Fox Asia’s “The Trading Floor” to premiere on May 24th

Saw this article yesterday about Fox Asia's highly anticipated first Chinese-language series, "The Trading Floor."  Many of us were wondering when this series will air and the last I had heard several months back was Spring 2018….well, yesterday they finally announced that the series will officially premiere on Fox's Chinese language channel on May 24^th.

Below are some of the highlights from the article (will translate in more detail when I have time but for those who can read Chinese, I suggest checking out the original article itself).

-          Chinese name of the series changed from  香港華爾街   to 東方華爾街

-          Producer for the series is Andy Lau

-          Director is KK Wong (he was the director/producer for HKTV's "The Election")

-          Cast features ensemble of actors/actresses from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China

-          Partial cast includes:  Francis Ng, Joseph Chang, Patrick Tam, Maggie Cheung, Liu Kai Chi, Poon Chan Leung, Law Kar Ying, Cheung Lui, Carlos Chan, Jacky Cai, Fish Liew, etc.

-          Season 1 will be 5 episodes

-          Story is about the finance sector in Asia and the changes that it goes through over a 20 year time period.  Francis plays a finance expert who will do everything he can to climb to the top and become finance boss – throughout the process, he will face off against his apprentice student Joseph Chang

There is a trailer included in the article, which I haven't had a chance to watch yet so I'm not sure if it's the same one as previously released.  The 2 posters are new though and both versions (which have been dubbed "Cash 1.0" and "Cash 2.0" by the director) look AWESOME!

I honestly can't wait to watch this series!

Link to article: https://www.hk01.com/即時娛樂/186166/東方華爾街-吳鎮宇張孝全師徒決裂-記錄亞洲金融戰場20年

Entertainment Newsreel #5: Mostly movies and a little bit of TV news...

Lots of movie news this past week due to the start of FILMART + HK Film Festival and also award show season with the Asian Film Awards and Director's Guild Awards, so the focus this time will be on movie industry news.  There is some TV industry news too, but not as much compared to the recent happenings in the film world.

Also, FILMART actually just started yesterday but I didn't want to wait until the end of the week to do this post, since there is so much info already, so if need be, I'll do a follow up later in the week to cover whatever may emerge from there, whether movies or television (I actually have a feeling the news we are waiting for on OCTB will be announced at FILMART – just a hunch, no inside info or anything….anyway, I'll post something up once I hear further).

Movie industry news

ASIAN FILM AWARDS & DIRECTORS GUILD AWARDS

-          The big news coming out of the HK film world this week (aside from Leon's news but I'll get to that later) has to do with one of this generation's most prolific movie actors – Louis Koo.   This year's Asian Film Awards and Director's Guild Awards were held within days of each other and Louis won Best Actor at both award ceremonies (for his role in the movie Paradox, the much touted second installment in the SPL franchise).   As Louis himself said during his acceptance speech at the Asian Film Awards (which was held first), this is his first ever movie-related award so of course it means a lot to him.  I'm glad to hear him say this because in my opinion, being able to win at the Asian Film Awards is more "prestigious" than winning in one of HK's awards shows because the artists are going up against other artists / movies from across Asia – to be able to defeat other talented actors outside of Hong Kong is quite an accomplishment!  Congrats to Louis!!

-          Personally, I've never been a fan of Louis' acting, whether back when he was at TVB or after entering the movie world and filming boatloads of movies (honestly, the word "prolific" is an understatement – at one point, Louis seemed to be in every single movie out there, lol).  Don't ask me to explain why because I don't know – his acting just never appealed to me for some reason.  With that said though, I do have a lot of respect for Louis as a person and that respect has grown over the years after learning about his charity work (which he rarely talks about) as well as seeing his contributions to the film industry and his efforts at improving the industry as a whole.  [Sidenote: Louis was recently voted in as HKPAG (Hong Kong Performing Artists Guild) Chairman (taking over for previous Chairman Jackie Chan) and hearing his ideas on how he plans to support the industry was very encouraging!]  I'm happy for Louis with both his wins and I'm sure this is a boost of confidence for him heading into the HK Film Awards next month – he's up against some tough competition though so even though he is the "hot favorite" to take him the award there too, the results are hard to predict so let's see what happens.

-          At the Director's Guild Awards, the highlight of Louis' win is that people kept playfully teasing him about going up on stage and gracing the audience with his singing again.  This was actually a reference to Louis attending the annual HK Film Workers' Spring Dinner event last week  where he was pulled on stage during one of the performances and invited to sing a few lines from one of his songs with them.  Louis actually obliged (and was very gracious about it) – the video of him singing was uploaded online and of course it took the internet by storm, since it's very rare nowadays for Louis to be willing to open his "golden mouth" to sing.  So now, at every event, his colleagues as well as the reporters "tease" him about going on stage and singing for them – of course, Louis politely turns everyone down, but I love that he is so good-humored about it, even playing along with them in some instances and "pretending" to leave when the word "singing" is mentioned, lol.  It's rare for us to see Louis' playful side (he always looks so cool and serious) so I can definitely see why everyone is taking the opportunity to "tease" him while it lasts.  My respect for Louis actually went up a few notches this past week after seeing how he handled the whole "singing" thing….

-          On the Best Actress front – Sylvia Chang took home the Best Actress award at the Asian Film Awards for her performance in Love Education, which she also directed.  She wasn't able to repeat the win at the Directors Guild Award, however she did end up taking home the Best Director Award at that ceremony.

-          The winner(s) of the Best Actress award at the Directors Guild Awards ceremony were Teresa Mo for Tomorrow is Another Day and Stephy Tang for The Empty Hands.  Yes, you heard right – there were 2 winners for Best Actress because both actresses ended up in a tie and so the Guild decided to award both.  There's actually a funny story to this, which Teresa Mo told during her acceptance speech.  Teresa said that she threw away her husband Tony Au's voting form for these awards because he was away on a trip and she didn't feel it was right to vote on his behalf, even though she knew that he would've cast his vote for her in the Best Actress category anyway.  It turns out that 'one vote' mattered in this case, since it meant the difference between her winning the award and having to share it. 

-          The Best Actress race at the HK Film Awards next month will be interesting, as all three actresses -- Sylvia Chang, Teresa Mo, and Stephy Tang – are in contention for the coveted award (rounding out the category are Zhou Xun for Our Time Will Come and Chrissie Chau for 29+1).  The Directors Guild Awards is generally seen as a precursor to HKFA, as the winners there usually go in to win at the HKFA as well – true or not, I'm pretty sure they are not going to do another "shared win" thing at HKFA (can't remember the last time – if ever – that they had such a win at HKFA).  Personally, I'm rooting for Teresa (since she's an awesome actress and also one of my favorites) – this will be her 7^th time being nominated for HKFA Best Actress so it's about time she won, though in all honesty, doesn't really matter to me who wins since I haven't watched any of the nominated films this year so can't really complain.  From various reports, I know that Stephy has done a great job this year and has already won multiple Best Actress awards already at other awards shows, so she is definitely the "hot favorite" going into HKFA, however I think both Teresa and Sylvia will give her a run for her money.  I'm fine with whoever ends up winning in this category. 

OTHER MOVIE-RELATED NEWS

-          Speaking of Louis Koo – I'm sure Louis fans will be happy to know that there is finally more news on the movie version of his "classic" TVB series A Step into the Past.  Rumors have been circulating for several years already that Louis plans to do a movie version of the series and invite back the original cast to participate.  It was confirmed last year that Louis will indeed be producing the movie and starring in it, but beyond that, there weren't a whole lot of details available.  Well, yesterday at FILMART, they unveiled the official poster for the movie and provided some more details as follows:

o   The Chinese name of the movie will be the same as the series but the English name will now be called Back to the Past. 

o   Louis's own production company One Cool Film will be producing this, which I assume means that Louis will be given the Executive Producer title for the project (I didn't catch who the director will be though), however this will also be a co-production with Mainland company Huace Pictures.

o   Filming is scheduled to begin at the end of the year.

o   Confirmed "original" cast from the series are Louis, Raymond Lam, and Jessica Hsuan (this is actually not surprising, as it was already revealed earlier on that both Raymond and Jessica signed to Louis' management company, so it makes sense that they would re-unite for this film).  

o   The big question now is whether other "original" cast members will return as well.  There was no mention of additional cast at FILMART (at least not yet), so no doubt there will be further announcements and possibly press conference forthcoming in the next few months.  Current speculation though is that most likely the rest of the cast won't return, since majority of them have retired from the industry already or are have other filming obligations, plus the movie is a co-production with Mainland, which means that they have to save a few of the "top" roles for Mainland artists. 

-          My take – I was never a fan of ASITP the series so I'm indifferent toward the news of a movie version now being filmed, but I know a lot of people out there loved the series, so if those of you reading this are a fan of the series, I'm curious to hear your thoughts – please feel free to comment!  The way I see it, one good thing about this production is that Louis is producing it himself and with how involved he had been in the series (supposedly he had even written parts of the original script) and how much he cared about it, at least you know he will put in the effort to make it good and not butcher it like others would (I'm sure people still remember the previous movie remakes of TVB series that were done by different companies and ended up being horrible / un-watchable).     

-          The other "big" movie industry news (though technically not really specifically movie-related but since the artist is a film actor now, figured putting it here was more appropriate) this week – this one is "hot off the press"….Heavenly King Leon Lai finally confirmed that he will become a dad soon.  For those who were not aware (which is kind of impossible given how big this news has been, lol), media reports had surfaced last week that Leon and his assistant Wing (she works for his record label A-Music) were dating and that Wing was photographed with a bulging belly, which in the HK media world, meant that she is "most likely" pregnant.  So of course, rumors started flying that Leon will be a dad soon, though he had yet to confirm anything.  Leon had actually attended FILMART yesterday and refused to say anything when reporters asked him, but then a few hours later he posted a formal announcement on his Facebook page confirming the news that he and his girlfriend are indeed expecting (I'm sure all the media outlets – Chinese and English – will be re-posting his FB post so not going to bother posting it here).  With Leon joining the ranks of fatherhood now, he is the last of the 4 Heavenly Kings to settle down and start a family (though whether he will marry Wing or not remains to be seen – there was no mention of marriage in the post, only that he will become a father soon).  Congrats to Leon!  Even though I'm not a fan of his, I'm still happy for him, as having a child is a huge milestone and deserves to be recognized.

TV Industry news

HKTV

-          The big news in terms of HKTV is that they have sold the rights to their series to i-cable arm Fantastic Television, who will be airing their series on their free-to-air channel starting on April 17^th.  I won't go into detail here, since I already wrote up a  post on this a couple days ago and also stated my thoughts on this already.  Those that are interested can read that post here.

FOX ASIA

-          Fox Asia released a new extended trailer for their series Stain'd.  The trailer is 2 minutes, 12 seconds long and all 3 A-list leads – Anthony Wong, Kara Hui, Tse Kwan Ho – are featured.  This article from HK01 has a link to the trailer so you can watch it there, though I'm sure Fox Asia's webpage and also Youtube channel have it as well.  I actually haven't had a chance to watch it yet so can't really comment right now, but once I do get around to watching it, I'll definitely post something up about it.  Also, if I hear any news about when Fox Asia's series are scheduled to air, I'll make sure to post an update.

OTHER TV INDUSTRY NEWS

-          This one I'm actually excited about!!  If, like me, you're a fan of the TVB series Untraceable Evidence and have been "dying" for another Bowie Lam / Flora Chan collaboration (they did film Healing Hands together, but I wasn't a fan of that series / franchise so that doesn't really count, lol), rest assured that your (our) wish might be granted some time in the near future.  Bowie and Flora attended an event the other day (no, nothing related to entertainment stuff – it was an environmental / beach cleaning event that was sponsored by one of their mutual friends, former actress Sharon Kwok) and so reporters seized the opportunity to ask them when they are going to fulfill fans' wishes for them to collaborate again.  Bowie said that it's something he and Flora have talked about and that when they had their Untraceable Evidence cast reunion dinner a few weeks ago (I saw the pictures – ah, the memories!!!), he had already told Flora to save some room in her schedule for him.  Flora's answer was more of a "we'll see" response because she is currently working on her PhD in Education and so her schooling comes first (aside from her family of course).  She said that she had agreed to film that program about marriage for ViuTV because it fit her schedule for one, and two, they allowed her to produce the program and gave her free reign to do the program how she wanted, so she decided to add some educational elements to the show. 

-          Bowie opened his own production company recently and currently has a few scripts on hand that he is reading through (I wrote in my Entertainment Newsreel #4 about Bowie's plans to produce  and star in his own series – you can read the details here) – he said that from day one of opening his production company, he was already planning to invite Flora for another collaboration.  He said that there will definitely be another chance for them to collaborate again, but he can't confirm when that will be due to Flora's studies being her top priority right now.  Both of them are for it though, so it's just a matter of time. 

-          As a fan of the Bowie/Flora pairing in UE, I'm one of those waiting for them to collaborate again.  Now that Bowie has his own production company and the freedom to film whatever he wants, looks like we are closer than ever to seeing another collaboration between these two, the only thing is timing.  Flora did say during their joint interview that she also wants to collaborate with Bowie again, however she still has another 3 years to go in terms of her studies (for her PhD) so it will really depend on whether she is able to carve out some time in between.  I'm secretly praying that Flora will find the time in between her studies to take Bowie up on his offer.  PLEASE PLEASE Flora, please don't make us wait 3 years for another collaboration! 

Entertainment Newsreel #3: Mostly television industry news....

Hello!  My apologies for how late this post is compared to my earlier newsreel post.  I’ve been really busy since returning from Jacky’s concert in mid-February so I’m still trying to play catch-up on some stuff.  Luckily, with the Chinese New Year holiday, there wasn’t a whole lot of major entertainment news the past two weeks (at least not stuff that I care about) so that’s good.

Below is this week’s newsreel post.  Note that it’s shorter than usual because I’m still catching up, plus most of what I wanted to relay about HKTV and the television industry I already posted up detailed articles on last week so make sure you check those out as well.

Television industry news

FOX ASIA

-          Someone asked me earlier if I knew when Fox Asia’s 2 HK series Trading Floor and Stain’d will air.  At the time, I said I don’t know because I truly didn’t know…but last week, I read an article where one of the executives from Fox said that both series are scheduled to air in “Spring 2018”.  Of course, that’s still a big vague, but at least it helps us narrow down the time period – since spring officially starts in March and lasts through May, then it’s pretty safe to say that both series will air anytime within the next 3 months, so watch for the official announcement (which I anticipate will come any minute now).

-          Honestly, I can’t wait, as I’ve been highly anticipating both series.  I even downloaded Fox’s app on my iPad already so I can be prepared once they air (and yes, I already combed through it when I downloaded it to see if there was any info about the 2 series, but so far nothing – I didn’t check last week though so unless they updated recently….).

ATV

-          So far, the only “big” news from ATV is that they are already working on the much-touted television remake of “A Better Tomorrow”.  ATV’s CEO Ng Yu attended an event recently and revealed that they are throwing millions of dollars into the production, though cast has still not been confirmed yet.   I personally still think that the leads are going to be Mainland artists, as Ng Yu pretty much “hinted” at such when he said that they “will be throwing millions of dollars into the production because they want to ensure quality and also well-qualified Mainland actors are expensive” (yes, he actually did mention Mainland actors and production costs in the same sentence, though he didn’t say outright that he was going to cast Mainland artists). 

-          Ng Yu also implied that he originally was thinking about having HK singer/actor William Chan star in the series.  When reporters asked him about the cast for ABT remake, Ng Yu said that they are still working on it, but the biggest problem is with artists’ schedules – for example, in the past, whenever he would approach William Chan to participate in something, he would readily oblige, however nowadays when he approaches him, he is not able to accommodate due to his busy schedule filming in Mainland (remember that Ng Yu was head of EEG before he got pulled out of retirement to head up ATV comeback venture and William was EEG artist, so of course he could get him to do anything he wanted).

-          As I’ve said before, I’m not keen on this whole remake thing, especially with such an iconic classic as ABT, so most likely I won’t watch anyway, no matter who they end up casting.  Personally, I’m just interested in seeing how ATV fares this time around and whether they will succeed in “re-inventing” themselves.  So far, it doesn’t look promising at all (read my previous posts on ATV and you’ll probably understand why) but it’s still early so we’ll see….

OCTB

-          I know everyone is dying to find out latest on OCTB.  The latest “news” on the OCTB front – this comes from a  post that OCTB production team put up on their social media pages back on 2/22: they will officially start filming Season 2 in Spring 2018 (everyone seems to love spring, lol), which pretty much means in the next couple weeks, with anticipated airing date of Winter 2018 (so December it looks like).  This is great news actually, as I originally thought we won’t get to watch season 2 until 2019, but looks like they are pushing for sooner – basically end of the year 2018.

-          The same social media post also indicated that there will be 2 major OCTB-related events coming up soon so watch for those announcements!  [Sidenote:  I have a feeling I might now know what those “events” are but I will hold off since I could be completely wrong for one and two, it sounds like the announcement will come really soon so no point in speculating].

-          The following is actually “old” news from end of February (I read about it at the time but didn’t have time to write up this post on it so figured I’d mention it here):

o   HMV setup a booth at the annual CNY fair in HK a few weeks ago selling all sorts of OCTB paraphernalia – pillows, mugs, playing cards, etc., all with OCTB cast and/or scenes and/or logo on them.   Justin Cheung (aka Jiu Jik) and Benji Chiang (aka Sai Wah) were responsible for manning the booth each day and helping to sell stuff (Justin especially since a lot of the stuff had his Jiu Jik character’s face on them, lol). 

o   Benji was interviewed and said that they actually have plans to release more OCTB merchandise in the coming months for fans to purchase, since it will be awhile before season 2 airs and they wanted to keep the momentum going.  He said that they are super excited about OCTB character action figures that are being made right now and also video games based on the series that are in the works as well.   Looks like they are definitely “going all out” in terms of promo for the series, which they can afford to do now that they’ve got Netflix backing them financially!

o   Speaking of Netflix…Justin was interviewed as well and was asked about season 2 and 3 filming.  He wouldn’t reveal too much of course but he did say that seasons 2 and 3 both got the green light to film.  Both seasons will also air on Netflix, which has become an investor in the series and will be contributing financially to the project (this of course means that future seasons could incorporate Hollywood stars).  Also, Justin’s character will continue to be significant in season 2 and they are currently planning out how his character will evolve…

**UPDATED** HK Television Wars Update: ATV making a comeback!

**12/24/17 Hot off the press update -- Soooo.....things are starting out on the wrong foot already.  Turns out that ATV won't be able to remake MDWAV because the rights to that series (along with a bunch of other popular ATV classics) was sold to Fox Networks.  Fox released a statement today (yesterday) stating that they hold the rights to MDWAV and ATV would be infringing on copyright if they were to remake the series without Fox's consent.  ATV's CEO Ng Yu was asked about this today and he said that it is true that most of ATV's series were indeed already sold to other companies (including TVB, Fox, HMV, Sohu, etc.) and that it was a misunderstanding on their part, as the records are really messy and they are still going through them.  He said that they are in discussions with Fox right now on possible collaboration with the remake but if that doesn't pan out, they have other series they can look at remaking instead.

What a mess!  I mean, how could ATV not know that the rights to the series was already sold to Fox?  And then to announce plans for a remake as though ATV still owned the rights?  This definitely doesn't look good for ATV, especially with their already previously tarnished reputation....

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Ok, so seeing that I haven't updated HK television-related stuff in awhile and we're coming up on the end of the year, I figured it was time for a mini "recap" of some of the major things going on in the HK television industry as of late.  This will be a quick, relatively short post (yea, I know, departure from my normal "War and Peace" style, but hey, I'm busy and in a crunch for time this month).

I don't plan on talking about all the TV stations, as I don't really have time for that right now (maybe I'll do a year-end recap later – we'll see), so I'll just focus on one major "hot off the press" HK television news for now.

The big news this weekend was ATV announcing their official comeback.  No, they didn't get their license back.  Rather, they are returning as an internet TV station where their programs will be available to watch via mobile platform (phone and tablet app) as well as via OTT (Over-the-Top) TV set boxes.  The new owner is a Mainland businessman with (supposedly) boatloads of money and he has hired quite a few big name industry veterans to head the station, including former TVB (and EEG) director of operations Ng Yu (he will be CEO), former TVB top exec/manager Peter Au, retired former TVB director of promotion and marketing Tsang Sing Ming, and former TVB (and subsequently NowTV) head of variety shows production Ho Lai Chuen (who is supposedly serving in the capacity of "consultant").  Also, they have a new logo now and I believe their official name is called "New Asia TV"….

In terms of artists, Ng Yu announced that everyone signed a "per series/show" contract only and are essentially free artists who can work for whichever station they so choose.  They will not be doing artist management in the beginning – instead, they intend on cultivating newcomers by having them work with experienced artists, then they will pick out the ones who are good and sign them to long term contracts (interesting strategy).  There were boatloads of former ATV and TVB artists who attended the official press conference this weekend (note that the official re-launch date isn't until January 29^th – they are just making all the announcements 1 month early), most notably Stephen Chan, Margie Tsang, Wong Hei, Spencer Leung, Joyce Chan, Anne Heung, Queenie Chu, Cillia Lok, Jacqueline Chu, ATV veteran Lau Shek Yin, etc.  Supposedly these artists are only a few of the over 100 artists + behind-the-scenes crew that ATV currently has working for them. 

Programming-wise, the biggest highlights are Stephen Chan hosting the 2018 version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" – of course, he's got pretty big shoes to fill considering how popular that game show was back when Kenneth Chan hosted the Chinese version on ATV many years ago (and no, I highly doubt Stephen Chan will be able to invite the "A-list" guests that Kenneth was able to back in the days when he hosted).  The other big highlight (on the variety show side) is that they will have a live variety program that will air every night Monday thru Friday – the show is called "See You Tonight" (and yes, the similar-sounding name to TVB's iconic live variety show EYT is probably deliberate) and will consist of one episode a night with a different theme each night hosted by different artists.  Spencer Leung, Joyce Chan, and veteran radio host Sarah Lee will host the Monday entertainment news-themed edition (Spencer said that for the first episode, he will be inviting 2 of his "enemies" whom he hasn't seen in a long time on to the show to have dinner with him – he also said he can't guarantee their won't be arguing or fighting so he advised audiences to tune in to see what happens).   Wong Hei and Anne Heung will be hosting Thursday nights, with the theme being travel and food, while Queenie Chu, Cillia Lok, and Margie  Tsang will host Wednesday nights where the theme will be fashion / lifestyle.  Lau Shek Yin will host Tuesday nights with the theme being HK current affairs and societal concerns.  I didn't catch who will be hosting Fridays though – will update once I find out.  

I'm sure the biggest question on people's minds is whether ATV will be filming series.  The answer is yes – the 2 "big productions" they already have in the works is a television version of the iconic HK movie "A Better Tomorrow" (yes, the movie that starred Chow Yun Fat in one of his most famous roles ever, "Mark Gor" – it also famously starred Leslie Cheung and Ti Lung) and also, a remake of ATV's classic hit "My Date with a Vampire" (I was never a MDWAV fan but those of you who are/were, feel free to comment how you feel about this news – good? Bad? Indifferent?).  Cast won't be announced until later, though in terms of MDWAV,  I highly doubt that any of the artists who were involved with the original will be participating in this new remake version.  Also, Ng Yu had done an interview last week (prior to this weekend's press conference) where he pretty much already confirmed that all of their "self-produced" series will be collaborations with Mainland – meaning produced with Mainland money, feature Mainland artists, and overall be geared toward Mainland audiences.

Lastly, the question of the day from reporters during the press conference was whether there would be a repeat of what I like to call "Salarygate" – remember those 4 to 6 months where ATV failed to pay their staff's salaries, resulting in hundreds of ATV staff having to apply to the Labor Department and also take ATV to court to recoup their lost wages.  Ng Yu confirmed that there will absolutely NOT be a repeat of that, as one of the pre-requisites for him agreeing to be CEO (keep in mind that he had retired from EEG last year) was that the owner must put staff salaries first and foremost.  He said the current owner of ATV has tons of properties and business and money is not an issue…in fact, he said that the owner plans on investing 400 million HKD the first year to make sure all relevant and necessary production costs, salaries, expenses, etc. are covered.

*** 

To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about this whole ATV thing.  In my book, that station's reputation is so tarnished already that it will essentially take Herculean effort to truly re-establish themselves as a possible force to be reckoned with in HK audience's eyes.  Personally, even after their announcement, I wasn't all that excited about their programs, as there really wasn't much that interested me except for that "See You Tonight" variety program that I might possibly watch, mostly out of curiosity to see whether it will truly be an "original effort" or merely a copycat of EYT (long-time TVB fans will probably remember that Ng Yu is still considered the "father of E.Y.T." and is largely credited with making that show the success it was for so many years, so it's hard for me to believe there won't be 'E.Y.T.' influences in the show).  The 2 series they announced so far I'm definitely not interested in – as I said above, I was never a fan of MDWAV so I could care less that they are doing a remake of it, but I did love the movie "A Better Tomorrow", which is one reason why I don't want to watch the ATV remake version because I know for sure they are going to butcher it (come on now – I don't care who they end up casting, no one is ever going to surpass Chow Yun Fat's iconic performance in that movie!).  With that said though, one thing I will say is that if the powers-that-be at ATV have been paying attention to entertainment news the last couple months, they perhaps would've heard the iconic film's director John Woo recently reveal that actor Mark Cheng was originally slated for the role of 'Mark Gor' but he turned it down due to scheduling conflict, so Chow Yun Fat got picked for the role (CYF was known as "box-office poison" at that time – he was a huge television star, but movie-wise, practically every movie he had made leading up to that movie had bombed).  To me, it would be interesting (and probably a huge talking / selling point for ATV) if they were to cast Mark Cheng in the lead role for the TV version – in a way, giving him a chance to fix a previously "missed opportunity"….but this is just me putting in my two cents…I actually have no idea who ATV is going cast in either series.

Concluding thoughts:  Basically, my approach with this ATV comeback thing is "wait and see".  As I said above, I'm not excited for any of their programs or artists.  On the contrary, I'm actually more excited about the internet series from other lesser name (in HK at least) production companies:  namely, OCTB season 2 (which will start filming next month) and also both of Fox Asia's HK series "Trading Floor" and "Stain'd".  The trailers for both series have been out for awhile already and even though both were only a few short seconds, the little I saw already blew TVB series out of the water big-time.   I read in the news that they recently did a special director's cut of "Stain'd" where they edited all 5 episodes into a movie length film and debuted it at the Macau Film Festival, where 2 of the series' stars Kara Hui and Tse Kwan Ho as well as director Patrick Kong were in attendance (the other lead, Anthony Wong, was not in attendance) – the film version was supposedly quite intense and gory (the story is based on a real life HK murder case – the infamous recent case of a teenager who hatched an intricate plot to kill his parents and dismember their bodies, then blamed the killings on the mentally ill friend who  had assisted him).  With 3 award-winning A-list actors leading the series, no doubt the acting will be top-notch!  "Trading Floor" also I'm excited about, mostly because of the cast (again, award-winning movie actors Francis Ng and Liu Kai Chi), plus the producer is none other than Andy Lau – the "big names" attached to the project and the guaranteed top-notch acting are enough to get me absolutely interested!

News article: Fox Asia series “Trading Floor” (香港華爾街)

Fox Asia recently announced that post-production for their highly anticipated series Hong Kong Wall Street has been completed and season 1 is scheduled to air first quarter 2018. Season 1 will only be 5 episodes and will have a movie-like quality. The way HK audiences can watch is very similar to Netflix – subscription basis via an app.

I'll post up more information once I have more time but for now, those who can read Chinese can check out this article from HK01, which is an interview with the series' star Francis Ng. I'm actually looking forward to this series, as there are so many veterans in it, plus so many big HK movie stars.

Anyway, more to come so stay tuned….

HK01 article