My Thoughts on TVB’s Anniversary Awards Nominations List

This post might come as a surprise to most long-time followers of my blog, since I usually don’t bother writing up posts about TVB’s Anniversary Award nominations (I view it as a waste of time and would rather save my comments for my recap post of the award results).  So why did I choose to write one this time?  Well, the main reason is because several people, including a few dedicated readers of my blog, asked what my opinion was toward the nominations – since I was asked several times and I happen to have quite a lot to say about this year’s list, I decided to go ahead and do it this time.

One thing to note about this post is that it is NOT ‘all-encompassing’ -- meaning that I didn’t write down ALL my thoughts on EVERY nomination.  Instead, for the sake of time, I focused primarily on some of the more ‘obvious’ problems I saw with the nominations list when it first came out.  So in other words, just because I didn’t talk about a particular nomination, doesn’t necessarily mean I was ‘ok’ with it – could be that I just didn’t get around to talking about it….

Also, I didn’t bother with talking about the ‘Favorite Character’ nominations because to me, those 2 categories are ‘consolation prize’ type awards that are not worth discussing – besides, those 2 awards are ‘popularity’ awards that are based on likability of the character / artist rather than acting, so to me, it’s a waste of time discussing them.  I don’t care who wins in these 2 categories honestly.

Below is the ‘official’ nomination list that TVB released.  I actually didn’t bother with translating any of the nominations though, so hopefully those who can’t read Chinese are able to figure things out based on the pictures (though I’m sure most people who follow HK entertainment news already know who the nominees are by now).

Picture courtesy of HK Channel’s weibo

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Before I talk about the individual categories, there is a general comment I would like to make about the nominations / selection process that TVB utilizes for this awards show:

Yes, I do understand that there are more series aired in a year than there are ‘allotments’ to nominate artists, so unfortunately there will be artists who are ‘left out’ of the nominations list.  But then again, it brings me to the question I had last year when TVB started doing the nominations thing for each category (most likely to make it easier for public voting by narrowing down the choices) – why limit the list down to 15 ‘management-picked’ artists in each of the major categories?  Why not allow all artists to be ‘in the running’ and have people (be it audiences or TVB staff) choose from the entire playing field?  

Sure, I understand that TVB is trying to ‘emulate’ other reputable awards shows (i.e. HKFA, Golden Horse, etc.) by having a nominations process and having the winners determined from those ‘select’ few who are nominated – there’s nothing wrong with that concept overall, but unfortunately, it DOESN’T WORK in TVB’s case because the dynamics are so different.  Most of the film award nominees for example are chosen by a committee of judges and professionals from across the industry who are knowledgeable about film and are ‘qualified’ to make those types of determinations (and, most importantly, those professionals have WATCHED all the films in contention that year).  On the contrary, the ones ‘choosing’ the nominees at the Anniversary Awards are limited to the ‘top execs’ at TVB (small group of less than 10 people), most of whom are business people who don’t know a thing about TV production or acting and most likely haven’t even watched any of the series…..with that being the case, how are these ‘execs’ even ‘qualified’ to determine which artists should be nominated and which ones shouldn’t?  What are they basing those ‘determinations’ on??   And sorry, but the management can’t say that they are basing the nominations on the artists’ performances because there are people nominated whose series haven’t even finished airing yet (which means that those artists don’t even have a ‘complete’ performance for us to determine whether they should even be nominated).  

Therein lies the biggest FLAW with this entire nominations process (which I’m surprised no one has questioned TVB about these past couple years) -- I find it absolutely ridiculous that an artist or TV series is even nominated when that series hasn’t finished airing…..there’s no other awards show I know of that does such a thing, so as far as I’m concerned, TVB is the only one such a ‘ludicrous’ criteria (if anyone knows of another non-TVB affiliated awards show that comes out with nominations prior to the program even airing, please let me know!!).

This is why I’ve always said that no matter which way they try to slice it, the Anniversary Awards are, and will always be, a ‘closed-door political game’ – even if the artists who end up winning are the ‘most deserving’ or are the ones ‘expected’ to win (based on majority opinion of audiences), those wins still involve TVB politics in some way, shape, or form.  I wanted to make this point clear because I’ve heard in the past how some people claim the Anniversary Awards are ‘fair’ because the ‘most deserving’ artists won – my rebuttal to that is:  1) whether an artist is ‘deserving’ or not is very subjective, so basing any awards show’s ‘fairness’ on this is absolutely stupid, and 2) even if the ‘win’ may not be ‘hotly contested’, still doesn’t mean it was ‘fair’, since the ‘criteria’ for the nominations as well as the winners being chosen was never made clear in the first place (for example, that person may have been ‘most deserving’ out of those nominated, but what about those who weren’t nominated…how do we know they weren’t ‘most deserving’ of the award as well but were unfortunately ‘shut out’ of the race due to political factors?).

Sorry for getting on my soapbox, but this is one part of the Anniversary Awards that has always annoyed me – though unfortunately, it’s also the part that most mainstream audiences fail to see (which is why, once again, I ask why no one has questioned TVB about their ‘fuzzy’ nominations criteria).

Ok, so now that I’ve had my ‘mini-rant’ on the selection process, let’s move on to the original purpose of this post…..

.1)  TV King (aka ‘Best Actor’)

There were a few nominations in here that were expected, but also a few surprises that, personally, I probably would NOT have chosen to be in this category. 

In terms of SNUBS in this category (actors who SHOULD HAVE BEEN nominated but WEREN’T), below are a few I would have chosen to be on the list:

Eddie Cheung – to me, Eddie definitely should have been on the nominations list for TV King.  Why?  Well, because he was pretty much the only ‘shining light’ in that otherwise boring, forgettable series called Sniper Standoff.  Despite a horrible script, poor casting, and some ‘boring as heck’ performances from a few of his co-stars, Eddie managed to still pull off a convincing, engaging performance and actually ‘stand out’ in this (again) boring series.  So why was he not nominated then?   Was his performance truly not worthy of a nomination?  Or was it because he actually spoke out in support of HKTV in a few interviews (after the license decision was announced) and did highlight some of the ‘problems’ that TVB had?  Or could it be that TVB just doesn’t care about him (if that’s the case, then why invite Eddie back to film for them)?  It just doesn’t make much sense.  The series itself was a failure, but Eddie’s performance was actually quite well-received and also complimented (whereas the series overall got poor word of mouth as well as poor ratings)….besides, Eddie’s co-star in the series – veteran actress Kathy Chow -- was nominated for this series on the female side (TV Queen), despite the fact that her performance didn’t even stand out (for the record – I love Kathy, but her performance and character in this series were both only so-so….Eddie definitely deserved a nomination more than Kathy did).

Michael Tse – ok, I will be the first to admit that I’ve taken a disliking to Michael over the past couple years (ever since he became ‘Laughing Gor’) because I can’t stand his arrogance and narcissistic self-confidence (I honestly think the fame he’s gotten in recent years has gone to his head).   BUT, setting aside how I feel about Michael as a person, at the end of the day, he’s still a pretty solid actor (better than a lot of the siu sangs that TVB currently has) who gave pretty consistent performances this year.  Michael had 3 series ‘in the running’ this year (Friendly Fire, Sergeant Tabloid, and Sniper Standoff) and even though I could still see/feel a little bit of his ‘Laughing Gor’ persona in each of the performances, he still performed better than some of the others who were nominated.  Of course, I would not have chosen him as the ‘winner’ of the award, but a nomination would have definitely been appropriate given his consistency and solid performance overall this year.

Raymond Wong – call me biased (since I’ve taken a liking to Raymond ever since Bottled Passion), but I actually do feel that Raymond should have gotten a nomination this year, as he did well in both Slow Boat Home as well as Karma Rider (didn’t really care for his other series Day of Days though).  I’m thinking that Raymond probably didn’t get much consideration this year because there were too many actors that TVB needed to include on the list from the ‘big budget’ series so they probably decided to sacrifice the ‘little’ people/series (though Aimee Chan DID get nominated for SBH in the TV Queen category, which I thought was ridiculous).  In a sense, I’m not surprised that Raymond didn’t get nominated, it’s just sad that he had to be the ‘sacrificial lamb’ again this year (in fact, TVB actually hasn’t been doing much with his career the past 2 years, casting him in one low budget forgettable series after another….).

.2)  TV Queen (aka ‘Best Actress’)

I actually had more of a problem with this list than I did with the TV King one, partly because, as with previous years, there were very few ‘good’ performances from the actresses this year (meaning that only a few actresses stood out who actually deserved to be in the running). 

In all honesty, out of all the award categories, this is probably the only category where I would personally only be able to choose a ‘handful’ of actresses to nominate (probably less than 10) because, well, like I said earlier, most of the performances on the female side weren’t that impressive.

Before I get into the ‘questionable’ nominations, there was definitely a major SNUB in this category that is worth talking about:

Sheren Tang – Sheren is the most obvious ‘snub’ from the list and of course we all know why, so no need for me to elaborate.  While it definitely wasn’t surprising that TVB wouldn’t nominate Sheren because of the situation that occurred, part of me was hoping that TVB would at least TRY to salvage their image and actually SHOW audiences that they aren’t as petty as people say they are – in fact, this would have been the PERFECT opportunity to gather some good PR and show those ‘doubters’ out there that they CAN be the ‘bigger person’.  BUT of course, once again, TVB’s management acted foolishly and let their ‘pettiness’ affect their decisions (boy, TVB really does need a good PR person working for them because their PR moves lately have sucked big time).

Sure, it’s expected that TVB wasn’t going to include Sheren in the nomination list, but what I didn’t expect was that they would nominate Christine Ng instead.  Don’t get me wrong – I like Christine and feel that she’s a solid actress overall….but her performance in BAW wasn’t anything special…plus she was only 3^rd female lead in the series behind Sheren and Ada, both of whom acted well in the series.  If it was already a ‘given’ that Sheren wouldn’t get nominated, then why not just nominate Ada and leave it at that?  Why ‘rub salt in the wound’ by nominating Christine instead for the same series?  I would have been fine with TVB nominating Christine if it hadn’t been done at Sheren’s expense – but doing it the way they did now (nominate Ada and Christine but not Sheren) serves no purpose except to reinforce in audiences’ minds just how ‘petty’ TVB truly is.  If TVB really wanted to nominate Christine, perhaps do it for Will Power instead, since, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter which series they nominate her for because it’s already a given that Christine has no chance for TV Queen whatsoever (which brings me back to my original point that very few actresses were able to ‘shine’ with their performances this year).

As far as ‘questionable’ nominations goes – well, to be honest, pretty much half the list was ‘questionable’ to me because, once again, few of the actress’ performances stood out in my opinion.  If I had to choose the nominees for this category, the list would actually be quite different -- first off, I wouldn’t include any of the series that haven’t finished airing yet (sorry Tavia and Kate) and second, I wouldn’t include any ‘space filler’ nominations (i.e. Aimee)….my list would actually only consist of about 7 to 8 actresses because that’s honestly all I feel deserve to be on the list period...but of course, it’s a moot point now, since the official nominations are done already.

.3)  Best Supporting Actor

For me, this is my favorite category every year because the nominees here are usually ‘cream of the crop’ in terms of acting and it’s always difficult for me to choose who I want to win because they are all so deserving usually.  This year however, TVB did a horrible job with the nominations for this category – to the point that I don’t care about this category at all this year because all of those who I felt deserve to win weren’t even nominated!! 

If I had to choose a WTH category this year, the BSA category would be it – there were way too many “WTH was TVB thinking” nominations in this category and even more SNUBS than I care to count.

In my opinion, here’s the list of SNUBS in the BSA category (believe it or not, I actually only listed a few SNUBS below – there were more that I didn’t list because I ran out of time):

Power Chan – I will be very honest and say that I don’t know if I’ll be able to forgive TVB for excluding Power from the nomination list.  He is an AWESOME actor – very versatile and convincing in all his roles….not only that, he’s also widely recognized as a great actor by his peers as well as majority audiences (he’s definitely amongst the ‘cream of the crop’ in terms of green leaf actors on my list and one of the few talents that TVB still has  left).   He did a great job in Will Power this year and his performance was definitely worthy of a nomination in my opinion (plus add the fact that he was ‘robbed’ of the BSA award last year – no, I’m not saying that Koo Ming Wah didn’t deserve it because he did and I absolutely rooted for him as well…but as I said in my ‘review’ of the results last year, I strongly felt that TVB should have made that category a ‘tie’ and give the award to both KMW and Power). 

Of course, we all know why Power wasn’t nominated this time around….when Power and his wife Mimi joined the HKTV protest a couple weeks back, most of us already knew that he had committed ‘career suicide’ at that point due to everyone’s knowledge of how ‘petty’ TVB is.  Even though Power had made it very clear that he wasn’t there to support HKTV, but rather to protest against the government, it doesn’t look like TVB ‘bought’ it.

To be honest, I actually feel that TVB already stopped ‘caring’ about Power awhile back ago, even before the HKTV protest thing.  Otherwise, how else would you explain the ‘kelefe’ roles that Power has gotten this year (to me, Power is an established second tier actor already, so for him to get ‘kelefe’ roles in his position, it’s absolutely an insult!).  In Missing You, he was one of the guest stars, but his screen time was ridiculously little (I would say that amongst all the ‘guest stars’ in that series, Power had the least screen time – if I had to quantify it, I’d say he only had a combined 10-15 minutes of screentime max).  But I guess that 10-15 minutes was better than what he got in Triumph in the Skies II:  a 1 second, ‘blink and you’ll miss him’ non-speaking cameo!!  TVB should have just pulled an ‘extra’ off the street to put in that role instead of wasting Power’s talent like that!!!

Bottom line – just like other artists before him, Power is yet another “victim” of TVB politics and pettiness.  Argh!

Vincent Wong – ever since the nominations were announced, I’m still scratching my head wondering why in the world Vincent didn’t get nominated.  If anyone is deserving of a nomination, Vincent is definitely the one – he’s done a great job this year in all his series and his performance in Will Power was quite a ‘breakthrough’ role for him, one that is absolutely deserving of a nomination in my opinion.

Instead of nominating Vincent in BSA category, TVB chose to put him in ‘Most Improved’ category, which I sort of feel is ridiculous because Vincent is way past ‘Most Improved’ already.  Besides, 3 out of 5 of the ‘Most Improved’ nominees are also nominated in BSA as well, so why not include Vincent in that too?  Why was he shut out of BSA but nominated in Most Improved when he was more deserving of a BSA nomination?  Is it because he has a high chance of winning BSA this year and so TVB decided not to put him in that category so that the person whom they want to win will win instead? 

I actually liken Vincent’s ‘snub’ in the BSA category this year to Ben Wong’s ‘snub’ in the same category last year (remember all the backlash that erupted when Ben was shut out of the BSA nominations despite his awesome performance in Highs and Lows?).  Definitely another ‘WTH was TVB thinking?’ moment!

I don’t know about you guys, but the nominations for the BSA category this year actually reeks of ‘setup’ and ‘rigging’ to me (actually, the entire list gives me this feeling, but the BSA category this year especially did…).

Chung King Fai – in terms of the senior veteran actors, King Sir deserved most to be nominated because he really was the one to watch in Will Power (I actually feel that TVB should have taken out Elliot Ngok’s nomination for SBH and put King Sir in there instead).  King Sir was VERY convincing in his role as a devious lawyer who, even in the end, didn’t feel that he had done anything wrong despite being convicted and going to jail.  I enjoyed King Sir’s performance immensely in the entire series and to me, he was one of the main reasons why the finale episodes of WP were so great to watch.  I honestly don’t know why King Sir didn’t get nominated – I can only attribute it to TVB management’s ignorance in terms of not being able to differentiate good acting from bad (all the more reason why TVB management shouldn’t be the ones determining who gets nominated and who doesn’t).

Raymond Cho – ok, this is probably my personal bias talking again, but Ray is definitely way overdue for a nomination/award.  He’s another one of those great ‘green leaf’ actors who is versatile (can do villain, comedic, dramatic roles, etc.) and is able to portray his roles in a convincing manner.  This year especially, I feel that Ray should have been nominated because he had 2 major roles that were at opposite ends of the spectrum and truly allowed him to showcase his acting skills:  first was the ‘super serious’ role in Beauty at War (he was one of the reasons why I even bothered with the series) and second was the funny, comedic role in Awfully Lawful (which I admit I didn’t even finish watching) – he did well in both roles (actually, he did way better than many of those nominated in the BSA category) so why no nomination?  Of course, I have my suspicions on why he wasn’t nominated, but I’ll just leave it at that…

Evergreen Mak – another deserving actor who did well in all his series this year but failed to get a nomination.  Actually, I feel that ever since he won BSA several years back, TVB hasn’t given Evergreen very many ‘good’ roles – yet he’s still been able to take those ‘mediocre’ roles and run with them (which already says a lot about Evergreen’s skills as an actor).  Not sure the exact reason why Evergreen wasn’t nominated, though my guess is that he was in 2 relatively low budget dramas and neither of his roles really stood out or generated any hype (though I can actually say the same thing about several other actors who were nominated in this category).  Whatever the reason, he definitely would have been one of my picks in terms of nominees for BSA.

Derek Kwok – if there were ever an award for ‘most underrated green leaf actor’, I think Derek should get it!  I’ve liked Derek as an actor since he debuted in the 80s and to me, he is still as solid as ever where acting is concerned.  I would have liked to see Derek get a nomination for his villain role in Friendly Fire (his performance was one of the few things I actually remember from the series) -- he did his job well as usual, but of course, he didn’t get much recognition.  Derek has always been tremendously versatile as an actor (he’s another talented actor who can handle any type of role) and performs well in all his roles, yet he’s also one of the least recognized.  I actually don’t understand what TVB has against Derek because it seems to me that he’s been pretty much ‘neglected’ over the past decade – though I guess he still fared a little better than let’s say Savio Tsang and Deno Cheung, both of whom were ‘neglected’ to the point that they were pretty much playing ‘kelefe’ roles during their last year with TVB.  I think that if Derek gets to that point, he should definitely leave because it’s not worth it – I mean, why toil for a company for close to 30 years only to see yourself ‘dropped’ from 2^nd/3^rd tier actor to a basically dispensable ‘kelefe’? 

‘WTH nominations’ in the BSA category (these are nominations that I feel were the least deserving in this category – I actually had a problem with a few of the other nominations as well, but these 2 stood out the most for me):

Jason Chan – Seriously???  TVB chose to pass up both Power Chan and Vincent Wong (both way better actors than Jason) in the BSA category and put Jason in there instead???  WHAT THE HECK??  Jason is a horrible actor (didn’t like any of his performances in any series so far) and even though some people say he improved slightly in Will Power, I would beg to differ – to me, he still has the same ‘problems’ that he’s had in all his past performances:  lack of emotion and expression (I swear, he has the same expression on his face whether he’s happy, sad, angry, etc.), stiff and wooden composure (he always seems to look uncomfortable, like he’s being ‘forced’ to do a job that he’s not good at or doesn’t like…at least that’s the way it comes across to me), reading / reciting of dialogue rather than ‘acting’ it out, etc….plus he also ‘slurs’ his speech, especially when doing those heavy emotional scenes.  Basically, I try to resist the urge to turn off the TV whenever he’s on (because he happens to be in most of the series that I actually like).  Luckily, he didn’t ruin WP for me, but that’s only because everyone else in that series was so good to the point that I could essentially ignore Jason in that series (or pretend someone else was in his role instead).

To me, nominating Jason in the BSA category is TVB politics at its ‘finest’ – obviously TVB is planning to heavily promote him, so they have to give him multiple nominations in various categories to try and ‘sell’ him to audiences.  No offense to Jason, but he is nowhere near ‘siu sang’ material at this point – he still has a long long long way to go where the acting is concerned.  If this is the kind of ‘up and comer’ that TVB will continue to shove in our faces the next couple years – well, thanks but no thanks – I would rather turn off my TV….

Kenneth Ma – Um, ok…is there really a need to put Kenneth in both TV King and BSA categories (and in Favorite Male Character as well)?  I know TVB does that kind of stuff (give certain artists multiple nominations) to ‘heighten’ their chances of winning, but seriously, putting Kenneth in BSA is such a waste because we already know he’s not going to win.  I mean, COME ON – Kenneth is considered one of the ‘hot favorites’ for TV King this year (that’s according to the Media, which is different from my personal opinion), so we already know FOR SURE that TVB isn’t going to give him Supporting Actor award because that would be a serious ‘downgrade’…..so basically, Kenneth is in this category as a ‘filler’.  Knowing that, why waste space by putting artists in this category that don’t belong there??  What purpose does that serve, especially when there are so many other actors who could have taken that spot? 

In my opinion, TVB should have removed both Kenneth and Jason and fill both their spots with Power and Vincent!!  But of course, that’s just me speaking – TVB most likely doesn’t give a damn.

.4)  Best Supporting Actress

Interestingly enough, I actually don’t have much opinion towards this category.  For some reason, this is one of those categories every year that I really don’t pay much attention to – I’m thinking that’s because the past few years, TVB has given this award to undeserving actresses (except last year – pretty much the only year they got it right in my opinion).  Though part of it also goes back to the fact that over the past few years, there really haven’t been too many actresses – whether lead or supporting – who’ve ‘stood out’ in terms of their acting, so who TVB decides to nominate in this category doesn’t matter as much anymore, at least not to me.  As far as the award goes, I’m pretty sure it’s down to a ‘battle’ between Elena Kong and Nancy Wu (the 2 most deserving of the award this year), so as long as one of them receives the award, I’m fine with it. 

.5)  Most Improved Male Actor

I normally don’t care much about this category either, but I noticed this year that TVB put some actors in this category that actually don’t belong in here.  After seeing the list of nominees in this category, I just have to ask the question:  does TVB not have other newer generation male actors who fit this category?  Why is it the same people nominated every time (Him Law is nominated every year and I believe Vincent Wong is too – in my opinion, they’re beyond ‘Improving’ level already)?  Oh and what is the point of putting Edwin Siu in this category, especially since he is already nominated in TV King, BSA, and Favorite Character categories (is it really necessary to give him 4 nominations??).  To me, Edwin is ‘beyond’ ‘improving’ level as well….he’s pretty much a ‘filler’ in the Most Improved category, so why not give that space to someone else?   All 3 of them are already ‘established’ actors who should really be competing at a higher level rather than still ‘lingering’ at the ‘improving’/newbie level.

If I were to choose the nominees in this category, I would pick actors such as Stanley Cheung and Ronald Law – to me, they fit the category more appropriately because they are more ‘newbie’ level in terms of acting, hosting, etc. and are just starting to get recognition from audiences. 

Also, since this category isn’t just for acting (it includes hosting and participation in other programs as well), I honestly feel that Fred Cheng should have been nominated as well.  Sure, he wasn’t in too many series this year -- I counted 2 series so far this year, plus the whole Voice of Stars thing – but hey, who says he needs to be in a lot of series?  Didn’t MC Jin win a few years back despite only participating in 1 series the entire year (though he had other ‘hosting’ programs to make up for it)?  Fred has 13 episodes worth of performances in Voice of Stars – doesn’t that count for anything?

.5)  Most Improved Female Actress

This is another category I don’t care too much about, primarily because every year, I’m not fond of the actresses who are nominated, so whoever ends up winning doesn’t matter much to me.  This year is pretty much more of the same, so no opinion on my part in terms of nominations list….

LAST BUT NOT LEAST……

.6)  Best Series

Outside of Best Supporting Actor, this is pretty much the only other category I’ve cared about over the years.  To be honest, this category has been a ‘hit and miss’ in the past few years – some series that have won I feel were undeserving while others were spot on.  Since this is the only category where ALL series aired this year are in contention (no top 15 nominees like the other categories), at least the ‘playing field’ is even – though I will be curious to see which series end up making it into the final top 5 or top 3 (because I’ve had issues with which series end up making the final stretch in past years).

In terms of which series I would want to win – well, it’s a tough question actually because none of the series this year were that good (in fact, I didn’t even bother finishing most of the series because very few of them were able to capture my attention and I had better things to do).  With that said though, if I really had to pick, I would probably choose Inbound Troubles.  Sure, that series wasn’t perfect (no series is perfect) and not all of the performances were ‘great’, but to me, that didn’t matter as much in the scheme of things –what I liked best about the series was its attempt to be ‘different’ from TVB’s traditional comedies (which have the tendency to lean too heavily on the ‘crude’ side and try too hard to be funny).  The series covered an ‘eclectic’ mix of issues and themes – from the usual family and love relationship issues to the more sensitive social topics such as the strained relations between HK and Mainland China…the nice thing about it though was that the series addressed all those issues in a lighthearted, fun way that made the series a refreshing, enjoyable, and definitely welcome departure from TVB’s traditional fare.  Oh and of course, for me, the ‘music’ and the ‘retro’ elements that the producer/scriptwriters cleverly incorporated throughout the series were the 2 biggest draws – for someone like me who grew up during the HK entertainment industry’s ‘golden’ era, imagine all the memories this series brought back with all the music it used from the 80s/90s era as well as the other ‘old’ entertainment references.  And yes – call me biased if you want, but I did give ‘brownie points’ for all the Jacky Cheung related scenes that they incorporated into the earlier half of the series….LOL!!

Concluding Thoughts:

I honestly feel that this year’s list of nominations is way more ‘unbalanced’ and ‘politically motivated’ than last year’s list.  To me, it doesn’t make much sense that certain artists have as many as 4 nominations spread across various categories, while others who are way more deserving don’t even have 1 nomination in any category.   How messed up is that???

Yes, I understand how ‘difficult’ it is too come up with a nominations list like this and I don’t doubt for a minute that a lot of ‘thought’ was put into determining who should be on the list – but the problem is the ‘thought’ was in the wrong areas, which leads me to question the motivation behind the nominations.  I would be more willing to ‘accept’ the nominations list if those who are making the determination are more ‘credible’ and ‘qualified’ (a point that I already elaborated on at the beginning of my post).  But instead, since these nominations were primarily ‘politically’ driven rather than a true ‘judgment’ of performance, it’s hard for me to attach any value or credibility to the nominations.

I may sound contradictory when I say this, but I’ll say it anyway:  I’ll definitely be watching the Anniversary Awards on December 16^th to see who ends up winning in each of the categories, but my motivation for doing so will mostly be out of curiosity than anything else. 

Lastly, I’ll be writing up a recap post of my thoughts towards the results just like I did last year, so stay tuned for that next week….