My Thoughts on Detective Investigation Files I, II, III (刑事偵緝檔案)

I just finished re-watching one of my favorite series of all time: “Detective Investigation Files" (DIF). There are actually a total of 4 installments to this series, however since the 4th installment is a completely different cast and is not related to the first 3 at all (except for the ‘cop series / investigative cases’ theme), I will write about the 4th installment separately at a later date.

When it comes to series and sequels, the general sentiment is usually that the sequels don’t live up to the original and that the original work will always be the best one. Well, with the DIF installments, my personal opinion is that the sequels were actually better than the original, both in terms of cast (guest stars for each case), storyline (more cases to solve, more characters so more depth to storyline) and overall suspense. Out of the 3 installments, my favorite one is actually the 3rd one – which was actually the last one with the same cast as the original (Michael Tao, Joey Leung, Kenix Kwok)….I’ll talk more about why this one is my favorite later on in this review.

The 1st and 2nd installments were spaced pretty close together (1st was in 1995 and 2nd was made at the end of 1995 through 1996) – I actually read that when the first installment aired, it was so popular that TVB decided to do a sequel before the series even finished airing, so that’s why those 2 were spaced so close together (unlike a lot of other series and their sequels where they are usually spaced at least a year or more apart). The 3rd installment was made in 1997 and even though the main leads were the same (Michael, Joey, and Kenix), the remaining cast was completely changed – even the supporting cast. But I’m actually fine with this though because I really like the supporting cast in the 3rd installment anyway (not that I didn’t like the cast in the 1st two installments, but the cast was pretty much ‘beefed up’ in the 3rd one and it made the storyline way more interesting). Plus I guess you could say that the cast wasn’t completely changed because some of the characters from the first 2 installments (i.e.: Maggie Chan as Kenix’s older sister, Yvonne Lam as Madam Lui, Lau Dan as Michael’s dad, etc.) did have cameos in the 3rd installment (though their screen time was very limited)….also, the storyline in the 3rd installment flowed / continued from the 2nd installment very well.

One of the biggest defining factors of the DIF franchise that sets it apart from other run of the mill cop dramas is the use of individual cases to build the plot / storyline as well as the various relationships of the characters. In this review, I’m not really going to talk about the cases in detail, since there were way too many of them – but I have to say that all the cases were done really well. I remember the first time I watched all 3 installments (years ago – I’ve since re-watched all 3 installments at least 5 times if not more), I was praising the writers for the cleverness of the cases and how I would never have been able to come up with so much material to make all the cases so different from one installment to the other. Not only that, but the cases were more suspenseful from one installment to the next – I liked how the cases in the 3rd installment really intertwined with each other so that when one case ended, it wasn’t truly ended because there was one or two things that happened that becomes the impetus for a future case (or affects one of the future cases). This is one of the reasons why I love the 3rd installment so much.

So let’s talk briefly about the original DIF – even though the series was very well made in and of itself, I felt there was a certain amount of predictability in that installment in terms of the relationships – for instance, that Kenix would end up with Michael (even though she was dating Kenneth Chan throughout most of the 1st installment) and that Joey would end up with Louisa. Honestly speaking, neither pair was particularly endearing to me in the 1st installment – I mean, I like Michael and Kenix together because I think they match quite well, but they really aren’t a couple until the end of the 1st installment and throughout most of the 2nd installment. Same with Joey and Louisa – they don’t get together until the end of the 1st installment and when the 2nd installment starts (where the first one left off, pretty much), Joey and Louisa were already married. Pretty much to summarize – in the first installment, I primarily liked the cases because the storyline surrounding the relationships was sort of cheesy (though Michael and Louisa’s relationship in the beginning was absolutely hilarious for me).

Ok, so onto the 2nd installment…the cast was exactly the same (even the supporting artists and the cop A, cop B people), except for the addition of Amy Kwok (definitely the other female lead besides Kenix and Louisa) as well as recurring supporting characters such as Lee Kwok Lun, Maggie Chan, etc. Of course, when Louisa’s character dies about ¾ of the way through the series and Amy’s character leaves, Sammi Cheng is added as the other lead (I guess they had to find someone in addition to Kenix to balance things out – plus they probably wanted to add a love interest for Joey after his wife dies).

Just a quick mention that the cases in this installment were actually quite interesting and the guest stars for each case did AWESOME jobs (again, not going to go into details, but some of the ‘guest stars’ included: KK Cheung, Eddie Cheung, Astrid Chan, Hoyan Mok, Gordan Lam, Rebecca Chan, Helena Law, etc. etc. etc.)

Back to the 2nd installment plot / characters….

Even though the primary focus of the series is investigative stuff, of course there’s a need to intersperse relationship storylines throughout in order to ‘beef up’ the plot. I actually think this is a good method and it’s one reason why I like DIF so much as opposed to the other cop series of this generation (i.e. the whole Academy thing). The way that Michael‘s and Kenix’s relationship developed throughout this installment was very well done -- though I sort of felt that putting Amy in there as the ‘3rd wheel’ in their relationship was a bit pointless, especially since it made people hate her character. But I can see where they were going with that too, especially in the end when Michael and Kenix get back together and are about to be married after going through so much turmoil in their relationship, only for tragedy to strike….it definitely made the ending more suspenseful.

In terms of Joey’s and Louisa’s relationship, it was cute, but I honestly didn’t feel that they were that compatible – though I’m sure this wasn’t the case in real life, I really felt that Louisa’s character seemed older than Joey’s in the series and so, to me at least, they didn’t really seem to match. I think this is partly because in both the 1st and 2nd installments, the writers made Joey’s character sort of ‘boyish’. But at least Joey’s and Louisa’s characters truly did love each other and the writers did do a good job developing their relationship, since it didn’t come out all weird or stupid. It’s not that I didn’t like their pairing, I just didn’t feel much chemistry between them.

(I obviously have a lot more to say about DIF 1 and 2, but since I know this review is going to be long already, I wanted to spend more time on DIF 3).

Ok, let’s talk about the 3rd installment – my absolute favorite DIF installment!!

First of all, I must say that it was already obvious from the ending of the 2nd installment that a 3rd one was going to be made because they left it so open. So once the 2nd installment ended, there were a lot of unanswered questions: now that Kenix’s character lost her memory and doesn’t remember Michael or anything that happened up to that point, what is that going to mean in terms of their relationship? Is it over for good? How about Joey? Are they going to continue the Sammi storyline or find another love interest for him? Oh, and how would the cases be like?

There was definitely a lot of anticipation for the 3rd installment (for me at least) and that could be why I enjoyed it so much.

One of the (many) things I liked about the 3rd installment is that they developed Joey’s character a lot and made him more mature – he’s no longer the ‘boyish’ sidekick and when this particular installment starts, he’s actually the ‘head’ of his own team at a separate police station from the one that Michael is at. Yes, of course the two end up joining forces again after the first few episodes, but the way the writers handle it this time makes them more like equals (Michael is still Joey’s ‘boss’ technically, but their collaboration is more like brothers in this installment). So I guess you could say that in this installment, Joey becomes the ‘big brother’ and Michael becomes the ‘big big brother’ (LOL!!).


With regard to the relationships in the 3rd installment – ok, I have to admit that Joey definitely stole the show, at least for me (I’ll talk more about this later). I sort of got annoyed with the Michael / Kenix relationship in this installment and even when they added Monica Chan in as a potential love interest for Michael (they don’t get together until later in the series, though their relationship doesn’t last), I still sort of found the storyline about their relationship a bit boring. I don’t know how to describe it – maybe because I had already watched 2 installments with Michael’s and Kenix’s on again / off again relationship and the 3rd installment was more of the same in that regard, so I really didn’t care too much about them anymore.

Also, it doesn’t help that Kenix’s character was super-annoying in the 3rd installment – it’s as though after she lost her memory, she becomes ultra-stubborn. I hated how throughout the entire installment, she was so obsessed with trying to ‘remember’ everything that happened in the past and would get pissed off at Michael for not telling her about things that had happened before she lost her memory (I side with Michael on this one – he doesn’t want to tell her because he doesn’t see the point of digging up old wounds, especially since they have a happy life now) – this of course erodes their relationship (since the 2 of them have strong personalities in this series) and ultimately results in them separating (again). To be honest, I blame Kenix’s character for what happens between her and Michael and have absolutely no sympathy for her whatsoever.

Moving on to the relationship storyline involving Joey….

Joey is paired with Winnie Yeung (Miss HK) for most of the 3rd installment and it’s not until the very end that he and Margaret are truly together (though inklings of their relationship develop throughout the series). I have to say that I really like Joey and Margaret’s relationship in this series because it’s different, refreshing, and kind of sweet – plus the 2 of them have awesome chemistry in this series (I guess it does help that Joey and Margaret were a couple in real life during that time).

Their relationship starts off as ‘brother/sister’ (they are not related by blood technically, but they are from the same village and everyone from that village has the same last name because their ancestors were probably related at some point, so they regard each other as siblings) – plus it makes sense because Joey’s character is obviously older than Margaret’s (she refers to him as ‘apprentice brother’ and he calls her ‘lang mui’ which is Cantonese slang for ‘little sister’). Eventually, they find out that Margaret is really the daughter of a rich businessman (played by Law Lok Lam) and her mother moved to that village after she was born, so technically, she is not a ‘member’ of that village at all (which is important because it means that Joey and Margaret are not even remotely related and so are definitely not brother/sister). Margaret’s character has had a crush on Joey’s character since childhood – by the time Joey finds out about this and realizes that he’s had feelings for Margaret all along, it’s “too late” because he is already in a steady relationship with Winnie. Neither of them (Margaret especially) want to hurt Winnie, so they suppress their feelings for each other – which is painful because they have to see each other every day (not only do they live next door to each other, they also work together, since Joey leads the team at the police station that Margaret is a part of).

For me, what makes Joey and Margaret’s relationship so appealing is the “bittersweetness” of it. They’re so compatible in many ways (in the series, that is) and it just seems natural that they should be together, yet you’ve got all these factors preventing it from happening. I could definitely feel their pain (the way they would look at each other was heart-wrenching). Both Joey and Margaret definitely put in great performances (the emotions and chemistry were awesome – plain and simple) in the 3rd installment and the storyline involving them is absolutely one of my favorites!

As I said earlier, Joey definitely stole the show and his performance in the DIF franchise is certainly deserving of the recognition and ‘popularity’ he gained as a result – BUT too bad he didn’t treasure it. That was a stupid move that he made cheating on Margaret like that (I’m talking in real life now) and even though he was ‘man’ enough to ‘face the music’ and ‘take a beating’ for it, his career as well as his love life (not to mention his image) went down the toilet (and rightfully so, in my opinion!!). Ironically, despite how much I loved their pairing in DIF 3 (because of who their characters were), I actually didn’t feel that the 2 of them were compatible as a couple in real life (don’t ask me why – that’s just the way I feel).

Of course, I have to mention how much I loved the cases in the 3rd installment (though I talked about that already), but I also applaud the supporting cast as well as the 'guest stars' in this installment, as they all put in excellent performances. Well, not surprised with the supporting cast because almost all of them are veteran artists (i.e.: Liu Kai Chi, Law Koon Lan, Kam Hing Yin, etc.). Oh, and since I mentioned some of the 'guest stars' in the 2nd installment, might as well mention a few from the 3rd installment as well (Melissa Ng, Patrick Tam, Ellesmere Choi, Gabriel Harrison -- who, btw, did an excellent job as Michael's younger brother, Joe Ma, Angela Tong, etc. etc.)

Concluding comments….

I think I’ve made it quite obvious already how much I love the DIF franchise. If you haven’t seen any of the DIF installments yet, you’re definitely missing out! My personal opinion: if you want to watch good, quality cop dramas that are suspenseful and will keep you ‘chasing’ each episode, forget ‘The Academy’ franchise (I found all 3 installments of THAT franchise extremely boring) – watch DIF instead!!!

My review only scratches the surface and doesn’t come close to doing justice to the entire DIF franchise. You need to watch all 3 installments (well, technically all 4 installments) for yourself to truly understand why I enjoy this franchise so much!

Jacky's Concert -- Beijing

OMG…just had to share this!!!!

The Beijing leg of Jacky’s concert officially started today and as I was “stalking” on weibo, I found the below clip posted by Sina Entertainment. It’s a full 10 MINUTES (and a little more) of the beginning part of Jacky’s concert. So awesome!!!

Love the tap dancing part – Jacky actually flew over to the U.S. for 2 weeks to learn tap dancing for his performance (very professional, of course)! The results are amazing!!!

Hope you enjoy this (I sure did)!!!

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Credit: Sina Entertainment
Please click on this link to see actual video
(sorry, couldn't get the actual video to work, so only posted the link).

Weibo Fever #2: Jacky Sightings!

My idol Jacky Cheung does not have a Weibo account and he is never going to open one (so to all those Jacky imposters on Weibo: might as well quit while you're ahead because us true Jacky fans already know you are fakes!). Anyway, since Jacky isn't on Weibo, it is rare for me to see news about him on Weibo, but luckily, he has friends who keep us dedicated fans up to date...LOL!

Just wanted to share some "Jacky Sightings" from Weibo this week. Both posts are from Vani Wong’s weibo – she is a DJ for Commercial Radio (Chik Chak 903 station) and has been a good friend of Jacky’s for almost 2 decades. In fact, she refers to Jacky as “big brother”.

Jan 5th: Vani’s Weibo

(Picture credit as listed)

忽然收到學友哥的短訊，除問候我之外還用了「完全」、「還可以」幾個字去形容上海站巡迴演唱會的演出，那我大可放心了！ 若非演出成功和滿意，心情不錯，他是不會主動發短訊給我的，阿哥永遠都這樣

Translation (by me): All of a sudden received big brother Jacky’s text message, in addition to seeing how I was doing, he also used the words ‘complete’ and ‘not bad’ to describe his performance at his Shanghai concert – on hearing this, I feel very relieved! [hehe] If he wasn’t satisfied with his performance or felt that it was somewhat of a success – and therefore in a good mood – he would not send me a text message like that on his own accord. Big brother (Jacky) is forever like that!

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Jan 4th: Vani’s weibo

(Picture credit as listed)

大愛歌神Bling Bling Look!聽學友哥唱歌真幸福

Translation (by me): Big love – God of Songs Bling Bling Look! Listening to big brother Jacky singing is truly a blessing! [love]

Jacky Cheung kicks off World Tour in Shanghai

Jacky Cheung kicks off World Tour in Shanghai

Sunday, January 02, 2011 Hong Kong

Source: Mingpao & Oriental Daily

Translation: llwy12

Jacky Cheung kicked off his <<1/2 Century World Tour Concert>> in Shanghai on New Year’s Eve. On stage, Jacky gave his usual 100% effort – in addition to singing many of his classic hits, he also invited film actress Shu Qi to perform a special mini-movie with him that was featured in the concert. Jacky also arranged a special tribute to his godmother, the late Lydia Shum (Fei Jie) – not only was there a huge replica doll of Lydia on stage, there were also a few dancers who dressed up as Lydia for the segment.

As jazz music played in the background during the opening segment of the concert, Jacky came out on stage dressed in a white suit. After that, while singing his hit《花花公子》, he pulled open a curtain to reveal a huge screen that played a short movie with him and Shu Qi as the male and female leads – the segment depicted the various stages of a love story -- when the couple meets, falls in love, marries, then eventually separates. To accompany this ‘love journey’, Jacky performed many of his classic Cantonese and Mandarin hits. Since the first half of the concert was in the form of a musical, Jacky invited renown HK film director Andrew Lau to direct and choreograph the segments.

During the first half of the show, Jacky did not speak much, however in the second half, he could not stand it anymore and finally addressed the audience, especially since he had just finished singing the song《天氣那麼熱》and forgot the lyrics during one part. He told the audience: “The most embarrassing part is already over, now I can ‘go for broke’!” Then, the big screen flips over and turns into a slanted, revolving stage -- Jacky stands atop this stage and performs a few more of his classic hits, joking with the audience that he has a little fear of heights, so may have to close his eyes when he performs. The stunning double tiered revolving stage combined with the special-effects lighting was an awesome spectacle, as it gave off the effect that Jacky was performing in midair.

During the special tribute to Lydia Shum, there was a 20 foot replica of the late actress on stage, as well as a group of dancers who dressed up in Lydia’s signature attire for a dance segment with Jacky. To the audience’s amazement, Jacky imitated one of Lydia’s ‘classic moments’ by attempting to do the splits while performing the song specially written for her. Afterwards, Jacky jokingly said: “Very interesting! How did Fei Jie do it back then? I can barely stand up right now!”

At the highest point of the concert, the audience joined Jacky in singing a dozen of his most famous songs, including hits such as 《她來看我的演唱會》, 《一路上有你》, 《心如刀割》, 《愛是永恆》, etc. At the end of the concert, Jacky apologized to the audience: “Very sorry! The first day of the performance and there were so many errors. I will definitely do better tomorrow!”

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My comments: I normally don't post articles in my main blog section, but just absolutely had to share this!

Yay!!! Jacky's 2011 concert has officially begun!! Just from reading the articles, sounds like it will be another AWESOME performance from Jacky! Absolutely can't wait for my chance to watch the concert in person in February!!! You bet that I'll be one of those fans singing loudly during the "sing-along" portion of the show...lol!

My Thoughts on “Born Rich 富貴門"

This was my most anticipated series of 2009, as I absolutely love the cast (both lead and supporting) and hadn't seen most of the leads (Ray, Jamie, Kenix, Gallen, Anita) as well as supporting artists (Benz, Ming Sir, etc.) in series in a long time, so was looking forward to their 'comeback' performances.....despite the lack of promotion from TVB's side (because as well all know, all of the promotion went to BTROC instead), I still was hopeful that it would be good. Even after the series aired in HK last year and there were tons of negative feedback on it, I was still a little optimistic and wanted to at least watch it for myself to see if it truly sucked as much as people said it did.

After finally watching this series, all I can say is: boy, was I hugely disappointed!!!

The script for the series absolutely sucked!!! Most of the storyline made no sense and was very hard to follow. I had actually missed quite a few episodes here and there, but didn't bother re-watching because I felt as though nothing of significance occurred in those episodes to warrant my going back and 'catching up'. Also, alot of the parts dragged out way too much (like the whole love triangle thing between Ray, Jamie, and Kenix), and ended up being boring.

For me, I felt like TVB just took a bunch of talented artists and threw them all together in a series for the heck of it, with no decent storyline or plot to carry the series -- sort of like one of those Taiwanese Idol dramas but except all the 'idols' are middle-aged or older and can truly act. And I realize now what made the storyline so hard to follow was that there were too many sub-storylines going on at the same time, some of which weren't really related to each other (kind of like a 'hodge-podge' of storylines mixed together). I mean, was it really necessary to have all those complicated relationships in there? If you really take apart each character, all of them had more than 1 relationship, whether it was a family relationship or a romantic one, however most of the relationships were under-developed (probably because there wasn't enough time or room in the script to develop them with so much stuff in there).

For example:

Gallen -- family relationship with Kenneth (his real brother), Ray (his 'fake' brother), Anita (his 'fake' sister), Nancy (his 'fake' step-mother); and romantic relationship with Anita (who is not truly his sister, but only he knows that and of course she doesn't, which tortures her throughout the series) as well as Sharon (who is pretty much a 'stand-in' for Anita, since he doesn't love her at all).

Ray -- family relationship with Gallen (his 'fake' brother), Anita (real sister), Nancy (mother), his kids; and romantic relationship with Jamie (his wife) and Kenix (extra-marital affair that turns into actual relationship after he and Jamie end up divorcing).

Anita -- family relationship with Ray, Nancy, Jamie, Gallen and romantic relationship with Gallen (whom she truly loves but can't be with) and Joe (whom I still can't tell whether she truly loves or not).

And THAT'S just scratching the surface! All the other characters have very similar complicated relationships....

Bottom line is that the writers and producer tried TOO HARD to cram as much material as they could into the series and it ended up backfiring on them, since it made the series way too confusing and difficult to follow (I got confused just trying to list out the above 3 relationships for this post!!!)

Watching this series made me get really pissed off at TVB for wasting such a great cast -- I mean, both the main leads as well as the supporting cast (with the exception of a few people) are awesome actors / actresses in their own right and have many great performances / series to their credit. Plus, like I said earlier, I really loved the cast because I grew up watching most of their series and know how much potential these artists have -- so it made it extremely painful for me to watch them put 100% effort in such a poorly written drama (it was so poorly written / put together that even the awesome acting of the artists couldn't save it!!)

I don't think I've ever watched a series with such a true waste of talent! I mean, many of the characters had like NO PURPOSE and were JUST THERE for the sake of being there! For example, Paul Chun (his character would show up every once in a while, but I had no clue what he was there for), Benz Hui and Angelina Lo (I know that they are Sharon's parents in the series, but other than that, they don't have much other significance), Lee Sing Cheung (all I know is that he works for Ray's family and shows up every once in awhile in a few episodes here and there).....I could name a bunch more, but you get the picture....

As if that weren't enough, most of the lead characters were very poorly written as well -- there wasn't much depth to the characters for one, and two, there was nothing about the characters that made them memorable to the audiences....pretty much anyone could have played those characters and it would have probably still come out the same way because the script was so poor (so again, why did they waste those talents???).

Here's my take on a few of the main characters:

Ray's character (Cheuk Yat Yuen / Marcus) -- if ever there were a poorly written character, this one is definitely it! I mean, the poor guy is all over the place -- first he is insistent on finding his long lost brother and getting Nancy to accept him, then when she does, he sort of resents it because Gallen starts to threaten his position in the company (and this is even before he finds out that Gallen is a fake). And he supposedly has the 'perfect' family with a loving wife and smart kids, but then he has an affair with Kenix (whom he supposedly dated prior to being married) and ends up destroying his perfect family and losing his powerful position in the company just so he could be with her. And what about his constant power struggle with Joe? I didn't understand that piece at all because I thought he considered Joe his 'right hand man' -- but then why does he resent the fact that his sister is dating him and tries to ruin their engagement party? It's almost like Ray's character is pulled in a hundred different directions and ends up going nowhere....

Gallen's character (Cheuk Yat Ming / Sa Fu Loi) -- his character in this series really confused me....it seemed to me as though his character is supposed to be both tragic and comedic in a way, but mixed together very poorly. There were several scenes were I saw elements of his comedic "Old Time Buddy" character, but then the rest of the time, he is mostly scheming for money and power. And the whole triangular relationship thing with Sharon and Anita as well as his hatred / jealousy of Joe was sort of ridiculous. But I do have to hand it to Gallen because despite his badly written character, he pulled off the acting piece without a problem -- with his facial expressions and gestures, etc., and the way he is able to show his character's 'evilness masked in goodness' -- very natural and convincing.

Kenix’s character (Tung Ling Chi / Angie) – Kenix is one of my favorite actresses, but her character in this series totally sucked -- her acting was a bit forced at certain points too (though I don't know if it was because the character was so poorly written or she was dealing with issues in her personal life that may have affected her acting). I really felt that the part where her character tries to ‘seduce’ Ray by pretending to be heartbroken over breaking up with her boyfriend, then talking her way into moving in with the Cheuk family was extremely cheesy (not to mention that it didn’t make any sense whatsoever). And I hated her physical appearance -- I've always thought of Kenix as pretty, but she looked really scary in this series...way too skinny to the point of being skeletal and the makeup didn't help any either.

Anita’s character (Cheuk Yat Sum / Rene) – to be honest, Anita’s character in this series was very bland – nothing special, nothing interesting, nothing memorable. I was actually a bit disappointed with Anita’s performance in this series because to be honest, I really expected more from her – after all, she IS the film industry’s Best Actress winner (multiple times)….though I do attribute a lot of it to the poorly written character, I still think that she could have put a little more effort. I do like Anita as a person (and as a movie actress), however I just feel that she made the wrong move by going back to television – she was way better off in the film industry, where she excelled.

Jamie’s character (Hor Tseuk Nin / Connie) – amazingly, my feelings are neutral towards Jamie’s character, but I think that’s because I really did not pay a whole lot of attention to her character, since it was another one of those typical ‘strong woman’ roles. Or it could be that I got so confused with all the rest of the intermixing storylines that I did not have the energy anymore to pick apart her character or performance. All I really remember is that – like Anita’s character – Jamie’s character was not that memorable either.

Though there are probably a lot more things to say about this series, I don’t feel it is necessary to go more into it, since the rest of my feedback is pretty much the same as what I expressed above.

Overall, this was a very disappointing series that I probably would not watch again, no matter how much I like the cast – it was enough torture sitting through this series the first time…I definitely don’t need to go through it a second time!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jacky’s new Mandarin single: {{ 三分拍 }}

I am soo excited!!! Jacky’s new Mandarin single 三分拍 has just been released to various radio stations in HK! I actually just found out about this ‘hot off the press’ news while “stalking” on Weibo last night and so couldn’t wait to get the information out to everyone as soon as possible!

I just finished listening to the song not too long ago and even though I’m still trying to get used to the lyrics and the music, I definitely like the song so far. My opinion of the song is that it is a very ‘playful’ piece that may not sound like a traditional love ballad in terms of music or lyrics, but still tells a love story at heart. Jacky has definitely taken his music to the next level with this song, as it has the same sophisticated and classical, yet light-hearted, ‘feel-good’ nature as his new Cantonese album “Private Corner” did. This is another song that absolutely won’t go ‘mainstream’ and may not even become popular, but that’s okay because that really is not the intent of the song – by now, after 25 years in the HK music industry, Jacky’s purpose in making music is not to sell albums or earn a lot of money and it’s definitely not to gain popularity or create any particular image because frankly, he is already a very established singer with awesome skills (in other words, he does not need to ‘prove’ anything). Rather, the main intent is to make high quality music that Jacky also enjoys and give his fans a truly excellent listening experience.

Note: I’m actually not quite sure how to translate the name of the song into English…since the song is supposed to ‘mimic’ a waltz, I know that 三分拍 refers to the “triple meter” (or ¾ beat) melody that waltz music is usually in. So I guess the best literal translation of the song title is ‘Three Quarter Beat’ then? Well, that’s the translation I’ll be using for the purposes of my blog post. If something more ‘official’ comes out, then I’ll update based on that.

Here’s a brief description of the song that pretty much summarizes it, courtesy of Baidu:

《三分拍》是一首蕴含着华尔滋节奏的歌曲，轻快典雅的三分拍旋律，让人听了忍不住想翩然起舞。歌词意境更以跳双人舞来描述男女之间的情感关系；爱情的微妙就像跳双人舞必需两个人相互配合，节奏快慢脚步前后都要迁就对方，才能让这只双人舞完美和谐的跳下去，而双人舞少了舞伴再好的舞者都无法独自完成。

Translation: 三分拍 is a song that flows to the rhythm of a Waltz, incorporating a light, quick, and elegant ‘triple meter’ melody typical of waltz music. When one listens to the song, they cannot help but feel like getting up and dancing. The artistic concept behind the lyrics is to utilize the idea of a couple dancing the waltz to describe the feelings and relationship between a man and a woman. The subtlety of love is similar to dancing as a pair – it’s absolutely necessary for the 2 people to be mutually compatible and coordinate closely with each other…whether the tempo is fast or slow, the steps in front or in back, it is necessary to accommodate the other in order for the dance to be completed in harmony and perfectly. It also emphasizes that in a two-person dance, if one partner is missing, it is impossible for the other to finish the dance alone.

Here are the lyrics to the song (Courtesy of Youtube and KKbox):

作曲：彭海桐
填詞：李淩
編曲：杜自持
監製：杜自持

歌詞

﹡站在旋轉舞臺聽著音樂節拍要我陪你跳舞逃不開
你的一切安排一舉一動等待快了慢了錯了都重來
我想我們大概不合拍你說不如分開到痛快
可是見不到你思念氾濫成災

1 23 45 6向左向右向後迷失方向的我沒醒來
忘了你的眼睛忘了幸福表情被你發現罵我不應該
我想我們大概不合拍你說不如分開到痛快
如果見不到你我也無法存在
轉啊轉啊轉啊轉回來愛情跳不出這三拍
男人要自由女人要依賴想離開又回來
轉啊轉啊轉啊三分拍和你一起跳到未來
現在才明白你有多可愛一輩子由你安排

﹡REPEAT

轉啊轉啊轉啊轉回來愛情跳不出這三拍
男人要自由女人要依賴想離開又回來
轉啊轉啊轉啊三分拍和你一起跳到未來
現在才明白你有多可愛離不開你就是愛

1 23 45 6向左向右向後迷戀你的方向不醒來
看著你的眼睛看著幸福表情每一步的愛情都精彩
我想我們永遠不分開你說白頭到老真愉快
貼近我的胸口一起跳到未來
啦啦啦

Review of "Gambling on Life 賭霸天下"

This is an 'old' series from 1993 that came on TV a couple weeks ago, so I decided to watch it (while multi-tasking of course....lol). To be honest, I had never heard of the series before -- which means it was probably a low-budget series with not alot of hype, since I was pretty actively following HK entertainment in the 90s, so I probably would have at least heard about the series if it were a 'big production'. And the cast wasn't exactly 'all-star' (male lead was Eddie Kwan and female lead was Fiona Leung, with Vincent Lam playing the role of the villain -- the supporting cast was comprised of elders such as Felix Lok, Lau Siu Ming, Lo Lan, Kong Hon, etc.), plus there were some parts of the storyline that were flawed and confusing. Yet, surprisingly, I actually liked the series and even stopped 'multi-tasking' during the later half of the series so I could concentrate on watching it (those of you who know me know that it is rare of me to do this). In fact, I preferred watching this series over most of the TVB series that were made this year (which already tells you something) and it brought back for me the "chasing series" feeling (the 'I can't wait to watch the next episode to see what happens next' feeling) that I haven't felt for a TVB series in a LONG time.

Needless to say, based on the title, the theme of the series is gambling -- which doesn't surprise me one bit because during that era, the industry was saturated with tons of gambling-themed movies and TV series. This is partly the reason why I say that I'm surprised that I liked the series because I originally thought it was going to be another one of those 'run-of-the-mill' gambling series (a theme which I am already bored to death with because it has been overused so many times). Plus the first few episodes of the series were sort of boring and some parts dragged on way too long. Things started to really move along in terms of action in the second half of the series and the focus shifted from Vincent (who was dominant in the first half) to Eddie and Lau Siu Ming, Lo Lan, etc. (dominant in the second half), with Fiona dominant throughout both parts.

So with the slow start and draggy parts, what made me continue to watch the series? Well, I was definitely impressed with the awesome performances from the cast -- of course, with the seasoned veteran artists in the series, I knew I wouldn't be disappointed with the acting, even if they were only supporting cast and didn't have a whole lot of screen time. However, I was also definitely surprised with Eddie’s performance in the series. I've always been ok with Eddie as an actor (neutral -- don't like or dislike), but I've always felt that he was never able to mimic the short-lived success he had in the 80s with the "Police Cadet" and "The Battle Among the Clans" series -- plus the roles he got when he made his comeback in the 2000s were quite lame. As for Fiona, well, I’ve always liked her, but I could tell from the opening theme video that her character would be paired up with Vincent Lam, whom I was not fond of at all (I watched his first series “Romance Beyond” and hated his performance in it, though I liked everyone else) – plus this was only Vincent’s second series (yet he was already second male lead – though some could argue that he was actually first lead, since he had more screen time than Eddie, it seems) and his acting is too exaggerated and unnatural for my tastes. Therefore, going into this series, I didn’t have very high expectations at all. However, it turns out that Fiona plays two characters in this series and the first character (who was Vincent’s love interest) is not really the ‘main’ one, as she dies halfway through the series (which I was fine with since I didn’t like the character that much anyway). Her second character is paired with Eddie, which is what I was rooting for all along, and the storyline started getting more interesting, so that’s when I really started getting more ‘into’ the series.

Here are a few highlights in terms of the artists and their performances:

Eddie’s portrayal of the ‘useless’ little brother who becomes a disappointment to his ‘Gambler King’ father because all he knows how to do is play around all day was quite interesting, especially when we see how his character transforms into a mature young man set on avenging his father’s death later on in the series. I think that the most challenging part for Eddie was in the middle of the series when his older brother (played by Vincent) tried to kill him and he wound up in a mental institution after suffering brain damage. Eddie actually did those mental health patient scenes quite well, despite not having much dialogue during those parts. And even though his pairing with Fiona in the second half of the series (her second character is a worker at the mental institution) was quite predictable, I rooted for them because frankly, I prefer her with Eddie way more than Vincent.

Talking about Fiona, well, I don’t have too much to say because her 2 characters were not extremely complicated, though both had different personalities. But as I said earlier, I’ve always liked Fiona and have confidence in her acting, so no matter what type of character she plays, I would probably still watch. I definitely feel that when she was with TVB, she was very underrated, despite being a good actress – she was the lead in many series, though career-wise, she never made it to the ‘first rate fadan’ level (perhaps because there was too much competition back then in the 80s/90s and she was not the type who wanted to ‘fight’ for things). She is one of the few artists who came out of a contest (“Super New Talent Contest” in the 80s, which ironically was only held for 1 season and was axed) and didn’t get formal training whom I actually like because of her acting.

Another highlight of the series was Ming Sir’s (Lau Siu Ming) performance, which was absolutely brilliant and convincing. He played Vincent’s biological father and was the TRUE undefeated ‘Gambler King’ until he lost to Eddie’s father in a secret matchup, attempted to commit suicide, then went crazy. Of course, he winds up living at the mental institution, since his intelligence is that of a little kid now (the parts where the workers kept trying to bribe him with chocolate were hilarious) – despite going crazy however, he still retained all of the ‘special powers’ that he had when he was Gambler King, which eventually come to the surface as the series progresses. Ming Sir was absolutely convincing as a kid-like mental patient with special powers – the acting was very natural, which is a difficult feat for most artists, since a lot of them can’t play that type of role without making it look cheesy. This goes to show how superb Ming Sir’s acting truly is (especially given all the villain and tough father roles that he usually plays). Ming Sir has always been one of my favorites in terms of elderly ‘green leaf’ actors and continues to be, even now, though he doesn’t do too much acting anymore (not in series, at least).

Even though I don’t know what the purpose was of Felix Lok’s character (a bit pointless if you ask me), I actually did like the character he portrayed – way better than Vincent’s character. I like how Felix’s character was still very righteous and a man of his word, even though he was obsessed with being Gambler King and did some bad things as a result. I definitely would NOT describe his character as evil, because he wasn’t (at least he didn’t kill anyone like Vincent’s character did) – he was just a very self-confident man obsessed with being Gambler King (because of his love of gambling), even if it means sacrificing himself. What happened to his character in the end was quite tragic (though predictable) – however, as always, Felix did a great job with his role. He is another one of the veteran supporting artists who is on my ‘favorites’ list because of his awesome acting skills. And I like his personality as well – I read an interview about him a while back ago and he’s actually a very quiet person in real life. He doesn’t like to socialize and hates all of that political and ‘game-playing’ stuff that goes on, so he pretty much keeps to himself. The amazing thing about him is that when the cameras roll, he is 100% absorbed in his character and is able to portray whatever role he is given absolutely well, but once the cameras stop rolling, he’s a completely different person. And like many great talented actors, he takes his acting very seriously and actually studies each of his characters in depth before portraying them. (Ah, I miss those days when artists actually took their jobs seriously!!)

Lastly, I just wanted to mention how much I hated Vincent Lam’s character. And no, this is NOT one of those instances where hating the character means that the artist did a good job portraying the character (I call it characters we ‘love’ to hate). In fact, this one was quite opposite – first of all, his character itself was lame to the nth degree! It was stupid how he was always so obsessed with Fiona, to the point of trying to her force her 2nd character to marry him, even though she made it known that she hated him. And then when he started acting like a madman and killing people left and right just because they opposed his whim – the best way to describe it is that he came across to me like a gangster boss-wannabe in overdrive! Add to that the fact that Vincent’s acting in this series was absolutely horrible all the way through…for the first half of the series, before his character ‘turned bad’, his acting was like a piece of wood – very fake and forced. In the second half, as the ‘villain’, his acting still came across as forced, but now, instead of being wooden, it was very exaggerated (100 times worse than Alex Man, who is known for exaggerated acting – but at least Alex’s exaggeration looks natural) – to the point that I actually cringed every time I saw him on the screen (I just wanted to say “shut up already with your mad rants and get off my TV screen!”). Needless to say, it took A LOT of self-control on my part to avoid picking up the remote and fast-forwarding through all his scenes!

TVB Anniversary Awards 2010 (萬千星輝頒獎典禮2010)

Since I watched the Anniversary Awards, figured I would blog about it – but I have to make clear that I watched it because I wanted to have something to write about, not because I particularly care about who was going to win. The last couple years especially, I watch mostly because I want to see who the presenters are and the ‘funny’ or ‘clever’ dialogue that they usually give.

So before I go any further, I have to make the following disclaimer: the TVB Anniversary Awards from the past 5 years or so don’t mean anything to me because personally, I feel that TVB rigs them to benefit their own – we already know that TVB uses the awards to promote / showcase their own biological sons/daughters and the criteria is pretty much NOT based on acting skills or who gave the best performance, so there is NO CREDIBILITY whatsoever to the awards they give out.

With that said, below is the list of winners, my reaction to the results, as well as general comments and highlights from the ceremony (in my opinion):

TVB.COM Popular Artist: Raymond Lam
.> Of course, I’m not surprised that Raymond got this award, since he has such a huge fan base. In my opinion, this award is absolutely worthless because it doesn’t mean anything at all – it merely is an indication of how much on-line support the artist who wins it has…and I’m sure all of us (as well as Raymond himself) already know how many fans Raymond has – he doesn’t need a ‘stupid’ award to tell him that! Plus, if I remember correctly, he’s gotten this award several times in the past already (except for last year, but that’s because he didn’t have any series in the running last year) – pretty much every year that Raymond has a series in contention, he will continue to get this award.

Most ‘Enjoyable’ Program (aka Program Most Worth Watching): HK ARTchitecture
.> Since I didn’t watch any of the nominated programs in this category except for “The Voice”, not really going to comment (especially since I didn’t even know those other programs existed).

Best Variety Show: The Voice 2
I didn’t like any of the nominees in this category, so personally I don’t really care who won. Though I would have to say that as long as Super Trio didn’t win, then I’m fine with it – I used to love Super Trio, but the past couple years, the show has gotten very stupid and the games have been extremely lame. So I’m glad they didn’t win. I wasn’t too keen on the other nominee “Fun with Liza and the Gods” (as I’ve always said, I feel that watching that show makes me feel ‘dumb and dumber’) and the other 2 nominees I never even heard of, so I guess the logical choice would have been “The Voice 2”.

Most Improved Actress: Natalie Tong
.> Unlike most people in the forums, I actually don’t have much of an opinion on who deserved to win in this category because personally, I’m not too keen on any of the actresses who were nominated. I guess if I had to choose, I would probably prefer Selena more as an actress, as I can’t stand the majority of Natalie’s roles / performances. But as someone said in one of the forums, the reason why Selena probably didn’t get the award was because she’s pretty much already an established actress compared to Natalie so there wasn’t a lot to “improve” persay (which makes sense). But again, I don’t really care who wins this one (in fact, I can’t even remember who I voted for anymore in this category – goes to show how much I don’t care about it).

Most Improved Actor: Raymond Wong
.> Ok, I must say that this one was expected and very well-deserving. Raymond definitely did a good job this year and for me personally, I don’t mind watching his series. I don’t like very many of the newer generation TVB artists, but he’s definitely one that I enjoy watching. I feel that Raymond is deserving because I’ve also seen his improvement from his first few series to “When Lanes Merge” and “No Regrets”, so I can understand why he won. And I also give kudos to Raymond for giving one of the best speeches of the night. It was obvious he was well-prepared, as he had written down people he wanted to thank on a piece of paper and was able to get through the entire list. And even though he is sort of ‘new’ to TVB, he’s not new to the industry (13 years in the industry and 3.5 years in TVB) – he mentioned that this is his first award. He was very calm and extremely well-spoken, which really impressed me. Oh, and I loved the last part of his speech where he thanks his wife for sticking with him even during the lowest point in his life, then says that she will be giving him “a little life” very soon (meaning that she’s pregnant). Everyone was applauding and screaming when he made that announcement, which was so cute! Congrats to Raymond on his win and also on soon becoming a father!

Favorite Female Character: Charmaine Sheh
.> I actually am ok with Charmaine getting this award because out of the top 5 finalists (Charmaine’s princess from CBML, Sheren’s Miss 9 from NR, Linda’s character from CBML, Teresa’s character from Some Day, Tavia’s character from MOL), both Charmaine’s and Sheren’s characters were quite memorable and well-liked by audiences. It was pretty obvious though when Charmaine’s name was announced that Sheren would be TV Queen and this would be Charmaine’s consolation prize (because no matter how much TVB loves Charmaine, they would not risk the huge backlash from the audiences by giving her both Character and Actress awards again). Also, I’ve always looked at this award as a consolation prize for TV Queen for one, and two, it’s more about the ‘character’ in the series than the actor or actress, so again it doesn’t really mean anything in terms of the artists themselves (the artist could have so-so acting skills, but if the character is well-written, she could still win this award).

Favorite Male Character: Raymond Lam
.> Ok, this one was so obviously RIGGED!!! Raymond’s character in MOL was SO BORING and not even memorable. I mean, since this award was consolation for TV King, they could have given the award to Kenneth or Steven instead – they deserved it WAY more than Raymond did (if they didn’t want to give it to Wayne again because he was already going to get the Actor award). Though I don’t think that Moses deserves this award either because his character in CBML was annoying, but I don’t think I would have as much problem if he had gotten this award (probably cuz I was already expecting him to win it, since TVB was pushing him so much). I was actually rooting for Kenneth in this category (because his character stood out so much and AFOS was a great series with barely any recognition), but I would have been fine with any of the other 3 winning. But Raymond????? TVB was obviously trying to play favorites here!

Best Television Program Host: Liza Wang, Louis Yuen, Wong Cho Lam, Johnson Lee
.> This one was predictable – in fact, I would probably be surprised if they “didn’t” get this one…though I will say that I didn’t vote for them (I voted for Steven Ma). But oh well, it is what it is…not too much comment about this one (again, another category I didn’t really care about).

Best Professional Performance: Moses Chan
.> This was that stupid ‘pork’ award (the one Tavia got last year) that TVB made up in order to please certain people. Pretty much, it means nothing (most people can’t even explain what the purpose of the award is because frankly, it has no purpose) and does absolutely nothing for the artist who receives it. Last year, TVB gave it to Tavia because they didn’t want to waste all the investment they made with her in BTROC and this year, they are giving it to Moses because they chose Raymond over him for Favorite Character and there is no way that they could give him TV King without major backlash. Basically, this is a lame award that TVB should just get rid of instead of ‘embarrassing’ the artist who ends up receiving it! (But I do have to give credit to Moses for trying to make the most of the win by injecting a little bit of humor in his acceptance speech and trying to lighten up the atmosphere).

Best Supporting Actress: Fala Chen
.> Sorry, but there is no way I can support Fala getting this award with all of the veteran actresses nominated who were WAY better than her. I mean, they’ve got Elena Kong, Kara Hui, and Susanna Kwan nominated in this category (along with Nancy Wu) and they give the award to Fala for her character in NR that wasn’t even her best performance? I voted for Elena Kong because her performance was absolutely awesome in “Beauty Knows No Pain”. And absolutely how could a 7-time Best Actress in Film (Kara Hui) lose to Fala? Kara’s performance in AFOS was also way better. The winner of this category definitely was not determined based on acting skill!

Best Supporting Actor: Evergreen Mak
.> For me, this was the hardest category to pick the winner, as I liked almost all of the performances in this category. From the beginning, the race was really between Pierre Ngo, Evergreen Mak, and Dominic Lam (though Raymond Wong and Ron Ng were nominated as well, but they already knew they didn’t have a chance). I remember it took me so long to decide who to vote for in this category, as all three are good actors…in the end, it really came down to a choice between Dominic and Evergreen for me (though I would have been fine with Pierre getting the award as well). Evergreen ended up winning, which is still well-deserved in my opinion, as his Fei Fan Gor was very well-done and memorable. Also, his win was the most emotional one of the night, as I could tell that he was really surprised that he won. His win was pretty much reminiscent of the time back in 2008 when Wayne Lai won for the same award – all of his colleagues stood up and hugged him and applauded him. Same thing happened for Evergreen (though I actually think there were more hugs for Evergreen because he has always been a very amicable actor with tons of friends), plus all of his female colleagues stood up and hugged / kissed him as well (it took him forever to get up on the stage…LOL….also, people kept rubbing his bald head, which was kind of cute!). I also thought it was sweet of him to go over and especially give Elena (his wife in NR) a bear hug, partially sweeping her off her feet (awww)!

And his speech, which he gave through tears (his voice kept breaking at certain parts) was very heartfelt and very humbling – I almost cried at the part where he said that there are so many artists who are better than him at TVB and for the audience to applaud for them. This was probably the only win that I was extremely happy for all night.

Best Actress (TV Queen): Sheren Tang
.> Of course I’m not surprised that Sheren won and no complaints here, since her win was well-deserved. In the forums, there are many people who say her character was not at as ‘popular’ as Fourth Mistress in “Rosy Business”, but to me, that doesn’t really matter, since it’s really about her acting rather than the popularity of the character (plus Cheng Gau Mui was a really intense character anyway, one that was not easy to portray and definitely takes someone with Sheren’s skills to do). And it was already obvious when Charmaine won Favorite Character earlier that Sheren would win TV Queen. One thing that I have to say though – just because TVB gave TV Queen to Sheren, it DOES NOT mean that they are being “fair” – they are giving the award to her again because they have no choice, since she has tremendous audience backing and they wouldn’t be able to justify giving it to Charmaine after all the backlash they got from the horrendous ‘bad decisions’ they made before.

Best Actor (TV King): Wayne Lai
.> Again, no surprise here…this was totally expected (especially after they gave Moses and Raymond awards already). I’m happy for Wayne and am totally fine with him getting the award, though my opinion of why TVB gave him the award is the same as why I think they gave it to Sheren (to appease the audiences and lessen the backlash – plus they know that the audiences nowadays aren’t as ‘naïve’ as they were back in 2006, so pulling a Kevin Cheng-type win again would definitely have gotten them in serious trouble!). I will admit thought that I would much rather the award have gone to Steven – not because Wayne isn’t good because he is definitely absolutely awesome and no one can compare with him in terms of acting skill (he’s definitely the master), but Steven is also a very high quality actor and doesn’t get enough recognition, plus his PSL as well as AWT roles were very well-done and well-deserving of an award (I actually voted for Steven, despite Wayne being one of my favorite actors).

Oh, and Sandra Ng's speech (she was the presenter for the TV King award) was funny too and in a sense, it indirectly 'referred' to TVB's politics as well -- when she announced Wayne as the winner without even opening the envelope (supposedly), then saying "we all know how TVB works already", she definitely hit it on the spot as well...my first reaction was "Absolutely right -- we sure do!!!!" She knows just as well as everyone else (both artist and audience alike) that Wayne would be the TV King because Moses and Raymond got their 'consolation prizes' already...that’s TVB politics and is obvious to everyone!

Best Drama Series: Can’t Buy Me Love
.> This was definitely the category where I was like WTH???? No way was CBML better than NR in terms of script / plot or acting – in fact, CBML was pretty much just a bunch of nonsense! It was so obvious that this category was rigged – TVB was just trying to ‘satisfy’ the CBML group (and upper management, since the series has most of their favorite biological sons and daughters in it).

Also, the finalists for this category were a big huge joke…I mean, how did “A Chip Off the Old Block”, “Every Move You Make”, and “Mysteries of Love” make it into this category when there were so many better made series that deserved to be in those spots (i.e.: “Ghostwriter”, “A Fistful of Stances”, and how about ‘anniversary series’ “Gun Metal Grey”?????).

The presenter of this award was famous director / producer Johnnie To. I love the comments that he made right before opening the envelope: 「咁明顯, 應該係佢喇, 應該無做馬啦, 係咪呀? ~~~ 咦, 又唔係喎, 咁至衰喎」. (Since the above is in Cantonese, here’s the translation: “It’s so obvious, it should be them [“No Regrets”], the applause is different….shouldn’t be rigged, right? “ (he looks back at the artists when he says this). He then opens the envelope and states: “Oh, errr, it’s not them…that’s the bad thing.”

Ok, I know it’s not just me who thinks that the above comments by Johnnie were an indirect ‘diss’ on TVB -- there are very few artists who would be brave enough to do that and Johnnie is definitely one of them (notice how he also mentioned how great his life has been since he left TVB?). And since Johnnie used to work for TVB and was responsible for bringing us a lot of the most respected series in TVB history (along with his teacher Wong Tin Lam), his words have a lot of clout (people can't claim that he is an 'outsider' who doesn't know how it works). That was one of the other highlights of the entire show for me.

In terms of the Best Series award itself, well, again another example of TVB politics at work. I'm pretty sure that TVB was already intending for CBML to win big at the awards ceremony (by win big, I mean either TV King/Queen and/or Series) from the beginning when they took it out of the anniversary series timeslot (which they might as well have kept it there with the way they've been treating its replacement GMG!) and with so many audiences behind Wayne and Sheren, there only option was to give CBML the Best Series consolation prize. Pretty much as long as CBML and NR were in the top 5 for that category, it doesn't matter what other series were in there because doesn't mean anything anyways.

Concluding Comments:

Overall, the awards ceremony was lackluster and disappointing as usual – true, there were some very deserving wins, but there were also quite a few that left me scratching my head and asking “What the hell were they thinking?” With that said though, I don’t get ‘upset’ anymore over the results of the awards ceremony because frankly, I don’t give a damn about those awards – they don’t mean a thing to me and won’t cause me to like an artist that I already dislike or hate an artist that I’ve always liked. In fact, I’m already used to TVB’s STUPIDITIES after so many years following HK entertainment!

Even so, I do want to mention what I felt were the biggest SNUBS (disappointments) of the night:

.>> Kenneth and Steven losing to Raymond in the Favorite Male Character award – as I said above, both were SO MUCH MORE deserving of the award than Raymond. I don’t really care too much that TVB sacrificed Moses in this category (I didn’t vote for him anyway), but with Ma Ming and Steven’s awesome performances, it was just plain sad that they fell victim to TVB’s stupid politics!

.>> “Gun Metal Grey” not being in the top 5 for Best Series. Sure, TVB can (and probably will) argue that because GMG has not finished airing, that’s why it was at a disadvantage for the awards (which I can totally refute because both Felix and Nancy were in top 5 in their respective categories!)…BUT whose fault is it that GMG is airing so late and didn’t finish in time for the awards? TVB’s fault of course, since they were the ones who decided to remove CBML from the anniversary series timeslot (to give it better advantage at the awards ceremony) and make GMG into a replacement!

.>> I’m also sad that Steven didn’t win ANYTHING, not even a consolation prize, despite being better in terms of acting than some of those who actually won an award (and many of those who were nominated). Goes to show how much TVB DOESN’T care about him (yup, might as well put him into the same boat as Wong Hei, Sunny Chan, and all those other talented artists whom TVB loves to throw by the wayside). Well, in the long run, it doesn’t matter because we all know TVB’s awards are rigged anyway – Steven’s fans will continue to support him, no matter what happens (and I was happy to see what a great sport he was at the ceremony).

Overall, I still feel that the awards were rigged…TVB knows what they are doing -- they are very CLEVER when it comes to this kind of stuff and knows how far to push it before they will get 'caught' so to speak. Why do you think Raymond, Moses, and Charmaine as well as CBML were still awarded even though there were a lot of much more deserving candidates? TVB made sure that they still went with the audiences to some extent (hence Wayne and Sheren won) but still wanted to make sure they get their own biological children in there to satisfy their upper management.

No matter who they end up "awarding" and how much those won deserved or didn't deserve the awards, I will never associate the word "fair" with TVB's Anniversary Awards -- because no matter what, it will always be a reflection of TVB's politics (every year, it's pretty much just a matter of which category TVB decides to "rig")

Also, with regard to the ‘audience voting’ nonsense (some ignorant fans’ assertion that the awards were based on audience voting and so people who weren’t satisfied with the results should have voted) – well, sorry to burst your bubble, but the audience's vote really doesn't mean much at the end of the day because TVB will give the awards to whomever they want, since it's all about the politics really...they mostly just look at the audience vote to give them an 'idea' of how much backlash they will or won't get and how best to 'divide the pork' so that everyone is somewhat happy. So basically, whether we vote or not really doesn’t matter, since TVB will still rig it to benefit them (without making it seem too obvious of course).

LASTLY…..after this awards ceremony, it's even more obvious that FAVORITISM is rampant in TVB....so next time, if I hear again anyone from TVB claim that 'no favoritism exists in their company' (the message they continue to push out to the media), I'm just going to laugh at anyone who is naive enough to believe that!

Book review: 從零開始 (Now and Then) -- post #1 (in a series)

I'm currently reading a book called 從零開始 (literally translated: "Starting From Zero") and figured I would share some thoughts about it on my blog.

As a means of introduction, the book 從零開始 is actually a special publication from MingPao Weekly, which is one of HK's premier entertainment / celebrity / fashion news magazines . I've been a long time fan of MingPao Weekly magazine, as the entertainment news reporting is quite professional and does not take the same approach as those trashy gossip / tabloid magazines that are rampant in HK. Mingpao Weekly does a lot of features on celebrities and famous people, but its method is primarily through one on one interviews with the celebrities themselves, rather than making up stuff based on their own speculation -- this is one of the unique aspects of the magazine (and one of the primary reasons why I like reading it, since it's a first hand account from the celebrities themselves).

Ok, so back to the book itself....it actually is comprised of 3 volumes, all released at different times (volume 1 was published back in 2008, volume 2 came out in 2009, and volume 3 just came out this year, in 2010). The book consists of a compilation of celebrity interviews as well as short biographical accounts of the celebrities (i.e. how they started, the highlights and lowlights of their careers, some details about their personal lives and relationships, etc.). Each volume features different celebrities and the interviews are done by Huang Li Ling, a well-known entertainment reporter/writer in HK who has worked for Mingpao magazine for many years. And the celebrities featured in the book are not the 'average joe' -- any long-time follower of HK entertainment (or a HK entertainment fanatic like me) is sure to recognize every single celebrity featured in each of the books (just to give you an idea -- some of the famous names in Volume 1: Leslie Cheung, Jacky Cheung, Sammi Cheng, Carina Lau, Jackie Chan, etc. and Volume 2: Tony Leung, Anita Mui, Andy Lau, Faye Wong, etc., and Volume 3: Lydia Shum, Eason Chan, Cecilia Cheung, Josephine Hsiao, etc.)

I actually read Volume 1 already back in 2008 when the book first came out and currently I'm reading Volume 2 (yes, I'm behind, since volume 2 came out last year and volume 3 is already out, which I haven't gotten to yet). However, since the book is a compilation of interviews that are not inter-connected and does not go in any particular order, I am going to re-read parts of Volume 1 and share my thoughts on celebrities from both volumes 1 and 2 (I'll write about volume 3 once I get around to reading it).

So here goes the first feature: my idol, Jacky Cheung (yup, you guessed it...lol!)

First of all, I have to make it clear that Jacky is a very private, low-key person who does not like to reveal a lot about his personal life -- of course, he has done seemingly countless interviews in the 25 years that he has been in the entertainment industry (and some details do come out about his family and stuff, though rare), but in comparisons to most HK entertainers, the number of interviews he actually does is few and far between (plus he is quite selective about who he agrees to interview with, especially if it's an in-depth interview that touches on personal life). With that said, I'm sure you can imagine my excitement (me being a dedicated, long-time Jacky fan) at getting the chance to read about him (a lot of it in his own words) in this book.

Though most of the information about him in the book is stuff I already knew (hey, I'm not a 20 year Jacky fan for nothing!), I still thoroughly enjoyed reading the account. The part about how the infamous scar under Jacky's right eye came about was quite amusing -- I loved the way he described it (though I must say that the response he gave to a reporter during an interview one time was way more hilarious -- it wasn't the true account of course -- he was just joking that time). For those of you who are curious though, I'll give you the short version of how his scar came about (btw, it's a little-known story that even some die-hard Jacky fans may not be aware of): basically, it was the result of his cousin accidentally slashing him with a meat cleaver (they both loved to watch TV when they were kids and one day, they were pretending to re-enact one of the scenes from the old "One-Armed Swordsman" movie -- except with real knives as 'swords'!). So I guess you could say that he got the scar from being a mischievous little rascal (at least that's the way Jacky puts it....hahaha!).

Another interesting section was the part that talked about the lowest point in Jacky’s career and life – the time back in 1987/1988 when he almost lost everything that he cared about (his career, family, friends, fans, etc.) because of alcoholism. Jacky has actually talked about this point in his life in several interviews in the past and even though I’ve heard it many times (I could probably recite it by now), I never tire of it because the story is so poignant and encouraging (in my opinion, that is). It’s a story that I would actually like to save and share some other time when I can dedicate an entire blog post to it and do it justice.

The last highlight (I’m only touching on a few things, since you know I could go on forever about Jacky) from the book is the section on his relationship with his wife May Lo as well as his many friends in the entertainment industry (Eric Tsang, Anita Mui, Tony Leung, Leslie Cheung, etc.). I loved reading the funny stories and the tidbits about their various gatherings and parties.

Of course, there was a lot more stuff about Jacky in the book that I didn’t cover in this post. So I definitely encourage those who want to know more (both fans and non-fans alike) and who can read Chinese to get the book and read it – there’s also a lot of great stuff about the HK entertainment industry in there.