TVB 43rd Anniversary Gala (萬千星輝賀台慶2010)

TVB’s annual anniversary “birthday party” occurred today (yesterday in HK) – it was a bit lackluster compared to years past (well, it’s actually been lackluster for the past decade and can’t compare at all to the ones from the 80s and 90s)….

Anyway, here are some of the highlights from this year’s anniversary gala that I felt were worth mentioning (good or bad):

.> It was obvious that Moses and Wayne were the biggest ‘stars’ of the anniversary gala show, as they were probably the biggest names there in the ‘fa dans & siu sangs’ category. Many of the other ‘big names’ and TVB’s current ‘favorites’ (i.e.: Charmaine, Sheren, Raymond, Steven, Myolie, Bosco, etc.) were all no shows . There was also barely any representation from anniversary series GMG (well, the 3 main leads didn’t show up at least) – it was pretty much the NR / CBML anniversary gala if you ask me (the cast from both series were the focus and pretty much overshadowed everyone else).
*** SIDENOTE: Found out some more information about the GMG thing, but gonna save it for my next post, which will be another one in my “TVB Rant” series….

.> TVB pretty much recycled some of the same ideas from last year’s anniversary gala this time around – namely having artists who are not known for singing partner up and perform songs, having the veteran green-leaf artists (the 50+ year old crowd) do a song and dance number, doing the whole ‘wet dance’ thing, etc….the only difference is that TVB shuffled things around in terms of order and also they had different artists perform in those segments from the ones who did so last year.

.> I must say that the anniversary skit that they did this time around was one of the funnier ones from this decade (though not as funny compared to the ones from the ‘old days’) – it was pretty clever how Eric Tsang did a parody of Virginia Lok and TVB’s infamous internal politics (I was cracking up because a lot of it was so true and he would irreverently poke fun at it). Oh, and for once, they didn’t make a huge mess and ‘torture’ artists with whipped cream, water, etc. (though I did feel sorry for Moses, who was pretty much the only one who ‘fell victim’ to Eric’s shenanigans….).

.> The ‘3 Gods Award Ceremony’ was interesting – I was actually expecting it to be funny, but it wasn’t really. The only thing I liked about that segment was the first part when they showed pictures of a few artists when they were young – the Kiki ones were nice and the Evergreen part was hilarious (the Evergreen / Raymond Lam pictures were quite clever –hey, who would’ve thought that Evergreen as a teenager would resemble Raymond Lam?

.> The last segment where TVB artists whom we are not used to seeing them sing were paired up with the Voice contestants for a ‘sing-off’….the 4 artists who sang were King Kong, Evergreen, Kiki, and Eric Tsang. All 4 of them did pretty good jobs, but I was most impressed with Kiki and Eric’s performances: Kiki sang like a pro – the way she carried her pitch and tone…wow, she sounded like a real singer! And Eric – well, I’ve always known that he’s a good singer because I’ve heard him several times, but he definitely did an awesome job (hey, in my opinion, he sang way better than his partner Mag Lam!!!) Evergreen was ok, but I think he could have done better – probably because his Mandarin pronunciation wasn’t that great, so it distracted me a bit from actually concentrating on his singing. As for King Kong, well, he did good, but I’m actually not surprised because I thought I had heard of him before back when I was following Taiwan entertainment in the late 90s / early 00s and if my memory serves me correctly, I think that he was a professional singer? I could be wrong, but his name just sounds familiar.

Overall, the show was a disappointment – though of course, not too surprising given TVB’s lack of star power in the past few years. My assessment: if you didn’t get to watch it, don’t worry – you didn’t miss anything!

Thoughts on “Sisters of Pearl” Promo Segment

I happened to be watching TVB's entertainment news on TV yesterday and a segment came on regarding their new series "Sisters of Pearl." The cast was attending a promotional event for the series and everyone was dressed in their costumes from series. Very few of the series that TVB is coming out with this year look interesting and most consist of the same 'recycled' artists and scripts. But I think I may actually consider watching this particular series, primarily because of 3 reasons: First, the cast consists primarily of veterans (Michael Tao, Jessica Hsuan, Bowie Lam, Kiki Sheung, etc.), several of whom I haven't seen in awhile (namely Michael and Jessica) and second, the storyline sounds promising, as it is set in the pre-modern era and that time period / genre usually lends itself to some good storytelling.

The third reason is because of the chemistry of the cast. Michael, Jessica, and Bowie collaborated in "Files of Justice" in the 90s, which proved to be very successful -- so this series can be viewed as a 'reunion' of sorts for the 3 of them. Also, Kiki Sheung was in the same acting class as Michael (they graduated same year), so they are old "schoolmates" so to speak -- plus I'm pretty sure they collaborated back in the 80s, though probably not directly (they may have been in the same series, but did not share any scenes together). And of course, Michael collaborated with Joyce Tang in "Wasabi Mon Amour" so they're comfortable with each other as well.

Back to the promotional event segment....it's interesting to note that during the event, Michael stood out like a sore thumb. He was dressed in 'casual' clothes rather than the formal 'pre-modern' attire that everyone else was dressed up in. I mean, to a stranger with no knowledge whatsoever, it would look like he was just a bystander being asked to 'join the crowd' -- the only way you could tell he 'belonged' to the same series was the red "Sisters of Pearl" sticker he had stuck on his shirt. It makes me wonder whether he was actually 'invited' by TVB to promote the series along with the rest of the cast or whether he just decided to 'show up'.....in any case, I feel it's an indication of the strained relationship between Michael and TVB, which is unfortunate because this series is likely to be the last for Michael, possibly in HK. He has shifted his career to China recently and even openly said in an interview several months ago that there is 'very slim chance' that he would collaborate with TVB again. I won't go into all the history here, since it would go on forever, but basically, Michael was not treated well when he returned to TVB several years ago and has been quite outspoken about the unfairness of their internal politics and favoritism in the past few months, which of course ticked off TVB, since they don't like people saying 'negative' things about them (even though it's the truth)....so with this background, I am curious to see how Michael's character will be like in "Sisters of Pearl" and whether TVB once again gave him a lesser quality role or not....

To be honest, I was initially surprised that TVB is airing this series so early because I had thought at first that they were going to warehouse it. Reasons why I thought this -- because the series does not star any of TVB's current "favorites", the cast is comprised primarily of veterans (which TVB has a history of treating poorly), and in recent years, the trend with TVB is that they would warehouse all the 'quality' series and broadcast all the 'crappy' ones. The other reason why I thought this series would be warehoused is because of Michael Tao (for the reasons stated above). Now that I think about it more though, I can understand why TVB would not want to warehouse this series -- because they don't want to make it too obvious that they are 'retaliating' against Michael for talking bad about them....it makes sense and is pretty in-line with TVB's usual politically charged decision-making....

Well, at this point, I guess only time will tell.....I'll have to see what happens as the series actually airs.