Breaking News: Sheren Tang, Sunny Chan, and Amy Chan to film new series for ViuTV

Saw this article and got super excited so figured I post now and elaborate later, lol.

https://m.mingpao.com/pns/dailynews/web_tc/article/20180731/s00016/1532974769985

Basically, I just found out that two of my favorite television actors/actresses – Sunny Chan and Sheren Tang – will be filming a new series for ViuTV.  The series will be produced by   南方舞廳   (whom most people may recognize as the name of the author who wrote the Margaret and David books, the entire franchise of which was turned into a series by ViuTV that aired over the past 2 or so years). 

Sheren and Sunny will play a married couple and the theme of the series will be about older couple relationships (kind of in the same vein as M&D, which was also about relationships except the central couple was younger).  I'm excited (first time I've felt excited for a series in a long time), since Sheren and Sunny are 2 of my favorite actors/actresses,  it's been a long time since I've seen them onscreen, the pairing is fresh (trying to remember but I don't think the two of them have collaborated before), and the theme / plot will be more relevant to society as well as different from typical HK series (no more TVB recycled formula – yay!).

According to the producer, Sheren's only requirement was that she receive the entire script in hand before commencing filming and they've already delivered on that!  Now it makes sense why Sheren didn’t take up the offer to film that new Chan Bo Wah series from TVB...they probably couldn’t meet whatever demands she had.

In related news, veteran actress Amy Chan Sau Man (another actress I like) will also be filming a series for ViuTV but not the same one as Sheren and Sunny.  Wow, ViuTV is really hitting it into the park with the veterans this year – after reuniting “Greed of Man” father and son Adam Cheng and Michael Tao in the Detective Psycho Prequel earlier in the month, now they're bringing on veterans that many of us have been waiting a long time to see again.  Hope they keep this up!!  I for one will definitely be keeping an eye out for their upcoming series!

More to come on this!!!

TVB Anniversary Awards 2012: Recap of the Winners + My Thoughts

TVB’s annual Anniversary Awards show took place much later than usual this year, which isn’t too surprising given the fact that TVB had to wait until their 2 anniversary series finished airing so that both programs could be included in the awards ceremony.

This year’s awards show was also different from previous years because of the new ‘rules’ that TVB set in efforts to attract more audiences to watch and participate in the show.  Instead of having TVB executives and producers determine the winners for all award categories, TVB chose instead to have the 3 biggest award categories – Best Actor (TV King), Best Actress (TV Queen), and Best Series – be determined 100% by audience vote (what they call the OVPP system).  Since I already stated my opinion multiple times about the OVPP thing and why I don’t feel that it’s a good idea, I’m not going to rehash that ‘argument’ here.  But I will say that TVB pretty much used the whole OVPP thing as a ‘gimmick’ in efforts to ‘change up’ the awards show and also get more audiences to watch as well as participate (which seemed to have worked, since the latest update is that the ratings for the show shot through the roof:  ratings averaged 36 points, peaking at 41 points….even higher ratings than TVB’s series!!).

Unlike last year’s award ceremony, which I had no interest in watching whatsoever (though I still ended up watching and writing up a recap post on it), I was actually interested this year because there were quite a few artists and series nominated that I actually like…plus I was curious to see how the whole OVPP thing would turn out (and whether the Miss HK voting fiasco would repeat itself or not).

Overall, I felt that the results were satisfactory and I wasn’t too surprised with who ended up winning (well, except for in 1-2 categories that is).  The awards were pretty evenly distributed this time around and the people whom I expected to win did (for the most part). 

Of course, the biggest surprise for me was the presentation of the “Outstanding Artist” awards to the 5 ‘veteran’ artists – even though I already knew that TVB was going to have this ‘new’ award this year (it was announced a few weeks ago), I had no clue what the criteria would be or who the nominees were, since TVB didn’t release any details about it.  Prior to the awards show, there was widespread speculation in the Media that this award was created as a ‘consolation prize’ to calm the backlash that erupted over the blatant omission of certain artists from the nominations list (i.e. Ben Wong, Raymond Cho, Linda Chung, etc.) – in fact, I even saw some Media outlet ‘claim’ that they had the ‘official list of winners’ from TVB and those 3 names (Ben, Raymond, Linda, etc.) were on it as the ‘winners’ of this award!  Obviously, that ‘report’ turned out to be BOGUS (again, be careful what you read in the Media and don’t believe everything you read / hear!).  The purpose of the “Outstanding Artist” award turned out to be completely different – it wasn’t a ‘consolation prize’ for those not nominated, but rather a ‘professionalism’ award to recognize those veteran artists who’ve worked hard for years and show professionalism both at work and outside of it.  Sure, people can say that this was pretty much a ‘pork’ award, but hey, the way I see it, at least TVB made the effort to recognize those artists (even if they probably only did so because of the external ‘pressure’ from HKTV and not wanting to lose those artists to competitors).  In any case, I’ll talk more about the winners for this award below and my feelings about it.

The other overall comment I had is that I was a bit disappointed with the lack of ‘meaningful’ presenters this year.  Every year, the ‘highlight’ of the anniversary awards show for me isn’t necessarily the nominees or the award winners (since I’ve lost confidence in TVB’s awards in the past decade, so I could really care less who won) – rather, I tune in to watch the awards mainly because of the presenters, since most years, TVB manages to invite artists / entertainment industry people whom we haven’t seen in a long time to present for them.  Also, the ‘speeches’ that the presenters give are usually the most interesting (and usually the funniest) part of the entire show.  I’ll talk a little bit about some of the presenters who were at the ceremony, but outside of those few, there really wasn’t much ‘excitement’ in this area this year.

Ok, so with all that said, here’s the list of the winners, my thoughts / opinion on their wins, and comments about the actual show itself.

.---. 

Lifetime Achievement Award:  Liza Wang
(Award presented by TVB’s Deputy Chairman Norman Leung)

.-- Even though I absolutely can’t stand Liza Wang, I’m actually ok with TVB giving her this award because she truly has contributed a lot to the industry and so for that, she does deserve to be recognized.  Plus I would much rather they give Liza this award than to keep giving her a spot in the Top 5 for TV Queen just to please her (which they didn’t do this year – thank God!).  I mean, seriously, must she get nominated for TV Queen each time she participates in a series?  How about saving that spot for the younger ones fadans who actually ‘need’ the TV Queen award more than she does?

.-- Anyway, I honestly didn’t pay much attention to Liza’s acceptance speech because, well, frankly I really didn’t care much – just wanted them to get the segment over with and move on.

.-- One comment about this segment of the awards ceremony:  Um, in the future, can TVB please not have Norman Leung speak?  I mean, ok fine, have him present the award if needed, but gosh, please don’t let the man open his mouth!   Not only does he speak incredibly SLOW, he’s also very incoherent (honestly, Sir Run Run Show is 104 years old and he probably speaks more clearly than Norman Leung!).  Also, most people probably didn’t notice, but Mr. Leung got some information wrong in his speech (when he was recounting some of the series that Liza participated in) – my mom and I were literally sitting there scratching our heads and wondering:  Huh?  I don’t hear Norman Leung giving long speeches too often, so I’m not sure if he speaks that way normally or if he was just really nervous that night (though I had the same feeling about his speech last year too – CRINGEWORTHY!). Argh!


Most Improved Female Artist:  Mandy Wong
(Award presented by Lawrence Cheng, Chin Kar Lok, and Janice Man)

.—First, a word about the presenters:  it actually did make sense for TVB to invite Lawrence and Chin Kar Lok to present this particular award (which is pretty much the ‘Best Newcomer’ award) because 1) Lawrence is currently one of the ‘main instructors’ for TVB’s newly revamped Acting Classes (he’s responsible for cultivating TVB’s new batch of ‘talents’, hence the connection to the newcomer award) and 2) Chin Kar Lok was one of the first winners of the ‘Most Improved’ award (as Lawrence reminded us during his ‘speech’) back in the 90s when the Anniversary Awards first started (back when they had the award separated into ‘drama’ and ‘non-drama’ categories) – so as the ‘big brother’, it was most appropriate for him to present the award to his ‘juniors’.  As for Janice Man – well, she’s a ‘newcomer’ to the film industry (and music too, right?) so that made sense too – though honestly, she didn’t really say much, since Lawrence and Kar Lok did most of the talking, so she probably didn’t really need to be there…

.— In terms of the winner….of course, the ‘expected’ winner in this category was Mandy, so no surprise there.  Actually, she is long overdue for this award already, as she actually should have already gotten it last year, but since she didn’t, then it only makes sense for her to get it this year. 

.—I definitely agree with Mandy winning this award because this year truly was ‘her year’ – not only was she in a lot of series this year, she also performed well in all of them…in some cases, even ‘stealing the show’ from the leads.  TVB definitely made a wise choice by giving this award to Mandy instead of the others who were nominated….in fact, I would venture to say that if TVB had pulled an ‘upset’ and given the award to someone else, all hell would have broken loose.


Most Improved Male Artist:  Oscar Leung
(Award presented by Lawrence Cheng, Chin Kar Lok, and Janice Man)

.—This was probably the only other category I actually ‘cared’ about going into the awards show because I really really wanted Oscar Leung to win.  Oscar pulled off excellent performances in pretty much every series he participated in this year and truly did deserve to win -- so yes, I am definitely glad he did win!  I actually don’t remember if Oscar was nominated last year or not but to me, he has always been a pretty solid actor, even back around the time that he started – seeing such promising young actors like Oscar do well makes me very happy because it reinstates some of the hope in the TV industry that I had lost years ago!

.—I will admit that  I was a little worried in the beginning whether TVB would choose to give the award to Him Law instead of Oscar….now don’t get me wrong – Him is a good actor too and certainly deserving of the Most Improved award as well (though to be honest, both Him and Oscar are sort of past the ‘newbie’ stage already….but hey, getting that award is better than getting nothing, right?) – but this year, Oscar definitely ‘stood out’ more in terms of his acting, as he had a wider range of roles that required more versatile acting versus Him’s roles this year pretty much being the same from one series to another.  Definitely very happy for Oscar!!

.—Lastly – I liked Oscar’s acceptance speech….it was touching to hear him thank all the people who had helped ‘teach’ him and give him advice over the years….and definitely very ‘sweet’ of him to thank his girlfriend Tina, who has stuck with him through thick and thin for the past 10 years.  Good for him!



Best Host of a Variety Program:  Luisa Maria Leitao (“Telling Maria”)
(Award presented by Mak Ling Ling and Lee Sing Chak)

.—This was not a surprise at all, as everyone was pretty much expecting Luisa to take this award.  Out of all the nominees, she was definitely the best one – not to mention her popularity soared big time this year due to her interview program being so well received.  I have no problems with Luisa winning at all – in fact, I’m very happy that she is also finally getting the recognition she should have gotten a long time ago (she’s been in the industry for 30 years).  Lastly – she also gave one of the most moving speeches of the night (especially the last part of her speech when she thanked her ex-boyfriend for all the support he had given her and helping to promote the program).



Outstanding Artist Award:  Chin Kar Lok, Benz Hui, Sunny Chan, Lee Sing Cheong, Dodo Cheng
(Award presented by Eric Tsang)

.—As I said earlier, I was pleasantly surprised with this award because I had no clue whatsoever that TVB would choose to ‘recognize’ its veteran artists (though it makes sense now given the volatile situation with additional stations vying for licenses).

.—First, let’s talk about Eric Tsang presenting this award.  Definitely a very appropriate choice given Eric’s tenure and status in the industry – plus he’s one of the few artists currently at TVB who was actually around when these veteran artists were still active and knows them very well (of course, he has collaborated with most of them in some way or another as well).  Eric’s ‘speech’ introducing each of the artists was very touching (and ‘humorous’ in the case of Chin Kar Lok) – good job in this area!

As for the winners of the award – all of them were definitely well-deserved.  I liked how TVB did the ‘surprise’ element with this award, as none of the 5 artists knew that they were going to get this award until their names were called to go on stage.

.—Chin Kar Lok – to be honest, I may not be too fond of Kar Lok as an actor, but I definitely admire and respect him as a person.  I remember the first time I knew of him was back in the mid-90s when he ‘replaced’ Jordan Chan as one of the co-hosts of Super Trio (he went on to host for many years alongside Eric Tsang and Jerry Lamb).  I’ve seen him in many hosting gigs since then and also I’ve seen him in series too – but his biggest contribution I feel is his role as action choreographer for movies, which is really his strength (plus it’s something that he’s been doing for years and recently won an award for).  So yes, totally deserving of this award because of his contributions to the industry but also his good overall attitude as well.


.—Benz Hui  -- I was absolutely ecstatic that Benz FINALLY got recognition – not just for his contributions to the TV (and movie) industry, but also for his great attitude and personality off-screen as well!   As Eric stated in his introduction, Benz was one of the graduates of TVB’s very first Acting Class (back in 1971-72) and he has pretty much worked for TVB since that time (40 years!!).  I myself grew up watching Benz in series after series (he was especially active back in the 80s) and over the years, he has become one of my favorite ‘green leaf’ actors of all time!  As an actor, he is brilliantly talented (he can do comical, serious, villain, grassroots, etc. – absolutely versatile!).  As a person – well, the introduction that TVB put together about Benz described him perfectly in my opinion – he definitely brings joy and laughter to everyone, no matter where he goes, as he has a truly infectious sense of humor that just endears him to everyone. 

From my recollection, in the 40 years that Benz has worked for TVB, he hasn’t gotten a single award (though as he said, from day one, he has never thought about getting any awards), so for him to get one now is definitely long overdue.  No wonder Benz was so touched (he almost cried, though he was able to hold it in and use his trademark sense of humor to lighten the mood) – I mean, I was almost in tears too (tears of joy that is) seeing one of my favorite artists finally get ‘rewarded’ after so many years!  Absolutely well-deserved!!


.—Sunny Chan – I was equally surprised when Sunny’s name was called because despite his great acting talent (obviously he’s one of my favorite actors as well), he has never been ‘recognized’ by TVB for any type of award (even though he did get nominated a few times, but was never in ‘serious’ contention).  I’ve liked Sunny as an actor since he started in the 90s – which is why for the past decade (ever since Sunny returned to TVB after a brief stint at ATV), I’ve been ticked off at TVB for giving him such lame roles in equally lame series and for ‘warehousing’ majority of his series.  To be honest, he can give any of the TV Kings from the past decade a run for their money in the area of acting, yet he is so under-promoted and under-utilized that it’s ridiculous – especially since he is a lead actor and has been since the 90s!  As a person, I have the utmost respect and admiration for Sunny, especially in the last few years after I found out how great of a father he is and all the sacrifices that he was willing to make for his autistic son – definitely a man of honor who absolutely deserves to be rewarded!

I’m so glad that TVB finally ‘woke up’ and recognized how much talent Sunny has as an actor (maybe, just maybe, I’ll stop being pissed at them now for ‘neglecting’ Sunny all these years)!   And I absolutely enjoyed Sunny’s acceptance speech (haha…Eric Tsang was spot on when he said that Sunny will ‘talk your ear off’ if he got the chance…but hey, that’s part of what makes him so endearing!) – you could totally tell that Sunny was overjoyed at getting the award (he was like a big kid who just got a big present…LOL!).  Great job, Sunny!


.—Lee Sing Cheong – I was pleasantly surprised that Lee Sing Cheong got an award because he has also been with TVB for decades and never got much recognition up until now!  He’s another actor I grew up watching (I started watching him in series when he actually still had hair…hehe!) and needless to say, he’s definitely another one of my favorites.  Lee Sing Cheong has always been a very versatile, talented actor who can take pretty much any type of role and run with it – he can be a ruthless villain one minute, a benevolent father the next minute, or a comedic sidekick the next minute.  He is tremendously underrated as an actor and absolutely deserves more recognition than he has ever gotten – which is why I was so happy to see him get this award.  It was obvious from his acceptance speech that he didn’t know about the award either (since TVB told him to attend the awards ceremony because they were going to have him present an award – though they never told him who he would be presenting to…turns out that was just an ‘excuse’ to get him to attend so they could ‘surprise’ him with the award).  Lee Sing Cheong was very moved by the gesture and even though he didn’t cry, other artists did shed a few tears because they were so happy for him (Myolie gave him a standing ovation and Fala was wiping tears from her eyes) – though it was very emotional for me as well, it was at the same time very heartwarming to see.  Congratulations and absolutely well-deserved!!


.—Dodo Cheng – the 5^th Outstanding Artist award went to Dodo Cheng, which absolutely makes sense in my opinion because in all the years that she has been in the industry, Dodo is pretty much the ‘epitome’ of professionalism (if anyone needs examples of this, let me know!).  I loved her as an actress back in the 70s/80s (when she was with TVB) and even when she went into movies, I still enjoyed her works.  For me personally, I feel it’s a pity that she stopped acting and decided to do hosting full time instead because she’s an absolutely talented actress (though of course, she’s a great host as well – one of the best there is in the industry).  Definitely well-deserved and a natural choice to win this award! (And I loved how Dodo didn’t miss a beat – right after her speech, she continued right into her duties of wrapping up the segment for a commercial!)



Favorite Female TV Character:  Kate Tsui (as ‘Pat Chan’ in Highs and Lows)
(Award presented by Myolie Wu and Kevin Cheng)

.—There was no top 5 this year – pretty much all 10 nominees in the category were ‘finalists’, which I felt was kind of weird.  They should have at least narrowed it down to Top 5 like they did previous years – at least make the award more ‘important’ (especially since the award already has a ‘negative’ stigma of being a ‘consolation prize’).  I don’t know about others, but for me, the way they did this award, I really wasn’t too excited about the award itself – when they announced the winner, it was pretty much like: ‘oh ok – next?’

.—I actually have no comment about Kate winning because this year, I actually have not paid a whole lot of attention to the performances of the females – just like last year and the year before, none of the performances from the ladies stood out much to me, so as long as whoever wins in this category makes sense and doesn’t create backlash, then I’m fine with it.



Favorite Male TV Character:  Kenneth Ma (as ‘Cheung Yat Kin’ in The Hippocratic Crush)
(Award presented by Ng Man Tat and Benz Hui)

.—Compared to the Female Fav character award, the Male one was definitely much more ‘exciting’, probably because the male performances were definitely better this year and majority of the characters / artists nominated I felt deserved to win.

.—Again, no Top 5 for this category, which was a bit weird, but ok fine (though it would have made things more interesting to narrow the list and only pick one person from it). 

.—Of course, since I loved the series The Hippocratic Crush and loved Kenneth’s character in it, I’m absolutely fine with him winning – though as I said earlier, I would have been fine with any of the others winning as well (yes, even Raymond – his ‘Happy Sir’ character truly was a departure from the types of characters he used to play and in my opinion, it’s one of the more decent roles he’s had in the past couple years). 

.—Kenneth definitely gave a great speech – I loved how he was so honest in saying that people seem to not want the Favorite Male Character award because the person who receives it usually won’t get TV King, but he’s totally fine with it and doesn’t mind getting that award every year if no one wants it!  Haha…silly Kenneth!  One thing I like about Kenneth is that he is one of the few artists who actually thanks all the behind-the-scenes people in his speeches (i.e. the scriptwriters, costume, hair and makeup, etc.) – I respect him for that, especially since the behind-the-scenes people usually never get any type of recognition whatsoever.

.—The highlight of this segment for me was definitely the presenters – Tat Gor and Uncle Benz!  TVB made a great choice putting these 2 ‘funny men’ together – their ‘banter’ back and forth was absolutely hilarious!!   I already talked about Benz earlier, so not too much more comment there…but I was absolutely thrilled to see Tat Gor again!  Since he moved his career to Mainland, I had not seen any of Tat Gor’s works in recent years, so I was definitely starting to miss him – especially since he’s one of my favorite comedic actors (though he’s also very versatile and can do a variety of other roles as well).  Based on his presentation speech, he has not lost his comedic timing one bit!   Love it!



Best Supporting Actress:  Nancy Wu (Gloves Come Off)
(Award presented by Mandy Wong)

.—TVB did this award differently this year by first announcing the Top 2 artists in this category (basically the 2 artists who received the most number of votes).  Both artists were invited to the front of the stage and allowed to give a brief ‘acceptance’ speech – then they were given the envelope with the name of the winner and the person who doesn’t get the award is responsible for presenting the award to the winner.

.—Honestly, I didn’t like the way they did this because it was too awkward – especially since they didn’t set aside enough time for it.  The whole segment was so rushed, I sort of got ticked off at how ‘messy ‘ it was.

.—The top 2 finalists in this category were Nancy Wu and Mandy Wong.  Of course, I’m not surprised about Nancy, since she was the ‘hot favorite’ going into the awards and pretty much the one expected to win.  But I WAS surprised about Mandy getting the second highest number of votes – I honestly thought the ‘battle’ for Supporting Actress was between Nancy and Elena Kong (whom I felt was the only one out of the rest of the nominees who had a real chance at beating Nancy)…ah well, I guess it doesn’t make a difference now…

.—Anyway, absolutely fine with Nancy winning this award – in fact, she actually should have gotten this award a long time ago…glad TVB finally ‘recognized’ her, but really wish they would have done so earlier!



Best Supporting Actor:  Koo Ming Wah (Divas in Distress)
(Award presented by Power Chan)

.—Same format as the Supporting Actress award, except that this segment ran more smoothly – less awkward and the timing was a lot better.

.—The 2 finalists were (obviously) Power Chan and Koo Ming Wah.  To be honest, I love both actors, so it’s really hard for me to choose who I would have wanted to win – I’m pretty much ok with either one winning, though as I said before, I really wished this category would have been a tie so that both of them could win! 

.-- One thing I will say is that I was thrilled to see these 2 great actors FINALLY getting the recognition they deserve – it was definitely a very emotional moment for me seeing the 2 of them up there and seeing how much support both of them were getting from everyone (especially Power Chan, since I’ve been following his career since the 80s and pretty much grew up watching him). 

.—I absolutely loved Power’s ‘thank you’ speech, even though it was only 2 sentences!  It was so sweet of him to tell his wife and daughter how much he loved them (and kudos to the other artists for applauding when he made his ‘declaration’).  Awww, Power is such a good man!  Love him and continue to support him!

.—Koo Ming Wah gave a great speech as well – he was very emotional and thanked pretty much everyone – from TVB to the series producers and behind the scenes staff to his family to the fans who supported him.  I’m very happy for him, as he definitely deserved the award for his performance (though as I said earlier, Power was also equally deserving).



Best Variety Program:  Map of Happiness
(Award presented by Chung King Fai and Jerry Lamb)

.—I will be honest and say that I was surprised that Map of Happiness won because I absolutely thought that Telling Maria had this award in the bag.  Not sure what happened here because the result was totally unexpected in my opinion….but I’m not really going to complain because I did watch Map of Happiness and it WAS a pretty good program…one of the better ones that TVB has made over the years.

.—About the presenting:  Hahaha….at first I wasn’t sure why they had Jerry Lamb present with King Sir, but as soon as Jerry opened his mouth, I instantly remembered:   one of Jerry’s ‘hidden talents’ is that he is able to do an absolutely ‘dead-on’ impersonation of King Sir.  Omg, his impersonation was SO good (and it was funny to hear all the artists chuckling in the background…LOL!)



Best Informational Program:  Pilgrimage of Hope
(Award presented by Chung King Fai and Jerry Lamb)

.—Not much comment about this category, since I didn’t watch this program at all (though I do know some stuff about it based on reading up on it).



Best Actress (TV Queen):  Tavia Yeung (Silver Spoons, Sterling Shackles)
(Award presented by Miriam Yeung)            

.—Top 5 in this category:  Tavia Yeung (Silver Spoons, Sterling Shackles), Michelle Yim (The Confidant), Charmaine Sheh (When Heaven Burns), Linda Chung (Witness Insecurity), Kate Tsui (Highs and Lows)    

.—My honest opinion:  Doesn’t matter to me, since, like I said earlier, I wasn’t too impressed overall with the performances from the females this year.  I’m fine with the Top 5, since those were the same artists I expected to get into the ‘final’ list anyway.  Plus none of those who got into Top 5 are my favorites anyway…though if I had really had to pick based on performance, I probably would have picked Charmaine because she had the most impactful and difficult performance out of the 5.

.—My only other comment – not sure if I liked Tavia’s speech…I actually felt she was doing fine until she mentioned the part about Liza Wang – not sure what the point was of that?



Best Actor (TV King):  Wayne Lai (The Confidant)
(Award presented by Deanie Ip)                     

.—Top 5 in this category:  Damian Lau (Silver Spoons, Sterling Shackles), Moses Chan (The Last Steep Ascent), Raymond Lam (Highs and Lows), Wayne Lai (The Confidant), Kenneth Ma (The Hippocratic Crush)

.—I will say that I was surprised Wayne won because with the whole OVPP thing, I was thinking for sure that Raymond Lam had the award in the bag due to his large fan base.  Don’t get me wrong…I’m happy that Wayne won and from an acting standpoint, his skills are unquestionable – but is he really more ‘popular’ than Raymond to the point that he would receive more votes than him (this is assuming that TVB didn’t mess with the results that is)?  I’ve actually been thinking about this question the past few days and it’s actually starting to make more sense to me now….Wayne’s fan base isn’t really as small as we think – over the past 4-5 years, he has gained a lot of fans, especially after he became leading actor status – not only do the ‘housewives’ (and other audiences) love him, he also has a lot of support from his colleagues and others whom he’s worked with.  I mean, why else has TVB been promoting him so much and treating him so well when he’s not even a ‘biological son’ of theirs (and he’s still not as far as I know)?  It’s because Wayne is a ‘cash cow’ for TVB due to his overwhelming popularity with their main demographic – the ‘housewife’ audiences (and for those who think that the ‘housewife’ audiences don’t know how to use a computer or mobile app to vote – well, there is such a thing as having their kids do it for them, right?).  Of course, no complaints here, since I adore Wayne – it’s just that I wasn’t expecting him to win this time around…but he did and I’m very happy for him!

.—Wayne actually gave a very good speech – he was very calm, composed, coherent, and was able to thank everyone he wanted to thank with making it seem rushed or awkward….of course, I shouldn’t be surprised because Wayne has always been a very well-spoken person.  And with this being his third TV King win, he has ‘experience’ enough now to keep his composure during these types of events and not break down.

.—Lastly, a word about the presenter:  Deanie was very elegant as usual but also funny in her own unique way.  I liked how she was able to make a comment about each of the top 5 nominees – then when she got to Kenneth, she asked “Who is Kenneth Ma?” (obviously she doesn’t watch much TV…haha).  That part was funny!



Best Series:  When Heaven Burns
(Award presented by Ng See Yuen)

.—Top 3:  The Hippocratic Crush, The Confidant, When Heaven Burns

.-- A lot of people were surprised that WHB won Best Series, considering it was the 2^nd lowest rated series of the year and it didn’t appeal to majority of TVB’s audience demographic:  the housewives.  Back when the series aired, there were complaints galore about the ‘cannabalism’ theme (which turned out to be over-exaggerated) and the ‘differentness’ of the series that caused majority of housewives not to understand what the series was about or what they were watching.  It wasn’t until after the series aired that people really started picking up on this series (primary reason was because of the addictive sub-themesong, which spread like wildfire, and also the ending of the series, which was very well-done and a definite departure from TVB’s standard fare).  I actually find it kind of ironic that audiences only started liking the series after it aired – to the point that TVB parted from tradition and specially placed all episodes of the series on MyTV for an entire week so that netizens who missed the series when it aired on TV could watch in its entirety!   With netizens literally ‘adoring’ this series and even dubbing it as a ‘godly’ series, it’s not surprising in the least that majority of the audiences would vote for WHB as the Best Series.

.-- The part that WAS surprising – that TVB actually allowed WHB to win!  Given that majority of the main cast already left TVB (Charmaine, Bowie, etc.) and most of the behind-the-scenes people are gone too (scriptwriter Chow Yuk Ming already left TVB a few months back and producer Jonathan Chik will be leaving at the end of this month), plus the ratings were pathetically low, I didn’t think that TVB would allow it to get anything!

.—Lastly…about Ng See Yuen presenting…again, another surprise because he’s the President of the HK Film Workers Association and recently took the lead in holding a press conference urging the government to issue additional free-to-air licenses to other TV stations (and thereby ‘opposing’ TVB’s firm stance on the issue).  The press conference just occurred last week (so still ‘fresh’ in a sense), so it felt a bit weird (to me at least) that TVB would turn around and invite him to present one of the night’s biggest awards.

Mingpao Interview: Sunny Chan stops working for a year to help his autistic son overcome his speech impediment

Here's another great interview from the latest issue of Mingpao Magazine that just came out today.

The cover story is about Sunny Chan -- one of my favorite actors -- who took a year off from acting this past year so he could take care of his autistic son.  He will be returning to TVB next month to film a new series with Raymond Wong and Sonjia Kwok (the cast revealed so far).

Sunny has always been one of my favorite actors -- ever since he started in the 90s, I've followed his career and watched practically every series he's been in (except the ATV ones).  In recent years, he's gotten alot of crappy roles in forgettable series and alot of the series he starred in were warehoused for years -- it got to the point that I started to question why he even continued to stay with TVB given how crappy they treated him.  Then, last year, I found out the reason -- his son is autistic and because he wanted to make sure he spent as much time with him as possible, he wanted to keep his career primarily in HK, which meant that his only choice was to continue working for TVB (since the only other choice is ATV and we all know that station doesn't film series anymore).  I will be very honest and say that when I first found out that his son is autistic, I literally cried -- but then I saw the positive and optimistic attitude that Sunny (and his wife Ada) constantly displayed toward his son's situation and I couldn't help but admire him even more.  Sunny has always struck me as a great husband, father, and person overall -- this interview pretty much reinforces that fact!  (Btw, I also cried buckets after reading this article, primarily because I was so touched by it!).

Best of luck to Sunny, Ada, and little Kah Wah -- I support you guys 100%!!!

**********

Mingpao Interview:  Sunny Chan stops working for a year to help his autistic son overcome his speech impediment

Source:  Mingpao Weekly, Issue 2285

Translation:  llwy12

Olympic sailing champion Lee Lai Shan once stated that “it takes 4 million dollars to raise a child.” For Sunny Chan (陳錦鴻) and his wife Ada To (杜雯惠) however, the amount of time and energy they spend on their 5 year old son Chan Kah Wah (陳駕樺) cannot be measured with any amount of money!

Sunny and Ada’s son Kah Wah is not only mildly autistic, but also has a speech impediment, therefore, the couple has put all of their effort into taking care of him – in addition to giving up city life and moving to the suburbs to provide a more natural environment for their son, they also specially hired a ‘shadow teacher’ to accompany him to classes. Having endured an English language impediment himself when he was a kid, Sunny did not want his son to go through the same suffering he had back then – therefore, in September of last year (2011), Sunny decide to completely stop working so he could take care of his son 24 hours a day. Now one year later, Sunny finally has his greatest reward: during his Kindergarten graduation ceremony this past July, Kah Wah was able to perform a recitation all by himself in front of a crowd of people! However, the meticulous effort that Sunny and his wife had to put into achieving such results was far greater than any outside observer can understand.

Sunny Chan and his wife, radio DJ Ada To, had their son Kah Wah in 2007. Two years later, at an age when most toddlers already know how to utter a limited number of words, the couple discovered that their 2 year old son still did not know how to speak – not long after that, Kah Wah was confirmed to have a speech impediment that hindered his ability to speak. As if that wasn’t enough, when Kah Wah turned 4 years old, he was diagnosed as having mild autism, which meant that not only would his learning ability be slower than normal kids, his ability to form social relationships with others would also be impaired. Having great love for his son, Sunny Chan immediately hired a ‘shadow teacher’ to accompany his son to Kindergarten in the hopes of providing personal, specialized instruction – unfortunately, the results did not turn out as well as expected. Last September, after the filming for his Mainland China series wrapped, Sunny announced that he will stop working completely in order to focus on taking care of his son. However, this past Tuesday (August 21st), Sunny was spotted arriving at TVB City and meeting up with producer Leung Choi Yuen (梁材遠) to discuss filming of a new TVB series – turns out that his son’s situation has improved greatly, to the point that Sunny is able to return to work now: “Within the one year that I’ve been working with my son on his condition, his progress has truly been very good. This past July, during his Kindergarten graduation ceremony, Kah Wah was actually able to do a recitation all by himself! This achievement is huge encouragement for me, my wife, my son’s shadow teacher, as well as his kindergarten teachers because just last year, when my son was in K1, he couldn’t even say very simple, single words – at that time, even though I would constantly create songs to sing with him to help him learn single words, he still was not able to speak clearly. But now – not only is he able to do a recitation in front of a crowd of people, he is also able to recite an entire book! This result was unexpected, but of course we are very satisfied with it.” As Sunny recounted his son’s latest achievement, he was so happy that he could not stop smiling – ironically though, Sunny actually did not attend the that particular ceremony, so he was not able to personally witness this memorable achievement!

Three step method to help his son improve

With their son’s condition improving significantly, Sunny and his wife Ada can finally relax a bit, as this past year, the couple had pretty much spent almost every minute of the day with their son. Sunny explained that he utilized a ‘3-step method’ to help his son improve his speech ability: “First step was to invest time. To be honest, this past year, I basically spent every minute of the day with my son. In the past, whenever I had breaks in between filming, I would go and take care of some matters at the restaurant almost daily, but now, the only time I would go out was to take my son to tutoring classes, speech therapy, behavior therapy, etc. – the rest of the time, I would stay at home and watch over my son – I would refrain from doing any work and just watch him everyday. The second step was to closely observe his actions and through that, figure out his interests as well as things that he liked – as soon as we discovered something, we would use it as a teaching opportunity for him, as this helped to increase his interest in learning. For example, when we found out that he seemed to react well to music, my wife immediately took him to play drums; when the school taught the word ‘ferry’, we would immediately take him on a ferry boat ride; when the school taught the word ‘swim’, we would immediately take him swimming. Every time he learned a new term, we would put it into practice to help him understand what the words meant – that’s why this past year has been very enriching and has brought me great satisfaction and joy!”

The third step that Sunny took was to strengthen his relationship with his son and gain his trust. Due to his condition, Kah Wah initially had problems trusting people – when his teachers or his parents would try to teach him the meaning of certain words, he had difficulty believing them: “Before, I would constantly have to correct his speech – for example, instead of saying ‘yau sui’ (swim), he would say ‘ying sui’. Every time I tried to correct him, he wouldn’t believe me and instead would get upset at me because he felt I was trying to ‘challenge’ him – pretty much he didn’t like people correcting him. I felt that this was because my relationship with him wasn’t good enough, so I decided to build a better relationship with him – not an ordinary father/son relationship, but rather a friendship in which he could wholeheartedly trust me.”

Climbed trees daily to build relationship

In efforts to build a ‘trusting’ relationship with his son, Sunny arranged a lot of outdoor activities for them to do together – the activity that proved to be the most helpful in building trust was taking his son to climb trees together: “Every time we went tree-climbing together, I would be right next to him, singing to him: ‘climb tree, climb tree, one step at a time, Daddy holding my hand, I can climb higher!’ Actually, every time we did an activity together, I would create a song for him so he could learn individual words within the song – for example, the words ‘climb’, ‘tree’, ‘step’, etc. These songs not only helped him learn new words, it also helped to strengthen our relationship. When climbing trees, the higher he climbed, the more scared he would get – every time he lost his balance, I would be right there to hold him up and keep him from falling. We would go climb trees everyday and each time, he would lose his balance, but I was always there to steady him – after 2 months, he was finally able to establish trust in me. The next time I would try to correct his speech, he was very willing to listen and wouldn’t get upset at me anymore, which helped speed up his progress tremendously. After that, I would take each word and teach him pronunciation, meaning, and also how to put them into sentences.”

In addition to this ‘3 step method’, Sunny and his wife also made another important sacrifice – they decided to move out of their apartment in the city and instead move into a house in the surburbs so that their son could interact more with the environment and nature. Moving actually served 2 purposes for them – one was that they could take their son to play in the park everyday, and two, they could avoid disturbing their neighbors: “Our home is right next to the Sai Kung Country Park, so every day I would take my son there for at least an hour. Before when we lived in the city, we were in an apartment – my son loved to study sounds, so he would constantly bounce a ball on the floor and listen to the ‘pa pa’ sound the ball would make when it hit the floor. He could listen for one year, two years, and never grow tired of it! But we were concerned that this would perhaps be disruptive to our neighbors – plus I felt that we should constantly find new things for my son to ‘study’, as he was only interested in the sound of a ball bouncing on the floor or footsteps going up and down the stairs – therefore, we decided that it was best to move to the suburbs. This way, whether he enjoyed throwing a ball around or singing loudly, he could do it freely – also, in the suburbs, the things that you get to experience are very different. For example, when the school taught about snails, I could take him outside and show him how a real snail looked like.” If it was for the best interests of his son, Sunny did not mind making whatever sacrifices were necessary – definitely a ‘twenty-four filial’father!

Doesn’t want son to repeat his childhood nightmare

Kah Wah is showing signs of improvement now, but with Sunny taking 1 year off to care for his son, he obviously missed out on a lot financially -- but how much? “I never calculated it. Pretty much each time someone called with a job opportunity, I would decline it – I never gave a thought about how much I would be losing. It’s really a matter of choice – as a father, what exactly do I want? I could definitely choose to work endlessly day and night like I did in the past, but then my son’s improvement would not be as good. For example, last year in September when I returned home from filming a Mainland series, the shadow teacher told me that my son only learned one word per week – normal children his age were learning one word a day! I was concerned and felt that there was no reason he couldn’t do it too, so I spent the entire weekend teaching him and he was able to learn 10 words – it proves that he has the ability, it’s just that previously I didn’t spend enough time by his side teaching him.”

Sunny himself also had a language impediment back during his school days and spent 6 to 7 torturous years going through high school. To ensure that his son doesn’t go through the same suffering he did, Sunny felt that all the sacrifices he made (job opportunities, money, etc.) in order to be with his son were worth it: “I actually had an English language impediment in high school – the school I went to taught mostly in English and I basically had no clue what was being said in any of the classes. I would go to class and not know what the teacher was saying, but would pretend to understand because I didn’t want them to tell my mom. Year after year it was like that, the feeling was very torturous – I really don’t want my son to go through the same experience."

Set aside plans for another child

Even though Kah Wah no longer has a problem learning words and reciting text, he still has issues communicating with people that will require more time to improve: “He’s able to recite a lot of the textbooks now and learns a few new words every day – his problem isn’t in learning words but rather in responding to questions. When he’s asked simple questions such as ‘What did you eat today?’ or ‘Where do you want to go play?’ or ‘Who’s knocking at the door?’, he’s not able to answer, but when you write it down for him, he’s able to recite the words. I’m hoping that by the time my son enters primary school, he will no longer need a shadow teacher and can go to school just like regular kids because if he’s 7 -8 years old and still has a shadow teacher accompanying him to school, he will feel that he is different from other students.”

In the past, Sunny hoped to have lots of children, but when asked about his plans now, he expressed that he and his wife have set aside all plans for another child: “We had planned to have another child because at that time, we did not know where the issue was with our son and thought that perhaps having another child to accompany him would solve things. But now that we figured out the problem, we felt it would be best to focus all our attention on solving the problem. We also thought about the age factor too -- if we were to have another child, by the time I’m 60, he/she would not have graduated from college yet!”

Seeing his son’s progress, Sunny expressed that he is very touched: “Even though my career is acting, my son will always be first priority in my life. With the good progress he has made this past year, plus my wife won’t be doing her radio program starting in September so she can take care of our son full-time, I will essentially be ‘trading places’ with her – my wife will take care of Kah Wah full-time and I will go earn money. However, our ultimate goal is still the same – if we have the opportunity to choose, the first choice will always be to stay home with our son.”

‘Raise a son for 100 years, worry for 99 years’ – definitely the words from the heart for all parents!

2011 TVB Anniversary Awards: Who has the best chances of getting TV King? (My personal analysis / assessment)

I had said earlier that I'm not going to do a full-fledged "predictions" post for the 2011 TVB Anniversary Awards and I'm still standing by my decision. The main reason for this is because I didn't like majority of the series that aired this year and was not impressed by most of the performances -- plus I only watched 1 series completely from beginning to end so far this year (goes to show how BAD this year's series were if I wasn't able to bring myself to sit through most of them). [As a means of clarification, when I say that I only watched 1 series completely from beginning to end, that means that I watched every single episode without distraction….the rest of the series I either didn’t finish watching, watched only a few episodes here and there, or was doing something else while watching so didn’t really pay close attention]. Therefore, it would be a waste of time for me to do a full predictions post in all categories when none of the performances really stood out.

With that said, the 'hype' this year among the general public seems to revolve around the TV King category and since that's the only category that I actually have a strong opinion on this time around, I figured it would be more appropriate for me to just write about that particular category and forfeit all the rest of them.

So far this year, here are some of the 'names' that I've seen come up the most often (in the Media as well as on discussion forums) in terms of potential candidates for TV King:

Note 1: I am just listing out names I’ve heard, regardless of whether they are truly in contention or not (some of the roles may actually be considered supporting roles – I realize that, but please keep in mind that this post is meant to be hypothetical only).

Note 2: This list is not all-inclusive by any means – there may be male artists you feel should belong on this list in addition to the ones I listed…that’s fine – if I missed anyone or you disagree with any of what I wrote, feel free to comment and state your argument.

Note 3: The numbers next to each name do not mean anything – numbering is my way of bullet-pointing in this post

List of 'potentials':

Steven Ma
Roger Kwok
Bowie Lam
Bobby Au Yeung
Sunny Chan
Wayne Lai
Bosco Wong
Raymond Lam
Michael Tse
Moses Chan
Kevin Cheng

Based on the above list as well as my knowledge of TVB, below is my assessment of what I think each candidate’s chances are:

1) Steven Ma
I already outlined in detail how I feel about Steven’s performance in my earlier review of “The Life and Times of a Sentinel”, so I’m not going to rehash all of that here (those interested can read the review at this link). As I stated in my review, Steven is definitely my number one choice for TV King this year, as his performance was truly phenomenal in my opinion (though some can argue that he’s just doing what he does best – either way, doesn’t matter to me – he still turned in the best performance so far in my opinion). So far, Steven has been the only one to move me emotionally with his performance this year. Of course, we all know that Steven’s chances of getting the award this year is pretty much ZERO given that whole fiasco with Virginia Lok a few months back and the early contract termination issue (plus add to that the fact that TVB traditionally frowns upon artists who are ‘disobedient’ and ‘vocal’ – two “sore spots” that, in TVB’s eyes, Steven has been ‘guilty’ of pressing recently). Even though he is the most deserving of the bunch and my vote goes to him for sure, I have pretty much resigned myself to the reality that he will once again be denied the award (unless by some miracle, Mona Fong intervenes and orders for justice to be done – not likely though). Nonetheless, I will continue to support him all the way!


2) Roger Kwok
Roger is actually my second choice for TV King this year, as his performance in “Wax & Wane” was truly awesome (despite the series itself being hugely mediocre). In fact, he was pretty much the only ‘saving grace’ to that series (in my opinion anyways) – if it weren’t for his steady performance, I doubt too many people would have bothered watching. Unfortunately though, his chances of getting the award this year is pretty much zero as well – for obvious reasons. First, with TVB’s focus on promoting their favorites the past few years, a lot of the veterans have pretty much been thrown by the wayside – Roger is already an established actor plus he already received the award twice, so from TVB’s perspective, how important is it to give him the award again? Plus in recent years, Roger has shifted his career to the Mainland and pretty much only films one series per year for TVB nowadays – so with a lot less exposure in the HK market (which translates to less audience exposure) and the fact that Roger will still work for TVB (when he’s in HK that is) irregardless of what happens, there’s really no incentive for TVB to give him the award. I actually don’t even think that Roger will get into Top 5 for that matter (remember that when it comes to awards, TVB is all about the politics, not about who is deserving or who is not). Regardless, I still feel that he turned in one of the best performances so far this year!


3) Bowie Lam
Bowie only has 1 series in contention this year – “River of Wine” – which just finished airing a week or so ago. Though he turned in a solid performance, the series overall was not well-received, as many people considered the cast ‘weak’ and also the storyline was way too draggy. Irregardless of what people thought of the series though, TVB is still not going to give him the award anyway because 1) he already left the company in May, and 2) he could care less about that particular award, since he already won the ‘Asia TV King’ award and that is WAY more prestigious than a stupid old TVB award. Also, it has already been made known (loud and clear in fact) that Bowie definitely has options – in Mainland China as well as other parts of Asia…so in comparisons, TVB is ‘small potatoes’ to him. There’s no point for TVB to give him the award because they are not going to get any return for their investment (except maybe his participation in the “War and Beauty” sequel next year – but if the schedule works out, he will probably still participate anyway regardless of the award).

** As a side note: I find it laughable that certain gossip mags placed Bowie in Top 5 contention for the TV King award based on his performance in “Heaven and Earth” (yes, I literally laughed out loud) – um, unless they got some sort of sneak preview that the rest of us audiences weren’t privvy to (which I doubt), there is no basis whatsoever for that ‘prediction’. I mean, come on now – that series isn’t even scheduled to air until mid to late November – which means that it’s not even going to finish in time for the awards ceremony! Besides, it makes no sense whatsoever to nominate someone for top 5 contention in an award category based on how they WILL perform in a series that no one has seen yet rather than how they ALREADY performed in a series that everyone has seen. All the more reason why people shouldn’t take what the gossip mags write seriously!


4) Bobby Au Yeung
Ah, dear ole Bobby – gotta love the guy (I certainly do..LOL)! He only has 1 series in contention this year (“Men with No Shadows”), but unfortunately, that series did not do too well in the ratings category. I actually see Bobby’s situation as similar to Roger’s in that there is no need to give him any awards because he’s pretty much already past that point in his career. Besides, he has a certain loyalty to TVB and has already said that he will make time in his schedule to film 1 series per year for them regardless of what happens – so then from TVB’s perspective, there is no need to reward him. For me, I’m at the point where I don’t care if TVB gives him an award or not because he already received the award a long time ago and it’s not like it’s going to change his status in our (audience’s) hearts anyway. Sort of off-topic, but I just wish that TVB would stop “using” him to promote their own biological sons and daughters….is that too much to ask?


5) Sunny Chan
I’ve ranted about Sunny so much over the past 7 to 8 years, I’m starting to sound like a broken record! I’ve always liked Sunny (ever since the 90s) and he is definitely a great actor, but unfortunately, TVB hasn’t treated him too well all these years. It’s interesting that he actually has the most series on the air this year amongst the veteran first line male leads (“Wax and Wane”, “River of Wine”, “Curse of the Royal Harem”, cameo role in “The Life and Times of a Sentinel”), but yet he has the least chance of even making it to Top 5 (forget about winning)! Maybe he’s just unlucky or TVB just hates his guts – whatever the reason, he’s gotten very few ‘decent’ roles this past decade, as most of the roles were mostly forgettable ones in forgettable series (for example: the series "The Wintermelon Tale" -- I mean, really? TVB put him in THAT ridiculous series?). Also, a lot of his series that he did in the past 7-8 years had been warehoused (for example: “Strike At Heart”, “The Slicing of the Demon”, “Phoenix Rising”, “The Greatness of a Hero”, etc. “The Wintermelon Tale” was warehoused for 1 year before it aired). He's had the most series warehoused out of all the artists -- to the point that he's dubbed "Warehouse King" by some insiders). Since his return, I have not seen a single breakthrough role for him (and he had plenty of them in the 90s)....plus I don't see him getting promoted either (despite being a skilled actor). Oh, and he is currently a TVB managed artist, but obviously to TVB, he's less important than the others that they are promoting right now...In any case, I feel sorry for him because I know that he is pretty much going to stay at TVB forever now (he wants to remain in HK to take care of his wife and son and has no interest in re-locating), which means that he is going to continue to get crappy roles and waste all that talent of his. Such a shame!


6) Wayne Lai
I love Wayne and with his awesome acting skills, I’m confident he will deliver a great performance as he always does (after all, he’s known for being consistent and meticulous with his acting and so far, based on all the series that I’ve watched of his, I’ve never been disappointed). BUT, since “Forensic Heroes 3” just started airing yesterday, it’s still too early to tell whether his performance in the series will be ‘award-worthy’ (though I have no doubt that he will do a good job). Without commenting specifically on his performance in FH3 as of yet, l actually think that Wayne’s chances of pulling a ‘three-peat’ victory are extremely slim….now don’t get me wrong – the reason I think this way has nothing to do with his acting or even the series that he will be competing with…I’m basing it purely on the fact that he has already won 2 years in a row (the first year because he had tremendous audience support so they HAD to give it to him and the second year because he was the ‘safest’ choice given the ‘playing field’ at that time)….this year, the dynamics are a bit different -- because of all the negative publicity that TVB has been getting, there’s more incentive for them to use the awards as a political tool to further their agenda (plus the past 3 years or so, they’ve pretty much treated Wayne as a ‘cash cow’ anyway – as long as he continues to remain popular with audiences and business sponsors, then they will continue to benefit, so it’s not like it’s absolutely necessary to give him the award). Of course, if by chance Wayne does end up getting the award, I am totally fine with it (because the way I see it, TVB is making up for neglecting him for 20 years) – but I highly doubt it will happen.


7) Bosco Wong
One advantage that Bosco has is that all of his performances this year (as Bai Co in “Lives of Omission” and also his earlier performances in “Grace Under Fire” and “7 Days in Life”) were pretty well-received by audiences – in fact, some people even feel that his performance in LOO overshadowed primary lead Michael Tse. With that said though, Bosco is also the most ‘junior’ among the field of candidates and technically, he isn’t even considered a ‘first line’ siu sang yet – I honestly don’t think that it will sit well with people if he is given the award when there are others at a higher level than him in contention (TVB may be stupid, but not THAT stupid!). By the looks of things (i.e. a lot of the first line siu sangs leaving and TVB’s supposed focus on promoting the 2nd line to first line in the coming year, plus the fact that he is a biological son who is on the ‘favored’ list), Bosco will have a lot of opportunities in the coming year, so he still has time to refine his acting and gain more experience….there’s definitely no rush to give him the award right now.


8) Raymond Lam
Every year, TVB tries to push Raymond up onto the TV King throne and every year, it doesn’t work (that strategy is starting to get old now and TVB should seriously consider giving up on it! ). And honestly, this year, it’s not going to work either, considering both of his series (“Sister of Eternal Flower” and “Men with No Shadows”) pretty much tanked (in terms of ratings and word of mouth). Also, despite what people may say, the negative publicity he’s gotten this year with all those relationship issues (and the whole bed photos mess) truly did impact his image and reputation, which indirectly affected his chances. Of course, TVB could still give him the award if they wanted to, but I don’t think it would go over well because 1) the favoritism would be too obvious, especially if TVB is supposedly using the ratings of the series as a benchmark for the award – it’s too hard for them to justify why they would give him the award when his series flopped, and 2) it would create too much controversy due to the ‘Virginia Lok’ factor (I’m sure you all know what I mean) – VL has been ‘in the news’ a lot lately and not for ‘good’ reasons either…given all the bad press that she’s been getting (plus Raymond’s), it’s probably not a wise idea for TVB to pile even more controversy on top of that!


9) Michael Tse
I will be upfront right now -- Michael Tse isn’t even on my list of potential ‘contenders’ for TV King because, frankly speaking, he ISN’T WORTHY!! His acting is ‘mediocre’ at best and the only reason why he’s so ‘popular’ right now is because of the Laughing Gor persona – it’s unfortunate that he let the whole Laughing Gor thing get to his head and as a result, has been acting all arrogant and cocky. He’s definitely NOT lead actor material (um, yea, let’s see him carry an entire series by himself, without any help from anyone!) and his acting isn’t even that great, yet he has the audacity to go around thinking that he is the ‘next best thing since sliced bread’!! (yea, right – in your dreams, dude!). Anyway, I highly doubt that TVB is going to give him the award (even if they considered it previously), especially after how poorly he handled the Steven Ma situation – a lot of audiences have a bad impression of him now (the number one comment I’ve been hearing on forums is: “I don’t care who gets the award, as long as it’s not Michael Tse!”). TVB is in a precarious position right now (given everything that has happened to them the past year or so) and I doubt that they can afford to take on the type of ‘backlash’ (similar to what they got back in 2006) that will inevitably come if they give the award to an undeserving jerk like MT.


10) Moses Chan
What are Moses’ chances of being crowned TV King for the 2nd time? Well, to be honest, it’s really hard to say…I personally couldn’t stand him in “Yes Sir, Sorry Sir” (in fact, I couldn’t stand that series PERIOD), but he IS a somewhat ‘safe’ choice because 1) he’s a biological son, 2) he’s gotten the award before, so that does put him up a notch over others who never got that recognition, and 3) though his acting in recent years hasn’t been good, it hasn’t been horrible either (generally speaking). I used to have a certain appreciation for Moses’ acting when he first started, but after so many years of watching one OTT (over the top) performance after another, it has started to become annoying to the point of boring. I don’t know how I’ll feel if he gets crowned TV King again – I guess it’s one of those ‘better him than MT’ situations for me. Realistically speaking though – unless TVB really has no other choice, I doubt that they will give him the award again (at least not this year).


11) Kevin Cheng
Very honestly speaking, I think that Kevin actually has a very good chance at the award this year (I know what you’re thinking.…I can’t believe I’m saying this either, but to be fair, I do have to give credit where it’s due). His acting definitely improved a lot in “Ghetto Justice” (and he wasn’t too bad in “Only You” either) and the ‘Law Ba’ role was a breakthrough for him – plus the feedback from the general public for his performance in that series has been overwhelmingly positive. Also, don’t forget that his popularity has soared in recent months due to his latest Mainland series "Bu Bu Jing Xin" (with Nicky Wu, Damian Lau, etc.) being a HUGE hit over there – he actually received much acclaim for his portrayal of the 8th Prince (I have yet to watch the series, so not going to pass judgement on the validity of those praises) – to the point that he now officially has a fan club with thousands of fans in the Mainland. True, it can be argued that the Mainland series shouldn’t have anything to do with the TV King award, but the point I’m trying to make is that the stars could potentially be aligned for it to be Kevin’s year this year. For the record, I am known for being ANTI-Kevin Cheng and to some extent, I still am (and yes I'm still adamant that TVB made a really BAD BS decision by giving him the award back in 2006 when he wasn't anywhere near deserving of it), but even I have to admit that his acting has improved in the past year or so. (And just to be very clear for people who may misunderstand….no, I'm not ‘suddenly changing course’ -- I'm merely giving an honest assessment of who I feel has the best chance based on how things look so far this year).

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Concluding Thoughts

With the above, I tried as best I could to give an honest assessment and analysis of some of the actors who were mentioned at some point this year as a ‘possible candidate’ for TV King. Of course, with more than a month left until the awards show, pretty much anything can happen at this point.

One point that I do want to emphasize is that I pretty much stopped caring about the awards years ago – therefore, no matter who wins TV King this year, I probably won’t have any reaction to it from an emotional standpoint (that is, unless Steven wins….)