Interview with former TVB veteran actor Leung Kin Ping: “Accept all filming offers and find a way to break through”

Here's interview that I came across a couple days ago with another veteran TVB actor:  Leung Kin Ping. 

Not sure how familiar most audiences are with Leung Kin Ping, but I'm willing to bet that -- just like with most of the veteran 'green leaf' actors at TVB --  majority of the audiences out there are able to recognize his face but not his name.  Of course, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's just sad that many of these veteran actors -- most of whom are talented actors / actresses -- toil for so many years at TVB, but yet either never get the recognition they deserve or only do so way way way late in their careers.  I guess that's the sad but real plight of being a 'green leaf' actor at TVB:  unless you have connections or you happen to 'get lucky' and encounter a 'breakthrough' role that propels you to sudden popularity, you're pretty much relegated to toiling for decades as a relative unknown....

Anyway, the reason why I decided to translate this particular interview is because, unlike majority of audiences, I actually have known who Leung Kin Ping is for a long time already, as he's another one of those green leaf veteran actors whom I grew up watching (no surprise by now, huh?). 

I first became familiar with Leung Kin Ping as an actor back in the 80s, as he was one of the recurring actors in the 'classic' sitcom City Japes 城市故事 (also known as "City Stories") from 1986/87-- which just happens to be my most favorite TVB sitcom of ALL TIME (I've watched that sitcom so many times already in the past 3 decades that I can pretty much recite the dialogue from whole episodes!  LOL!).  He played the character 'Sam' in that series and even though his role was not particularly big, I still remember him from that series because I loved the series so much overall.

If the 80s is too far back, then perhaps audiences may remember the significant role he had in another 'classic':  the long-running sitcom / drama from the 90s, A Kindred Spirit 真情.  Even though he only guest starred in a segment of the series (that series ran for 4 years), his character was pretty important during that particular sub-storyline (for those who might not remember, he played Fiona Yuen's adopted brother cum lover -- a villain character that he played perfectly in my opinion!).   For me, when the name Leung Kin Ping is mentioned, this is really the role that I remember most.

In terms of the interview / article itself -- well, to sum it up in a nutshell:  TVB pretty much lost another great veteran 'green leaf' actor (and one who has been with them for 30 years, to boot!).  Pity....

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Interview with former TVB veteran actor Leung Kin Ping:  “Accept all filming offers and find a way to break through”

Source:  HK Channel

Translation:  llwy12

Having played crime boss ‘Brother Willie’ from TVB’s 2009 series Lives of Omission《潛行狙擊》 as well as crooked businessman ‘Luk Kwong Chiu’ in this year’s boxing-themed series Gloves Come Off《拳王》, veteran actor Leung Kin Ping (梁健平) is used to playing ‘villain’ roles. After graduating from school, Leung Kin Ping’s very first job was working for Shaw Brothers movie studio and later on, he joined TVB – therefore, it can be said that Sir Run Run Shaw has been his ‘boss’ for practically his entire career. Now that ‘Uncle Six’ has retired, Leung Kin Ping has decided to take a ‘seeing the world with different eyes’ approach to his career – he recently joined Ricky Wong’s fledgling TV station CTI, thereby ending his 30 year ‘relationship’ with his mother home TVB.

When Leung Kin Ping was at TVB, he was actually in quite a lot of series and can be considered one of the artists with ‘heavy output’ in terms of the amount of series he participated in. Part of the reason for this is because as an ‘ordinary’ artist, he feels that he shouldn’t be picky about the series that he participates in, since at the end of the day, “any opportunity is an opportunity” – as long as the right opportunity comes along, it’s still possible to make a break through!

When he worked for Shaw Brothers, Leung Kin Ping was in the printing department, however due to the boring nature of the job, he decided to quit after 1 year and join TVB instead. He indicated that during the period he was at Shaw Brothers, the number of films being produced was very minimal, so he was able to finish his work quickly and during lunch breaks, he would happily go watch the filming that took place in the studio: “One scene I remember vividly was seeing Alexander Fu (傅聲) hanging from wires, dangling in mid-air with [fake] arrows sticking out of his body while Gordon Liu (劉家輝) and Lau Kar Leung (劉家良) sifu were standing at the doorway beneath him, choreographing the scene – they had that ‘big brother’ aura about them… it was pretty neat!” From childhood, Leung Kin Ping had always been a TV fanatic – he recounted one time how he had rejected a date with a female classmate because he had to rush back home to watch Adam Cheng (鄭少秋) in the 70s version of TV series Dragon Sword and Heaven Sabre 《倚天屠龍記》. Laughing, he states: “Of course I wasn’t going to ‘give up’ Adam because of a girl!”


Heartbroken to see colleagues not getting paid

Later on, Leung Kin Ping joined TVB and started off working in the props department – the entire time, he continued to ‘wait’ for an opportunity to come along: “Back then, TVB really had high status, as a lot of film production companies would often come to TVB’s studios to ‘choose’ artists for their movies. I remember seeing Dodo Cheng (鄭裕玲) and Chow Yun Fat (周潤發) filming in Mongkok and the crowds of people numbered in the ten thousands – the situation was just like earlier when Andy Lau (劉德華) was in Mongkok filming a movie! Later on, in the early 80s, I switched to doing commercials for 3 years – at the time, I pretty much had to participate in all aspects of the work. One time, I was even asked to do the actor’s job and film commercials too! That’s how my acting career started.”

Leung Kin Ping participated in so many series while at TVB, he has pretty much lost count already: “Earlier in the year, when I was filming Sergeant Tabloid《女警愛作戰》, Niki Chow (周麗淇) asked me why it seemed like I was in every single series – I made up an excuse and said that I was TVB’s ‘street cleaner’ and would sweep up whatever garbage came my way. In truth, I feel that as an ‘ordinary’ artist, I shouldn’t decline any job opportunities or be selective about series to participate in. I remember Fat Gor (Chow Yun Fat) once told me that the film you spend the most time being overly selective about usually is the one that ends up bombing -- he said that back when he filmed God of Gamblers《賭神》and An Autumn’s Tale《秋天的童話》, he didn’t have much confidence either, but both films ended up becoming huge hits. I don’t know if I’ll bump into such an opportunity or not, so to me, every opportunity is a possibility – if people feel that you are most suited for a particular position, you will naturally get chosen for it, so there’s no point to force it.” With his 2 most recent roles – as ‘Brother Willie’ in Lives of Omission and ‘Luk Kwong Chiu’ in Gloves Come off -- more audiences have started to recognize him: “One time I was walking in Tsim Sha Tsui and a group of construction workers across the street yelled in my direction ‘Hey, Brother Willie!’ I looked over and thought: ‘Wah, they’re all the way over there and still able to recognize me?’ Their enthusiasm was heartwarming! I feel that those 2 roles are ‘parting gifts’ from TVB – that’s why I’m very grateful to producers Chong Wai Kin (莊偉健) [LOO’s producer] and Marco Law (羅永賢) [GCO’s producer].”

Many former TVB artists have criticized the company for not giving pay raises and artists having to ‘survive’ with a ridiculously low base salary for a number of years. Leung Kin Ping revealed that even though he frequently exceeded the number of shows required in his contract, TVB would only give him a 50 HKD per show pay raise: “Back then, the company told me that I was actually one of the ‘lucky’ ones, as others don’t get a raise at all – they even told me that they’re unsure if the profits will start to decline in the next 2 years, so they’re afraid to give too high of a raise or perhaps not even give raises at all. I’m lucky that I was able to survive to this day and haven’t ‘died’ yet. To be honest, all these years, my salary has never been ‘OK’ [TN: meaning salary is barely enough to survive], but I still make it work – just eat cheaper and watch the spending! Fortunately, my wife has a good job with a good salary that can support the family, which allows me to continue to pursue acting. In all honesty, all I’m asking for is to be treated fairly and reasonably. After I joined CTI in May, I heard from some former colleagues at TVB that they finally got pay raises – I was very happy to hear this! Back when I was at TVB, I personally saw some colleagues not get paid at all because they didn’t have enough shows – I felt really bad and it broke my heart to see them in such a desperate situation…a lot of them wanted to leave TVB because of this. Luckily, producers such as Lee Tim Sing (李添勝), Poon Ka Tak (潘嘉德), and Amy Wong (王心慰) reached out to ‘save’ these colleagues by asking them to participate in their series, which helped them get through those difficult times.”


Just knowing how to cry well is not considered good acting

Leung Kin Ping indicates that in addition to wanting a change of environment, the other reason why he decided to leave TVB was because he wanted to rediscover the sense of ‘familiarity’ and ‘closeness’ that he once felt with his work: “At the new company, there are new challenges, but also a different type of motivation and morale. For example, during the filming of CTI’s musical Fantasy Love Song 201314《童話戀曲201314》, watching the ‘kids’ [younger actors] dancing and singing and having a good time, seeing their enthusiasm and vitality, it created a happy environment for all of us – this is the type of thing that we didn’t see with the previous company [TVB]. Also, while we’re filming, our boss Ricky Wong would all of a sudden ask a cook to make a meal consisting of 3 dishes + 1 soup and have someone specially drive the food to the filming location for us to eat!”

Leung Kin Ping expressed that he hopes to get the opportunity to film even better quality series: “Filming scenes that make people cry is not very difficult – just because you know how to cry well doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a good actor. More important is for audiences to be able to relate to what they are watching – do they benefit from what they watch or does it influence them in some way? For example, someone going through a breakup or experiencing the death of a loved one are perhaps able to feel differently about their own situation because of a particular scene I did or dialogue I said in the series – having that kind of impact on audiences is my ultimate goal.” Leung Kin Ping states that he hopes the government will grant CTI their license soon so that they can give the television industry a much needed boost – hopefully the healthy competition will help the industry thrive and prosper once again.


Acting Profile: Varied roles, both good guys and villains

Leung Kin Ping is currently 46 years old. Upon graduating from school, he joined Shaw Brothers movie studio and later switched over to TVB. Active in the industry since the 1980s, Leung Kin Ping has participated in countless series -- including City Japes《城市故事》, Files of Justice《壹號皇庭》, To Catch the Uncatchable《棟篤神探》, Lives of Omission, Gloves Come Off, etc. -- in roles that are hugely varied, portraying both ‘good guys’ as well as ‘villains’. Some of his most memorable roles include crime boss ‘Brother Willie’ from Lives of Omission, the cook ‘Pao Sing Kap’ in House of Harmony and Vengeance《耀舞長安》, crooked businessman ‘Luk Kwong Chiu’ from Gloves Come off, as well as others. In May of this year, he left TVB and currently works for Ricky Wong’s CTI.

TVB Anniversary Awards 2011 (萬千星輝頒獎典禮2011) – My Thoughts

** Note: I made a slight revision to the part about Felix...see "Best Supporting Actress" section.**

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I'm sure by now, everyone knows who this year's winners are, since it's all over the (entertainment) news outlets in HK and also on Weibo.

To be honest, this year especially, I really had no interest in watching the awards show because almost all of the series this year basically sucked (except for a select few that I could pretty much count on one hand) and most of the performances were mediocre at best. But the biggest reason why I had no interest in watching was because very few of my favorite actors / actresses were nominated and those who did make it into the top 5 were artists I didn’t much for – even the winners I wasn’t too keen on, except for maybe 1 or 2.

I guess you could pretty much say that my only reason for watching the award show this year was for the presenters, since I was interested in seeing who would present and what type of clever speeches they would come up with (though I was a bit disappointed in this area as well – but more on that later). Mostly, I watched the show because there was nothing else to watch on TV (since they pretty much pre-empted every single show that was to air and kept re-broadcasting the award show over and over again) – plus I wanted to have something to blog about (LOL).

Anyway, back to the results…below is the list of winners this year, my reaction to the results, as well as my opinion on a few of the categories and the show overall.

Lifetime Achievement Award: Lee Heung Kam

.—In my opinion, this was one of the most deserving awards of the night (though it was already announced a few days back, so it’s not like no one knew). It’s about time they gave Kam Jeh this award, as her contributions to the HK entertainment industry is unquestionable. It was great how Kam Jeh was accompanied by a few of the people closest to her – veteran actor Ray Lui (her god-son), senior actor Wu Fung (good friend), veteran actor Felix Wong, veteran actress Cecilia Wong (Nat Chan’s wife), and also Kam Jeh’s doctor and one of her relatives. I definitely enjoyed seeing so many familiar faces again – plus I have a lot of respect for Kam Jeh, as she is one of my favorite ‘gam cho’ (elder) artists and truly a ‘legend’ in the industry.

.-- A few things about this particular segment of the awards ceremony:

.> It was absolutely annoying how they cut Kam Jeh off near the end of her speech -- sure, it was only a few seconds and probably barely noticeable to some people, but still….she’s 80 years old and has been in the industry for 60+ years – before any of us (and maybe even some of our parents) were even conceived, so at least give her some respect! Sheesh!!

.> The beginning part of that segment where Vice-Chairman Norman Leung came out to give an intro on Kam Jeh was really unnecessary, as the video clip that they played right afterwards basically said the exact same thing. What a waste of time for Norman Leung to come out and speak (plus he spoke annoyingly SLOW) – they should have just cut his speech and given Kam Jeh more time for her acceptance speech (instead of rudely cutting her off). Once again, TVB has their priorities wrong!

.> Also, did anyone catch Norman Leung’s ‘jab’ at ATV? That particular piece was pretty much the ONLY thing he said that was not already part of the video segment…it makes me wonder that perhaps the opportunity to take a jab at ATV was the reason why TVB had him come out and give that lame speech of his?

Most Admirable Program: “Hong Kong Back Then”

.-- I actually don’t have much opinion about this category, since I didn’t watch any of the shows that were nominated. However, I do find it ironic that the show that ended up winning the award (which was determined by an independent panel of judges not related to TVB) was the one hosted by Wong Hei.


TVB.com Weibo Popularity Award: Kevin Cheng

.—To be honest, I sort of consider this a ‘pork’ award so I don’t really care who wins it…though knowing now that Kevin ended up with 3 awards, it would have been nice if someone else won this particular award….sure, it might be an insignificant award, but hey, for some people, getting any type of award is better than none right? Oh well…I guess I should just be grateful that Raymond Lam didn’t win this award again (how many times has he won this in the past? Lost count already….)

.—The presenters of this award were Wu Fung and Lau Yi Dat. I’m fine with Wu Fung as presenter, but honest to goodness, who the heck invited Lau Yi Dat? That guy is a nutcase and always looks (and acts) as though he is half asleep (or perhaps in a drunken stupor?) – it’s annoying that he’s rarely ever coherent when he speaks, yet TVB invites him to be a presenter. And when he read Kevin Cheng’s name wrong? Some people may have thought it was funny, but I actually found it annoying!


Most Improved Male Artist: MC Jin

.—I actually didn’t really care who won this award, since I wasn’t too keen on any of the nominees. The only ones that I actually recognized were MC Jin and Jazz Lam, but I don’t know either artist well enough to give an opinion on who deserved the award more – therefore, not really going to comment on the ‘deserving’ part of it. All I will say is that I did like MC Jin’s performance in “Lives of Omission” because it was refreshing and different – but considering that this is the ‘Most Improved’ award we are talking about, it shouldn’t be based on only one series. Also, the winner of this award is usually someone who will be heavily promoted by TVB in the future, so it was interesting that TVB gave it to MC Jin (a non-contracted artist) over the others (I believe all the rest were contracted).


Most Improved Female Artist: Sire Ma

.—I didn’t really care about this category either, since I don’t like any of the artists nominated – though I would probably say that acting wise, I would have probably chosen Mandy Wong over Sire Ma, only because I feel that Mandy has more potential as an actress based on what I’ve seen so far. Also, one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to watching series is not being able to understand what the characters / artists are saying – and of course, Sire Ma falls into this category because of her accent…I watched most of the series that she was in this year and honestly speaking, it was hard to get past the dialogue, since it always sounded like she was exerting a lot of effort trying to ‘recite’ the dialogue with the correct pronunciation – plus to me, her acting always seems a bit forced (probably because of the dialogue thing).

.—In terms of her acceptance speech, it actually didn’t sit well with me – it sounded fake to me…also, I found it interesting that she was one of the few to specially thank Virginia Lok (and only VL, not anyone else)…sounded a little like a ‘kiss up’ to me…


Best Supporting Actor: Ben Wong

.— Out of all the awards, this was by far the most deserving of the night! Ben was excellent as ‘Spicy Ginger’ in LOO (I will admit that I only watched that series because of him and Damian Lau) – in fact, he performed well in every series that he participated in this year (LOO, “Life and Times of a Sentinel”, “Curse of the Royal Harem”, and even his cameo in “When Heaven Burns”), plus he has always been a consistently good actor, so he absolutely deserves to win! I’m glad to see him finally get the recognition he deserves (though of course I feel that he should have gotten recognized a long time ago – better late than never I guess).

.—It’s interesting that every year, the Best Supporting Actor category is the one that is the most ‘intense’ for me and the one I get the most emotional over – probably because every year, the really talented actors are nominated in this category and most of them are my favorites (yup, since most of my favorite lead artists left TVB, the only ones left that I like are pretty much the supporting artists).

.—Out of all the winners, I enjoyed Ben’s speech the most – short, sweet, and to the point, yet at the same time, very encouraging and heartfelt. And it was nice of him to mention Catherine Tsang inviting him to play ‘Ah Hoi’ in “A Kindred Spirit” back in the 90s, which was pretty much the role that put his name on the map in the first place.


Best Supporting Actress: Sharon Chan

.—It was obvious from the start that in this category, the ‘battle’ was between Sharon Chan and Nancy Wu, so I wasn’t surprised in the least that Sharon won. I’m actually ok with either Sharon or Nancy winning because both truly did great jobs this year – both of their performances really stuck out in their respective series so it was definitely hard to choose.

.—The presenter of this award was none other than one of my favorite actors, Felix Wong. It was great to see him (though I’m already ‘stalking’ him on Weibo every day, so it’s not like I haven’t seen him in a long time…LOL) and I loved how he came right out and told everyone why he is constantly criticizing TVB. He is always ‘cute’ in my book and his great sense of humor is infectious! The other thing I love about Felix is how he is always so supportive of the younger generation – what he said about Nancy was so sweet and touching (if I were Nancy, I would feel that hearing that compliment from him is better than winning any type of ‘rigged’ award from TVB!) – and even though Nancy didn’t win, Felix was still very happy for Sharon and was very gracious…it was so sweet of him to hold Sharon’s hand and purposefully ask the artists sitting onstage to give her applause once again…such a gentleman! Felix’s segment was definitely one of the highlights of the entire award ceremony for me.

.-- One more thing regarding Felix's segment. Obviously, both Felix and Michael support Nancy for this award and both of them had actually been dropping hints on their Weibos encouraging people to vote for Nancy (which is why when Felix opened the envelope and saw that Nancy didn't win, he said ' 3 gor, our mission failed')...also, Felix has been filming in the Mainland (the movie "Glory Days" with Eric Tsang, Max Mok, Michael Miu, and other veteran artists) and purposefully re-arranged his schedule to return to HK in order to attend the awards ceremony and present the Supporting Actress award. Knowing all this, I respect Felix even more as a person because even though he was rooting for Nancy (and wasn't shy about making that known to everyone, since he openly praised Nancy as being the "best in his heart"), he was still very genuine in his praise of Elena's acting as well as his happiness for Sharon. That type of gracious attitude is definitely hard to come by -- especially in the entertainment industry!


Best Variety Program: “All Star Glam Exam” & Best Variety Program Hosts: Grasshoppers (for “All Star Glam Exam”)

.—These were 2 separate awards, but I’m actually going to talk about them together, since it makes the most sense. Not surprisingly, Grasshoppers won for their hosting of “All Star Glam Exam” and the show itself won Best Variety Program. The reason why I say this is not surprising is because TVB has a pattern of giving this award to the ‘guests’ who host shows for them (previous winners include Susie Wong, Harlem Yu, Sandra Ng) – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing given that most of the time, the shows hosted by the guests are way better than the ones hosted by their own people (with a few exceptions of course).

.-- In terms of the Grasshoppers winning this year, I’m actually fine with it because they did do a good job and the show was actually interesting and refreshing (at least it wasn’t the absurd, stupid stuff that Super Trio had being doing the past couple years). Personally, if I were to choose a winner in the host category, I would have picked Steven Ma (and no, I’m not just saying this because I like him as an actor). The reason I would have chosen Steven is because I feel that both of his hosting jobs (for “Book of Words” – which was not nominated -- and “Apprentice Chef”) were very challenging because it requires that the host do alot of 'homework' and other prep work in order for the outcome to be as good as it was ...it wasn't the typical game show host type stuff, which I feel that pretty much any experienced (or even unexperienced) host with an outgoing personality can pretty much do….now, I’m not saying that Grasshoppers had it easy or didn’t have to do any prep work, but compared to what Steven had to do to prepare for his hosting gig, it's just different.

.—In terms of presenters, I really hated that they had Ng Yu there – he just kept going on and on about a bunch of nonsense…plus I always feel that he sounds arrogant and condescending when he talks, so I always get annoyed listening to him.


Best Informational Program: “Water of Life”

.—I didn’t watch this program (no interest in watching it either) or any of the other ones in this category, so to me, it didn’t matter who won. No opinion on my side.


My Favorite Female TV Character: Myolie Wu (“Ghetto Justice”)

.—This category (along with the Male TV Character award) is generally known as a ‘consolation’ prize for whoever doesn’t win TV Queen – though there have been a few years where the same actress who wins TV Queen also takes this award. The Top 5 finalists in this category were: Linda Chung (“Yes Sir, Sorry Sir”), Maggie Cheung (“Forensic Heroes 3”), Myolie Wu (“Ghetto Justice”), Fala Chan (“Lives of Omission”), and Aimee Chan (“Forensic Heroes 3”).

.—First of all, what the heck was TVB thinking putting Aimee Chan in the top 5? Her character wasn’t memorable at all! There were so many more deserving characters that could have taken that spot – totally pathetic of TVB to put her in there just because they are planning on promoting her in the coming years (obviously, I can’t stand Aimee…her horrible acting totally annoys me).

.—I honestly don’t care for any of the artists nominated in this category because to be honest, I felt that all the female performances were pretty weak this year….but given the top 5, if I had to choose my favorite, I would have probably picked Maggie Cheung’s character from FH3 (for the record, I’m not a Maggie fan at all – in fact, I don’t even like her – but she was quite good in FH3 and her character was the most memorable to me out of the 5).

.—Though I don’t have a problem with Myolie winning in this category (since I don’t like any of the actresses nominated this year anyway), I would have preferred for someone else to win in this category because to be honest, it was a bit much for Myolie to win this award and TV Queen. They should have nominated her for TV Queen with “Ghetto Justice” and used “Curse of the Royal Harem” for this category – this way, most likely someone else would have won the award.


My Favorite Male TV Character: Kevin Cheng (“Ghetto Justice”)

.— The Top 5 in this category were: Kevin Cheng (“Ghetto Justice”), Ruco Chan (“The Other Truth”), Michael Tse (“Lives of Omission”), Bosco Wong (“Lives of Omission”), Wayne Lai (“Forensic Heroes 3”)

.-- Looks like TVB decided not to do the consolation prize thing with this award like they did last year. Well, that’s a good thing actually, but unfortunately, they gave the award to Kevin when they really didn’t have to (especially since they were already planning on giving him TV King). I was actually rooting for Ruco Chan to win this award, as his character of Keith Lau in “The Other Truth” was definitely a stand out and he pretty much shot to popularity due to that role. I guess I should be happy that he got into the Top 5 at least…but still, really was hoping that he could win this one.

.— I was actually surprised that TVB decided to give this award to Kevin instead of to Michael because I really thought that they would at least give Michael an award as consolation, since there was no way that they were going to give him TV King. Personally though, I’m fine with Michael Tse not winning anything because to be honest, I can’t stand him now…the Laughing Gor thing has gotten really overboard now to the point of being annoying (plus his arrogant attitude totally turns me off).

.—The highlight of this segment was seeing Marianne Chan again (she was the presenter for this award). Since she gave up her acting career and is a successful business woman now, it’s rare to see her at these types of events, so I definitely enjoyed seeing her again. She looked absolutely awesome – so elegant and pretty…she was better dressed than most of the nominees themselves! Also, I absolutely loved her speech – it was so clever how she was able to relate her speech back to business while at the same time, incorporating stuff about the nominees – very well put together and memorable! Hers was definitely the best speech of the night amongst the presenters.


Best Series: “Lives of Omission”

.—The Top 5: “Lives of Omission”, “Forensic Heroes 3”, “The Other Truth”, “Ghetto Justice”, “Yes Sir, Sorry Sir”

.—First of all, it’s very obvious that this was a ‘consolation’ prize for LOO due to them losing out on many of the awards (especially the big ones). I definitely would have preferred TOT or GJ to win, since both of those were better series than LOO in my opinion (though not the best, but given the 5 nominated, those would be my picks).

.—I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that YSSR got into Top 5 for Best Series…WTH??? That stupid series was so silly, it wasn’t even worth watching (I personally couldn’t even get through the first episode) – and it’s consider good enough for top 5? Huh? I could think of so many other series this year that would have been better candidates! Whoever nominated that series for Top 5 must not have their head screwed on right!

.— Also, it was weird seeing this award being presented in the middle of the ceremony…it’s usually presented last, right before the Lifetime Achievement award, as a type of ‘last hurrah’ for the cast to all come on stage. Not sure if there was a certain purpose behind doing it this way…not that it mattered really, but it just felt awkward. I wonder if they will do it the same way next year?


TV Queen (Best Actress): Myolie Wu (“Curse of the Royal Harem”

.—Top 5 in this category: Liza Wang (“Home Troopers”), Linda Chung (“Yes Sir, Sorry Sir), Myolie Wu (“Curse of the Royal Harem”), Fala Chan (“Lives of Omission”), Maggie Cheung (“Forensic Heroes 3”)

.—In terms of the Top 5, it really ticked me off to see Liza Wang in there once again! It seems like every single time Liza participates in a series, TVB always puts her in the Top 5, no matter how she performs. That is just so unfair and so stupid! Come on now – first they had to ‘rig’ the game thing at the Anniversary gala so that Liza could participate and get prize money and now, they have to ‘rig’ the awrads so that she gets a spot in the final five for TV Queen? WTH??? I mean, REALLY??? Why is it that Liza always has to be in the limelight? Is she afraid that audiences will forget her so she has to hog the spotlight all the time instead of giving other artists the chance? Ugh!!! I get so pissed now whenever I see TVB giving Liza such blatant preferential treatment at other artists’ expense – ok, I understand that Liza has “tenure” with the company and she has a reputation for being overbearing and bossy, but does that mean that TVB has to give in to her every whim? The way Liza is the focus of attention all the time, TVB should just rename their company the Ah Jeh station or something! Goshdarnit!!

.—Other than my ‘rant’ about Liza Wang getting into Top 5, I really don’t have an opinion when it comes to who took home the TV Queen award because as I’ve said in previous posts, the actresses’ performances this year were all fairly weak – besides, I didn’t like any of the actresses nominated anyway, so it really didn’t make a difference to me, as long as it made sense why the person won. In fact, as much as I dislike Myolie, I actually expected her to win given that the rest of the field was quite weak.

.—The presenters of the TV Queen award were Patrick Tse and Francis Ng (the ‘real’ and ‘imitation’ Brother Four). I’m not a fan of either artist, but it was fun to watch the two of them taking jabs at each other – and I loved how Patrick Tse was saying that Liza Wang talked too much and basically indirectly told her to shut up (since the host Dodo Cheng kept asking for her opinion on stuff, which was the other thing that annoyed me – why keep interviewing Liza when it’s obvious it wasn’t her night?)…only Patrick would have dared to say something like that, given his close relationship with Liza…LOL!


TV King (Best Actor): Kevin Cheng (“Ghetto Justice”)

,-- Top 5: Moses Chan (“Yes Sir, Sorry Sir”), Kevin Cheng (“Ghetto Justice”), Michael Tse (“Lives of Omission”), Bosco Wong (“Lives of Omission”), Wayne Lai (“Forensic Heroes 3”)

.—Just like with TV Queen, I really was not too concerned about who won in this category either, as long as arrogant Michael Tse didn’t win. Basically, the only thing I wanted to know in terms of this category was whether TVB was going to make the stupid move of 'rewarding' Michael Tse for his arrogance by giving him the TV King award -- other than that, who got what award didn't matter to me, since I don't care for any of the artist who were nominated (except for Wayne, but I already knew he didn’t have a chance). Turns out that ‘cocky’ Laughing Gor got shut out completely from the awards, as he went home completely empty-handed (I’m considering that ‘icing on the cake’ for me, since I was only hoping that he wouldn’t get TV King – never thought that TVB would shut him out completely!).

.—In terms of Kevin winning TV King – well, as I had said in an earlier post, I pretty much expected it because he really stood out this year with his GJ role as well as his Mainland series “Bu Bu Jing Xin.” I’m still very much anti-Kevin Cheng as I’ve always been, but I will acknowledge that he has shown huge improvement in his acting from when he started – and given how the rest of the field was relatively weak and the other series were quite horrible, giving him the award made the most sense. Hopefully he is able to live up to the TV King title and doesn’t take steps back in terms of his acting.


Extraordinarily Elegant Male and Female Artists: Bosco Wong & Myolie Wu

.—To be honest, I don’t know what the heck this award was for, as they never really explained it. Basically, the hosts (Dodo Cheng and Vincent Wong) kept referring to a screen where it showed the names of the male and female artists who had the most votes. Then, about two-thirds of the way through the show, they announced the winners as Bosco and Myolie.

.—Not sure what the point was of this award – perhaps it was just an excuse to give Myolie another award? Or maybe to give Bosco an award, since Kevin basically swept all the other awards (he and Myolie took home 3 awards a piece). Whatever the case, doesn’t really matter to me because I consider this a ‘pork’ award anyway.


CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:

Overall, the award show itself was so-so….if it weren’t for some of the interesting presenters and their awesome speeches, I probably would have passed on watching the show.

.—It was very obvious from the start that TVB is not what it used to be. There were actually very few fa dans and siu sangs present – most of the artists who attended were 2nd and 3rd line (some even 4th and 5th line or below). It was actually sort of sad to see, since the awards shows in the past came across way more glamorous since more people showed up. The audience was lacking too, as I spotted quite a few empty chairs when the cameras actually panned over to where the audience was sitting – most of those in the audience were TVB employees who probably HAD to be there….

.—I don’t know about others who watched the show, but I personally felt that it wasn’t as well put together this year as in years past. There were a lot of moments where there was awkward silence and the applause (when there was applause that is) was barely audible. I wonder if TVB was too cheap to hire a music and sound person – or maybe that person left too? Whatever the case, it felt weird….

.—It was nice to see Ruco Chan sitting in the front row – TVB is finally recognizing him it seems (or it could be that so many artists left and there were so few first line siu sangs in attendance, they had no choice but to put him in front). Either way, I’ll enjoy it while it lasts…hahaha!

.—I definitely have to give kudos to Wayne Lai for being such a good sport. He already knew that his chances of getting TV King this year was pretty much non-existent, yet he still came to show his support. And when Dodo asked him why he was there if he didn’t feel he had a chance, he humbly answered that he was there to show his support for all of his colleagues, since they put in a lot of effort in their performances.

.— I was actually surprised that Kevin and Myolie got so many awards – honestly, I felt it was excessive to give them 3 awards a piece…there was really no need for that (but oh well – it’s TVB…can’t expect anything logical from them). Other than that piece, the rest of the results were pretty much anticipated. As I've been saying previously, overall I really don't care who wins this year, since I'm not too keen on many of the artists nominated and I know that it's never going to be 'fair' anyway considering that this is a TVB award show after all...for me, as long as MT didn't win TV King, then I'm happy. Goes to show that being cocky and arrogant won't get you anywhere…that’s probably the biggest ‘lesson’ that came out of this whole awards show!

My ‘TVB Rant’ # 12: Another Example of TVB’s ‘Double Standard’ (the argument of ‘peak ratings’ versus ‘average ratings’)

Note: ‘Sentinel’ refers to the series “The Life and Times of a Sentinel” and ‘Omission’ refers to the series “Lives of Omission”.

I’ve been reading the various articles in the entertainment news portals as well as a variety of posts and comments on forums, blogs, etc. regarding the whole Sentinel vs Omission situation as well as Michael Tse’s comments criticizing Steven Ma….

Well, I’ve pretty much made my position clear already in terms of what I thought about Michael Tse’s ‘immature’ response....here’s the comment I posted in the AF forum that pretty much sums things up:

What an arrogant and cocky response from Michael! I don't know what it is, but ever since he became popular with the Laughing character last year, it seems to have gotten to his head.....as I've said before, I've never understood the hype over Laughing anyway and I consider Michael 'lucky' that his character happened to appeal to majority of the audiences...instead of reacting with grace, he starts to take on a cocky attitude? WTH? Sorry, but based on everything I've read so far, I feel that the 'immature' one in this situation is Michael, not Steven...

(For those interested in reading more, you can visit this thread in Asianfanatics: “Michael Tse criticizes Steven Ma is being immature”

After reading the various posts in tamaya’s blog as well as lizzy’s most recent post about the situation, ), I felt the urge to do another one of my ‘TVB rants’ about the topic (plus there were quite a few points brought up in lizzy’s post that got me thinking about a few things that I’ve ranted about before and are now coming back to the surface again).

For the purposes of this post, I am going to focus mainly on the ‘ratings’ argument, since that seems to be the primary ‘justification’ that TVB makes for why they should pay more attention to Omission and not to Sentinel (plus some netizens are trying to use the ratings thing to ‘justify’ Michael Tse’s criticism of Steven – which, for the record, is a bunch of BS in my opinion). So what exactly is the ‘ratings argument’? Well, when TVB’s spokesperson Tsang Sing Ming was asked about Sentinel’s peak ratings of 40 points, he “conveniently” used the average ratings of the series to answer the question, inadvertently pointing out that Sentinel’s overall ratings were low and it ended up in 10th place compared with Omission’s 1st place – in a sense, stating that it’s not the peak ratings that matter but rather the average ratings. When Michael ‘criticized’ Steven, he actually made the exact same argument about the average ratings versus peak ratings (that can’t be a coincidence…I sense a major ‘kiss up’ attempt here). Ok, so let me get this straight….according to TVB and Michael Tse: the peak ratings shouldn’t matter, as the overall average ratings of a series is the important part. Even though both Omission and Sentinel hit the 40 point mark in peak ratings (Sentinel actually hit that number first), that’s less important in the scheme of things, because it’s really the average ratings that counts – so since the overall average ratings for Omission consistently exceeded the 30 point mark whereas the average ratings for Sentinel was consistently under 30 points (except for finale week), it ‘goes without saying’ that more attention should be paid to Omission and the series should be acknowledged / celebrated / given special treatment.

In my opinion, lizzy does a good job of explaining the average ratings thing in her post (see above link), so I’m not going to rehash all that in this post. Rather, I’m going to respond to TVB (and Michael Tse)’s argument about the ‘average ratings counting more than the peak ratings’….

First of all, by making this argument, TVB is totally being contradictory because there have been numerous instances in the past where TVB has emphasized peak ratings over average ratings and made a ‘big deal’ out of their series ‘peaking’ at certain points. So for them to say now that the peak ratings don’t mean much and it’s the average ratings that counts is absolutely HYPOCRITICAL! This just goes to show that TVB has an integrity issue and also proves that one of the ‘problems’ that I’ve been complaining about them is true: TVB blatantly ‘uses’ certain situations to their advantage when it suits their needs, but then brushes off (ignores) other situations when they know it’s not favorable toward them, then they’ll make up any ‘lame’ excuse that they can to defend their foolish actions (especially when they are ‘called out’ on it).

For those who think that I’m being too ‘harsh’ on TVB once again (yes, there are quite a few people out there who think this), here’s a recent example of how TVB placed more emphasis on peak ratings rather than average ratings:

Last year, when TVB’s ‘favored’ series “Can’t Buy Me Love” supposedly peaked at 51 points during its finale (the key word here is SUPPOSEDLY….see TVB Rant #5 for details on why I use this word), they made such a big deal out of it, they even dedicated a ‘spread’ to it in one of the issues of their TVB Magazine (the title of that particular article reads: “Can’t Buy Me Love breaks 50 points”…with that kind of title, I’m sure you can figure out the content of the article) – plus all the ‘attention’ it got in the Media (the average ratings for CBML overall was in the low 30s). Ok, so help me understand this – if the peak ratings really don’t matter, then WHY THE HELL did TVB put so much emphasis on CBML breaking 50 points last year? Is it because CBML starred mostly TVB’s own biological sons/daughters that they are heavily promoting and so the series has to succeed no matter what otherwise TVB will lose face (compared to the other 2 ‘big’ series from that year, “No Regrets” and “Gun Metal Grey”, whose main leads were non-contracted artists)? Whatever the reason, the fact of the matter is that for TVB, the ‘peak rating’ was important last year for CBML, but this year, for Sentinel, it’s all of a sudden ‘not important’ (anyone disagree with me that TVB is applying a ‘double standard’ here?)

Note: I can think of a few other examples as well, but since the CBML thing is probably still fresh in a lot of people’s minds, I chose to only use that issue as an example.

From everything that has been made known so far, it’s obvious that TVB favors Omission more than they do Sentinel – not surprisingly, TVB’s ‘blatant favoritism’ rears its ugly head once again! As I read through all the stuff about Omission versus Sentinel, I’m getting a huge sense of déjà vu – TVB did the exact same thing last year when they (heavily) favored “Can’t Buy Me Love” over anniversary series “Gun Metal Grey”, resulting in GMG star Felix Wong’s ‘outburst’ toward TVB (see TVB Rant #6 for details). Oh, and how about the year before that (2009) when TVB over-hyped / over-promoted “Beyond the Realm of Conscience” and pretty much ‘neglected’ the other anniversary series “Born Rich” as well as the unexpected hit “Rosy Business”? Come to think of it, there’s another example right there – when BTROC peaked at 50 points back when it aired (again, during the finale episode only), there was much fanfare and ‘commotion’ over the ‘amazing accomplishment’, whereas when RB peaked at 47 points (on its own, without any special promotion or hype), the only people who seemed to notice were the audiences and the Media. Hmmm, I already see a pattern….I don’t think I need to go further back through the rest of the decade (or at least through the Virginia Lok era) to prove my point, right?

Ok, so now that I let off my steam, I’ll end with some final words: When it comes to TVB, some things never change!