SCMP Article: Hong Kong film: from ‘Hollywood of East’ to China’s supporting cast?

After months of not posting anything (mainly because I've been super busy and haven't had time), I am finally back with an article I came across in my reading today that I wanted to share with you all.  I like this article because it provides keen insight into how the Hong Kong entertainment industry has evolved over the years and the impact that Mainland China has had on that evolution (or "de-evolution" depending on which way you look at it).  This article is lengthier than most of the other articles that SCMP puts out, but not long to the point of being a tedious read, as the amount of detail is sufficient to get the main points across.  I especially recommend this article to those who may not be familiar with the HK entertainment industry back in its glory days (the late 1970s, entire 1980s, and early 1990s), as the historical context gives a good glimpse into the past and also puts the current state of the industry into perspective.

Note that I only included the text of the article in this post, as I always have problems trying to get pictures to come out right when I do these blog posts via mobile.  Therefore, I highly recommend just going to SCMP's website and reading the article there so you can see the pictures that originally accompanied the article (there's a video clip too!).  The link is included above (in the "Source" section).

Hope you enjoy this one (I sure did…but then again, with the deplorable state of the industry currently, I've been in a nostalgic mood for a while now so articles like this – as long as they are done right – are usually nice reads for me).  Feel free to post your thoughts about the article below!

** Sidenote:  My apologies for not keeping up with this blog!  It's been a rough few months for me from a time management perspective and in weighing my priorities, unfortunately some things had to give.  With all that said, I'm not sure when I will next have time to post, but most likely I'll try to squeeze one more post in before the end of the year (I may do one about the TVB Anniversary Awards – depends on whether they piss me off enough to make me want to hop on my blog and rant about it until it's out of my system, lol).

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Article published November 30, 2018

Hong Kong film: from 'Hollywood of East' to China's supporting cast?

Source: SCMP

https://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/2175516/hong-kongs-film-and-tv-industry-after-40-years-chinas-opening

The past 40 years of reform and opening up in China have not only been about massive investments, infrastructure projects and turning the country into the world's second largest economy. The years of the Cultural Revolution left mainlanders with little to watch on television and at the movies other than propaganda. As China opened up, Hong Kong television dramas and movies offered a glimpse of the outside world, city life and of what China's big changes might bring.

When the mainland was ready to grow its own television and movie industry, Hong Kong producers and filmmakers played a crucial role, but the tables soon turned on the "Hollywood of the East". 

Today, mainland Chinese television serials and movies are immensely popular in Hong Kong, and dominate in terms of output, viewership, and box office receipts.

On a single Sunday in August this year, an episode of mainland Chinese television hit The Story of Yanxi Palace clocked up 530 million views online, setting a record.

Packed with drama, betrayal and intrigue, the 70-episode period drama won over audiences not only on the mainland, but also in Hong Kong, where it is 2018's most popular drama aired by Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), the city's largest television broadcaster.

Costing 300 million yuan (HK$338 million) to produce, the series is about a maid who goes to work in the imperial palace to investigate her sister's death and ends up a concubine of Emperor Qianlong.

Its huge success epitomises a major shift in the television and moviemaking scene over the past 40 years of China's economic reforms and opening up.

Where mainland audiences once lapped up made-in-Hong Kong serials and movies, mainland productions now dominate in output, box office takings and viewership, including online.

There is occasional tension and controversy over red lines – political taboos and censorship – as the mainland government has become more assertive.

And where once the themes and plots were scrutinised, today the political beliefs and public actions of artists can become the issue, and some are made to pay the price.

For the Hong Kong entertainment industry, the big question is whether future success lies in integrating with the mainland, or staying distinct.

Recalling the glory days, Hong Kong cinema veteran Tenky Tin Kai-man said: "We were the Hollywood of the East. A large number of talented individuals gathered in such a small place, competing with the finest, and selling to markets across Asia."

The actor and producer, who heads the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers, was a teenager when he joined the industry in 1979. Now 56, he said he felt lucky to have been part of the golden era of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Between 1979 and 1999, Hong Kong made an average of 133 movies annually, peaking at 200 a year in 1992 and 1993. Meanwhile on the mainland, fewer than 100 movies were made each year in the 1980s and the cinema industry even declined in the 1990s when television prevailed.

Dr Lo Wai-luk, a Baptist University associate professor specialising in the history of Chinese cinema, recalled that in 1983, the Jet Li martial arts movie The Shaolin Temple was watched by 50 million people on the mainland.

It was one of the few distributed widely in mainland cinemas in the 1980s because it was produced by state-funded Chung Yuen Motion Picture.

Many other Hong Kong titles by independent companies such as Cinema City and Golden Harvest, including those starring comedian Stephen Chow Sing-chi, circulated by videotape.

"Can you imagine people in Xinjiang gathering to watch a Stephen Chow movie by playing a shared tape?" Lo said.

Hong Kong movies had an appeal because of the mainland's restrictions on the themes, plots and characters in movies made there.

Tin said: "Hong Kong could produce plots that mainland producers dared not make, for example, about cops committing crimes and officials being under fire."

By the mid 1970s, the city's three television stations were churning out drama series more than 100 episodes long, whereas on the mainland, the Cultural Revolution had not yet ended and it was still years before the earliest television series would be produced.

Through the 1980s and the 1990s, a wave of dramas from Hong Kong swept across the mainland.

Actress and emcee Liza Wang Ming-chun, a Hong Kong television veteran of more than 50 years, remembered being invited to Guangzhou for her first live stage show there in 1979.

"There weren't many private cars. The bridge across the Pearl River was full of bicycles during rush hour. And the people there were dressed in black, white, grey and blue – very modest in general," said Wang, now 71.

"I could see their envy as they stared at us, the stars from Hong Kong."

Rediffusion Television's The Legendary Fok was the first Hong Kong drama imported and shown on the mainland, in 1983, two years after it was aired locally.

The hero, patriotic martial arts master Fok Yuen-kap, or Huo Yuanjia in Mandarin, was so popular that the 20-episode series was eventually broadcast across the country and even at prime time by state broadcaster CCTV.

Drama serials adapted from the martial arts novels of the late Louis Cha Leung-yung followed, including The Legend of the Condor Heroes and The Duke of Mount Deer. Stars such as Felix Wong Yat-wah, Barbara Yung Mei-ling, Michael Miu Kiu-wai, Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Andy Lau Tak-wah soon became household names on the mainland.

A defining moment for the popularity of Hong Kong productions arrived with The Bund, starring superstar Chow Yun-fat and former beauty queen Angie Chiu Nga-chi in a sprawling tragic romance that has been dubbed "The Godfather of the East". Its Cantonese theme song remains popular to this day among the mainland's Mandarin-speaking audience.

"Hong Kong stood for novelty, affluence, fashion and opportunities for mainland audiences coming  out of decades of isolation," said Zhu Ying, a Chinese television culture studies professor at Baptist University's film academy.

"Hong Kong dramas provided a window for mainland audiences to peek at the outside world."

Lo said Hong Kong movies made in the 1980s by a new wave of independent production companies and featuring more outdoor, real-life locations, had the same impact.

"Audiences on the mainland now could really see the city – for example, the shopping mall in Taikoo Shing where Jackie Chan was chasing after thieves in The Police Story series – as well as modern transport, the urban way of dressing, and business situations such as board meetings," Lo said.

All these images of Hong Kong city life gave mainland film-goers, long fed anticapitalist propaganda, a glimpse of things to come in China. The "capitalist poison" label previously stuck on these movies was gradually removed.

"People on the mainland realised that outside the mainland there was a place with its own cultural system called Hong Kong, where they could find things not available at home," Lo said.

But then the mainland began encouraging its own television and movie industry, and Hong Kong helped by supplying capital, professionals and know-how.

Wang said: "We made really big contributions to the mainland at the early stage of the reform and opening up process, bringing them techniques, art directors, machines, operational models and professional crews, because we knew much more than them.

"They didn't stop at purchasing copyright. They would hire the whole team behind a programme to run the show till they grasped every bit of the craft."

'Economic power confers cultural status'

The reversal of fortunes started in the 1990s, when new television stations mushroomed on the mainland, programme production boomed, and the country welcomed private and overseas capital for joint productions.

Mainland audiences soon had much more choice. There were still programmes about the Communist Party's revolutionary history and ancient literary classics, but popular new shows such as The Aspiration and A Native of Beijing in New York showcased themes of migration and entrepreneurship.

Perhaps the last major Hong Kong drama serial to be a hit on the mainland was War And Beauty, a 30-episode TVB period production about four warring concubines of Emperor Jiaqing in the Qing dynasty.

The 2004 series was aired on the mainland two years later and is believed to have inspired a hugely popular new wave of period productions about palace intrigue and infighting.

In 2011, there were at least eight such series made on the mainland, including the 76-episode Empresses in the Palace, which drew so much attention that Hong Kong's Cable TV picked it up to broadcast in 2012.

By 2007, mainland China had become the world's largest producer of drama serials, cranking out 15,000 episodes every year.

Output was so massive that traditional television channels could not keep up, and by 2013, the internet had become a major platform. The following year 250 series with a total of 2,918 episodes were made by or for online streaming portals.

Over in Hong Kong today, all three free-to-air broadcasters are relying increasingly on dramas imported from the mainland and South Korea.

"Things have changed now that the mainland has acquired its own level of chic and fashion and technique in producing its own sophisticated dramas," said Zhu of Baptist University. "The mainland has aggressively rebranded itself as the new land of opportunity. Economic power confers cultural  status."

Over the past decade, a number of popular mainland dramas have been directed or co-directed by Hong Kong directors.

"The mainland has a lot of space, talent and capital," Liza Wang said, pointing out that the sprawling Hengdian studio complex in Zhejiang province had full-size replicas of ancient palaces for period dramas, something space-starved Hong Kong could not provide.

The mainland pays better too. "Some artists can earn several hundred thousand yuan by singing a few songs. This is unimaginable in Hong Kong," Wang added.

Walking the tightrope of censorship

The Hong Kong movie industry has noted the talent drain, Tin said.

"The mainland market has yet to reach its peak," he said, adding that the big money was not only for stars but also backstage crews, with strong support for the cultural industry from local governments.

Last year the mainland's total box office takings reached a record of 55.9 billion yuan, almost 3.5 times that in Hong Kong.

But access to the mainland market has been difficult for Hong Kong productions, because China sets a quota of 64 to 74 imported movies per year.

However, joint productions offer the city's moviemakers a way in. An agreement treats movies co-produced by companies from the two sides as domestic productions and gives Hong Kong producers 35 per cent of ticket revenue, instead of just 15 per cent. The agreement was part of the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) signed between the mainland Chinese and Hong Kong governments in October 2003 to boost the city's economy, when it was struggling to recover from a downturn following the Sars epidemic that year.

Over the past 15 years, the proportion of joint productions leapt from about 15 per cent to over 60 per cent of all Hong Kong output. Three of the top 10 movie blockbusters on the mainland were joint productions, which earned between 2.44 billion yuan and 3.65 billion yuan.

But the issues of taboo subjects and censorship remain.

"Red lines have always existed," Tin said. "We don't know where they exactly are, or when and against whom they will be used.

He said many movies had not managed to clear mainland censors over the years, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

The result, he said, was that some Hong Kong producers adopted self-censorship, while others planted a few scenes they hoped the nitpicking censors would snip quickly and clear the rest of the movie.

When the authorities are displeased, their wrath is plain.

Taiwanese artists who openly supported students taking part in the "sunflower movement" protests against a services trade deal with the mainland in 2014 were severely criticised by state-owned media on the mainland as "smashing the rice pot they eat from".

Punishment may range from a torrent of online bashing, to having contracts cancelled, a heavy reduction of screen time, or outright bans on performing on the mainland.

Singer-songwriter Anpu, award-winning director Wei Te-sheng, television host Kevin Tsai Kang-yung, and actor Leon Dai Li-jen have all paid a price.

Several Hong Kong artists met the same fate for supporting civil disobedience protesters in the Occupy movement, which shut down several business areas for 79 days in 2014.

They included singers Anthony Wong Yiu-ming and Denise Ho Wan-sze, who participated in the protests, and actors Chapman To Man-chat and Anthony Wong Chau-sang, who defended the demonstrators and criticised authorities.

Hong Kong film with Chinese characteristics?

Hong Kong comedian Wong Cho-lam, who has been active on the mainland since 2010 and set up his own studio there two years ago, said: "Nowadays contracts stipulate that if an artist or director causes damage to the production as a result of personal ethics, a criminal offence or political stance, the person will be liable."

Wong, who sits on the political advisory body to the Guangxi government, was frank about pressure on cross-border artists.

"Some Hongkongers might put me under fire when I say I am a patriot, but if I refrain from saying so, some patriotic audiences might put me under fire," he said.

Wong said he did not believe in joint productions as a way to keep Hong Kong's movie industry thriving.

"I would rather make a movie either catering to the mainland, or in the Hong Kong style," he said. "Why don't we make something with a genuine taste and character of Hong Kong and introduce it to the mainland audience?"

Lo of Baptist University did not think joint productions would destroy the flavour of Hong Kong movies.

"Project Gutenberg was loved by mainland audiences," Lo said, referring to a film released in October.

Made with investments and stars from Hong Kong and the mainland, the movie had Hong Kong scriptwriting and directing. Lo did not think the story about a frustrated painter who becomes a master banknote counterfeiter could have come out of the mainland or Taiwan.

"Hong Kong movies must find their own ethos," Lo said. "Hong Kong movies do not have to seek distribution on the mainland if they can manage the budget and attract local audiences."

Tin thought Hong Kong artists should continue working to remove the negative labels on their peers who have run foul of mainland authorities.

"To isolate or ground someone who is found politically incorrect will cause a chilling effect, which is unhealthy," Tin said.

"To some extent, Hong Kong movies have lost their charm because we agreed to compromise our professional judgment and expertise."

Liza Wang believed Hong Kong's younger talent in television and movies had a land of opportunity in the "Greater Bay Area", which has close to 70 million people who understand Cantonese.

Beijing's vision is to connect Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in Guangdong province and create an innovation and technology powerhouse to rival California's Silicon Valley.

"There are so many people there who can understand our language and enjoy our work," Wang said. 

"And the market size is not as huge as the whole mainland so it should be suitable for young talent to get some exercise."

In March, Wang, kung fu star Jackie Chan and veteran comedian Eric Tsang Chi-wai were involved in forming a committee to help Hong Kong artists make their way into the mainland.

While Wang said she respected those who held firm to their political beliefs, she also said: "If you want to tap into a certain market, you must think twice about whether you should test the rules there."

 Additional reporting by Jane Zhang

TVB Series “Inbound Troubles” (老表，你好嘢！) Songs List

Just finished watching the series “Inbound Troubles” recently and I must say that I actually quite liked the series – totally unexpected for me considering I wasn’t too fond of the cast or the storyline in the beginning.  But after giving the series a chance, it turned out to be a pretty enjoyable series overall – one that kept me laughing from beginning to end while at the same time making me teary-eyed at certain points.

Since I might end up doing a review on this series later on (depends on my mood..LOL), I won’t go into too much detail right now.  However one important aspect of the series that I did want to talk about with this post is the ‘music’ component, since this was one aspect that made the series so hugely enjoyable for me.   The series actually incorporated a pretty good mix of songs throughout its 20 episode run – majority of the songs were ‘classics’ from the 80s and 90s era, however there were also a few newer songs interspersed throughout as well.   Not only did all the songs match perfectly with the storyline in each episode,  majority of the songs were also performed by the actors/actresses in the series themselves (which wasn’t surprising considering half the main cast consisted of professional singers) which was very refreshing to see.  At certain points, I felt like I was watching a musical more than an actual comedy TV series (though of course it’s not that I’m complaining, since I love musicals!!). 

Here I must give kudos to whomever it was (or were) that chose the songs to utilize in this series because they truly did a great job – all the songs were very relevant to the storyline and as an audience watching the series, the songs really did help draw me into the series more emotionally….though of course, it also helped that I was familiar with practically every song that came up in the series, since, as I mentioned earlier, majority of the songs were ‘classics’ from the 80s/90s era and so I grew up listening to all of those songs.  Oh and yes, the ‘Jacky Cheung’ theme that they did for quite a few of the songs definitely helped as well…LOL! 

In any case, here’s a recap of the songs that were sung (either partially or fully) in this series, including the official theme song and sub-theme song.  Note that this is purely a list of the songs that came up in each of the episodes and is meant for reference only (which is why I didn’t include any direct links to the songs).  Also, as much as I could, I tried to list out the song names in Chinese as well as English (loosely translated by me), the name of the original singer for the songs and also some background information as well, though of course this is not a ‘detailed’ list by any means.

Lastly, I went back and re-watched parts of certain episodes, however it’s highly possible that I missed a song or two somewhere, so please feel free to let me know if a particular song is missing.

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TVB series  Inbound Troubles (老表，你好嘢!) 

Theme song:  大家 (‘Everyone’) –  王菀之 (Ivana Wong) and 王祖藍(Wong Cho Lam)

Episode 1:    那誰 (‘Someone’) -- 蘇永康 (William So)

** Sung by Wong Cho Lam’s character ‘Choi Sum’ during the singing competition tryouts scene

Episode 4:  哥歌 (‘Brother’s Song’) --王菀之 (Ivana Wong)

** Sung by Ivana’s character ‘Ching Ching’ while she is at Meng Lo’s house (this was the song that she wrote for her brother, Roger’s character Ka Yee).

Episode 7:  舞女 (‘Prostitute’) --陳小雲 (Chan Siu Wan)

** Taiwanese song that Choi Sum sang during the karaoke scene with his dad

Episode 8:  愛不疚 (‘Love Without Regrets’) -- 林峯 (Raymond Lam)

* *Background song played while Bob’s character ‘Siu San’ was walking dejectedly in the rain

Episode 9: 

李香蘭 (‘Lee Heung Lan’) -- 張學友 (Jacky Cheung)

** Sung by Corinna Chamberlain’s character during practice session at Meng Lo’s (Mimi Chu) place

餓狼傳說 (‘Born to be Wild’) -- 張學友 (Jacky Cheung)

** Sung by the ‘scalper’ during the scene where Ka Yee tries to buy ‘God of Song’ tickets

頭髮亂了 (‘Messed Up Hair’) -- 張學友 (Jacky Cheung)

** The dance song that the ‘Oh Baby’ group sang at the charity dinner for the kids

                                     

祝福 (‘Blessing’) -- 張學友 (Jacky Cheung)

** Farewell song that the ‘Oh Baby’ group sang at the charity dinner and also during the bus ride when the group sees the kids off

Episode 11: 

媽媽 I Love You (‘Ma Ma I Love You’) --瑪俐亞 (Maria Cordero)  [sub-theme song for 1987  movie The Truth starring Andy Lau and Deannie Ip]

** The ‘demo’ song that  Mimi Chu’s character Meng Lo sings during one of the practice sessions with ‘Oh Baby’

你的名字我的姓氏 (‘Your Name, My Surname’) -- 張學友 (Jacky Cheung)

** Sung by Ivana’s character Ching Ching (along with Oh Baby group) during the first round of the singing competition

Episode 13:    我真的受傷了 (‘I Am Truly Hurt’) --張學友 (Jacky Cheung) [Written by Ivana Wong – there’s also a version she sings as well]

** Sung by Choi Sum and Ching Ching (with Oh Baby group) during the second round of the singing competition

Episode 14:  對不起我愛你 (‘Sorry, I Love You) --黎明 (Leon Lai)

** The doctor ‘Chan Zhi Mei’ sings a few lines of this song when he’s trying to pursue Joey Meng’s character Yik Suet Fei

Episode 15:  吻別 (‘Kiss Goodbye’) -- 張學友 (Jacky Cheung)

** Sung by Choi Sum during Oh Baby practice session at Meng Lo’s house

                           

Episode 17: 

傻癡癡 (‘Crazily Foolish’) -- 黎明 (Leon Lai) [Theme song for 1993 TVB series Romance Beyond starring Frankie Lam and Athena Chu]

** The song Choi Sum sings at the hospital when declaring his love for Ching Ching

星晴 (‘Clear Stars’) -- 周杰倫 (Jay Chou)

** Ending credits song (starts up during the last scene when Louis Cheung’s ‘Chiu Chiu’ sees Choi Sum and Ching Ching holding hands

Episode 18:  一段情 (‘A Relationship’) -- 鍾鎮濤 (Kenny Bee) and 彭健新 (Bennet Pang)

* *Sung by Oh Baby and Meng Lo at the hospital to encourage Yat Kit (Wong Gwong Leung) after his surgery

Episode 20: 

友誼之光 (‘The Light of Friendship’) -- 瑪俐亞 (Maria Cordero) [Theme song to the 1987 movie Prison on Fire (監獄風雲) starring Chow Yun Fat]

** Sung by Meng Lo (Mimi Chu) and Yat Kit (Wong Gwong Leung)  during their charity outreach at the prison (note the reference to the movie itself with the ‘cameo’ of Wong Gwong Leung’s character ‘Sa Biu’)

但願人長久 (‘If Only We Never Part’) -- 鄧麗君 (Teresa Teng)

** Sung by Ching Ching (Ivana Wong) during the last singing competition; also the ending segment for the series finale

My 'TVB Rant' #9: Can TVB Get Any More Obvious with Its Favoritism?

At first, I didn't want to write this post because I didn't want to give the particular artist mentioned in this post any more 'publicity' than he already has, but once again, TVB pissed me off big time and I needed to vent about it to get it out of my system. So here it goes....

I just finished watching the finale episode of the variety series "All Star Glam Exam (華麗明星賽)" hosted by HK veteran Cantopop band/group Grasshopper. Up until yesterday, I was fine with the show, as I feel that throughout the season, there were definitely funny moments and the show wasn't really 'raunchy' like alot of the other variety shows out there recently (except for a few episodes that sort of pushed the envelope) -- it's actually one of the few variety shows that I've been able to tolerate in the past few years (needless to say, the quality of TVB's variety shows, just like their series, have gone done the toilet!!). Plus I like the hosts, as I grew up listening to the music of Grasshopper, and they are one of my favorite HK Cantopop bands / groups (not that there are that many to begin with anyway).

However, after watching the two-part finale episode, my opinion has somewhat changed.

Just to quickly "set the scene" for those who did not watch the finale yet: since it was to be the last show of the season (and possibly the show itself, since Grasshopper will be going on a World Tour concert in the coming year, so won't be able to host the show anymore, at least for now), TVB had a "special edition" of the show in which 10 guests were invited on the show to compete in various categories for prizes and money (as opposed to the usual 4 to 6 guests). Most of the guests who were invited for the finale had already gone on the show before and only a few of them were truly 'brand new' to the show. The guests who are invited are usually 'friends' of each of the 3 Grasshopper, as the 3 of them are sort of ‘competing’ as well (if their guests win, they win) -- the 10 guests were paired up into teams of 2 to compete against each other. The teams consisted of: Sammy Leung and King Kong, Nat Chan and Mandy Lieu, Louis Yuen and Nancy Sit, Raymond Lam and Wong Cho Lam, Johnson Lee and Bosco Wong. In general, each guest participates in 5-6 rounds of games and the highest cumulative score wins -- with the finale, the scores of the 2 guests in each team are combined together to form the cumulative total.

There were quite a few things in the finale to "complain" about but for the purpose of this post, I am going to focus on one thing in particular -- TVB's obvious favoritism of their 'favorite son' Raymond Lam. From the time the show first started about a year ago, I just knew that Raymond was going to appear on 1 of the episodes -- just didn't know which one (of course TVB wouldn't give up on the opportunity to promote their favorite son even more!)...turns out his one and only appearance was on the finale episode in which he paired up with Wong Cho Lam to compete in the games (I have a feeling it was deliberately planned this way by TVB for reasons that I won't get into here).

From the very first ‘game’ that the guests played, the favoritism of Raymond Lam was already very obvious. In the first game segment called “King of Posing”, each of the guests are given a series of camera numbers (camera 1, camera 2, etc.) to memorize – then, as the theme music to the show (sung by Grasshoppers) starts up, they do a ‘catwalk’ along the stage (in whatever manner they like) and pose for the cameras during the appropriate pauses in the music – the object of the game is to face the correct camera when posing (according to the sequence of numbers the guests were given earlier) and to get as many right as possible (8 angles total). Of course, each guest had their own way of doing the ‘catwalk’ – some were funny, some were silly, some were serious, etc. But when it came time for Raymond’s turn, things were completely different. First, instead of using the standard Glam Exam theme music for the game as everyone else did, he was the ONLY one of the 10 guests who was allowed to use his own song for the game – obvious and convenient ‘plug’ on the part of TVB, no? (And no, I don’t buy into the “well, Raymond is a singer but the others are not” crap because both Bosco and Cho Lam are officially singers as well). Second, instead of stopping to pose for the cameras at the appropriate times, all Raymond did was pretty much dance around the stage in beat with his song, completely ignoring the object of the game (needless to say, he scored a big fat ‘zero’ on that game!). So my question is – why is it that Raymond Lam gets the ‘special privilege’ of plugging his song as well as his dance during this segment instead of actually ‘playing the game’ properly like everyone else? There were many singers who appeared on the show previously and none of them got the same ‘privilege’ of plugging their songs and completely ignoring the objective of the game, so why does he get to?

The other segment where there was obvious favoritism was during the “Great Grasshopper Meal’ game where the guests are all seated around the table and while given special dishes to eat, they are asked a series of questions. Each time they answer a question wrong, they are “punished” in some form -- i.e. their utensils are taken away and they must eat with ‘specially-made’ utensils (usually something silly like long chopsticks, heavy paperweight utensils, celery sticks, other food, etc.), or they have to wear some type of silly accessory (anything from silly hats to jewelry to glasses, etc.), or they have to sit on something through the rest of the meal (i.e. a balloon, a cone chair, etc.)….there were other ‘punishments’ as well, but those were the main ones. After one of the Grasshopper hosts reads the question from a card, they are supposed to pick one of the guests (or in this case, the team of guests) to answer the questions (which range from the obvious ‘giveaway’ type questions to the extremely difficult / trick-type questions).

Well, during this segment, Raymond (and his partner Wong Cho Lam) had the ‘privilege’ of only answering 2 questions (yes, I counted and it was only 2) and was only ‘punished’ once (since the other question they answered was super-easy), whereas everyone else was being asked difficult questions and were being ‘punished’ left and right. The other thing too is that technically, Raymond himself didn’t even answer any questions – he just sat there and ate while Cho Lam was asked the questions (the hosts even called on Cho Lam specifically) and gave the answers. For those who get a chance to watch this segment, you will definitely notice the ‘favoritism’, as after the host asked each question, they would call out each group EXCEPT Raymond’s, even if they were ‘next in line (Raymond and Cho Lam sat between the Nat/Mandy group and the Sammy / King Kong group). Several times, the hosts went around the table -- sometimes even in order, going from Nat’s group then to Sammy’s group (skipping Raymond’s group) then around the table again, once again skipping the Raymond / Cho Lam group once it got to their side of the table. Even my mom, who was watching the show with me (and she is certainly an ‘impartial’ audience, as she pretty much watches everything without bias towards or against any artist or any show), commented several times while watching the segment: “Hey, did they just skip over Raymond and Cho Lam again?” I think even the guests themselves were starting to notice it, as some of them had surprised looks on their faces when they kept getting called on (someone even said “me again?”) – it wasn’t until close to the end of the segment that Raymond’s group got called on (to put things in perspective, the guests were served 3 dishes during the segment and they went several rounds for each dish – Raymond/Cho Lam didn’t get ‘picked’ to answer any questions until the very last dish was served….). So again, why did Raymond / his team get the ‘special privilege’ of not being called on for most of the game? Is it because they knew he wouldn’t be able to answer the question(s) correctly and didn’t want him to make a fool of himself with the silly ‘punishments’? Or was it some other reason? I could go on and on with all sorts of ‘speculation’ as to why this happened (but again, I will refrain from doing so).

Oh, and to ‘add salt to the wound’ so to speak, of course all the entertainment news reports that came out after the filming of that particular episode were pretty much ‘all about Raymond’ (oooh, he finally appeared on the show; oooh, he was ‘chok’-ing all night, oooh, he looks so handsome up there, blahblahblah….) – in the scheme of things, the other guests didn’t get talked about as much (though it seems that no one complained, so I guess they don’t really care…or maybe they are already used to TVB’s ‘tactics’ and so just turned a blind eye to it?).

I honestly don’t know what TVB’s intention was behind the ‘favoritism’, but I do know that it’s unfair to the rest of the guests who actually took the games seriously and were ‘good sports’ with their participation (again, this is just my personal opinion – the guests probably didn’t even care).

Lastly, I know that some may argue that the hosts were the ones at fault for the favoritism in a sense because they were the ones who told Raymond to show his ‘chok’ look during the Pose segment and they were the ones who ‘skipped’ over Raymond’s team during the Meal segment. In response to that, all I am going to say is that no matter what type of ‘atmosphere’ the hosts create, at the end of the day, all of these shows are ‘scripted’ to some extent and with the show being “TVB-produced”, the company definitely has a say in things. So no, TVB can’t claim ignorance in this case! End of story!