News Article: Hoping for a breakthrough in relationship and career, Jessica Hsuan confirmed not returning to TVB

*** HOT OFF THE PRESS!! ***

Here's an article that just came out in today's issue of Mingpao Weekly Magazine that I felt would be a good idea to share...

First, for those who were wondering about a "Tiger Cubs" sequel -- well, based on the below article, looks like TVB definitely has plans to film the sequel, but they were waiting to see if Jessica Hsuan would accept the terms of the contract and come back to film it.  BUT, based on the article, looks like those plans will be scrapped now because Jessica just confirmed that she won't be returning to TVB -- she officially turned down their offer.

To be honest, I'm actually a little 'bummed' by this news because "Tiger Cubs" was one of the few series that I truly enjoyed watching last year -- not only that, it's also the only series that I really wanted to see a sequel made because for once, it actually MAKES SENSE (meaning that there's enough material for a sequel due to the 'individual story/cases' format of the series -- basically, continuing the story with the same characters wouldn't be a problem at all from a scripting point of view).  Since Jessica was such a critical part of the series, if she's not going to film the sequel, then that definitely reduces my 'interest' in wanting a sequel.  Such a pity!

Ah well...so much for that....

In any case, I will say that I'm happy to see that Jessica is doing work that she truly enjoys -- from the way she described her South Africa trip (both in the article and on Weibo), it's definitely obvious that she really enjoyed the trip (despite some of the 'issues' she encountered) and learned alot from it. 

Lastly, just a comment about the contract talks....Jessica stated that she was interested in filming the TC sequel and things looked positive on Tommy Leung's side, but in the end, the plans still fell through because of 'things' that both sides couldn't agree upon in the contract.  Well, based on everyone's 'knowledge' about TVB and what was implied in the article, I'm pretty sure we can all figure out what that 'thing' was that prevented Jessica from re-signing with TVB.   Personally, I'm 99.9% positive that the reason she didn't sign was because of the lack of freedom -- I'm willing to bet that TVB probably put some clause in there that restricted her from 'appearing' on other TV stations, which would have been a huge problem given the fact that she was already filming stuff for NowTV and might even collaborate with CTI in the future if the right opportunity comes up.  TVB (being the arrogant powerhouse that they are) probably refused to budge on the matter and Jessica of course was not going to let TVB tie her down again after being 'freed' from their grasp, so that probably caused the talks to break down.  If that's the case, that's truly sad....

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Hoping for a breakthrough in relationship and career, Jessica Hsuan confirmed not returning to TVB

Source:  Mingpao Weekly, Issue 2305

Translation:  llwy12

The lack of siu sangs and fadans at TVB is really becoming apparent.  With many artists leaving the nest the past few years as well as more and more of TVB’s own ‘biological’ sons and daughters heading up north to film series in Mainland China, TVB’s executives and producers are having a hard time finding artists for their series.

Former TVB fadan Jessica Hsuan’s (宣萱) contract with TVB expired back in 2011 and up until this point, she had not yet made a decision on whether she will re-sign a per series contract with the station.  Due to the good ratings and word of mouth for last year’s Tiger Cubs (飛虎), it’s been reported that TVB has been actively trying to persuade Jessica to return to TVB – in addition to using the filming of a sequel to Tiger Cubs as ‘bait’, TVB also sent production head Tommy Leung (梁家樹) to personally discuss the matter with her.  In the end however, things did not work out, as Jessica recently confirmed that she has officially declined TVB’s offer.

Asked about the matter, Jessica admitted that the discussions with TVB have ended:  “It’s true – I’ve officially replied back to TVB already and confirmed that I won’t be returning.  The main reason is because during the contract talks, there were some things that we couldn’t come to an agreement on.  I’m enjoying the position I’m in currently where I have the freedom to choose different types of jobs.”

Even though Jessica’s contract already expired back in 2011, the series Tiger Cubs, which she starred in last year with long-time partner Joe Ma (馬德鐘), became an unexpected success when it aired last year in the weekend time slot.  Not only did the series garner good word of mouth, it also broke ratings records by peaking at more than 30 points – a rare feat in that particular time slot.  To keep up the momentum, TVB already has plans to start filming a Tiger Cubs sequel in June – since the series’ leading actor Joe Ma already re-signed a ‘per series’ contract with TVB last year, all that was left was for the series’ leading actress Jessica Hsuan to return as well so they could move forward with the plans.  However, looks like those plans will have to change now.

Jessica expressed:  “I’m definitely interested in filming the Tiger Cubs sequel, since Joe and I collaborate well – on Tommy’s side, everything is fine as well.   But unfortunately, during the course of the contract discussion, there were some things that both sides were not able to agree upon.  I already responded back to TVB – since I’m not able to do it, no point in keeping things open-ended.  Actually, in the past year that I’ve not had any contracts to worry about, I’ve had a lot more freedom in choosing my jobs and the feeling is great!  I want to do work that I enjoy and even if it’s filming series, I still want to have new breakthroughs and try different types of roles.  I understand TV stations wanting to go the ‘safe’ route, but after 20 years of playing the same ‘professional career woman’ roles, it starts to get boring.  That’s why I was willing to accept the role in Curse of the Royal Harem (萬凰之王) – since it was the type of character I had never played before, both my fans and I were very excited about the opportunity.  Even though my performance [in that series] wasn’t tremendously good, at least there was a sense of ‘freshness’ to the role.  I’m not the type of person who just takes a paycheck every month and that’s it – money is definitely not the most important factor.”

All along, there have been rumors that CTI’s Ricky Wong (王維基) has been actively trying to persuade Jessica to join his company.  Towards this, Jessica responded:  “Since I’m a free artist now, of course I’m not going to rule out the possibility of collaborating with any company – at this point, it pretty much depends on the role, the script, the terms of the collaboration, and whether my schedule permits.”


Filming for NowTV as a free artist

With her status as a ‘freelance’ artist for the past year, Jessica recently traveled to South Africa to film a special documentary program for NowTV and in the coming months, will be filming an animal-themed program for them:  “I will be hosting 6 to 7 episodes of the program.  It won’t be a program about pet grooming or taking care of pets, but rather, it will provide audiences with information on how to adopt abandoned cats and dogs.  Jobs like this one where I can share my experiences with others and do something that benefits society at the same time, I’m very willing to accept!  Just like with the South Africa documentary earlier, that was also a job that I really wanted to do – not only did I get the chance to meet new people and expand my social circle, I also got to interact with nature and rare animals – definitely a very enjoyable experience!    This time in South Africa, I also got the chance to try their local foods that were cooked very simply over a fire with only a few spices added, yet it was very delicious and tasty – it made me realize that sometimes, the most simplistic things are the most beautiful and also the happiest;  having lived in a big city my entire life, getting the chance to experience nature like this is a very comfortable feeling.”   As an animal-lover herself, the trip also gave Jessica the opportunity to ‘interact’ up close with various exotic animals such as giraffes, seals, cheetahs, etc.:  “I wasn’t afraid of interacting with the cheetahs because I had Walter Kei (紀曉華) with me [TN: Walter is a renown travel and food columnist in HK and China] – if the cheetahs were to bite, they would bite him first…haha!  But actually, the cheetahs were quite cute.  During my trip, I also ‘kissed’ a huge frog – the production crew teased that I kissed the frog because I wanted it to turn into a prince!”


Potential suitors in her life

Of course the frog didn’t turn into a prince, but what about Jessica’s love life?  Any potential suitors?  Earlier, Jessica was photographed ‘shopping’ with singer Fiona Sit’s (薛凱琪) ex-rumored boyfriend Reggie Martin.  Towards this, Jessica laughed and stated:  “Reggie is only a good friend whom I met through another friend -- we’re not dating!  Sometimes, when Reggie comes over from Macau, we would get together and have dinner along with other friends – in fact, just recently, I had dinner with him and also Michael Wong (王敏德) and a few others.  I actually have a lot of male friends and even though the Media always tries to create rumors, my friendships with them are never affected.”

Entering the year of the snake, a few geomancers predicted that Jessica will experience breakthroughs in her love life and career this year:   “Hopefully!  I also hope that there will be breakthroughs in both this year – happy to hear it!  I might appear very Westernized with certain things, but inside, I’m quite traditional.”  (Any potential suitors right now?)  “Yes, but so far, I haven’t met ‘Mr. Right’ yet.”


TVB’s response

Towards Jessica Hsuan turning down TVB’s offer, head of production Tommy Leung expressed:  “Earlier, producer Lam Chi Wah (林志華) [TN: the producer for Tiger Cubs] did talk to Jessica about it [filming the sequel].  I found out about a week ago that Jessica already responded and expressed that for the time being, she’s not interested in discussing it anymore – therefore, with regard to the Tiger Cubs sequel, we will need to go back and look at the storyline and casting again.  As of right now, Joe [Ma] will most likely still participate in the series."

Interview with veteran TV actor Wilson Tsui: Finally ‘promoted’ to male lead

Here’s an interesting interview with another one of my long-time favorite veteran ‘green leaf’ actors (yes, I obviously have MANY of them) – Wilson Tsui.


Again, just like with many of the other veteran artists, I grew up watching Wilson in TVB series and to me, he has always been a solid actor. Interestingly enough, despite the more than 3 decades that he’s been with TVB, I really can’t remember too many of Wilson’s roles from the past decade – most of the roles that I remember most of his (and the ones that were most ‘impactful’) were from the 80s and 90s, which to me, shows how underutilized he was when he was the past few years especially.

And honestly, it’s truly sad that a talented actor has to work 33 years in order to get the chance to be a lead in a series when other so-called actors/actresses who can’t act to save their lives get to lead series almost immediately! (It’s the same situation with Wayne Lai, who was also mentioned in this interview – look at how long it took TVB to ‘recognize’ his talent? 20+ years!). When I hear stories like these, I can’t help but respect the dedication and passion that these artists have for their craft – I mean, unless you truly truly love what you do, how is it possible to continue persevering in such a harsh environment for 10, 15, 20, even 30 or 40 years without getting much in return? Most people would probably have quit and changed careers after 10 years if they were going absolutely nowhere in the environment they were in!

I’m not going to comment to much on the article as usual, since it pretty much speaks for itself – but one thing I do want to bring some attention to is the ‘unwritten rules’ part of the interview where Wilson describes how the decision to cast artists in particular roles generally falls into the hands of a few select people – he’s actually not the first one to talk about this, as there are quite a few other artists and behind-the-scenes people who’ve mentioned this in the past. (One of the more recent examples I can think of is former TVB scriptwriter Chow Yuk Ming revealing in a college seminar 2 years ago that TVB producers don’t always have a say in who gets cast in certain roles – even if the producer feels that a particular artist is ‘made’ for the role, they are sometimes ‘forced’ to use another less suitable artist for the role due to pressure from the higher ups…).

So basically, for those who were not sure if such ‘politics’ truly existed at TVB (or were unwilling to believe it before) – well, the answer is ‘yes’, such stuff actually does exist. Of course, TVB isn’t the only place where it happens and who’s to say that the same crap won’t happen in HKTV (CTI) in the future too once they become more established? All the more reason why there should be more TV stations in HK to provide more ‘options’ for not just us audiences, but also a ‘way out’ for artists like Wilson who can continue to do the job they like in an environment that’s better suited for them. I mean, honestly – people who work in every other occupation in HK have the ‘option’ to choose which company they would like to apply to and work for….why should TV actors/actresses in HK not have that same ‘right’??

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Interview with veteran TV actor Wilson Tsui:  Finally ‘promoted’ to male lead

Source:  HK Channel

Translation:  llwy12

There’s a Chinese saying that goes something like this: ‘A fish that experiences different ponds becomes more fertile.’


In the 33 years that he worked for TVB, veteran actor Wilson Tsui (艾威) was only considered a ‘several hundred dollar per show’ green leaf king – at most. But 4 months ago, when he decided to ‘jump out of the pond’ and join rival station HKTV (formerly CTI), his ‘worth’ immediately increased tenfold and with barely a need for convincing, he has finally achieved a position that eluded him for years: leading male actor.

Throughout the ‘making’ of television history in the past few decades, many people have had important roles – examples in the recent decade include Ricky Wong (王維基), Wayne Lai (黎耀祥), Lee Tim Sing (李添勝), etc. The great effort and ‘fighting spirit’ of people like them have been an inspiration to many of the ‘small workers’ who desire to strive for the best and continue to struggle their way up to the top. Wilson Tsui is precisely one of these ‘small workers’ who received such ‘enlightenment’ – the birth of a new TV station will hopefully become one of those ‘once in a thousand years’ opportunities that can give many ‘small workers’ in the industry new hope and a chance to realize their dreams.

Currently, with the first dawn of this new era, 57 year old Wilson Tsui is finally able to realize a dream – that of becoming a lead actor.


Waiting quietly for talent to be recognized

Having taken the time to dress up and prepare for the interview, Wilson had an especially cheerful aura about him, a rare feeling of happiness and satisfaction that he hadn’t experienced in a while. Towards his new work environment and new job position, Wilson has nothing but praise: “There’s less pressure, more space, and lots of freedom – I’m very satisfied with the environment I’m in right now. Even though many of the people I currently work with are old colleagues whom I’m already familiar with, many things have changed and it’s because of these changes that I’m finally able to reach the ‘first line’ level -- I firmly believe that if I had remained in the ‘old world’ [at TVB], it would have been impossible for this [getting a lead role] to happen. Today, the ‘transformation’ I’ve experienced can be considered a success, but if I hadn’t taken that step [leaving TVB], I know that I would never get the opportunity to climb to this position and never would have a breakthrough.”

The people may be the same, but Wilson himself has definitely changed. Getting to ‘taste’ the feeling of being a ‘leading actor’ for the first time, Wilson expressed: “In the past, I was a ‘border’-line artist: not first line, nor second line either, but rather ‘stuck’ on the border between second and third line – if I didn’t leave, that would have been my ‘fate’ at TVB forever. So to me, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity – of course my goal is to get to ‘first line’, but even if that doesn’t exactly happen, at least the effort was made and I was given the opportunity. I guess you could say that at the current moment, my ‘dream’ has been realized, since in the new series Three Sides of Shape Doctors (三面形醫), I get to be one of the main doctors alongside Frankie Lam (林文龍) and John Chiang (姜大偉) – it may not be the main leading role, but at least it’s a leading role.”

When he was little, Wilson and his family lived in a flat right above the Hollywood Theatre, so watching movies became one of his favorite past-times. Being a super movie fan since childhood, it’s no surprise that over the years, he cultivated an interest in acting; in 1978, Wilson was accepted to TVB’s Acting Class – his classmates that year include Kent Tong (湯鎮業) and Liu Kai Chi (廖啟智). Reflecting on his years at TVB, Wilson expressed that his ‘golden opportunity’ period was very short-lived: “When I filmed Plain Love (情濃大地) with Gallen Lo (羅嘉良) and Eddie Cheung (張兆輝), I played the main villain and the reaction [from audiences] was pretty good – not sure why the momentum didn’t continue on in later series. Perhaps I was just lacking a person who understood me and could recognize the potential -- you know, like how Wayne [Lai] had Tim Gor [producer Lee Tim Sing] – someone who understood and was willing to continue working with you until you made it to the top and everyone else recognized the talent too. I seemed to lack this type of supportive ‘partner’.”

With his passive and introverted personality, Wilson expressed that at one point, he ‘forced’ himself to accept the many ‘unwritten rules’ that exist in the TV industry, but in the end, things didn’t turn out favorable: “Some producers dislike artists who try to ‘sell’ themselves, so most of the time, others do the ‘selling’ for the artists. One time, I found out there was a character that the producer wanted to cast me in, but because some people who didn’t like me had an ‘opinion’ about it, I ended up losing the opportunity. At TVB, the decision of who gets to play what type of characters is usually controlled by a select few people and over time, it’s really these few people who ‘call all the shots’ – if your viewpoint happens to be different from these select few or they don’t know you that well, that’s how a lot of the opportunities could be lost.”


Ambitious, hopes to have a hand in creating a miracle

Looking at some of the TV industry ‘success’ stories from the past years, definitely causes one to reflect: CTI chairman Ricky Wong started his telecom business from scratch and after building it into a successful empire, decides to sell his ‘son’ [the telecom business] in order to start a new venture of building a TV station; Wayne Lai, who started off as an unknown ‘kelefe’ actor, worked hard for decades to refine his acting and eventually climbed his way to the top, becoming 3-time TV King; even ‘golden’ producer Lee Tim Sing, who started as a lowly worker in the props department, slowly worked his way up and at one point, even served as TVB’s Head Director of Production [back in the late 80s/early 90s]. For Wilson, these types of ‘success’ stories are a source of inspiration and part of the reason why he deeply believes that ‘miracles’ do happen: “It’s just like winning the lottery – with some luck and these types of inspirational stories, it’s definitely motivation for ‘small workers’ like me to want to work hard and advance to that level. Sure, some people may feel that I’m being too ambitious – after all, I don’t have the looks nor the qualifications, plus my age – with all the external factors, I know that people will laugh at me. Perhaps people may think that I can’t get to a high position, but just like any other consummate actor, all we hope for is being able to play a good character that has a deep impact on audiences. What types of roles have this impact? Usually the lead roles, as those are the roles that get you recognized and have the most opportunity for development. There’s no reason for me to put myself down and say that I can never get to that type of position – others can say that about me, no problem, but I should never say that about myself – it’s important to have confidence!”


Not afraid of getting on a ‘sinking boat’

Even with the issuance of new free TV licenses at a standstill currently, Wilson still gets his salary from HKTV on time every month -- however he still very much dissatisfied with the sluggish manner in which the government has handled the matter: “I’ve never been to a place where there is only one active TV station and the other one is just a ‘shell’ – and I thought HK was supposed to be an ‘international’ and modern city? The reality is, a television ‘revolution’ and the issuance of more licenses is inevitable if we want to catch up with the rest of the world. Hopefully the government is able to handle this matter in a harmonious manner. It’s not about ‘eliminating’ any particular TV station, but rather it’s a matter of responsibility on the part of the government to promote the growth of the TV industry -- they shouldn’t be waiting until there are so many complaints and criticisms to issue the licenses. Having more TV stations and opportunities is supposed to be a happy thing!”

With HKTV not having its license yet, there’s a ‘risk’ that the boat might sink – towards this, Wilson expressed: “It has never been a concern for me – I still do my job of filming series. I can tell you that the morale of all my colleagues over here is very high and everyone from top to bottom is very united.” With the infectious unity and positive spirit that the HKTV team possesses, it’s no wonder that even Wilson himself was ‘moved’ to personally attend HKTV’s promotional rallies to pass out fliers: “Production is truly taken very seriously here and our boss is very willing to spend whatever money is necessary to achieve high quality filming. Majority of the series are filmed in real locations and even if sets need to be built, they are all ‘working’ sets. For example, when filming Three Sides of Shape Doctors, $700,000 was spent building a medical clinic set at the Shing Fung Film Studio – all the faucets had actual running water, the computers were all real and capable of going online, and we were able to plug our I-phones into all the working outlets to charge! Earlier, for the series Hakka Women (客家女人), we traveled to MeiZhou (in Fukien, China) so we could film inside a real life Hakka village! Real location filming allows both the cast and crew to more fully immerse ourselves in the filming, which results in a very sincere, high quality production for audiences.”

Jacky Cheung gives up on opportunity to appear on CCTV’s Chinese New Year Gala

**Note:  I decided to list the article first this time --my comments are listed after the article.

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Jacky Cheung gives up on opportunity to appear on CCTV’s Chinese New Year Gala

Source:  Mingpao; Weibo

Translation:  llwy12

Every year, CCTV’s CNY Spring Festival Gala show is an event that many artists from across Asia hope to get the chance to attend, since ‘appearing’ on the show usually means an ‘increase’ in an artist’s worth. Well, for many artists this might be the case, but not for HK’s ‘God of Songs’ Jacky Cheung.


Earlier, CCTV had ‘jumped the gun’ and announced that Jacky was ‘confirmed’ to perform in the station’s upcoming Spring Festival Gala, however not long after the announcement came out, Jacky’s manager Florence Chan denied the ‘confirmation’ – she clarified that Jacky was indeed invited to attend the gala, however both sides were still in discussions and no agreement had been reached yet.

Yesterday, Florence Chan and the Spring Festival Gala’s organizers officially issued a joint statement expressing that Jacky regrettably won’t be performing at this year’s gala.

[TN: Instead of translating the paraphrased contents of the statement from news reports (which are often ‘spun’ a certain way), I decided to translate the official statement released by CCTV & Florence Chan instead.]

Below is the official statement in its entirety:

From the moment that this year’s Spring Festival gala committee was established, an invitation to perform at the 2013 gala event was extended to Jacky and throughout that time, the gala committee has actively been in communication with Jacky’s side on the matter. Throughout the [discussion] process, both the gala committee as well as Jacky have treated this opportunity to perform with utmost enthusiasm and sincerity: in its preparations for the event, the gala committee had reserved a spot in the rundown as well as a time slot for Jacky; meanwhile, Jacky himself also allotted time in his schedule for the event.

Jacky has always been a performing artist who possesses extremely high standards for himself. Due to the special importance placed on the Spring Festival event by both parties, active discussions continued to take place these past few months in the hopes of creating a different and worthwhile show to spend the Lunar holiday with Chinese audiences all around the world. This has also been the key focus of the discussions in the past few months.

However, with extreme regret, after months of strong mutual effort, both sides have not been able to reach an agreement on the contents and format of the Spring Festival performance. Therefore, after much careful thought and consideration, Jacky has regrettably decided to give up the chance to appear at this year’s Spring Festival Gala event. Towards the sincerity of the gala committee throughout the discussion process, Jacky is extremely grateful and will forever remember it in his heart! Jacky “sincerely wishes that one day he will be able to fully prepare himself to give a great performance at the gala.”

Towards this decision, the gala committee expresses extreme regret, however we completely understand the reason for the decision and respect it. We believe that all audiences and fans will understand as well.

Jacky Cheung’s manager Florence Chan AND
2013 CCTV Spring Festival Gala committee
(2013-1-6)

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My Comments:


Ok, as most Jacky fans already know by now, an ‘official’ statement was released by Jacky’s manager Florence Chan and CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala committee confirming that Jacky won’t be performing at this year’s gala event after all.

Well, for those who didn’t know, there’s actually more to this story – it all started a few months back when some lame person (don’t know who) on the gala committee’s side ‘jumped the gun’ in announcing that Jacky was “confirmed” to be performing at the Spring Festival. As most of us fans know, Jacky is invited to the gala every year, but each time, he turns it down. Why? Simple – because ever since getting married and having kids, Jacky has always reserved the Chinese New Year holiday period to celebrate with his family (it has become a ‘tradition’ of sorts). So of course, it’s no surprise that Jacky would turn down the opportunity, being that he is such a family man. That’s why when the ‘confirmation’ was announced, many of us were scratching our heads wondering what was going on – a few of us die-hard fans immediately suspected that perhaps something was up and questioned the validity of the ‘confirmation’. Luckily, there are still some ‘decent’ Media outlets out there and one of them actually called up Mrs. Chan (Jacky’s manager) to ask her – just as we thought, the ‘confirmation’ announcement was ‘false’….the 2 sides were still in discussion and no agreement had been reached at the time. The funny thing is – it wasn’t until the report of the conversation with Mrs. Chan came out that the gala committee ‘changed its story’ to say that they were still in discussions with Jacky’s side and nothing was confirmed yet.

Jacky declining CCTV’s Spring Festival offer has apparently caused a ‘huge’ controversy this time around, especially since Jacky recently appeared on JiangSu TV’s (Mainland TV station) Countdown show this past New Year’s Eve. There are currently all sorts of reports out there that are trying to ‘speculate’ on why Jacky decided to turn down the offer. In fact, one stupid Mainland media outlet even had the audacity to try and drag Jacky’s name and reputation through the mud by “claiming” that Jacky ‘was afraid’ to perform at Spring Festival because he ‘performed badly’ at the Jiangsu New Year’s Eve Countdown show last week! WTF??? That is the biggest LIE I’ve ever heard in my life (and for those ignorant people out there who even for a minute believed what this stupid Media outlet reported – well, go watch the clips of Jacky’s performance at JSTV’s countdown show and then tell me whether that lame report is worth believing or not!!!). [By the way – not surprisingly, the freakin’ Media outlet that reported this LIE is ‘coincidentally’ the same one that printed that FALSE report a couple weeks ago that Jacky didn’t want to appear on a particular Mainland station’s New Year’s Eve countdown show because he didn’t want to be on the same stage as Andy Lau! What a load of crap!]

Ok, I’m going to say this once and once only: Is it really THAT HARD for the HK and Mainland Media to accept the fact that Jacky wants to spend time with his family and therefore turned down the Spring Festival offer? Must there be an “ulterior reason” for every single decision that’s made involving celebrities? I mean, come on people – at the end of the day, celebrities are ‘ordinary human beings’ just like everyone else – they have family and friends that they want to spend time with, just like you and I do! I don’t understand why it’s so hard for some people to accept the fact that there are some celebrities out there who actually value family and are willing to sacrifice huge money-making opportunities in exchange for quality time with their families!  Aiye…..

Anyway, now that I got that rant out of the way….my personal take on the official ‘joint statement’ is this:  it’s obvious that Jacky and his team are taking the ‘high road’ and giving CCTV a ‘ladder’ to come down (aka saving face for CCTV’s gala committee), since, as I stated above, the committee had made the mistake of ‘pre-announcing’ Jacky’s attendance at the Festival. I mean, let’s be honest here – Jacky does NOT have to justify to ANYONE why he decided to turn down the performance offer and since CCTV pretty much screwed him over with that ‘pre-announcement’ (which was widely viewed as the gala committee’s way of ‘pressuring’ Jacky to accept the offer or risk ‘disappointing’ legions of audiences around the world) – yet he decided to go the ‘forgive and forget’ route and in essence put the blame on himself for not accepting the offer! How many people are willing to do that? I know I probably wouldn’t be able to and I’m not even a celebrity! Definitely speaks volumes to Jacky’s character – no wonder he is so respected by everyone, both fans and non-fans alike!

Mingpao Interview with veteran TVB actor Benz Hui: ‘Honest Guy, Honest Fortune’

Here’s an interview that veteran ‘green leaf’ actor  Benz Hui did with Mingpao Weekly magazine (it was published in the latest issue released last week).  Benz has always been one of my favorite actors – I grew up watching him in TVB series in the 80s and even now, I continue to watch all the series that he participates in, even if I can’t stand the rest of the cast or the storyline itself (well, nowadays, I pretty much just watch the scenes that he is in and skip the rest of the series so I don’t have to waste my time sitting through crappy series).  Benz first caught my attention in Police Cadet ’84 (which, coincidentally, was one of the roles that made Benz a household name):  his character in that series, ‘Uncle Tung’, is an absolute classic – a very ordinary, ‘grassroots’ type person with too many flaws to count, yet at the end of the day, his sense of humor and ‘happy go lucky’ personality endears him to everyone.  It’s because of that series that I went back and watched the rest of Benz’s series (from prior to 1984) as well as continued to watch his series subsequently throughout the past few decades.  He is absolutely an awesome actor – one of the best in the industry!  The great thing about Benz is that he is also a tremendously versatile actor – he can play pretty much any type of role (comical, serious, villain, ‘small potato’, heroic, etc.) naturally and convincingly (in both modern and ancient series) – doesn’t matter if his role is ‘major’ or ‘minor’, he still manages to do an excellent job of portraying each character.

No doubt that I love Benz as an actor, but there’s more to it than that – I also love his real-life personality off-screen as well.  With his self-deprecating sense of humor and great comedic timing, Benz has a certain ‘charm’ about him that makes him forever likeable – I don’t know about you guys, but whenever I see him go on interview shows and such, he always manages to put a smile on my face with his witty quips about life and career! (The below interview is a great example – I was smiling and laughing throughout the entire time I was reading it!)

I’m actually not going to comment too much more about the article, as the interview below pretty much speaks for itself.  But one thing I will say…..Benz is the ultimate proof that you don’t need be good-looking to be successful in the TV/movie industry -- if you have true talent and are willing to work hard, you can still achieve ‘fame and fortune’ – most importantly, you can still do so WITHOUT having to shine anyone’s shoes or kiss up in any way (as Benz so aptly demonstrates through this interview).  Oh and lastly – I love Benz’s ‘carefree’ attitude towards awards – his basic sentiment is:  forget the award…just give me the money I deserve for the job I’ve done!  Haha!  You go, Benz!!!  :0)

*****

Mingpao Interview with veteran TVB actor Benz Hui:  ‘Honest Guy, Honest Fortune’

Source:  Mingpao Weekly, Issue 2303

Translation:  llwy12

 

When you call Benz Hui (許紹雄), he answers the phone with:  “This is Benz.”   Yet, in reality, he stopped driving Mercedes Benz cars decades ago – in fact, he currently owns a Toyota and Lexus, but no Mercedes.  For him, the name ‘Benz’ is “simply just a greeting”.

At this year’s TVB Anniversary Awards ceremony, he was ‘suddenly’ presented with the Outstanding Artist Award alongside Sunny Chan (陳錦鴻), Dodo Cheng (鄭裕玲), etc., however for Benz, what the award is about and what it represents doesn’t matter to him – in fact, he doesn’t even want to bother thinking more deeply about it:  “To be honest, I wasn’t even a little bit moved [by the award] – most important thing is that I still get my salary!”

Instead of being ‘moved to tears’, Benz’s reaction [upon accepting the award on stage] was in-line with his ‘funny man’ personality:  “Oh, I didn’t know that men get ‘jing kei’ [menopause] too!” [TN: pun on the Chinese characters ‘驚奇’ (surprise/amazement) which sounds exactly like the characters for ‘menopause’ (經期)]  Once a comedian, always a comedian!  With a face that has ‘honest’ and ‘simple-minded’ written all over it, Benz also possesses the ‘honest luck’ to go along with it.

Even though an unsightly scar on his face due to a freak accident in his childhood adds to Benz’s ‘already non-handsome’ features, it doesn’t bother him one bit, especially since a fortune teller once told him that only by having a ‘disfigured face’ will he ‘grow up’ into adulthood.  Despite his lack of good looks, Benz has still been able to ‘stand strong’ in the TV industry for 40 years.   He was the first artist to drive a Mercedes Benz to work back in the 70s – however driving a nice car doesn’t necessarily equate to being flocked by pretty girls.  Benz revealed that back then, he ‘didn’t dare’ to court pretty girls – as a result, he remained single for 42 years; by the time he finally married and had a daughter, he was already well past middle age.  And even with his age, he still continues to get endless job offers, thereby becoming one of the TV industry’s ‘green leaf’ kings.

An ‘honest’ guy has ‘honest’ luck? That’s all because he is content and happy with his life.



Fondly remembers the ‘loyal’ days of old

Benz Hui graduated from TVB’s first year Acting Class (1971-72) and so can be considered one of TVB’s ‘elders’ who has been with the company from the start – yet, he rarely ever attends the Anniversary Galas each year:  “Why go for no reason?  With or without me, it’s still the same.”

While others may be extremely moved to the point of tears, Benz takes the opposite approach:  “Never thought about it!  Award or no award, doesn’t matter – first and foremost is to do your job well.”

Amidst the poaching crises and upcoming TV battle, some people questions whether TVB’s action of giving out awards to veteran artists at this point in time is a move to ‘steady the troops’ – we probably all know the ‘answer’ to this in our hearts:  “With a new boss, perhaps he’s trying to do more for the employees – it’s a good thing, since pretty much nothing was done the past 10 years or so.  I remember a long time ago, back in the olden days, there used to be a sense of ‘loyalty’ (belonging) and ‘unity’ [at TVB] that brought everyone together – but that feeling was lost years ago.    Back when TVB City was still at Broadcast Drive and later Clearwater Bay, we would always arrive an hour or so early to work and sit in the canteen chit-chatting, then when the time to get off work came along, we would linger behind and wait for each other to go eat dinner or midnight snack.  That was all in the past though – nowadays, as soon as the time comes to get off work, everyone is gone already.”

Indeed, Benz is not the only one to express such sentiments.  Earlier, we had interviewed veteran actor Law Lok Lam (羅樂林) and he said the exact same thing:  “It’s not just one person’s feelings -- this is actually how everyone feels.  In a sense, I guess you could say that the company [TVB] did do a ‘good job’ – after all, they were able to make all their employees feel the same way. [TN:  Obviously Benz is being sarcastic here.]  If you think about it, these sentiments didn’t occur overnight – it was brewing for a long time already.   Strictly speaking, for a company to get to this point [where all the employees lack a sense of belonging], they’ve truly failed!”

Back during the days when Benz filmed Police Cadet ’84 (新紮師兄), he recounts how his ‘nephew’ in the series, Tony Leung (梁朝偉) would invite him to dinner at the Shangri-La Hotel after work:  “Back then, going out to eat at a fancy restaurant was very expensive;  for 2 guys like us to just go there and eat dinner after work, there was no particular reason or occasion – it’s merely because he [Tony] knows how to enjoy life.  Back when Johnny To (杜琪峯) was still a director working at TVB, he also had the habit of treating a bunch of us to dinner or midnight snack after work – he is also the type who understands how to enjoy life.”

With the passing of time, the ‘color’ of life has faded as well – over the years, going to work went from being a delightful, joyful experience to a meaningless day to day task.



Supports Ricky Wong

The primary reason why TVB feels the need to ‘steady the troops’ at this point in time is because of the arrival of their biggest enemy:  CTI/HKTV chairman Ricky Wong (王維基).  With his experience and talent, it goes without saying that Benz was also a ‘target’ of poaching by CTI.

“Last year (2011), I went back to Mainland China for 6 months – during that time, I filmed a Mainland series and 2 movies.  When I was filming in Shanghai, someone from Mr. Wong’s company contacted me and when I returned in to HK in November, we actually did meet up.  Mr. Wong offered to pay me twice the salary I was currently getting, but I very honestly told him that I still had 2 years left on my contract with TVB and with jobs lined up in the Mainland, that means I would have to request time off from TVB, which could delay things even more – so in the best interests of all parties, I suggested waiting until my contract is up to discuss further.  In all honesty, everything that Mr. Wong offered during our discussion was way better than TVB!” 

Even though TVB gave an award to Benz, he does not hide the fact that he supports Ricky Wong:  “I hope that he will do a good job!  In reality, he has already helped a lot of people, yet he continues to have the spirit of ‘sacrificing himself for the greater good’ – this alone is worth respecting.  Regardless of what kind of person he is, just looking at from the perspective of what he’s done so far and what he hopes to achieve, it’s worth supporting.”

Benz didn’t film any TVB series in 2011 – it wasn’t until after he returned from Mainland earlier in the year, that he filmed the currently airing series Friendly Fire (法網狙擊).  Benz admits that the pay in Mainland is very attractive, which is one of the reasons why he spends more time filming there than in HK.  In addition to the pay, another advantage of filming in the Mainland is the feeling of being ‘respected’:  “In between filming a scene, I was standing for only a few minutes when a worker would quickly bring over a chair for me to sit, as they [production team] didn’t want me to get too tired from standing -- actually, at the time, I chose to stand on purpose because I was afraid that if I sat down, I would get too comfortable and fall asleep.  The production team over there is always very nice about making sure things are not too grueling and exhausting – I guess this is what we can call ‘respect’!”

Benz’s old buddy, veteran comedic actor Ng Man Tat (吳孟達) shifted his career to Mainland long time ago and has endless job offers over there, but since HK audiences rarely ever see Tat Gor, they don’t know his current situation and mistakenly think that he has financial hardship.  Upon hearing this, Benz could not help but laugh at HK audiences’ ignorance:  “The amount of money that he [Tat Gor] makes in 1 year over there is equivalent to several years worth of pay here in HK!  In fact, he always asks me why I don’t just shift my career completely to Mainland too, since there are so many opportunities!”



Opens a tutoring school for his daughter

The main reason why Benz chooses to keep his roots in HK – his wife and teenage daughter.  At the end of the day, Benz prefers to be a ‘family man’.

Benz’s daughter is 15 years old and attends a Singaporean international school.  His wife grew up in Singapore and their daughter was born there as well.  Back when his daughter was in Kindergarten, he would fly over to Singapore a few times a year to see his wife and daughter, but then later on, his wife told him that if he doesn’t take them to HK soon, his daughter may not recognize him soon.  So with that, their family was finally reunited.

Under the Singaporean education system, mathematics courses are especially difficult – seeing that their daughter was having a hard time with the subject, Benz and his wife decided to open a tutoring school for her.  From the time that his daughter was in elementary school all the way up to high school, they would tutor her as well as her schoolmates in various subjects.

“My wife was the one who ran the tutoring school.  We actually didn’t consider it a ‘business’, so we didn’t run it as such– we basically hired 2 teachers to come over from Singapore to teach the kids.  The first 3-4 years, we actually lost money – it’s only now that we’re just starting to break even.”

In reality, running a tutoring school doesn’t earn much money at all, so Benz and his wife look at it as making a small contribution to the field of education.   Close to finishing high school, Benz’s daughter will start taking college preparatory courses next year – they thought about sending her to Australia, but she went there to test things out and didn’t like it, so she will continue going to school in HK instead:  “Boarding school only costs about 200,000 to 300,000 HKD per year – it won’t kill me!”

When it comes to his daughter’s education, Benz constantly tells people:  “I don’t contribute much at all!  Luckily, her mother takes care of everything and I don’t have to worry one bit.  All I do is pay the tuition!”  With the said though, Benz still has a very close relationship with his daughter – she loves sitting on his lap and every time she does, he has a sweet happy feeling inside.

“My daughter has a lot of suitors and her mom is very much familiar with each one – luckily she hasn’t started dating yet, as she feels that her education is more important.  I’m a very relaxed dad!”  Since his daughter’s school is a bit far from their home in Sai Kung, Benz used to drive his daughter to school every day:  “Back then, I’d have to be at work by 6am and on days when I didn’t have to work, I’d still have to get up at 6am to take her to school!  Too exhausting – no thanks!  My wife takes care of driving her to school now.”  Benz is happy to have such a competent wife!

Actually, Benz has to take care of 2 households – in addition to his home in HK, there’s also the house in Singapore where his mother-in-law currently lives.  20 years ago when he first got married, he had actually considered living permanently in Singapore:  “Unfortunately, the TV stations in Singapore couldn’t pay enough money, as the salary they offered was half of what I made at TVB.  Also, at that time, there were endless job offers in HK, so I didn’t really have the time to think much about changing our living environment.”



‘Disfigured face’

It can be said that Benz Hui has encountered luck all his life.  When he was a child, a fortune teller told his parents that he needed to be ‘disfigured on the face’ in order to live to adulthood; sure enough, when Benz was 4 years old, he accidentally ran into a glass partition – the glass shards caused a cut in his face underneath one eye, which left a deep scar after it healed.  Indeed, the ‘disfigured face’ prediction came true!

Benz came from a prominent family in Guangzhou, China – his ancestors have a literary reputation dating back many generations.  If we really want to get technical, he’s actually a ‘distant relative’ of Julian Hsu’s (許晉亨) family.  Benz’s father used to own a jade and jewelry shop in Central, HK – after graduating from school, Benz helped out at his father’s shop for a few years, but he became so bored with the work that he decided to try applying for TVB’s Acting Class instead.

“My father closed down the business a long time ago!  Later on, I bumped into a few of the apprentices who used to work at the shop and seeing that all of them became rich business owners, I couldn’t help thinking that if I had known better, my path probably would have been different.”

After graduating from Acting Class, Benz spent a few years doing the variety show E.Y.T. (歡樂今宵), but then when some of his classmates decided to ‘jump ship’ to a rival station because they offered better pay, he decided to follow suit, primarily because of the money, but then eventually returned to TVB a few years later.  In 1977, Benz earned enough money to buy a Mercedes and would drive it to work every day – from that day on, he was known as ‘Benz 雄’.  Back then, a Mercedes Benz 230 cost 70,000 HKD, which was enough to buy a house back in those days -- Benz’s good friend Stanley Fung (馮淬帆) constantly scolded him for being so ‘excessive’:  “Actually, back in those days, a Mercedes was a very practical car – it was expensive to buy, but very cheap to maintain.  I had that car for 11 years and ended up selling it for more than 60,000 HKD.”

After returning to TVB, Benz experienced his first career peak with his ‘Uncle Tung’ character in Police Cadet ’84 (新紮師兄).  Unfortunately though, with his passive personality, Benz didn’t take advantage of the ‘peak’ and soon, other comical actors such as Liu Wai Hung (廖偉雄), Kent Cheng (鄭則士), etc. surpassed him, moving to the first-line level while he remained where he was.  One thing that he did get out of this first ‘peak’ was more opportunity to travel and perform on stage.

Unexpectedly, the opportunity to perform on stage ended up changing his life forever – during a performance in Singapore, Benz met his wife (who was part of the production team at the time) and they started dating; a few years later, at the age of 42, Benz and his wife married.  Interestingly, his wife actually has a famous ‘god-sister’:  actress Connie Chan (陳寶珠) – so without really expecting it, he suddenly became Connie’s ‘god-brother-in-law!’

This was actually the second marriage for Benz’s wife – at the time she married Benz, she already had a 12 year old son with her ex-husband.  Benz and his step-son have a very close relationship – when he was little, he already started calling Benz ‘Daddy’ from very early on.  5 years later, his wife unexpectedly became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter.  At 47 years old, Benz’s family was complete with a son as well as a daughter.

Benz often mocks himself:  “I’m a very useless dad, as I never really taught them [my kids] anything – my wife was the one who taught them everything.  My level of education is very low, but my kids are very smart, so I just make myself useful by paying their tuition!”

Benz expressed that his kids are growing up right before his eyes.  After his [step] son earned a mechanical engineering degree in England, he returned to HK and worked as an engineering apprentice at the HK airport for awhile, but due to his asthma, he couldn’t continue.  Currently, he lives and studies in Australia and has already earned a Masters Degree over there.  Now, Benz is just waiting for his daughter to go off to college, and his ‘job’ will officially be done.



The ‘usefulness of uselessness’

Daoist author and philosopher Zhuangzi (莊子) once talked about the concept of ‘usefulness in uselessness’ – an ugly-looking tree generally won’t get chopped down, so it will usually remain the longest. 

Benz Hui constantly jokes that he is a ‘useless’ person – out of the all those who graduated from TVB’s first year Acting Class, he is the only one who chose to ‘stay behind’ and remain at TVB.  Years ago, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the HK Film Awards for his performance in Johnny To’s Running out of Time (暗戰), but didn’t win – therefore, his ‘first’ award ever is the Outstanding Artist award that TVB gave him during this year’s Anniversary Awards.  When he accepted the award, the applause and cheers that he received was the loudest – indeed, he accepts the award with a clear conscience, much deserved for his years of hard work.  During his acceptance speech, he didn’t feel the need to ‘thank’ any executives – instead, he chose only to ‘thank’ TVB.  And with this interview, he feels free to speak his mind, as there is no need for him to ‘shine’ TVB’s shoes.  Benz is truly able to ‘enjoy’ his ‘honest fortune’ happily and peacefully.