Interview with former TVB veteran actor Deno Cheung: The ‘spoiled young master’ endures with all his might

Here's an article I came across last week about another 'veteran' former TVB green leaf artist whom I 'grew up' watching (well, sort of):  actor Deno Cheung. 

I actually first started noticing Deno in the series Untraceable Evidence where he played a rookie cop who reported to Bowie Lam's character (it was also the first series where I started to notice Koo Ming Wah as well).  Even though I do remember Deno also from DIF 2 (his first series) where he also played a rookie cop (though reporting to Michael Tao this time), his role was really not as significant compared to the one in UE -- plus he had mostly 'group' scenes, so he didn't really stand out. 

For me, the 2 series that really caused me to get to know Deno more and appreciate his acting were Rural Hero and Plain Love II.  He had pretty significant roles in both series (in fact, if I remember correctly, in Rural Hero, I believe he was even billed as '3rd male lead' after Roger Kwok and Jackie Lui) and his performances in both really left an impression on me.  To be honest, even though I don't really consider the 'spoiled younger master' role a villain persay (especially not in Plain Love II, since Deno's 'Young Master Wing' in that series actually does turn good in the end if I recall correctly), the article was definitely correct in saying that Deno has turned that particular type of role into his 'specialty' over the years -- nowadays, whenever I think of a spoiled young master, the first person who comes to mind is Deno!

Deno left TVB in June of this year and currently works for HKTV (CTI) -- so far, he has filmed 2 series for HKTV (Three Sides of Shape Doctors and Police Boundaries) and I'm sure there are more in the works.  I had actually read an interview that Deno did a couple months back where he talked about why he left TVB and since then, there's been a lingering question in my mind that I don't think I'll ever find out the answer to:  Deno is one of those artists who has both the looks as well as acting talent plus good work ethics (which is a rare combination actually), so you'd think that TVB would be 'jumping' to promote him, right?  Um, well, apparently not, since it looks like TVB pretty much 'ignored' him for most of his 18 year tenure with them (I mean, he's probably been in close to 100 series but yet, he only had a handful of 'decent' roles....such a huge imbalance!) -- that's the part that doesn't make much sense to me.  Oh and I'm sorry, but to not give your employees a pay raise for 12 years when they've obviously been performing above standard throughout that time is just completely WRONG (and I'm speaking from the perspective of an employer as well as a business person here)!!  No wonder Deno made the decision to leave TVB!  Even though HKTV doesn't have their license yet, at least Deno is getting opportunities over there that he never would have gotten if he had stayed with TVB (not to mention he's getting better treatment as well as respect from his new employer).

Anyway....back to the article -- it's actually a pretty interesting read, as it reveals quite alot about Deno as well as about his former employer (TVB).  Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did!

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Interview with former TVB veteran actor Deno Cheung:  The ‘spoiled young master’ endures with all his might

Source:  HKChannel

 

Translation:  llwy12

 

Having toiled silently at TVB for 18 years, Deno Cheung (張松枝) is best known for his villain roles, which he started playing back in 1999 when he portrayed the role of a spoiled, rich young master in the series Plain Love II (茶是故鄉濃) – since then, that ‘spoiled young master’ image stuck with him and had become his ‘specialty’ role of sorts over the years.  Fortunately for him, audiences seem to like and appreciate Deno’s villain roles – when fans bump into him on the street, they ‘chide’ him for being ‘such a bad person’ [referring to his characters in the series], but yet at the same time, they have smiles on their faces.  This little bit of ‘recognition’ can be attributed to the years of hard work and effort that Deno put in to building his career.  At one point, Deno reveals his experience of almost going into shock while filming a particularly strenuous scene, yet at the end of the day, he endured it with all his might and successfully completed the filming.

Deno Cheung entered the industry when he was 20 years old.  He recalls how he was swimming at a beach in Shek O one day where, coincidentally, a commercial was being filmed – the PA (production assistant) went over to him and asked if he wanted to participate, and just like that, his filming career began.  In those first few years, Deno filmed commercials for all sorts of products, including toothpaste, M&Ms, real estate, etc.   During the height of the karaoke craze in the early 90s, Deno switched to filming karaoke MVs (music videos) – in 4 short years, he filmed close to a thousand MVs and got the opportunity to work with some of HK’s most popular singers at the time, such as Kelly Chen (陳慧琳), Cass Pang (彭羚), etc.  Deno recalls those early years with fondness:  “Back then, we filmed 4 days a week and sometimes, we would even travel offsite to various locations.”  Asked about his experience filming the MV for music queen Kelly Chen’s hit ‘Care Too Much About You’ (對你太在乎), Deno smiled and praised Kelly’s down-to-earth personality:  “I remember how much she loved talking about food!  During filming, she would constantly ask what we would be eating for lunch and where we should eat when we got off work!”


No pay raise for 12 years

It turns out that filming MVs was actually only a ‘side job’ for Deno – his ‘real’ job was in mechanics:  “My friend had a company that specialized in buying second hand cell phones from Japan, refurbishing them in HK, then selling them in Mainland China -- since I had studied mechanical engineering, I was the one responsible for refurbishing the phones.  It wasn’t really a full time job, so I still had time to film MVs on the side.”  So with 2 salaries coming in, life must have been worry-free then?  With a slight smile, Deno replied:  “Worry-free?  Of course not -- in fact, the work was quite arduous!  Later on, I joined a certain company [TVB] and in a few years, that ‘double income’ was gone.”

In 1994, through a friend who worked behind-the-scenes at TVB, Deno was introduced to the station’s manager of the artists’ department at the time, Hsiao Siu Ming (蕭笑鳴).  [TN:  蕭笑鳴  left TVB not too long after Virginia Lok took over the Artists’ Department in 2004;  she is the wife of TVB’s production head Tommy Leung (梁家樹) and the mother of TVB actress Toby Leung (梁靖琪)].   After meeting with ‘Ba Jeh’ (Hsiao Siu Ming’s nickname), Deno signed with TVB and with that, started his 18 year ‘relationship’ with the company.  Deno expressed that his early years with TVB were the happiest – at one point, he was practically filming non-stop and participated in so many series that he was able to accumulate over 290 ‘shows’ in one year!  However, all of that changed in 2000 when, during the filming of the series Gods of Honour (封神榜), TVB held up Deno’s schedule for 7 months, yet only had him film for 3 days – as a result, Deno didn’t have enough ‘shows’ to fulfill his contract and had to rely on his meager salary from previous months to survive.  Luckily, the next year, producer Lau Shi Yu (劉仕裕) invited him to participate in the series Country Spirit (酒是故鄉醇), which allowed him to ‘recover’ the lost wages.  Deno revealed that for 12 years, he was never given a pay raise, which definitely made life difficult:  “Luckily, I consistently had work and was very careful about spending money – at least eating the boxed lunches at TVB helped me save a lot of money on food!”


Filming action scenes in extremely hot weather almost sent him into shock

As the saying goes:  ‘One minute on stage takes ten years of practice/hard work (台上一分鐘，台下十年功) – this has definitely been true in Deno Cheung’s case.  Deno expressed that from the moment he joined TVB and filmed his first series, he was already ‘learning’ from the many experienced artists he collaborated with – one of those artists was actor Michael Tao (陶大宇):  “Back when I participated in Detective Investigation Files 2 (刑事偵緝檔案II), I got the chance to work closely with Michael practically every day.   Every time we had scenes to film together, I would practice by looking through the script and try to memorize all his lines, then imagine myself filming the scene in his position – when it came time to actually film the scene, I would observe the way Michael did it and see if there were any similarities with the way I practiced it – this was my way of learning.  After that, I started doing the same thing with every series and slowly, it helped me learn a lot about acting – more importantly though, it also helped me develop a good memory.    I remember back when I filmed Eternal Happiness (再生緣), I had a scene with Raymond Lam (林峯) where my character had 5 pages of dialogue – we did that scene in one take!  Another time, when filming a scene for Country Spirit with Paul Chun (秦沛), my character had 3 full pages of dialogue for that particular segment.  At first, I thought that since I was somewhat of a ‘newcomer’ at the time, Paul Gor wouldn’t pay much attention to me, but then, as I was practicing that particular scene with the director, Paul Gor heard me reciting those 3 pages of dialogue practically in one breath – when he noticed me practicing that scene, he immediately told the people around me to keep the noise level down so that I could concentrate.  Seeing him do this truly made me feel very happy in my heart!”

In one of his last series with TVB, 2012’s Three Kingdoms RPG (回到三國), Deno played the historical character of Zhao Zi Long (趙子龍) – his performance was very well-received by audiences.  Deno expressed that even though he already knew going into it that the character wouldn’t have much screen time, it was still important for him to do the best job he possibly could with it:  “The action choreographer told me that at the end of the day, I’m the one in front of the audiences and so how much effort I put in to doing the action scenes, the audiences will definitely notice.  The 2 days that we spent filming those scenes were very grueling and arduous.  Coincidentally, that was also the time when the extras [temporary workers] went on strike – originally I was told that there would be 50 extras filming the scenes, however when I arrived, I found out that there were no extras at all due to the strike.  Therefore, the production team had to call around last minute and eventually were able to find 10 students from the acting classes and 5 stuntmen to serve as extras – since we would have to re-use the same people as extras in the other scenes, we couldn’t have the cameras focus on them too much, so the cameras ended up being focused more on me and showing them fighting in the background with their backs toward me.  This meant that I would actually have to be the one ‘fighting’ the entire time – throughout the filming, I felt like I had ‘died’ 4 times because we were filming outside under extremely hot weather with heavy costumes and armor.  In between some of the fighting sequences, I would have to rest for 5 to 10 minutes to catch my breath and drink water – it was so strenuous that I almost went into a state of shock!  I ended up drinking 8 bottles of water just filming those scenes alone!”  Looking back now, Deno expressed that even though the filming was exhausting, the memory of that collaboration was a happy one, as he was able to work together with the production team to overcome the difficulties and finish the scenes.

In many of the series he participated in, Deno often played similar characters:  the spoiled young master, the chap who betrays his triad boss, and other similar ‘villain’ characters – towards this, Deno laughed and stated:  “Sure I would like to play other types of characters such as comical ones for example, but it rarely happened.  Actually, come to think of it, producer Poon Ka Tak (潘嘉德) helped me a lot in the beginning, as he was the one who initially gave me the ‘good guy’ roles to play, such as the ones in Rural Hero (離島特警), Untraceable Evidence (鑑證實錄), The Awakening Story (婚前昏後), etc., but later on, even he started asking me to do villain roles too…haha!  In terms of the ‘spoiled young master’ character, producer Lau Shi Yu (劉仕裕) was actually the first one to have me play this type of role back during Plain Love II (茶是故鄉濃) – from that time on, I continued playing that role.”   Even though Deno did play a lot of typecasted roles, at least his performances were well-received by audiences – in fact, a netizen recently suggested that Deno should get together with other ‘known villains’  [artists who regularly play villain characters in series] such as Timothy Cheng (鄭子誠), Ricky Wong Chung Tong (王俊棠), Wong Man Piu (黃文標), and Cheng Kar Sheng (鄭家生) to film a ‘battle of the villains’ series:  “Hey, if you send the idea to HKTV (CTI), there’s a huge possibility it might happen, as there is a lot of flexibility with their series – it could be 5 episodes, 10 episodes, even more!  Since there’s 5 of us, we could do a 5 episode series and it would only take 1 week to air!”

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.

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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.

A Look Back at TVB’s Past ‘TV King’ Winners (1997 – 2011)

Seeing that TVB’s Anniversary Awards ceremony will take place on Monday (only 2 days away), I figured it was appropriate for me to post the translation for this article that I came across several weeks ago.  Basically, the article recaps the winners of TVB’s Best Actor (aka TV King) award starting from the very first awards ceremony (held during the annual anniversary gala back in 1997) all the way up to last year’s (2011) event.

Reading this article was a nice trip down memory lane for me.  Even though there really wasn’t "anything new" presented in the article (meaning nothing that I didn’t already know), it was still interesting to read nonetheless.

Not sure what’s going to happen with this year’s awards ceremony, since TVB has implemented that new OVPP ‘gimmick’ thing to have audiences vote for TV King, TV Queen, and Best Series.  As I’ve said before -- personally, I feel this is a foolish move because it turns those awards into ‘popularity’ awards rather than actual ‘acting’ awards.  With these circumstances at play, it makes me ‘reminisce’ even more about the ‘olden days’ and how the TV King / Queen awards were actually prestigious and meaningful back then, but nowadays have lost all credibility and importance -- truly sad and disappointing.

Anyway, back to the article – this is actually a great recap of TVB’s past TV King winners, though the only ‘bad’ thing is that it only talks about those who won the award more than once -- the others are only ‘mentioned’ briefly at the beginning and end of the article.  Ah well...still a good recap nonetheless!

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TVB’s ‘Best Actors’

Written by:  MonJeh

Translated by:  llwy12

Source:  YumCha!(yesasia.com)

Article originally published November 19, 2012 (the day of TVB’s Anniversary Gala)


If we were asked to name the TVB program that has garnered the most ‘feedback’ in HK recently, that ‘title’ would go to the interview show Telling Maria (最佳男主角) hosted by [veteran reporter and entertainment news host] Luisa Maria Leitao (黎芷珊).  In the program, Maria sits down with some of the HK film industry’s most popular Best Actor winners from the past few decades and chats with them about career, life, and much more – having so many ‘big names’ from the industry reveal intimate details about themselves, of course it’s no surprise that the program was able to ‘attract’ so many viewers.   However, let’s not forget the ‘other’ Best Actors out there – the ones from the TV world who have a certain ‘attractiveness’ of their own that is equally appealing to audiences! 

With this year being TVB’s 45^th anniversary celebration, let us take a look back at TVB’s Best Actor winners from the past 15 years (starting with the 30^th anniversary celebration in 1997) and reminisce about their careers as well as ‘classic’ performances.

Starting in 1997, TVB added an awards element to their annual TVB Anniversary Gala (萬千星輝賀台慶) event.   In 2006, the awards portion was ‘broken off’ into its own independent program -- the TVB Anniversary Awards show (萬千星輝頒獎典禮) – and over the years, it has become one of the station’s most highly anticipated events.  Two of the event’s ‘top honors’ -- TV King (Best Actor) and TV Queen (Best Actress) – are awards that the station’s many actors and actresses ‘battle’ over every year.  

In the 15 years that TVB’s Anniversary Awards has been in existence, a total of 9 TV Kings (Best Actors) have been crowned.  Amongst them, actor Gallen Lo (羅嘉良) tops the list as the ‘TV King of Kings’, as he has won the coveted award 3 times (a record that has yet to be broken);  close behind him are 4 actors who have each won the award twice:  Roger Kwok (郭晉安), Wayne Lai (黎耀祥), Kevin Cheng (鄭嘉穎), and Louis Koo (古天樂).  Rounding out the rest of the TV King winners list are Bobby Au Yeung (歐陽震華), Moses Chan (陳豪), Bowie Lam (林保怡), and Ha Yu (夏雨).

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Gallen Lo (羅嘉良)

Nicknamed ‘Lo Kar’ (撈家), Gallen Lo entered the industry in 1984 after participating in that year’s New Talent Singing Competition, where he caught the attention of renown songwriter Jim Lo (盧國沾).  Possessing an ‘honest, clean-cut, gentlemanly’ image, Gallen was often cast in the shy, quiet, introverted good guy roles early on in his career – such as the role of Mimi Lau’s (劉淑華) ‘wooden’ boyfriend ‘Johnson’ in 1986’s City Japes (城市故事) [TN: which was also Gallen’s debut series], the late Tang Bik Wan’s (鄧碧雲) shy son ‘Sai Dee’ in 1987’s The Seasons (季節), and ruthless villain Luk Kwok Wing’s [played by veteran actor Kenneth Tsang (曾江)] introverted son in 1988’s ‘classic’ series The Final Verdict (誓不低頭).  Even though Gallen’s ‘honest good guy’ image was extremely well-received by audiences since early on in his career, it unfortunately also limited his development in the TV industry, as he continued to play similar type roles in many series through those first few years.  In 1990, his performances in the series Rain in the Heart (成功路上), The Hunter’s Prey (烏金血劍), and Silken Hands (自梳女) continued to gain favor with audiences, however there was still not much ‘breakthrough’ in terms of his career.

It wasn’t until 1992, when Gallen showed a ‘different side’ of himself as the main villain ‘Kiu Lik’ in that year’s hit series Vengeance (火玫瑰) that he started to gain recognition, with audiences finally realizing that Gallen was indeed capable of playing villain roles.  In 1994’s remake of Legend of the Condor Heroes (射鵰英雄傳), Gallen got the opportunity to play ‘Yeung Hong’ [a role that Michael Miu (苗僑偉) made famous in the 80s version of the series], which was a pretty big challenge for him acting-wise at that point in his career.  However, the role that truly catapulted Gallen to fame and popularity was his portrayal of ultimate villain ‘Tsui Kar Lap’ in 1996’s grand production series Cold Blood Warm Heart (天地男兒).  With the series spanning 65 episodes, audiences got to ‘witness’ Tsui Kar Lap’s transformation from ‘promising youth’ to ‘ruthless murderer’ practically every night – a character that was willing to sacrifice anything for power and money, not only betraying his closest family members, but also causing the death of the woman he loved most.  While watching the series, audiences hated his character (Tsui Kar Lap) with a passion, yet at the same time, they also started to see Gallen’s acting prowess in a different light.

Cold Blood Warm Heart helped Gallen establish his ‘leading actor’ status at TVB and also brought him many new opportunities.  Subsequently, he continued to expand his acting skills by taking on a variety of different roles, such as those in 1996’s Dark Tales (聊齋), Once Upon a Time in Shanghai (新上海灘), Criminal Investigator 2  (O記實錄II) , etc. --all of which brought him praises for his ‘high quality’ performances.   However, if we were to recount the role that left the deepest impression on audiences, it would have to be Gallen’s performance in 1997’s Old Time Buddy (難兄難弟), where he starred opposite a strong leading cast consisting of Francis Ng (吳鎮宇), Jessica Hsuan (宣萱), and Maggie Cheung (張可頤).  In the series, his portrayal of ‘Lui Kei’ (one of the Shaw Brothers era’s most popular leading actors) was so realistic and convincing that many audiences felt that he WAS ‘Lui Kei’.  His performance also led audiences to realize that in addition to playing ‘good guy’ and ‘villain’ characters so convincingly, he was also able to grasp comedic roles perfectly as well – therefore, he was dubbed as one of TVB’s most ‘versatile leading actors’ at that time.  Not only did the series Old Time Buddy garner high ratings for TVB, it also created a ‘ripple effect’ popularity craze unlike anything seen before at TVB – first, the original soundtrack album to the series sold out in various stores in HK, then the series was made into a movie version entitled Those Were the Days (精裝難兄難弟) that same year (1997); the following year (1998), the series was made into a theatrical stage play and a follow up sequel to the TV series – Old Time Buddy:  To Catch a Thief (難兄難弟之神探李奇) -- was also released.

In 1998, Gallen led an ‘all-star’ cast in another grand production series, Secret of the Heart (天地豪情), playing the role of ‘Cheuk Seung Man’ – a person that women both loved and hated.  In addition to his leading role in the series, Gallen was also tasked with singing all of the theme and sub-theme songs for the series, which all became huge hits when the series aired – in fact, at the time, the original soundtrack album for the series reached 75,000 units sold in a few short weeks, which landed it in the number one spot on IFPI’s Top Sales chart for many weeks!  Because of this,  Gallen also got the opportunity to hold his very own concert for the first time at the HK Coliseum.  That same year, due to his role in Secret of the Heart, Gallen ended up winning the TV King award at TVB’s Anniversary Gala for the second time in a row [he had already won his first TV King award in 1997 for his performance in Old Time Buddy].

It can be said that from the late 90s to the early 2000s, the television industry ‘belonged’ to Gallen Lo – in addition to being crowned TV King twice, all of the series he participated in during that time were also hugely popular among audiences; in addition, starting in the year 1997, Gallen was selected as one of the ‘Top Ten TV Artists’ by the HK Media for 7 years straight. 

In 1999, to commemorate the arrival of the new millennium, TVB gathered many of its top artists together in the special 100 episode grand production drama series At the Threshold of an Era (創世紀) [1999-2000] – of course, TVB’s ‘number one brother’ Gallen Lo was included amongst the ‘all-star’ cast that consisted of many top siu sangs and fadans such as Roger Kwok (郭晉安), Sunny Chan (陳錦鴻), Louis Koo (古天樂), Kenix Kwok (郭可盈), Ada Choi (蔡少芬), Flora Chan (陳慧珊), Liza Wang (汪明荃), etc. and got the chance to ‘battle’ acting chops with this stellar group of actors and actresses.  In 2005, when the series was re-broadcast in the midnight timeslot, so many audiences tuned in to ‘chase’ the series that it ended up achieving 94% ratings share, which is recordbreaking for that particular timeslot.

The 2002 anniversary grand production series Golden Faith (流金歲月) became Gallen’s last ‘representative work’ prior to leaving TVB.  It was also the series that gave Gallen his 3^rd TV King award, achieving a ‘record’ in TVB anniversary awards history that no other male artist has been able to break (so far).  This series also ‘reunited’ Gallen with his long-time on-screen partner Jessica Hsuan  – the onscreen chemistry between these two was unquestionable, but most importantly, audiences loved their pairing so much that even to this day, there are many who still wish to see another collaboration between these two ‘old partners’ someday.

In 2008, Gallen made a brief return to TVB, filming the series When a Dog Loves a Cat (當狗愛上貓) as well as 2009’s anniversary series Born Rich (富貴門).  Since then, Gallen shifted his career to the Mainland and has not filmed any more series for TVB.

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Roger Kwok (郭晉安)

Right behind Gallen Lo’s record-setting 3-time TV King win are 4 siu sangs who have each won the award twice.  The first one we would like to introduce is Roger Kwok.

Just like Gallen Lo, Roger was ‘discovered’ back in 1985 by songwriter Jim Lo (盧國沾) – not surprisingly then, Roger’s debut series at TVB was also the 1986 sitcom City Japes, which was also the first time that he became ‘familiar’ to HK audiences.  In 1988, Roger also starred alongside Gallen in The Final Verdict (誓不低頭), in which he played the son of Adam Cheng’s (鄭少秋) character in the series.

Since his debut in 1986 at TVB, Roger’s ‘steadfast youth’ image was very well-received by audiences – in addition, his handsome looks and physical stature at the time resembled singer/actor Leslie Cheung (張國榮), which resulted in him being dubbed as Leslie’s ‘successor’.  Therefore, a few short years after he started in the industry, Roger was already playing lead roles in many modern and ancient series, such as 1988’s The Saga of the Lost Kingdom (嬴單傳奇), 1989’s The Vixen’s Tale (萬家傳說), 1990’s Rain in the Heart (成功路上), the 1990 sitcom When the Sun Shines (同居三人組), 1991’s Mystery of the Twin Swords (日月神劍), etc.  With his healthy image and steady acting skills, which endeared him to audiences, Roger was able to quickly make his way to ‘first line siu sang’ status in the late 80s.

In the mid-90s, after filming the series The Intangible Truth (生死訟) [1994], Instinct (笑看風雲) [1994], When a Man Loves a Woman (新同居關係) [1995], etc., Roger left TVB briefly to try his luck outside.

After his return to TVB, it wasn’t until 2003 that Roger encountered the ‘breakthrough’ role of his career:  the character of ‘Ah Wong’ in the series Square Pegs (戇夫成龍).  Winning the TV King award for the first time due to his performance in this series, Roger’s hard work over the years finally paid off.   In 2005, Roger played the same ‘Ah Wong’ character in the ‘modern’ version of Square Pegs – the series Life Made Simple (阿旺新傳) – which gave him his second TV King title and at the same time made anniversary awards history by being the first (and ‘only’ so far) artist to win TV King twice playing the same character.  In addition to bringing ‘good luck’ for Roger himself, the character of ‘Ah Wong’ also proved to be TVB’s ‘secret weapon’ over the years, as the character continues to be very popular with audiences – every time any ‘Ah Wong’ related memorabilia is released into the market, the items are quickly snatched up by fans.

Despite already having 2 TV King titles under his belt, Roger continues to work untiringly over the years to enhance his acting skills and bring more depth to his roles by participating in a variety of different series  -- for example:  light, comedic series such as 2005’s Scavengers’ Paradise (同撈同煲), 2008’s D.I.E. (古靈精探) and 2009’s D.I.E. sequel (古靈精探B);  series involving the battle of mind and strength such as 2004’s To Get Unstuck in Time (隔世追兇), 2008’s Last One Standing (與敵同行), 2009’s Wax and Wane (團圓), etc.

With his strong acting skills as well as his ability to grasp the essence of each of his performances accurately (plus that ‘eternal babyface’ of his), we’re sure that Roger’s ‘first line siu sang’ status will continue to remain steady, even 10 years down the road!

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Wayne Lai (黎耀祥)

Another artist who was crowned TV King twice and also has been in the industry for more than 20 years is ‘talent path’ actor Wayne Lai.  Even though he may not have the physical ‘looks’ that other actors may have, one thing he does have is a steady foundation [in acting].  He joined TVB back in the 1980s, however, for the majority of his career, he never got the opportunity to rise to ‘leading actor’ status – it wasn’t until a few years ago that he finally made it to ‘first line siu sang’ level, taking on the lead role in one TV series after another and also being crowned TV King for 2 of those roles.

After graduating from TVB’s Acting Class, Wayne Lai started participating in TVB series in 1986, however he mostly had minor roles [TN:  what we call ‘kelefe’ or ‘extra’ type roles].  It wasn’t until 1990, when he participated in the series The Challenge of Life (人在邊緣), playing the role of Leon Lai’s (黎明) buddy ‘Cockroach’, that he first left an impression on television audiences.

In the mid-90s, Wayne filmed quite a few series that were either remakes or spinoffs of renown author Jin Yong’s (金庸) works, such as 1992’s Rage and Passion (中神通王重陽), 1994’s Legend of the Condor Heroes (射鵰英雄傳) as well as The Condor Heroes Return (射鵰英雄傳之南帝北丐) and 1995’s Return of the Condor Heroes (神鵰俠侶) – playing the role of ‘Chow Bak Tung’ in all 4 series.  Aside from veteran actor Chun Wong (秦煌) [who portrayed ‘Chow Bak Tung’ 5 times in HK television series], Wayne is the only other actor who has played the role of ‘Chow Bak Tung’ the most times.  In addition, his portrayal of the character was very well-received and to this day, is still considered one of Wayne’s most ‘classic’ characters.

After that, Wayne once again got to play the same character in 2 grand production series:  1996’s Journey to the West (西遊記) and 1998’s sequel, Journey to the West 2 (西遊記貳).  In both series, he played the role of Pig (Zhu Bajie) to near perfection – this was another one of his ‘classic’ roles that still leaves a deep impression on audiences to this day; in fact, 10 years after his portrayal, Wayne was tasked with hosting a documentary program about the historic ‘journey’ in TVB’s special program Master of Monkey King (大唐西遊記) [2008]. 

Aside from playing the characters of ‘Chow Bak Tung’ and ‘Zhu BaJie’ multiple times, Wayne has also played the character of Eunuch Li Lian Ying (李蓮英) twice as well.  Of course, we all know that he plays the character of Eunuch Li in the currently airing anniversary series The Confidant (大太監), however not many people remember that he also played the same character 17 years ago in 1995’s Man of Wisdom 2 (金牙大狀II ) .  Based on this ‘record’, Wayne Lai could very possibly be the only actor in HK television history who has played the same characters the most times!

Wayne’s other ‘representative works’ in the 1990s era include the Files of Justice (壹號皇庭) franchise [1992-1997], 1994’s Filthy Rich (豪門插班生), 1995’s From Act to Act (娛樂插班生), 1995’s To Love with Love (水餃皇后), 1997’s A Road and A Will (香港人在廣州), etc.  Among those works, Wayne’s imitation of legendary pop superstar Roman Tam (羅文) in 1997’s Show Time Blues (樂壇插班生) left a huge impression on audiences and helped him gain recognition for his ‘imitation’ skills – after that, he continued to imitate Roman Tam in various events.

Wayne left TVB in 1998 to pursue a movie career and after his return in 2002, he didn’t miss a beat, continuing to give strong performances in numerous series, such as 2004’s The Conqueror’s Story (楚漢驕雄), 2005’s The Gentle Crackdown (秀才遇著兵), 2006’s Safeguards (鐵血保鏢), 2007’s Devil’s Disciples (強劍), 2008’s Moonlight Resonance (溏心風暴之家好月圓), etc.  He also participated in over 1000 episodes of sitcoms, including 2007’s Best Selling Secrets (同事三分親), 2008’s Off Pedder (畢打自己人), and 2010’s Some Day(天天天晴) – with filming that took place over a span of 3 years, this allowed Wayne to remain a ‘fixture’ in HK audience’s households for a long period of time.

Wayne can actually be considered the ultimate ‘representative’ of the Chinese saying ‘a great talent matures slowly’ (大器晚成) – after having ‘toiled’ diligently and silently for more than 20 years, Wayne’s efforts finally paid off in 2008 when he received his very first TV-related award:  Best Supporting Actor for his dual role of two brothers in 2008’s The Gentle Crackdown 2 (秀才愛上兵).  After that, Wayne’s acting career went smoothly and he was quickly elevated to ‘first line siu sang’ status.  In 2009, Wayne’s portrayal of the character ‘Chai Gau’ in that year’s runaway hit series Rosy Business (巾幗梟雄) pushed his popularity to a level that he had never experienced before in his 23 year career – to this day, every one still remembers his ‘golden phrase’ from that series:  ‘How many 10 years are there in life?’ (人生有幾多個十年？).  The impact of the series was huge and the positive feedback from audiences was overwhelming, culminating in both Wayne and his ‘partner’ in the series, actress Sheren Tang (鄧萃雯) being crowned TV King and Queen that year (2009).  Wayne himself also won the ‘My Favorite Male Character’ award as well as the ‘Tvb.com Popularity Award’ that year, thereby becoming the first ‘triple award TV King’ [TN:  for ‘bagging’ 3 awards that night] in the history of the anniversary awards.  He is also the first artist to receive the TV King (Best Actor) award the year right after he won the Best Supporting Actor award.

In 2010, Wayne was crowned TV King once again for his portrayal of ‘Lau Sing’ in the sequel to Rosy Business:  2010’s anniversary series No Regrets (巾幗梟雄之義海豪情).  He’s the second artist in anniversary awards history to win TV King 2 years in a row [the first artist was Gallen Lo for his wins in 1997 and again in 1998].

After winning TV King for the second time, Wayne’s next series was 2011’s anniversary series Forensic Heroes 3 (法證先鋒III), which ended up being one of the most highly rated series that year.  This year (2012) appears to be another great year for Wayne – he has 3 series released this year, including The Greatness of a Hero (盛世仁傑), King Maker (造王者), and the currently airing anniversary series The Confidant.  In addition, his performance in The Confidant has made him a ‘hot favorite’ for the TV King award once again this year.  Will Wayne be able to match Gallen Lo’s record by winning the TV King award again for the 3^rd time?  We will have to wait until the awards ceremony takes place on December 17^th to find out!

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Kevin Cheng (鄭嘉穎)

The third artist who was crowned TV King twice is singer turned actor Kevin Cheng. 

In the 1990s era, Kevin signed with one of HK’s biggest record companies – Polygram (now Universal) and in 1993, upon release of his first album, he quickly became the ‘newcomer of the year’, winning numerous music awards.  Unfortunately, he later had a ‘fall-out’ with his manager and mentor Dai See Chung (戴思聰) and ended up leaving HK for Taiwan, where he started his acting career filming TV series.  In 1999, Kevin’s portrayal of the character ‘Kong Yuk Long’ in Taiwan’s version of The Legendary Siblings (絕代雙驕) caught the attention of TVB and he was invited back to HK to film series for them.  After joining TVB, he participated in a bunch of series, including 2002’s Burning Flame 2 (烈火雄心II), 2003’s Loving You (Loving You我愛你2) and Not Just a Pretty Face (美麗在望), etc. -- but mostly in supporting roles.

2004’s Hard Fate (翡翠戀曲) proved to be the turning point of Kevin Cheng’s career – not only did he get the chance to take on a lead role in the series, it also marked the first time that he paired up with his ‘best onscreen partner’ (and rumored girlfriend) Niki Chow (周麗淇).  The Kevin/Niki pairing was so popular and well-received by audiences at the time that TVB decided to keep up the momentum by pairing the two of them up again in 2006’s Under the Canopy of Love (天幕下的戀人) and 2008’s The Seventh Day (最美麗的第七天).

The series Under the Canopy of Love also brought Kevin the first peak of his career, ultimately resulting in him being crowned TV King in 2006.  Despite his popularity that year, unfortunately Kevin was not able to gain the recognition of audiences and the general public, causing his TV King win to be shrouded in controversy – the backlash and negativity he received at the time definitely impacted his confidence.  Luckily, he did not give up and instead, worked hard to improve his acting the next few years in a variety of series, such as 2007’s Devil’s Disciples and The Ultimate Crime Fighter (通天幹探), 2008’s Forensic Heroes 2 (法證先鋒II) and Last One Standing (與敵同行), 2009’s Burning Flame 3 (烈火雄心III) and Beyond the Realm of Conscience (宮心計), 2010’s Fistful of Stances (鐵馬尋橋), 2011’s Only You (Only You 只有您), etc.

In 2011, Kevin’s breakthrough role as rogue lawyer ‘L.A. Law’ in the hit series Ghetto Justice (怒火街頭) not only gave him the second major peak of his career, it also earned him a second TV King award.  This time around, the reaction from the audiences was very different –  his willingness to let go of his ‘handsome gentleman’ image to play a boorish rogue lawyer paid off, as he received widespread recognition for his acting and became the ‘expected’ winner of the TV King award that year.  In addition to winning TV King, Kevin also won the ‘My Favorite Male Character’ and ‘TVB.com Popularity’ awards that same year, thereby becoming the second actor (after Wayne Lai) to become ‘triple award TV King’.

In recent years, Kevin has been actively pursuing the Mainland TV market, filming many series there in a short period of time – in addition, he is planning on making a comeback to the music world, as he recently signed with record company EEG.  Despite all this, Kevin has not forgotten his fans in HK, as he had 2 TVB series released in HK this year – Gloves Come Off (拳王) and Ghetto Justice 2 (怒火街頭2).  In addition, he is also nominated once again for TV King in this year’s anniversary awards.

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Louis Koo (古天樂)

 

The last ‘double TV King’ winner we’ll look at is an artist who already left the TV industry many years ago and is currently a ‘super star’ in the movie industry – Louis Koo.

Out of all the TV King winners featured in this article, Louis Koo’s career with TVB was the shortest – from the time he was ‘discovered’ in 1993 (due to filming a music video) to his departure in 2001 (after winning his second TV King title), he was only at TVB for a total of 8 years.  Even though Louis’ career in the TV industry was short, it was a bright one nevertheless.

After entering the industry in 1993, Louis’ first official series was 1994’s Knot to Treasure (婚姻物語), which starred audience favorites Ekin Cheng (鄭伊健) and Nnadia Chan (陳松伶) – even though Louis’ role was only a supporting one, the positive feedback that he received was no less than that of the main leads.  Therefore, TVB decided to heavily promote Louis by first arranging for him to participate in the sitcom Happy Harmony (餐餐有宋家) [1994] to brush up on his acting – not long after that, he was selected to co-star with Heavenly King Leon Lai in the 1994 grand production series Class of Distinction (阿SIR早晨) – from that moment on, his acting career took off.

In the subsequent years, Louis continued to be heavily promoted by TVB – along with Leo Ku (古巨基), Carlo Ng (吳家樂), Hawick Lau (劉愷威), and Keith Ho (何遠恒), Louis became part of the ‘new Five Tigers’ group that came about in the mid-90s.  In addition, Louis was ‘hand-picked’ to take on the heavy role of ‘Yang Guo’ in the 1995 remake of Jin Yong’s classic Return of the Condor Heroes.  After soaring to popularity with this series, Louis continued to star in many heavyweight series, including 1996’s Cold Blood Warm Heart, 1997’s Recipe for the Heart (美味天王), 1998’s Burning Flame (烈火雄心), etc.  In 1999’s Man’s Best Friend (寵物情緣), Louis got the chance to collaborate with music queen Sammi Cheng (鄭秀文) for the first time – the pairing was very well-received by audiences and set the stage for their pairing in film projects later on.

In 1999, Louis also collaborated once again with long-time onscreen partner Jessica Hsuan (宣萱) in heavyweight series Detective Investigation Files IV (刑事偵緝檔案IV), which ended up becoming one of the most popular series of that year.  In addition, both Louis and Jessica were crowned TV King and Queen at that year’s Anniversary Awards, which also marked the first time that the leads from the same series received those 2 awards at the same time.  The following year, Louis also participated in grand production series At the Threshold of an Era (創世紀) – his villain character ‘Cheung Chi Lik’ proved to be the biggest acting challenge of his career at the time.  That same year, he also joined the music world, releasing an album and also singing the subtheme songs for a few of his series.

In 2001, Louis filmed what was to be his last series with TVB – the time-travel mega production A Step into the Past (尋秦記), in which Louis was once again ‘reunited’ with his ‘best onscreen partner’ Jessica Hsuan.   To this day, the series is still hugely popular and is considered a ‘classic’ by many audiences – it also earned Louis his second TV King title, marking a ‘perfect’ end to his TV career.

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Complete list of TVB’s Anniversary Awards ‘Best Actor’ (TV King) Winners:

>> 1997: Gallen Lo for Old Time Buddy
>> 1998: Gallen Lo for Secret of the Heart
>> 1999: Louis Koo for Detective Investigation Files IV
>> 2000: Bobby Au Yeung for Witness to a Prosecution
>> 2001: Louis Koo for A Step into the Past
>> 2002: Gallen Lo for Golden Faith
>> 2003: Roger Kwok for Square Pegs
>> 2004: Bowie Lam for War and Beauty
>> 2005: Roger Kwok for Life Made Simple
>> 2006: Kevin Cheng for Under the Canopy of Love
>>2007: Moses Chan for Heart of Greed
>> 2008: Ha Yu for Moonlight Resonance
>> 2009: Wayne Lai for Rosy Business

>> 2010: Wayne Lai for No Regrets
>> 2011: Kevin Cheng for Ghetto Justice