Entertainment Newsreel #4: More TV-related news….

Lots of TV news this past week!  Below are some of the highlights of TV industry related news that I read about this past week.  Again, this is not an all-inclusive list and most of this is being written from memory so there's a huge possibility I missed some stuff.  If there is anything I missed that you would like to know about, feel free to put in the comments and I'll either respond there or put it in the next post if I remember….

TV News

HMV (China 3D)

-          Hmv (China 3D) chairman Stephen Shiu Jr.  held a press conference last week announcing his intention to foray into TV series production (for those who are not familiar, his company currently produces movies and also music).  Stephen Shiu Jr. said that he is interested in doing web series because that's the largest media platform aside from movies – with movies, audiences spend 2 hours watching and that's it, but with TV series, they could spend 30 hours or more chasing a series.  He will be entering the web series arena (like pretty much every other HK production company out there nowadays) and his series will be available in OTT format as well as via phones and tablets.  One thing that Stephen Shiu Jr. said during an interview which I thought was interesting (and I'm assuming a huge reason why so many production companies nowadays are going into the "web series" market) is that he prefers web series because there are little to no limitations on what they are allowed to do, versus "regular" TV series (i.e. the kind TVB films) where target audience is more family-oriented and so they are limited by strict broadcast regulations.  He also said whether they continue on the series production route will depend on whether this first series is successful.

-          HMV's first series has already been filmed and is currently available on their platform HMVOD.  The series is called "Hong Kong West Side Stories" and will be 13 episodes at 30 minutes each.   Louis Cheung will star in the series as will Myolie Wu (in what is touted as her first official "comeback" since giving birth).  I still need to read up more on the series so not a whole lot of information to share at this point other than the series is a comedy and Louis plays an "animal whisperer" (someone who communicates with animals).

Fantastic Television (i-Cables free TV arm)

-          Awhile back ago, when ATV made its "comeback" as an internet TV station, one of the highly-touted "recruits" to join their venture is former TVB GM and current CRHK chairman (CEO? I'm bad with the terminology) Stephen Chan, who will be hosting the 2018 version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire for the station.  Nowadays, where Stephen Chan goes, we are likely to see his buddy Wong He as well, which is why I was not surprised in the least to see Wong He also attend ATV's launch party (filling in as host for Stephen Chan, who fell ill and couldn't attend) and confirming that he will be hosting a weekly program for them.  Well, it turns out that in addition to hosting programs for ATV, Wong He will have another responsibility soon – he was invited by the new COO of Operations for Fantastic Television (i-Cable's free-to-air TV arm that "quietly" launched last year) to be Creative Director overseeing production of their TV series (OTT format of course).  The announcement hasn't officially been made yet and while Wong He alluded to it in a recent FB post, it is pretty much still a "rumor" at this point (and apparently, not everyone at Fantastic Television knows, as HK01 interviewed someone who works there and they only know Wong He is joining but don't know what capacity).

-          Personally, I'm not too surprised, as Wong He has always been a talented (albeit opinionated) actor who obviously has his own ideas on how TV series should be produced (when he was with TVB, he was very vocal about stuff that he felt didn't make sense and had no problems approaching scriptwriters to "tweak" dialogue and such that didn't flow right).  In the years since leaving TVB, Wong He has continued to film stuff (movies, TV series, hosting programs etc.) and took the leap into behind-the-scenes work as well, writing scripts and also directing/producing stuff (this is what I've gathered from his interviews the past couple years – I don't have any specifics on what types of projects he has been involved with though).

-          It will be interesting to see what Fantastic Television's vision will be in terms of TV series with Wong He at the helm.  Since they launched last year (to pretty much zero fanfare), they have pretty much been in the shadows will not much coverage about them in the media (I follow some non-mainstream media outlets and only hear of the programs they produced occasionally).  I know they did produce a few series earlier on (I think they were idol-type series focused on love and relationships) but not sure if those series ever aired or whether they will continue in that direction in the future.

ViuTV

-          Ok, this one is technically not related to ViuTV (at least not yet), but since the artist I'm writing about currently still "works" for ViuTV (well, at least he still attends various ViuTV functions) and the news has to do with one of their series, I figured this was the most appropriate place to put this.

-          Earlier, when it was announced that former TVB producer Jonathan Chik (who has moved his career to Mainland) will be producing a brand new Mainland series with the cast from his 2011 TVB series "When Heaven Burns" (a series which fared dismally when it aired but was later pushed up by netizens as a "godly series"), there was much talk about the reunion between that series' main leads Charmaine Sheh, Moses Chan, and Kenny Wong.  However, one lead's name is glaringly missing from this list:  Bowie Lam.  Of course, people immediately started wondering whether Bowie will be in the new series or not, since he was instrumental as one of the 3 male leads (and technically it wouldn't be a true WHB reunion without him).  Well, according to HK01's interview with Bowie (which was in an article that came out early last week), Bowie will not be participating in Jonathan Chik's new series.

-          When asked about the new series, Bowie said that Jonathan Chik never approached him about it (interesting though not entirely surprising).  He said that even if Jonathan does approach him, he wouldn't be able to participate anyway because he will be producing and starring in a series of his own this year.  Bowie said that his series is in its preparation stage right now with the script still being worked on – cast hasn't been decided yet, all he knows is that he himself will be in it.  The series will be co-directed by 'fat ball' and '25', whom some of us here will recognize as the directors of the series that Bowie filmed for ViuTV earlier, "Margaret and David: Green Bean" – Bowie will serve as executive producer as well as main lead (not sure if he is writing the script too, as he didn't say specifically).  Bowie said that he hopes the series will be able to air at the end of this year.

-          I'm actually kind of excited because I was probably one of the few people who actually watched "Green Bean" and really liked it.  I didn't really follow the production too closely at the time but I had heard there had been problems during filming because of discord between the series' producer / author of the books the series was based on and the directors/cast (@sport – since you know more about this than me, feel free to comment), so it looks like this series gives the directors and Bowie the chance to do what they had wanted to do with M&D but couldn't?  I will definitely be keeping my ears open for more information on this.

And finally….TVB

-          The big news last week (which I'm sure everyone knows by now) was that TVB held a press conference on 3/9 "officially" announcing the return of golden screenwriter Chan Po Wah (she wrote many great series but the one all of us fans remember the most is of course "Blood of Good and Evil").  Technically, this is "old" news because Po Wah Jeh had already indicated in previous interviews last year that she would be returning, it's just that she was still working on the script for her new series at the time so nothing official was confirmed yet.  Based on those interviews, Po Wah Jeh will be returning for this one series only (as a favor for TVB) and will continue her career in Mainland (which has been very successful) once she's done.

-          The name of the series is "Wonder Women" and it will be a comedy.  Most of the cast had actually already been announced previously (male leads will be Raymond Wong and Pakho Chau) but TVB had (supposedly) kept the female lead top secret so they could announce on the day of the press con (more on this later).  Of course, everyone knows by now that Miriam Yeung was cast as female lead and will be returning to film this series for TVB after a 17 year hiatus (her last series was 2001's A Taste of Love).  Miriam will be pairing with Raymond in the series – this will be a reunion of sorts for them, as both of them collaborated previously in the movie Love Undercover.  The interesting part is that Raymond's character in this series has the same name as his character in that movie (which to me is a sign that TVB is playing up the Raymond/Miriam reunion and using their previous collaboration as a gimmick to hype the series).

-          Personally, I like Raymond – he has always been a solid actor in my book and was unfortunately under-utilized by TVB most of his career (I guess having a background in movies didn't help him much).  From the looks of things, it looks like Raymond will FINALLY be first lead in this series given that he will be pairing with Miriam – but of course, this is TVB after all so who knows….it's pretty obvious that TVB is trying to promote Pakho big time so they could very well make him first lead and Raymond is just co-lead like usual.  

-          Speaking of Pakho – I watched the his interview with reporters at the press con on the news the other day and he actually said that he knew in advance that Miriam was cast as the lead on the female side.  Normally this is no big deal, but the reason why I'm bringing it up here is because there was so much hoopla over TVB keeping the female lead a secret up until the press con – in fact, TVB made it quite clear that only the top execs and the series' producer/director knew who the female lead would be.  Raymond said that he had no clue who the female lead would be and only found out when he saw Miriam walk onto the stage during the presscon (though he said that when he heard his character's name in the series, he did suspect for a brief moment that it could be Miriam but he didn't think it was possible given her status now).  So if only the execs and producer were supposed to know and it's obvious no one else from the cast knew, how the hell did Pakho already know in advance?  Sounds suspicious – either Pakho is claiming to know when he really didn't or TVB chose to share the information with him only, which tells me that in their eyes, they are considering Pakho as the lead who gets privy to "inside" information (this is the way TVB usually does things – when they have someone they consider a big enough lead filming for them, they will share all sorts of information with them…I honestly don't consider Pakho a "big name" but I guess TVB has different standards, as usual).

-          Personally, I'm not excited at all.  Chan Po Wah is one of my favorite scriptwriters and prior to this announcement, I truly was looking forward to her new series, but as soon as the cast was announced, all interest went out the window.  I like Raymond, but not to the point where I would watch every series he is in.  I'm not a fan of Miriam's and though I feel she is a competent enough actress, she's not someone I would be excited to watch.  No comment on Pakho, since I didn't watch his previous series (though I heard that his performance was very wooden) but I've never been a fan of his singing either so him being in this series means nothing to me honestly.  For me, the biggest reason to skip this series is because Tony Hung and Rebecca  Zhu are also co-starring in this – both are artists I can't stand at all (I've taken to turning off the TV whenever I see Tony on screen now, lol).  So yea, this one is a definite skip for me.

-          By the way, for those who are wondering – yes, this is the series that Chan Po Wah had originally said she had "written especially for" Sheren Tang…and yes, this was the series that triggered all those rumors of Sheren returning to film for TVB again after the fallout they had earlier (I saw some websites back then "report" Sheren's return as "confirmed" and "for sure" which honestly pissed me off because I hate such irresponsible reporting – one of my biggest pet peeves is when people try to pass off rumors as "confirmed truth" without doing their due diligence to vet the info….how hard is it to put "rumored" in front of the information so people aren't misled??).  Anyway, looks like whatever the original plan was for Sheren to star in this, those plans fell through – I'm not sure what happened (I've been trying to dig on both sides but so far haven't come up with anything).  Reporters did ask Po Wah Jeh at the press conference about Sheren originally being slated to star in this series, but she gave a vague response, saying something along the lines of "Sheren and I will get the chance to collaborate again in the future".  From Sheren's side, I know in earlier interviews (late last year), she had talked about being really excited to work with Po Wah Jeh again and all indication at that time was that the likelihood of her returning for the series was high.  Since I like Po Wah Jeh, I am going to give her and TVB the benefit of the doubt in this instance and assume that Sheren couldn't participate due to schedule conflict (though of course I have no idea how it went down).

-          One last interesting fact – in previous interviews, Po Wah Jeh had thrown around the idea of casting Sheren and also Francis Ng as the leads for this series, but now the confirmed leads are Miriam, Raymond and Pakho.  I don't know about you but to go from Sheren and Francis to  Miriam / Raymond / Pakho is a HUGE downgrade in my opinion.  Just saying….

My Thoughts on “Burning Flame 烈火雄心 3”

Just finished watching this series and figured I would post some comments about it. To be honest, I really didn't pay a whole lot of attention to some parts of the series, since I pretty much got bored, so technically, I can't really say that I "watched" the entire series (meaning I probably won't even remember much of it after this and most likely won't bother watching it again any time soon). Therefore, I am only going to comment on a few points that sort of 'stuck out' for me.

First, I must say that the original installment of "Burning Flame" (the one from 1999 with Wong Hei, Esther Kwan, Louis Koo, etc.) was way better and even the second installment was not bad (primarily due to the cast, which was quite impressive at that time). I actually wasn't even planning on watching the 3rd installment of this series because 1) I didn't even finish watching the 2nd installment and 2) I don't like the cast at all (the only one I'm able to tolerate from the cast is Wong Hei, but I hated his character in this series -- more on this later). So why did I watch it? For the simple reason that it was airing on TV and since I hadn't seen it yet, figured I would give it a try (I was multi-tasking at the same time, of course, which meant that I wasn't "seriously" watching the series).


The plot / storyline

Ok, so let's look at the plot / storyline of this series -- wait, was there actually a storyline? Well, if there was, it wasn't very appealing, since I barely remember any of it. The only things I remember from this series were the "grand" fire scenes and rescue attempts -- other than that, there really wasn't anything worth remembering....the rest of the series was pretty boring. Also, whoever wrote the script for this series must not be entirely in touch with reality because some of the scenes were REALLY far-fetched -- to the point where at certain parts, I was saying to myself: "And they expect us (the audience) to believe this???? Do they (TVB) think we are stupid?"

Two examples of this that really stuck out:

1) The scene where Bosco and Aimee are doing a rescue mission and are dangling from a rope atop a tall building....they end up falling (I don't know exactly how many stories but it seemed like alot) from the building and landing UNSCATHED on the huge bouncy tarp that the firemen put out 'just in time' right beneath them. Sound a bit far-fetched already? Well, wait til you hear the next part....at this point in the series, Aimee's character is 2 months pregnant -- and after 'the fall', everything was 'perfectly fine': no scratches, no bruises, and absolutely no harm was done to the fetus. In fact, she was pretty much able to get up from the tarp and 'walk away'.

Maybe it's just me, but this scene was really unbelievable -- I mean, any doctor (and probably any woman who has any knowledge of how pregnancies work) can tell you that the first 3 months when a woman is pregnant is the most delicate and dangerous because the fetus is not stable yet and the risk of miscarriage is extremely high. This is why most women (celebrities, for example) don't like to announce their pregnancies until after the 3rd month -- this is especially true with Chinese women, since our culture is traditionally very superstitious about this kind of stuff.

So then how is it that Aimee's character is able to fall from a 15 story (at least) burning building during the most delicate time of her pregnancy (when the risk of losing the baby is sky high and even a task as 'normal' as walking too long, stretching, or just being under too much stress could cause a miscarriage) and come away without as much of a scratch and still be VERY MUCH PREGNANT?!?!?!? I mean, that's unbelievable to the point of being outrageous!! I don't know about anyone else, but when I was watching that scene, I felt like they (TVB, the scriptwriters, the producer, etc.) were insulting my intelligence!

2) The other scene was the one where Kevin and Myolie get into a major traffic accident -- the car is flipped on its side and is in danger of blowing up. Myolie isn't able to get out of the car because her foot is stuck and Kevin is trying hard to pull her out. The fire trucks arrive, but before they are even able to get their equipment off their trucks, Kevin pulls Myolie out of the wreckage and both are shown running for cover just as the car blows up in a ball of flames (sound familiar? yep, typical TVB -- they use this 'action sequence' in almost every series, it seems). The next scene is a short 'hospital' scene where it shows that both Myolie and Kevin only suffered a minor injury from the accident (Myolie had a sprained foot and Kevin had a bruise on his head) -- then the next scene jumps to them all perfectly recovered, holding hands and walking in a shopping mall.

Ok, I'm not saying that there should be a major injury after every accident and I agree that miracles do happen sometimes -- but it's EXTREMELY rare....especially with an accident of that magnitude. And the 'choppiness' of the subsequent scenes made it seem even more unrealistic because it's as though the accident scene happened just to showcase the 'special effects' and then it was pretty much glossed over after that. Though I didn't feel as strongly about this scene insulting my intelligence as the other one did, I still felt it was pretty unrealistic.


The cast

As I stated earlier, I would not have chosen to watch this series on my own accord because I don't like the cast. Those who are familiar with my TVB viewing habits know that I can't stand the younger / later generation of TVB artists because their acting skills are severely lacking yet TVB over-promotes them and pushes them constantly in front of our faces. I won't get into all the 'political' stuff here (saving it for another TVB rant later on down the road) -- the one thing to note is that Kevin and Myolie are on my 'least favorite' TVB aritists list and I've never liked Bosco or Aimee. Out of the main cast, the only artist I am able to tolerate is Wong Hei because his acting has always been quite good and consistent. So obviously, this series was pretty much already doomed for me from the beginning, since the only thing that made the series possibly 'worth watching' would have been Wong Hei...

BUT....even that last glimmer of 'possibly worth watching' was ruined for me because Wong Hei's character in this series totally SUCKED!!! His character had a bad temper, was very irrational, was always acting brashly without thinking, was unreasonably stubborn, etc etc. I especially got annoyed over how 'obsessed' his character was with Myolie's character, becoming a 'tortured soul' when she broke up with him and even to the point of committing suicide for her....I mean, come on -- GET OVER IT!!!!

With how poorly his character was written, I was wondering why TVB bothered putting him in this series at all -- he didn't have a whole lot of screen time compared to Kevin and Bosco for one, and his character was in a coma for a huge chunk of the series anyway. As is typical of the way their politics work, I'm guessing that TVB probably put Wong Hei in this series purely because of his tenure and association with the "Burning Flames" franchise -- he pretty much started the whole 'fireman craze' back in the 90s and became hugely popular after the first installment -- to the point where over the years, when the audiences think of "Burning Flame", they automatically think of Wong Hei. So for the series to not include him, it probably would have been weird -- but still....if they are going to include him, give him a decent character to play at least!

In terms of Kevin -- well, his acting was the same as usual -- bland and wooden....plus I didn't care for his character at all -- it's like he's pretty much there just to take up screen time. Even Bosco's performance and character were better than Kevin's!! At least Bosco's character was interesting and provided some 'comic relief' in an otherwise depressing series (I actually laughed at his funny reactions to things in some of the scenes) – but overall, I’m still not too keen on watching Bosco’s series though.

And I’m not even going to comment on Myolie – all I’m going to say is that I absolutely HATED her character in this series!! I’ve never been fond of her acting in the first place (yes, there IS a reason why I don’t like to watch her series!!!).

In conclusion…..

It’s sad, but the only ‘character’ I actually enjoyed watching in this entire series was one that’s not even listed in the cast list during the closing credits – Bosco’s shar-pei dog Kapun (also his dog in real life). Perhaps because I have an affinity for Shar-pei dogs (I think they’re adorably cute!), so I was really drawn to this one (come on, how could you not love that cute little pouting face??). I was sort of disappointed that Kapun was only in the first half of the series though (ok, which darn writer was it who wrote him out of the series??) – since the ‘character’ I enjoyed the most was gone, the series pretty much went downhill for me after that.

My ‘TVB Rant’ # 4: Where’s Wong Hei??

I just saw something that I absolutely have to blog about – in my opinion, it’s another “injustice” by TVB (yea, what else is new?).

I was reading one of the older editions of TVB Magazine (Issue 677, dated 06/14/2010) and when I got to the ‘Drama Bible’ section (the ‘TV Guide’ section of the magazine with pictures and highlights from TVB’s currently airing series as well as episode summaries), I flipped through the section as I usually do. One of the series that started airing around that time was “Some Day” (天天天晴) – the new sitcom with Louise Lee, Teresa Mo, Wayne Lai, Wong Hei, Krystal Tin, Johnson Lee, etc. Since I like the cast (well, at least most of the cast) and the series just started airing, I figured I would flip through and read about the first few episodes.

As I was flipping through the section and looking at the pictures, I noticed something odd and a particular thought started formulating in my mind -- so I flipped back to the beginning of the section where the cast photo was so I could double check to see if maybe I was mistaken. After checking the cast photo, it turns out that I wasn’t mistaken after all and it further fueled something I was already thinking….

What was it that I ‘noticed’, you ask? I noticed that one of the ‘supposed’ main characters from the series is conspicuously missing from the cast photo and also pretty much relegated to 4th or 5th line artist in the cast listing. The artist I am referring to is Wong Hei.

Last time I checked, Wong He has always been considered a ‘first-line’ actor by audiences and by TVB (at least up to this point). I mean, he has starred as the main lead in numerous TVB series, his acting has always been at a pretty high level, and he has been at TVB for a long time – so in my book, he is considered a ‘siu sang’. But then why is he not in the cast photo, yet a lot of minor characters (some of which I don’t even know their names) are in it??? The answer is simple: TVB is playing their political ‘game’ again – their ‘favorites’ game….

Consider this: the male lead in this series is obviously Wayne Lai, as the series is pretty much supposed to revolve around him, Louise, and Teresa. That’s understandable, since Wayne was last year’s TV King and is a wonderfully awesome actor – so he gets the ‘middle spot’ in the cast photo (for the male side at least) and also ‘top billing’ on the cast list (again, for the male side). I have absolutely no problem with this at all, since Wayne is one of my favorite actors – in fact, I’m very happy that he is getting such recognition (though I must say that one funny thing is that at the time this magazine was published, Wayne had not even joined the cast of “Some Day” yet – he was wrapping filming of RB2 and would join the cast only in August).

Aside from Wayne, let’s look at the rest of the male artists participating in this series (the names are taken directly from the magazine): Wong Hei, Johnson Lee, Tsui Wing, Cheng Tse Sing, Law Tin Chi, Raymond Chiu, Matt Yeung, Geoffrey Wong, Jason Chan, plus the elder ‘green leaf’ veterans such as Lau Dan, Lau Kong, Lee Kar Ting, etc.

Out of this list, the ONLY person who is ‘lead’ material and has played numerous lead roles in TVB series in the last 7-8 years is obviously Wong He….everyone else is pretty much ‘supporting’ material and have never played leading roles in TVB series. So based on the above, one would logically think that with Wong Hei’s quality acting as well as tenure, he would be listed as ‘second lead’ on the male side – or at least have more ‘status’ than all the other male artists listed….

BUT, here’s the kicker – Wong Hei is not in the cast photo PERIOD….yet the other supporting and even minor characters ARE. Not only that, he is listed pretty low in the cast list – basically right before the minor characters and ‘green leaf’ veterans. Just so people can’t say I’m making things up, here’s the cast list from page 110 of the magazine (in the exact order as it is listed in the magazine): Louise Lee, Teresa Mo, Wayne Lai, Johnson Lee, Cheng Tse-Sing, Tsui Wing, Lee Lam Yan, Lau Dan, Krystal Tin, Aimee Chan, Raymond Chiu, Wong Hei, Candy Cheung, Lau Kong, Shuet Nei, Law Tin Chi, Jason Chan, Geoffrey Wong, Matt Yeung.

OK, I have to ask – WHAT THE HECK is TVB thinking???? I mean, not only is Wong Hei listed behind a bunch of supporting and green leaf actors, he’s also listed behind some guy (Lee Lam Yan) I’ve never even heard of!!! I would personally be insulted if I were Wong He.

So the big question is – why is TVB doing this to Wong Hei? Some can argue that perhaps he has a minor role in this series (though it doesn’t sound like it based on the summaries I’ve read so far). But I’ve got my own theory – basically, I feel that TVB is up to their old antics again – they pretty much hate Wong Hei (though they’ll never admit it) and are secretly ‘retaliating’ against him. Why do I think this? Several reasons:

1 – Wong He is no longer a contracted TVB employee – meaning that he no longer has a management contract with them (though I believe he still does have a regular artist contract with them that lists the specific number of ‘shows’ he needs to do for them). So from TVB’s perspective, who cares about Wong Hei? Just use him for his ‘name’ and popularity, then cast him aside.

2 – He is one of former GM Stephen Chan’s closest friends – not only has he continued to publicly support Stephen throughout the entire corruption ordeal, he has also visited him at home, gone to dinners with him, and was part of the ‘crew’ at Stephen’s press conference awhile back ago. Now, we all know the story of Stephen Chan’s downfall and the huge part that TVB played in it – TVB hates Stephen and since Wong Hei supports him (more than any other artist), they hate him too.

3- He is quite known in TVB for having a ‘fierce’ personality – meaning that he is quite independent and likes to do his own thing, which is sometimes viewed as being ‘difficult’. This also means of course that he is NOT ‘obedient’ to TVB (which is a big no-no) and therefore will not be a part of forwarding their stupid ‘political’ agenda (or play any of their ‘games’).

4- Wong Hei has absolutely no problems speaking out against TVB when they do something wrong – and he has certainly done it several times. Those who are familiar with TVB’s management (and politics) know that this is one of TVB’s biggest sore spots – they hate it when people criticize them or say something ‘unfavorable’ about them (even if it is the truth)!


To sum it up, what I am basically trying to say is that TVB is being petty again in this case – this is quite obvious with the way Wong Hei is being treated here.

Lastly, thank you for reading my long rant – all the above is purely my personal opinion and is not meant to convince anyone to lean toward one way or the other. Feel free to read it for what it is – a rant from a disappointed long-time TVB / HK Entertainment ‘follower’.