siu Tong have 3 children: oldest son Yee Tai (played by Joel Chan), second daughter Yee Kiu (played by Elaine Yiu), and youngest daughter Yee Nga (played by Katy Kung). The best way to describe Dong Kwok Hing is that she is a ‘control freak’ -- ever since her children were little, she has always ruled them with an iron fist, arranging every aspect of their lives from where/when they should go to school to whom they should marry. Also, she spends a lot of her time trying to make her children seem like ‘model children’ in front of their father by hiding anything bad that they do from him, primarily because she is afraid that if he found out, he would cut the children off from any future inheritance. Dong Kwok Hing is actually a very important character in the series because it’s really because of her scheming and her actions that trigger the whole revenge thing with Tung Boon Sin and pretty much becomes the catalyst for everything else that happens in the series.

Once again, Rebecca did an excellent job as the villain character (seems like she’s been doing more and more villain roles in the past several years). Of course, as a veteran artist, it’s no surprise that her acting would be great – with her level of experience, she has pretty much mastered the skills when it comes to executing her role well. Not sure how many people notice, but whenever Rebecca does villain roles, she does the facial expressions extremely well, especially with the eyes (the way she stares menacingly at people with those piercing eyes can be quite scary). With that said, she is still able to play the benevolent mother roles well too – now that’s versatile acting! It’s interesting how Rebecca has come a long way from TVB fa dan in the 80s to top villainess in the current era. I grew up watching her series and even when she was a fa dan, I always felt that she looked more mature than most of the other fa dans at the time (though she wasn’t really that much older). Anyway, another great performance from a veteran!


Elaine Yiu (Ko Yee Kiu) – Elaine’s character Yee Kiu is the oldest daughter in the Ko family. She’s quite smart, but because of the way she is raised, she is constantly under her mother’s controlling shadow. On the surface, she is obedient to her mother and does whatever she is told to do, even if it means that she must marry a man she doesn’t love in order to further the business relationship between the 2 families – however, inside, she really hates the way her mother tries to control them. Because she wants so desperately to get out from under her mother’s control, she tries to win her dad’s favor by succeeding with the family business, so throughout most of the series, she is battling her older brother Yee Tai to gain the upper hand in the business. She meets Tung Boon Sin during a business transaction and though impressed by him, she doesn’t get involved with him because she is engaged already. However, as the series progresses and she gets more and more frustrated with her mother’s controlling nature (plus her dad doesn’t appreciate her efforts with the family business), she eventually falls for Boon Sin’s charms and starts dating him behind her fiance’s back (which is all part of Boon Sin’s plan, though unbeknownst to her of course). In the end, under Boon Sin’s encouragement, she defies her mother and breaks up with her fiancé (causing him to commit suicide)…after giving up everything she has and running away from home, she discovers that all along the whole thing was a setup – Boon Sin never loved her and was pretty much ‘playing’ her the entire time as part of his revenge plan to destroy the Ko family.

To my surprise, I was actually quite impressed with Elaine’s acting in this series. I haven’t seen a whole lot of her series in the past, but the ones that I have seen I was not impressed with, so I wasn’t really expecting much from her going into this series. I was pleasantly surprised though to see how much more mature her acting has become – with many of the emotional scenes involving herself and Raymond as well as the ‘showdown’ scenes between her and Rebecca, she was able to deliver consistently. In fact, in that one episode especially where Yee Kiu defies her mother and runs away from home, only to find the letter that Boon Seen leaves for her telling her the whole thing was a setup – all of the scenes were done so well by Elaine that I truly felt sorry for her character...when she read the letter, I could sense her pain! Also, that last scene in the finale where her character Yee Kiu seeks out Raymond’s character Boon Seen at the office and stabs him was actually quite well-acted. Great improvement for Elaine!


Raymond Cho (Tsui Ping) -- Raymond Cho plays Tsui Sum (Niki)’s older brother Tsui Ping. He is a very honest and upright person who is not good at making decisions and doesn’t really have much of an opinion on anything, however, he has a heart of gold. Even though he is the oldest son, he knows that with his somewhat shy personality, he’s not suited to manage the family’s soy sauce factory, so he’s perfectly fine with his sister overseeing it. He prefers to live a simple and happy life and let the other women in his life (his wife, sister, and mother) make all the decisions for him – in a sense, he has a ‘happy-go-luck’ type personality. One of Tsui Ping’s best qualities is his unwavering devotion to his family, especially to his little sister Tsui Sum – other than his mother, he is the only one who knows Tsui Sum’s true identity, but that doesn’t prevent him from treating her as his biological sister. The way he loves his sister so much and tries to protect her at all costs is truly very touching and sweet!

Ray Cho never fails to impress me with his acting! No matter what type of role he gets – whether serious, comedic, villain, etc. – he always handles the role extremely well. The character of Tsui Ping may not be a major character in the series and compared to the others, he may not have as much screentime, but his role was still very endearing and enjoyable. I loved all those scenes he had with Niki where the two of them would have their heart-to-heart brother/sister talks as well as those scenes where he would be so concerned for his sister’s well-being that he would be on the verge of tears (moved me to tears as well). Ray’s character (as well as his performance) was definitely among one of my favorites!


Additional Cast:

Claire Yiu (Tsui Ping’s wife Wan Yau) – As Tsui Ping’s wife, she is loud and bossy (in a nice way) with a blunt personality and a bit nosy too, but underneath all that, she actually has a good heart. In fact, her character was quite funny and enjoyable in this series. I especially loved her interaction with her ‘husband’ in the series, Ray Cho – they sure make a compatible, cute couple in my opinion…LOL!

Ching Hor Wai (Mrs. Tsui) – Her character is pretty much the typical ‘benevolent mother’ role, except that she ends up having an illness similar to Alzheimers and slowly starts to lose her memory. Even though her role can be considered minor in comparisons to the others (I think she probably has the least amount of screentime), her character is critical in being the one who knows the background of Tsui Sum’s childhood and eventually revealing those details to Boon Sin. Ching Hor Wai gives her usual steady performance in here.

Katy Kung (Ko Yee Nga) – Katy plays the youngest of the Ko daughters and is actually the one who deserves most to meet a miserable fate in my opinion. Her character is bxxchy and incorrigible – at home, she pretends to be a good girl to win her parents favor, but outside, she shows her true colors as a promiscuous teenager who smokes and has a nasty, arrogant temper. Knowing her personality and temper, Boon Sin purposefully leads her into thinking that he likes her when he actually doesn’t and this causes her to be at odds with her sister Yee Kiu. Later on, when she finds out that Boon Sin’s true love is actually Tsui Sum, Yee Nga gets jealous and ends up pushing her down a cliff – the incident causes Tsui Sum to once again become crippled. Obviously I disliked Katy’s character – she was just way too annoying and fake (and it’s unfortunate that she ended up getting off scott-free thanks to her mother, continuing to live her wild life in another city)!

Joel Chan (Ko Yee Tai) – Joel actually portrayed his role quite well in this series, but since I’ve never really been fond of him as an actor, I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to him in here. Besides, his character had more of a significance in the first few episodes of the series during the whole battle over the soy sauce factory and stuff –later on, he pretty much just follows his mother around and does whatever she tells him to do.

Samuel Kwok (Ko Siu Tong) – I’m actually kind of disappointed that Kwok Fung didn’t have a more significant role in this series, especially given that he is the patriarch of the Ko family. I sort of felt like all he did pretty much was just appear every so often to chide his children and his wife whenever something bad happened in his family. The two scenes where he had the most significance were in the announcement of Yuen Yau Hin as his son and also when he officially disowns his oldest son and sends his wife away after he discovers the nasty things that they did. For such a great veteran actor, too bad his role was less significant.

Tracy Ip (Ko Yee Tai’s wife Bak Wai) – Her performance is probably the only one that I really didn’t like -- her acting came across too robotic and fake to me and it seemed that she had difficulty saying her lines (perhaps because of her slight accent?). Anyway, since her role was relatively minor and didn’t appear a whole lot, I was ok with sitting through it.

.--.


THE ENDING

I normally don’t like to go into too much detail with the ending, but with this series, since the ending was a bit contentious, I figured it’s important to talk about. (The sentiment from the general public seems to be that the overall series was great, but the ending was bad because it was so tragic -- specifically referring to the part where Tung Boon Sin dies tragically and Tsui Sum doesn’t find out until years later).

Indeed, the ending truly was agonizing and absolutely heartwrenching! Episode 20 actually ended very sweetly (and close to the ‘happily ever after’ ending that most of us wanted), but then episode 21 came along and it ended up being so tragic that part of me really wanted to pretend episode 21 didn’t exist (though of course that’s not possible because that’s the critical episode that ties up all the loose ends).

Personally, I had mixed feelings about the ending – on the one hand, I could understand the purpose of making the ending tragic so that it’s more memorable (which the series definitely did), but on the other hand, I could also see how the writers could have written the ending differently, in a way that would have been more satisfying to the audiences (if not ‘happily ever after’, then even a semi-tragic one would have sufficed for me – especially since that’s the type of ending I had in mind anyway).
I actually don’t think that I would have a problem with the tragic ending (the part where Boon Sin dies) itself if that entire segment had been handled better -- because the way it was portrayed in the finale really did not make a whole lot of sense from a logical standpoint (plus the ‘tortuous’ way in which that part was portrayed – the whole ‘tripping through the streets with blood gushing out of wound’ thing -- was really unnecessary in my opinion).

Anyway…as much as I didn’t want to see the series end the way it did, I will admit that it definitely upped the emotional factor and made the series all the more poignant and memorable!


CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:

Overall, “Bottled Passion” was an excellent series! Even though the series is technically a romantic love story at its core, there’s actually a good mix of other things in there that make the series well-balanced enough for those who may want to watch this but are not into romantic dramas. I personally enjoyed this series tremendously and for me – taking all things into consideration such as script / storyline, cast, acting, etc. -- it’s truly the Best Series of the year (officially now, since 2011 is over already).

This is definitely a series worth watching (I’m already planning to rewatch it soon, which is rare for me) for all the reasons stated above (plus at 21 episodes, it’s short enough so as not to be draggy). Now of course, if you’re the type of person who doesn’t like watching ‘tearjerkers’ at all (it’s pretty much a guarantee that this series will evoke tears at one point or another), then yes, perhaps reconsider…but if you want to see how a truly high quality, well-written, well-acted, and well-produced looks like, then this series is definitely the one to choose!

News Article: For TVB series “Bottled Passion”, the biggest ‘attraction’ is not the male or female lead

Here's a great article I came across (by chance, quite frankly) about the series that I'm currently watching: "Bottled Passion" 《我的如意狼君》. Quite honestly, I'm 'in love' with this series and for me, it is definitely one of the best (if not THE BEST) TVB series that I've watched this year (and perhaps this decade)!

I'll go more into detail about the series in my review (which will be posted by next week, since the finale airs on Monday). For now, I wanted to share the below article in particular because it is truly very well written and brings out the essence of the series almost perfectly.

What I found extremely interesting is that I had almost the exact same thought as the writer of the article in terms of the qualities that makes this series so good, the great job that Tim Gor (and his scriptwriting team) did on the script, and also the way Raymond Wong portrayed the main lead character of 'Tung Boon Seen'. You'll understand more when I post my review...

Lastly, I just wanted to say that it was EXTREMELY DIFFICULT translating this particular article because of the words that were used in Chinese (which was perfect in conveying the 'attractiveness' of this series) -- it was a bit of a struggle to find the best translation for particular words because I didn't want the meaning to be 'lost in translation'.

Anyway, for all those "Bottled Passion" fans out there (yup, you can count me in as part of that group now...LOL), I'm sure you would probably agree with alot of what was written in this article.

Enjoy!


.*********.

For TVB series “Bottled Passion”, the biggest ‘attraction’ is not the male or female lead

Originally published: 12/31/2011

Source: ifeng.com / Nam Fong Daily News

Translated by: llwy12

How long has it been since we’ve seen Niki Chow (周麗淇) in a TVB series? If we recount the last TVB series she was in, it should be modern series “The King of Snooker” from 2 years ago. This time around, seeing her in TVB’s currently airing series “Bottled Passion”, one can’t help but have a ‘long time no see’ feeling. What hasn’t changed is that Niki still gives people a feeling of ‘freshness’.

Not that long ago, the onscreen couple of Niki Chow and Kevin Cheng (鄭嘉穎) attracted many a viewer to their television screens, to the point that it seemed to be only when the two of them were paired together that the series would be especially good to watch. This time around, in “Bottled Passion”, the male lead paired with Niki is Raymond Wong (黄浩然) – a face that has appeared in quite a few TVB series in recent years. This new pairing definitely has a certain ‘freshness’ to it – in terms of looks, Raymond may not be considered the ‘stunningly handsome’ type, but overall, he fits the tastes of most female audiences; as for Niki, since she doesn’t appear often in TVB series, she is bound to garner the attention of audiences who find her appearance in a series refreshing.

The series’ Chinese title was originally《大话情人》[“The Lying Lover”] and was later changed to 《我的如意狼君》[literally translated as ‘My Ideal Wolf Husband’] – one can’t help but praise the wisdom of changing the title, as it brings a more ‘enchanting’ aspect to the series. Even though the cast arrangement in this series may not be considered ‘all-star’, a particular name associated with the series is sure to resound loudly with audiences: ‘golden’ producer Lee Tim Sing (李添勝). Indeed, Tim Gor’s series are generally well worth watching, as the plot is fast-paced and the story-telling effect is strong, which often evokes in audiences the desire to ‘chase’ each episode – each time, he incorporates just enough ‘tension’ in the series to draw audiences in and the more they watch, the more ‘flavorful’ the series gets. It definitely would not be an exaggeration to say that the biggest ‘attraction’ to the series “Bottled Passion” is not the male or female lead, but rather the producer Lee Tim Sing. In almost every episode (usually at the end), there is a climactic moment – this seems to be a unique characteristic in most of Tim Gor’s series. From “Rosy Business” and “No Regrets” to “A Fistful of Stances”, which of his series does not lead the audiences by their noses and evoke a dedicated following? Even with “Bottled Passion” airing in the dreaded post-Anniversary ‘cannon fodder’ timeslot, there is no way to hide the inherent ‘well worth watching’ nature of the series.

In terms of the acting, the character of ‘Tung Boon Seen’ that Raymond Wong portrays in “Bottled Passion” is quite a departure from the mostly ‘simple and honest’ type characters he portrayed in the past. His character in the series is quite complex and can best be described as a ‘semi-villain with the intrinsic qualities of a good-natured person’ – an almost perfect illustration of the expression “guys who aren’t bad, women won’t love them” [男人不壞, 女人不爱]. This seemingly ‘bad’ guy toys with women’s hearts in order to fulfill his plans for revenge against a particular family, but yet at the same time, his genuine concern and insistence on finding his childhood friend ‘Ngau Nai Tong’ [‘Milk Candy’] evokes feelings of sympathy and affection. Towards this ‘conflicted’ and ‘contradictory’ character, audiences will naturally feel both love and hate, though for most, they probably cannot bring themselves to hate him. It’s obvious that Raymond Wong put a lot of effort into portraying this character, as his emotional scenes came across very sincere and meticulous. At times, it even seemed like he was acting with his eyes, as the emotion that his tear-filled eyes conveyed in certain scenes had the effect of momentarily taking the focus away from everything else going on in those scenes.

As for the female lead character of Tsui Sum, her forthright personality suits Niki Chow well – in fact, it can be said that the character is an easy and familiar one for her. Also, her naturally refreshing look is a welcome departure from the heavy makeup and costumes that audiences have been exposed to in recent series. In short, her character is the type that is generally pleasing to audiences.

.------.

Chinese Version:

《我的如意狼君》：最大的牌不是男女主角

2011年12月31日 09:16
来源：南方都市报 作者：林丹丹

有多久没看过周丽淇的戏了？上一部应该是两年前的时装剧《桌球天王》，此次《我的如意狼君》里见到她，略有一种“久违了”的感觉。不变的是，她给人的感觉依然“清新”。

曾几何时，周丽淇与郑嘉颖这对荧屏情侣，吸引了多少眼球与关注，仿佛只有他俩以情侣身份搭档的剧集才特别好看。这次，男主角是黄浩然这张近来在TV B剧集中常出现的面孔。这一组合新鲜得来也蛮有“清新感”，或许黄浩然不是那种很惊艳的帅，但也符合很多女观众的口味；周丽淇不常在TV B露脸，也会让人格外留意几分。

《我的如意狼君》前名《大话情人》，不得不赞叹后来的剧名改得好，更为引人入胜。虽然该剧的演员阵容不算“庞大”，但监制李添胜的名字绝对够响亮。没错，添哥的剧集很耐看，情节紧凑，故事性强，总让人忍不住要追着看，张力十足，越看越有味道。不夸张地说一句，该剧最大的牌不是男女主角，而是监制李添胜。几乎每一集都有高潮，这似乎是添哥出品的独有特色。从《巾帼枭雄》系列到《铁马寻桥》，哪一部不是每一集都牵着观众的鼻子走？即使《我的如意狼君》是在台庆颁奖之后的尴尬档期播出，依然掩盖不住“好看”的本色。

以往看黄浩然扮演的多是单纯或是老实人的角色，这次扮演的佟本善可就“复杂”得多了，可以说得上是有着好人本质的“腹黑男”，几乎是淋漓尽致地诠释了什么是“男人不坏，女人不爱”。这位情场“狼君”为了复仇大计将女人玩弄于股掌之间，俨然是大坏人，但对儿时的玩伴牛奶糖却一直念念不忘，却又令人心生爱怜。对于这一矛盾体人物，观众自然是又爱又恨，估计多数都是恨不起来。黄浩然诠释这一角色也很给力，感情戏显得真挚细腻，各位眼神控们要注意了，他好些时候是在用眼神在演戏，泪光盈盈的眼神瞬间秒杀一切。

女主角徐芯爽快的性格也很适合周丽淇，这种角色对于她来说可以说是驾轻就熟了，清新的妆容在一众浓妆艳抹当中显得尤为脱俗可人，总之就是讨人喜欢。（作者系媒体从业者）

News Article: Producer Lee Tim Sing blasts TVB for airing “Bottled Passion” in ‘cannon fodder’ timeslot

Article originally published 12/27/2011

Source: Oriental Daily

Translated by: llwy12

** Note: Only the part of the article related to Lee Tim Sing was translated**

With all the changes that TVB has been going through recently, the internal politics have been a mess and now, even elders who’ve always been ‘ratings guarantees’ are falling victim to the internal unrest.

Golden producer Lee Tim Sing (Tim Gor), who contributed greatly to TVB’s success for several decades, invited singer/actress Niki Chow to return to TVB last year to film the series “Bottled Passion” with actor Raymond Wong. Around the time of last year’s Sales Presentation, the plan was to arrange for the series to air during October’s ‘golden’ timeslot. Unfortunately, due to internal politics, “Bottled Passion” was moved to the December ‘cannon fodder’ timeslot and replaced instead with Liza Wang and the three gods’ anniversary series “Super Snoops”.

Currently in its finale week, the storyline for “Bottled Passion” revolves around a love story, which seems to be the perfect fit for TVB’s housewife audience’s tastes compared with the cannibalism-themed series “When Heaven Burns”, which is also in its finale week. However, TVB has arranged for the finale of “When Heaven Burns” to air on Sunday (January 1st), pushing “Bottled Passion”s finale to Monday, Jan 2nd (the first time that a TVB series has aired its finale on a Monday). This further added fuel to an already burning fire. It is rumored that because Tim Gor is planning to retire next year, someone is seizing upon the opportunity to give him the ‘cold shoulder’. Despite his previous accomplishments, including last year’s highly rated anniversary series “No Regrets”, Tim Gor was not given any face, causing his newest series to become ‘high quality cannon fodder’!

Our reporter contacted Tim Gor for clarification. When the issue of his series being placed in a cannon fodder timeslot was brought up, a usually mellow Tim Gor became upset, angrily blasting TVB: “Of course there will be someone sacrificed in the PK timeslot! [TN: 'PK' in this context represents a Cantonese curse word]. Several years ago, my series “A Fistful of Stances” was the same way – whether there is a particular motive to it, I really don’t know! It’s not worth getting upset over anymore – besides, I’m not the first one treated this way – cannon fodder or not, doesn’t matter anymore!” Tim Gor expressed that TVB’s action of moving “Bottled Passion” to such a timeslot was hugely discouraging to the cast and crew and he has been trying his best to bring the morale back up. He stated: “I can’t lie – the ratings truly aren’t that great. The worst part is that the series has good word of mouth….the screenwriting team is definitely upset. Aiye! During the holidays, there are at least 600,000 to 700,000 people who leave town for travel, so of course they won’t be sitting in front of their TVs watching the series. If the series was placed in the October timeslot as originally planned, the ratings would be at least 2 points higher, if not more! But I’m used to it already!”

When the series was originally taken out of the October timeslot, Tim Gor had angrily gone up to the drama department to inquire as to the reason: “I admit that the series [Bottled Passion] is not a ‘star-studded’ production, as the main leads are Niki and Raymond. But Niki has truly shown great improvement in her acting, Raymond is a perfect fit for the role, and Joel [Chan] did a good job as anticipated. I put a lot of heart into coming up with this story and the plot was carefully arranged. When I first heard about the series airing in the October timeslot, I thought to myself that it would surely succeed. Unexpectedly though, the drama department pulled the series out of that timeslot last minute – when I asked why, they said it was because of a ‘particular reason’ and even apologized to me!”

Asked about plans to retire, Tim Gor replied that the final decision will be made at the end of next year: “At the end of next year, I will be 65 years old. The company’s retirement age is 60 years, so I have already exceeded by 5 years – it is enough! I still have the heart for it, but not the strength. My colleagues sometimes see me limping when I’m walking, so I already know that health-wise, it’s taking a toll on me!”

.***.

Chinese Version:

李添勝怒插無綫 周麗淇愁爆

無綫易主，內亂紛紛，任你是公司有收視保證的老臣子亦一樣冇面畀！曾為無綫立下不少汗馬功勞的金牌監製李添勝，去年躊躇滿志邀周麗淇（Niki）夥拍首次擔正的黃浩然合作劇集《我的如意狼君》，年初節目巡禮亦打算安排該劇在十月黃金檔首播，可惜因為政治因素，《我》劇被燉落聖誕炮灰檔期，由汪明荃主演的《荃加福祿壽探案》頂上。

明年退休被冷待
因《我》劇劇情夠老土，迎合師奶口味，本周進入結局周，無綫卻安排周日（一月一日）播比較重口味的《天與地》大結局，《我》劇大結局則安排下周一（一月二日）播出，被節目部高層一燉再燉。據知因添哥打算明年退休，有人借勢冷待他，故這位收視爆燈的《巾幗梟雄》監製亦冇例外，《我》劇慘成極品炮灰！

本報致電添哥，提到嘔心瀝血之作變炮灰劇，一向待人接物不慍不火的添哥亦扯火，怒轟無綫：「實有人食PK檔！我以前套《鐵馬尋橋》都食過，係咪用人唯親真係唔知！都嬲唔到咁多，況且我又唔係第一個，都冇話炮唔炮灰囉！」添哥表示，無綫此舉令《我》劇台前幕後意興闌珊，他早已安撫幕後人員。他說：「唔可以講大話，收視真係普通，最慘係口碑好，搞到啲編劇仲唔開心！唉！假期有六、七十萬人離港，如果擺黃金檔起碼高兩點收視啦！不過我都慣喇！」

讚Niki進步神速
添哥更怒氣沖沖踩上節目部質問《我》劇被抽起原因：「我認《我》劇唔係大堆頭粒粒星，孭飛都係Niki同浩然。不過Niki真係進步得好快，浩然又好適合個角色，山聰做得好一早係意料之內。我好畀心機度呢個故事，成件事都有計算，當安排十月檔仲以為一定得。點知畀節目部臨時抽起，話有某啲原因喎，仲同我講對唔住。」

提到退休問題，添哥打算明年底自有決定，他說：「明年年尾滿六十五歲，公司要六十歲退休，做多五年都夠皮啦！我有心無力喇！同事見我行路拐吓拐吓，就知自己體能唔得！」

Review of "When Lanes Merge 情越雙白線"

I recently watched this series in its entirety when it came on TV. Even though I had heard alot of praises for this series from various people, I really did not have high hopes going into it because majority of TVB's productions have been huge disappointments for me this past decade. Plus I had attempted to watch quite a few of TVB's 2010 series already and was only able to get through 2 of them completely -- I gave up on the rest of them after the first few episodes (for various reasons), since I didn't want to waste my time any further. Also, I wasn't too fond of the cast for this series -- the male side was fine, but I didn't like most of the actresses on the female side -- which was sort of the reason why I had put off watching the series in the first place (despite the series being on my "to watch" list for quite some time already plus owning the DVD).

Surprisingly, this series exceeded my expectations -- and that's saying alot for someone like me who has already lost all faith in TVB and its abilities to produce good series. Though I still hold that sentiment about TVB (most of their series nowadays are still crappy), I will admit that this particular series is one of those 'rare gems' that stands out from the rest of the pack. Of course, the series has its flaws and there were certainly some things I didn't like about it, but overall, the positives outweighed the negatives (for me at least).

As with most of my series reviews, I'm not going to talk about every single 'good' or 'bad' thing about the series because frankly, I don't see the need to do so (plus I'm always of the belief that it's best for people to watch the series for themselves to form their own opinion on it, since everyone's tastes are different). So I'm basically just going to highlight a few things that stood out to me in terms of the storyline and characters....

In terms of the storyline, it revolved around something that we do every day -- driving -- as well as the consequences of not following traffic laws and regulations. With this storyline and theme, I'm not really surprised in a sense that many audiences liked the series because the realism of the plot made it easier for audiences to relate. The series is a bit 'heavy' in the sense that it deals with alot of 'drama' and tragedy such as car accidents resulting from drunk driving or reckless driving and people dying or getting seriously injured as a result -- and it is a bit painful to watch how the lives of the families and friends of all involved (the victims of the accidents as well as those who cause the accidents) get turned upside down as a result of one person's actions. But that's life -- and that's where this series is successful -- depicting the tragedies of life and the aftermath. After watching this series, it really made me think twice about being reckless when driving!

With regard to character development and the acting -- well, here is where I need to applaud the writers and the actors for doing a great job, especially the male cast (though I have some reservations about the females -- but more on that later).

Here are some of the highlights:

Kent Cheng (Taxi Gor):  Kent Gor illustrates once again why I enjoy watching veteran actors' performances so much -- his portrayal of 'bad boy' Turbo's (Raymond Wong) father Taxi Gor was close to perfect! He definitely brought out the emotional aspect to the character and did a fine job showing us the complexity of the character -- a father who has immense love for his son, yet at the same time is frustrated with his son's actions and to some extent, feels guilty that he, as the parent, had a hand in his son going down the wrong path (by spoiling him when he was a child). His relationship with his son in this series was very interesting because it was not 'traditional' -- even though he would constantly argue with his rebellious son and yell at him profusely when he does 'reckless' stuff (to the extent of telling his son to his face that he is "a piece of trash"), it's obvious that he still loves him very much -- yelling at his son is a way of acting out his helpless frustration and desperation while at the same time holding out hope that he can still 'reform' his seemingly incorrigible son and bring him back on the right path. And to see all the pain and suffering that Kent's character goes through all because of his son's reckless actions (i.e.: selling his 2 taxi licenses in order to pay compensation to the dead victim's family, enduring the wrath of the other victim who becomes disabled because of the accident, working long hours despite his age and not being in good health just so that his son could have as 'normal' a life as possible once he got out of jail, etc.) -- it definitely made me appreciate the parent / child relationship so much more.

The scene in episode 3 or 4 when both Taxi Gor and Turbo go to the hospital after Turbo's drunk driving accident to apologize to the victim's family and the doctor comes out to tell them that they weren't able to save the victim -- that scene was especially intense, suspenseful, and well-acted....I literally jumped when Kent's character slapped Raymond's character so hard and so many times -- now there's professional acting for you right there!


Raymond Wong (Turbo):  I will admit that I was hugely impressed with Raymond's performance in this series. I never really took notice of Raymond prior to last year because he had just joined TVB not too long ago and none of his roles really stood out before that -- so at first, I assumed that he was just another newbie actor with mediocre skill whom TVB was trying to push in our (the audience's) faces. But, it turns out that I was wrong (about the 'newbie actor' and 'mediocre skill' part at least) -- Raymond is actually not new to the industry, as he started in the late 90s in movies and a few years ago switched to television, so up to last year, he already had 13 years of acting experience. And he definitely does have the acting skills as far as I can tell from the little I've seen of his performances. No wonder he was able to handle his first lead role (in this series) so well!

I like how Raymond's character develops throughout the series -- he is obviously a 'bad boy' in the beginning (no, not the evil villain type by any means) -- he was pretty much a tempermental, rebellious young guy who couldn't hold down a steady job and instead spent most of his time hanging out with his buddies and enjoying the thrills of driving / racing fast cars (hence gaining the name Turbo). Then, after he drives drunk and ends up killing someone (and severely injuring another person) and gets sent to jail, he changes his ways and truly tries hard to be a good person. What I like though is that the ‘transformation’ is not the typical “now I’m going to become the perfect son” type of thing – even after he is released from jail, he still has a fiery temper and a somewhat rebellious streak about him (and still argues with his father), but he has matured in his thinking and knows how much his father suffered because of him (as well as the pain that he caused the victims’ families) and so he thinks more before he acts.

Also, the genuine love and concern that he has towards his father is admirable – even though on the outside, he is always arguing with his father and comes across as though he doesn’t care, on the inside, he is really concerned for his father’s well-being. I especially saw this during the ‘jail visit’ scenes between him and his father – i.e.: the part when he is sitting in the room waiting for his father to come for his scheduled visit and when his father is late, he keeps looking worriedly at the door…when his father finally arrives all out of breath and sweating, he’s worried and tells him to be more careful and take care of himself. Then, when the time is up and he gets up to go back to his cell, he tells his father to wait until he catches his breath before leaving (obviously genuinely concerned for his health). Maybe it’s just me (and my ‘old-school’ way of thinking), but I’ve always been of the mindset that someone who can be that good to their parents (I’m talking genuinely filial here, not faking it) -- no matter what happens -- can’t possibly be THAT BAD of a person at the core.

Also, the 2 scenes where Turbo shows his remorse for the pain he caused both the widow of the guy who died in the accident as well as ruining the life of Kwok Fung’s character – where he gets down on his knees and sincerely begs for forgiveness – I will admit that I got a bit teary-eyed for those few seconds (again, that’s saying a lot). Once again, it goes to show how much of an impact Raymond’s performance in this series had.


Sonjia Kwok (Cheung Hui Mun):  To be honest, I don’t really have much to say about Sonjia’s character – I guess I’m basically neutral towards her character (I neither like her nor hate her). I honestly don’t think that Sonjia’s character stood out that much, at least not to me. She actually plays the typical “ex-girlfriend of the main character who still has feelings for him but he loves someone else” character – nothing really exciting or refreshing about her character. I also didn’t like Sonjia’s ‘look’ in this series – the short hair that she sported made her look way older than she really is and as a result, I don’t feel that she ‘matched’ Raymond’s character (it made her look older than him – not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I just couldn’t really see them as a couple).

In a sense, I feel that Sonjia’s character was a somewhat supporting role in the series because she definitely did not have as much screen time as Kate – in fact, there were some episodes where she didn’t appear at all or if she did, she was part of a group scene and had very little dialogue (if any). I’m thinking that her primary purpose in the series was to be a potential love interest for Raymond so that TVB can do their typical ‘love triangle’ thing that they manage to do in most series – if that’s the case, I would rather they have cut her character out completely rather than do a mediocre job of character development.


Kate Tsui (Ko Lai Sum):   I’ve never liked Kate and after watching this series, my opinion of her hasn’t changed. Kate’s character is a traffic enforcement officer who is at odds with Raymond Wong’s character Turbo because of his reckless driving (not surprisingly, since she IS a traffic cop after all). But their relationship becomes even more strained after Turbo causes an accident when driving drunk and she is the first officer on the scene. After Turbo gets out of jail, the 2 become friends and eventually become a couple (of course – typical TVB).

I’m not too fond of Kate in this series because to me, her character comes across as fake – maybe it’s her (bad) acting that caused me to think this way, but I really felt her character was boring and didn’t display the emotion that I would expect her to. She is also definitely not convincing as a traffic cop (in fact, she came across as very awkward in that role). Maybe she should stick to playing those ‘vixen’ roles that she seems to do so well in (perhaps because it’s closer to the image that most audiences have of her?).


Ruco Chan (Kwan Shu Yan):   Ruco’s character is obviously the villain in the series. On the surface, he is the CEO of a big company and tries to pass himself off as a respected business person, however underneath that ‘cool’ and ‘calm’ demeanor is an evil, heartless monster who has no qualms about driving recklessly and even injuring or killing people in car accidents that he causes. He and Turbo are enemies because he once caused Turbo to crash the car that he was driving, which resulted in his dad Taxi Gor to be seriously injured – but the worst part was the fact that Ruco’s character schemed to cover up his involvement in the accident, using all the people around him to his advantage. Of course, as with most of the villains in TVB’s series, his character encounters a tragic, yet predictable end….

Ruco is another artist who ‘jumped ship’ to TVB from ATV and even though I have not seen too many of his series so far, I can tell that from the few I’ve seen that he his acting skills are quite good. (What’s with all those ATV artists having such good acting skills?). Even though I disliked Ruco’s character in this series, I do have to admit that he did a good job of portraying the “coldheartedness” of the character.


Raymond Cho (Au Yiu Jun):  In most of his previous series, Ray usually plays some type of ‘professional’ character such as a doctor, lawyer, police officer, business man, etc., so it was definitely refreshing to see him play a ‘common man’ type character this time around – a working class taxi driver and family man whose main objective is to give his wife and son the best life he could afford. He’s the typical ‘little man’ character who pretty much lets his wife run the show at home he feels that his wife had to ‘marry down’ because of him (since they only married because she became pregnant), so he wants to do everything he can do to prove his love for her.

I like Ray’s character in this series – even though he doesn’t have too much screen time, I still enjoyed his humorous and straightforward personality in the series. But honestly, why did they pair him up with Elaine? Her character was such a bxxch – he definitely deserved way better than that!


Elaine Yiu (Wai Wai):  As usual, Elaine plays another annoying, pathetic character. She plays Raymond Cho’s wife – a mother who obtains a job at a prestigious, high-paying company and obviously makes more money than her taxi driver husband, which means that she also ‘wears the pants’ in the house because she is the ‘main breadwinner’. And of course, as is typically the case, she has a willful, defiant personality and always insists that she is right, refusing to listen to anyone, not even to her own husband when he tries to warn her against getting too friendly with her boss (played by Ruco Chan). Everyone knows that her boss is a bad person who is responsible for hurting many people in car accidents, then covering up his actions, yet she continues to blindly follow him, naively (and stupidly) insisting that he is not that kind of person and that everyone is prejudiced against him (sound familiar? Yup, the same type of stupid, annoying roles she typically plays). The worst part is how she almost ruins her marriage because she believes Ruco more than she does her own husband Ray, even slapping her husband and yelling at him in her boss’ defense! (Ok, that scene was a bit overboard – I actually wanted to slap Elaine silly after that.)


Kwok Fung (Ngai Chiu Fat):  Veteran actor Kwok Fung plays a working class café owner who makes a living by making tasty beef balls, which is pretty much what he has done his entire life and what he raised his family on. But when he becomes one of the victims of Turbo’s car accident and severely injures his arm, his life gets turned upside down – because his craft depends upon using his hands and he refused to get therapy even after he was injured, his situation grew worse, to the point that he was no longer able to continue with his craft, therefore losing the café that he had worked so many years to maintain. He becomes depressed and takes on drinking and gambling, plus his personality completely changes, becoming angry, aggressive, and violent – by taking out his anger on his family (his wife and teenage daughter), he ends up losing his family as well.

Kwok Fung has been around forever it seems (I pretty much grew up watching his series) – he is one of those seasoned veteran actors who can pull off pretty much any role he is given with ease. That was definitely the case in this series as well – not only did he have to maintain an accent in the series (and make it sound natural rather than forced), he also had to go from ‘ideal husband and father’ to his family’s worse nightmare. I really can’t imagine who else would be able to play this complex character as well as Kwok Fung did!


Kingdom Yuen (Fen Jie):  My first impression of Kingdom’s performance in this series – WOW! I’ve always known that Kingdom can act, as I’ve seen many of the series that she participated in and she is always excellent in her roles as well as extremely convincing. Her role as Kwok Fung’s wife was very well acted – all the emotional scenes that she had were amazingly convincing, especially the scenes where she gets beat up by her husband and subsequently when she stands up to him and fights back.

There were actually quite a few ‘gripping’ scenes that Kingdom was involved in where I couldn’t help but think how underrated she is as an actress as well as how much the younger ones can learn from her. To be honest, out of the entire female cast in this series (lead as well as supporting), Kingdom’s character was the ONLY one I liked – despite how tragic her character is, it was definitely refreshing to see such quality acting!

.--.

Concluding thoughts:

Overall, I was disappointed in the female cast of this series (except for Kingdom Yuen) because all of their characters were pretty much “forgettable”. I’m actually not sure if I should blame the writers for the bad character development on the female side or the actresses for their mediocre acting – either way, when the female cast is placed up against the male cast, there is a very obvious difference in terms of the characters as well as the acting.

In terms of whether I recommend this series or not – well, it depends….it’s definitely not an easy series to get through because of the tragic theme and the intense emotional aspect. Also, with the two extremes in acting on the part of the cast (the female cast, except Kingdom, really dragged the series down whereas the male cast pretty much kept it going), it’s easy to get frustrated at some of the draggy scenes involving the female cast. Luckily though, the series is short (only 19 episodes) and for the really boring scenes, there’s always the option of forwarding through them (as I ended up doing a few times myself)! So pretty much – watch at your own risk!