Yup, it's time for another one of my 'rants' about TVB (well, kind of, since this post talks about more than just TVB-related stuff).....I know, I know -- it's been awhile since I've done one of my rants and some of you probably thought that I had stopped ranting because there hasn't been much to rant about recently. Well, the truth is -- there has actually been plenty to 'rant' about, it's just that I got super busy with work and life in general so I didn't have time. Now that I'm starting to get more 'caught up' with my stuff though, I figured it was a good time to do a 'catch-up rant / update' on some recent happenings in the HK television world.
Ok, so here we go....
Even though I've been quite busy recently, I've somehow still been able to fit in pockets of time to watch a few TVB series / variety shows here and there (haha...yup, that's the 'die-hard' television fanatic in me talking) as well as somewhat keep up with my daily 'habit' of reading HK entertainment news. Of course, there has been alot going on in the HK entertainment world recently, though much of it I don't really care to comment on -- but one thing I HAVE been continuing to keep tabs on is the whole HK television wars thing between the current free-to-air TV stations (TVB and ATV) and their upcoming competitors in the free-to-air market (CTI, NowTV, and i-Cable). I actually did a couple postings related to the television wars in the past few months based on the developments at that time, but with so many things that have changed, it's probably a good idea to do an 'update' at this point. Here's a quick 'rundown' of some recent happenings (note that the listing of the stations is completely random -- there is no particular rhyme or reason for why I listed it this way):
The current ‘players’:
ATV
This may sound harsh, but honestly, should we even consider ATV in this ‘battle’ anymore? I mean, the station has been plagued with problems for years already and with the rapid escalation of the issues these past 2 years, I’m surprised that they’re still even afloat!
First off, their decision to stop filming series and instead rely almost entirely on news, variety, and ‘specialty’ programs was really stupid because look where that has taken them? I mean, let’s face it: the reality is that HK television audiences are crazy about TV series – if they’re going to turn on their TVs, 90% of the time it’s going to be for the purpose of watching a TV series, not a variety show (the variety show is merely a ‘time-filler’ in between series)…it’s embedded in the culture and pretty much is never going to change, so why would the management even consider doing an ‘all news, all day’ channel and expect it to be successful?
Speaking of management….how many times has ATV ‘changed hands’ in terms of management over the past few decades? Heck, I think they should get recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the TV station that’s had the most management turnover! (Ok, I’m being facetious, but you get the point). So much for job security! I really feel sorry for ATV’s employees – I mean, imagine having to work in such an unstable environment where you don’t know from one day to the next who your boss will be (or whether you will still have a job when you come in the next day). Oh and weren’t there rumors last year (or was it this year?) about ATV employees not getting paid on time for their work and in some cases, not even getting paid AT ALL? Wow….and I thought TVB sucked for paying their artists below minimum wage – compared to ATV not even paying their artists at all, the ‘few bucks’ that TVB pays doesn’t sound too bad after all, huh?
The conclusion – I don’t think it would be that much of a stretch to say that pretty much no one watches ATV anymore, right? Well, judging from the numerous ‘zero point ratings’ that ATV has logged in the past several months, I don’t think it’s too far off from the truth. By the way, when was the last time that ATV logged double digit ratings points? I honestly can’t think of a recent instance (if anyone does think of one, I’d be curious to know!). And if the virtually nonexistent ratings isn’t enough ‘proof’ of how badly ATV has deteriorated, maybe the recent ATV 50th Anniversary Gala will help convince the ‘doubters’ – go ask director Tsui Siu Ming and I’m sure he’ll give you first hand testimony on how he felt performing to an auditorium full of EMPTY chairs at the gala!
TVB
Let's just say that the TVB of today isn't what it used to be. It's obvious from the series they've put out in the past 2 years that they are SEVERELY lacking in talent -- both in front of the camera (actors and actresses) as well as behind-the-scenes (producers, directors, scriptwriters, etc.). It's definitely NOT a coincidence that most of TVB's series in the past 2 years consist mostly of the same cast over and over again (and not just the supporting cast, but the main leads as well) -- I mean, honestly, I've already lost count of how many times I've seen the same names on cast lists for series airing back to back.....to the point that I've gotten confused several times already when tuning in to a series in the middle of an episode and thinking I was watching a particular series when in fact it's a different series with the same cast (believe me, that rarely happened to me in past years). Yes, I understand that TVB has to work with the resources they've got and with the mass exodus of so many artists and behind-the-scenes personnel in recent years (especially last year with the whole 'poaching' thing by other stations), their resources have dwindled drastically -- but to be very honest, alot of that was TVB's own doing (not going to rehash all the 'reasons' right now though).
The 'lack of resources' was especially apparent last month when TVB did that whole "Amazing Summer" special event thing where they had pretty much all their artists drop what they were doing to participate in a group picture and a bunch of lame skits (which, by the way, I could probably rant about all day since I'm watching the skits currently and saying that they are a 'joke' is basically an understatement --- if you haven't watched the skits yet, my opinion is: DON'T!! It's a major waste of time as well as brain cells!). Looking at the group picture, I couldn't recognize the names or faces of probably half the artists who participated -- not to mention the 'standings' in the picture were ridiculous (some people who were in the first and second rows definitely didn't deserve to be there). If that's the best that TVB can do nowadays given the lack of resources, that's truly very sad....
Another thing I've noticed about TVB as of late is that they seem to be cramming as many 'familiar' / 'relatively known' artists into series as they possibly can, even having them take on nonessential 'filler' roles or roles that I would consider one level above an 'extra' (or 'ke le fe' if you want to use the Cantonese term). I already started noticing this with last year's series (Forensic Heroes 3 comes to mind right away) and even more so with this year's series (Witness Insecurity is the most recent example). I could sit here and speculate all day about the ‘reasons’ why TVB would ‘misuse’ their artists like that (i.e.: the lack of artists in general so the artists they do have need to wear different hats, TVB politics, etc. etc.), but the fact that it’s happening proves that something is amiss. [Sidenote: I’m not talking about the series where having various well-known artists ‘guest-star’ in a particular segment is part of the storyline – series such as Tiger Cubs for example. I’m referring to series where the characters can be completely written out of the script and no one would know the difference (WI is the best recent example of this that I can think of right now)].
Whatever the case, it’s obvious that things are not “fine and dandy” at TVB anymore and if they seriously want to come out of this war relatively unscathed (which is pretty much impossible at this point but I’ll still put it out there), they (meaning TVB management) really need to ‘clean house’ and start making all the right moves. The biggest advantage they have going for them right now is the ‘familiarity’ they have in HK audience’s households (and the certain amount of ‘loyalty’ that comes with it) as well as the ‘connections’ that they’ve established with ‘big name’ people who have worked for them in the past and who still have a relatively good relationship with them – people like film director Wong Jing for example, who has already confirmed that he will be writing and producing a series for TVB and casting his friend, multi-award winning Best Actress Deanie Ip as the female lead (smart move on TVB’s part considering how ‘well-connected’ Wong Jing is). It will be interesting to see what other ‘moves’ TVB will make in the face of the impending competition from the other stations – it’s pretty much their battle to lose (or win) at this point!
The ‘new’ players…
i-Cable
As I’ve said before, they’ve been relatively quiet throughout the ‘battle’ so far and out of the 3 companies that have applied for a free-to-air TV license, they’re the ones that we (the general public) know the least about in terms of their strategy in the face of the upcoming war.
As of right now, we still don’t know too much about their strategy, however in my opinion, their recent Olympic broadcasting rights ‘debacle’ does give us a little glimpse as to what they were ‘possibly’ thinking in terms of the whole TV license thing. Personally, I’ve lost all respect for i-Cable after seeing the crappy way that they handled the whole Olympics thing – not sure what they were trying to accomplish with their ridiculous proposal practically trying to force TVB and ATV to air i-Cable programming in their ‘golden’ timeslots (and playing ‘hardball’ by only giving the 2 stations 24 hours to respond). Well, the tactic backfired on them big time, since the government ended up having to intervene – the whole incident just made i-Cable management come across as incompetent and greedy! (The person at i-Cable who ‘authorized’ the lousy decision must be kicking himself right now…).
I’m curious to see what other ‘lame’ decisions i-Cable management will make in the coming months, especially once the free TV battle ‘heats up’.
NowTV
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – out of the 3 companies that applied for free-to-air licenses, I feel that NowTV has the most potential to succeed. True, they have not even started filming series yet and in reality, they don’t even have any artists officially ‘signed’ to them either (Bowie Lam and Wong Hei are signed to the management company ATN, which NowTV has a stake in but doesn’t completely own), however based on everything that they’ve revealed so far about their plans upon receiving their license, it looks like they are taking a more measured approach, which is smart given the circumstances.
By bringing on Ho Lai Chuen as the primary ‘executive’ to oversee their free-to-air operations (he had previously worked for TVB for 30 years and oversaw their non-drama department), NowTV definitely took a step in the right direction – not just because of HLC’s decades of experience in television, but primarily because he is well-connected (in terms of to artists and producers) and also he is pretty well-respected. Case in point -- no doubt that Ho Lai Chuen played a HUGE role in getting TVB’s former ‘golden’ producers Lau Ka Ho and Mui Siu Ching to agree to join NowTV last year (they will be overseeing the drama department at NowTV – similar to Catherine Tsang and Tommy Leung’s roles as production heads at TVB) – the husband/wife team of LKH and MSC are extremely well-respected in the television industry, they have a proven track record of producing numerous highly rated and highly acclaimed series, and the number of artists they collaborated with in the 25 years that they were at TVB (and who would be willing to collaborate with them again if asked) is tremendous!
NowTV recently held a press conference where Lau Ka Ho and Mui Siu Ching announced their upcoming plans for producing drama series in their new positions. Pretty much they are going to focus on breaking into the Mainland market with their series, as most of them will be collaborations with a Mainland company -- they will also choose artists to collaborate with based on suitability to their scripts (which they are also involved in creating / writing)…of course, they will utilize HK artists if the series is a good fit, however there is very little chance that their series will be in direct competition with the other HK TV stations (which is probably why up to this point, NowTV has been able to maintain such an amicable relationship with TVB). Wong Hei already confirmed that he will be filming a TV series for NowTV in early 2013 (who he will be collaborating with is unknown at this point, though there are rumors flying around that Steven Ma and Charmaine Sheh will also join NowTV – of course, this has yet to be verified so please do not treat it as truth!).
Overall, if you want my opinion on which station is most likely to succeed – well, my money is pretty much on NowTV. Out of the 3 new stations vying for a piece of the free-to-air market, I have the most respect for NowTV so far because up to this point, they’ve been making the right moves. Obviously they have not been as ‘aggressive’ with their plans as CTI has been (and they have maintained a relatively low profile this past year compared with CTI’s loud, high profile ‘storming’ into the HK television world). With that said though, NowTV has been able to maintain a certain amount of transparency with their plans, revealing just enough to keep the general public abreast of what to expect, but of course not completing giving away all the ‘secrets’. Most important of all though – unlike CTI -- NowTV has NOT outrightly poached any of TVB’s artists – all of the artists and producers who joined their company from TVB were approached only after their contracts with TVB had ended (Bowie Lam and Wong Hei) or they had already submitted their letters of resignation (Lau Ka Ho and Mui Siu Ching). Now that’s what I call ‘healthy’ competition!
CTI
Out of the 3 new TV stations coming into play soon, I probably know the most about CTI, primarily because the company (and its chairman Ricky Wong) has been ‘in the news’ the most often – almost as much as TVB.
I’m sure most people who have been following the whole TV station battle thing are well aware of what CTI’s plans are terms of breaking into the HK television market (for those who might be interested in reading up on them, check out the various blog posts I wrote under the label ‘City Telecom (CTI)’ or ‘Ricky Wong’) – therefore I’m not going to cover everything in this post. The important thing to note is that in the span of a little less than a year, CTI has been able to gather together a staff of close to 300 employees consisting of artists as well as behind-the-scenes personnel (or so they state – who knows, the number could be exaggerated) – PLUS, they have already started to film series as of several months ago (2 of the series already wrapped filming and are in post production, 3 are currently filming, and 1 more will start filming at the end of this month). That’s a pretty aggressive timeline for a company that doesn’t even have its license yet (and probably won’t get their license until 2013 at the earliest)!
A few things that set CTI apart from what is being viewed as their biggest competitor – TVB (and give them a huge competitive edge over the television powerhouse):
.-- Ricky Wong is definitely targeting TVB’s ‘pain points’ when it comes his tactics for building up his television empire: he’s luring artists to his company through promise of ‘more money’ than what the artists would ever make working for the ‘notoriously cheap’ TVB (I’ve read that in a few instances, the pay that some of the artists are getting is 10 times that of what they got at TVB!); he’s giving those who work for him the FREEDOM to also work for any other TV station they wish (something that TVB never allowed); and probably most important of all, he is taking the ‘sincere’ route by personally meeting with (or calling) every artist he plans to invite to join his company (what other CEO out there flies 30 hours round trip to Canada to personally meet with a second/third line veteran artist and spends a day ‘learning’ from him about how to ‘do’ television? Talk about being sincere! -- plus he makes them feel respected and valued. Compare this with TVB, where the artists management department is so freakin’ disorganized and its ‘fearless leader’ (Virginia Lok) is so busy arranging the schedules of only her own beloved ‘favorites’ that she lets many artists’ contracts expire without even knowing it (which means that those artists were never even contacted to discuss contract renewal). If you were one of those artists, which company would you choose?
.— So far, CTI has stuck to its ‘goal’ of pushing for creativity and innovation -- all of the series that CTI has in the works are varied in terms of theme / genre and there is some ‘unique’ aspect to pretty much each one of them: a vampire-themed idol drama (‘There’s Still Time to Love You Again’), a horror flick where pretty much every artist in the series gets to play 9 different characters (‘Frightful Century’), HK’s first TV series musical (‘Fantasy Love Song 201314), a heartwarming tale of encouragement that explores what happens if people got a second chance to live their lives (‘The Second Life’), a sophisticated undercover cop series where the artists get training using real guns (‘Police Cordon’), and a sci-fi/fantasy detective drama starring a highly anticipated father/daughter team (the series that Felix Wong will start filming this month with his daughter Adrian).
.-- The BIGGEST difference of all in comparisons to TVB – for all of CTI’s series, the scripts are 100% completed PRIOR to filming (which means that the artists get the entire script in their hands before they start filming so they have time to understand their character and prepare). Given TVB’s decades-long ‘tradition’ of writing scripts ‘on the fly’ (the whole ‘flying papers’ concept) and only giving their artists story summaries or partial scripts prior to filming (the artists pretty much get the rest of the script throughout the course of filming, since the scripts are usually not finished yet), this ‘concept’ of getting the full script prior to filming is definitely an attractive benefit to consummate actors/actresses who take their craft very seriously!
With the cast lists that were released for CTI’s latest series, I’ve heard a lot of people ‘complain’ about how the artists signed with CTI (or filming series for them) are mostly veterans who are ‘past their prime’ and are virtually ‘unknown’ to today’s audiences – in other words, the audiences don’t recognize more than half the names on the cast list because of their ‘lack of popularity’. My counter-argument to this is – well, the same can actually be said of TVB’s series, except replace the ‘veterans’ with ‘newbies’. I can very honestly say that I’ve looked at the cast lists for quite a few of TVB’s upcoming series (either already filmed, currently filming, or planning to film) and well, um, I probably don’t recognize half the names on the list – for someone like me who has followed TVB series for more than 2 decades, it has been years since I’ve looked through a cast list for TVB series and not be able to recognize majority of the names on there! So basically, my point is – with all the changes coming down the pike, it’s probably best to just keep an open mind and let the pieces fall where they may...
LL's Musings 小賢角落
Friday, August 10, 2012
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Review of TVB series ''Witness Insecurity''《護花危情》(2012)
Producer: Lau Ka Ho (劉家豪)
Cast: Bosco Wong (黃宗澤), Linda Chung (鍾嘉欣), Paul Chun (秦沛), Ram Tseung (蔣志光), Ronald Law (羅鈞滿), Cilla Kung (樂瞳), Queenie Chu (朱慧敏), Rachel Kan (簡慕華), Eric Li (李天翔), Lee Kwok Lun (李國麟), Geoffrey Wong (黃子雄), Savio Tsang (曾偉權), Yeung Ching Wah (楊證樺), Lee Yee Man (李綺雯), Jonathan Cheung (張穎康), etc.
**SPOILER ALERT: For those who haven't watched this series and don't want to be 'spoiled' with knowing some of the details of the series beforehand, then I recommend not reading this review, as there are details mentioned that I feel are necessary in order for me to write this review properly. Not to mention there will also be some mention of the ending as well, especially since there was quite a bit of 'controversy' surrounding it.
Before I start, I will say that I am probably in the 'minority' in terms of people who really liked this series and felt that pretty much everyone (from the main leads to the supporting cast) did a good job with the acting. I know that certain artists in the series have a lot of anti-fans (which is quite obvious based on all the on-line comments I’ve read the past few weeks) and as a result, there may be quite a few people out there who refused to watch this series at all or if they watched, skipped majority of the scenes with particular artists – that’s definitely those audience’s prerogative and I have no intention of changing it. However the point that I want to make is that as a neutral bystander who neither likes nor dislikes the main leads, I am writing this review from the 'neutral' perspective and everything contained in it is my personal impression of the series, regardless of what my feelings are towards any of the artists – so basically, those who hate any of the artists in the series and can't bear to hear anything good said about them should just skip this review completely.
Ok, so with the 'disclaimers' out of the way, on to the actual review....
Witness Insecurity [referred to in the rest of this review as WI] just finished airing this past Friday and already, I’ve watched the series twice (partly because I liked the series but also because of the convenient timeslot that it airs here in the U.S., which allows for re-airing of each week’s episodes on the weekend). I will be the first to admit that I absolutely did not think that I would like this series, primarily because the premise of the series wasn't fresh or creative (the whole witness protection thing has definitely been done before, more than once in fact) and also I'm not a fan of Bosco or Linda (especially Linda, since her last few series left a bad taste in my mouth and so I didn't think that I would be able to tolerate her in this series). Therefore, I went into this series without any expectations whatsoever and to my surprise, I actually ended up liking the series quite a lot (I was pretty much hooked from episode 1 all the way to the end…)
In my opinion, one of the biggest things that made this series so good was the cast -- from the main leads (Bosco and Linda) to the 'heavy supporting' artists (Paul, Ram, Ronald, Cilla, Queenie, Lee Sing Cheong, Eric Li, Savio Tsang, etc.) to the 'lesser supporting' artists (Lee Yee Man, Jonathan, Lee Kwok Lun, Rachel, the rest of the artists who portrayed either WPU staff or police officers in the criminal investigation department, etc.) -- no matter how big or small the role, practically everyone put in good performances...THAT's really what left a deep impression on me in terms of this series (I’ll go into more detail about each person’s performance later on in this review). I know a lot of people might disagree with me here, but hey, it’s my opinion after all…
Of course, no series is without flaws and this series was definitely no exception -- in fact, I would have to say that there were plenty of flaws and 'inconsistencies' in the script as well as several moments where, while watching the series, I felt like I just wanted to 'kill' the scriptwriters (more about this later). Even though this did detract from the series overall, it wasn’t completely unsalvageable, at least not for me – I still continued watching the series and enjoyed it
.---.
SCRIPT / STORYLINE
My biggest complaint about the series is really with the script. The series actually started off quite good in the beginning, with the engaging storyline involving the WPU and the exciting action sequences as well as the 'setting up' of the romantic storyline between Hui Sir and Hailey -- plus the interaction and chemistry between the entire cast was at its best during these first 11-12 episodes or so: I especially enjoyed the chemistry between the WPU team and was really looking forward to seeing more of them....but unfortunately, during the second half of the series, the storyline sort of 'fell apart' in that the series moved away from the 'witness protection' theme (since the assignment to protect Hailey was over and Hui Sir was promoted and subsequently transferred) and focused primarily on the conflict between the Kiu brothers and Hui Sir. I probably would have been ok with this had they [the writers] developed the romantic relationship between Hui Sir and Hailey more in the second half (since, after all, that was the whole point of the series, right?) -- BUT, that didn't happen either....instead, we have this 'tortured' pseudo-romance storyline between the two main leads and even up until the tragic end, they don't officially even get together. It was definitely disappointing to see the second half of the series stray so far away from the original premise and theme of the series.
Don't get me wrong, there were still quite a few scenes in the second half of the series that I enjoyed, but as a whole, the first half was definitely way better -- the storyline in the second half was too messy and the direction that the writers decided to take was not really logical. Even though I still liked the series overall and continued to stick with it because I like the cast and also because I wanted to see how the relationship between Bosco and Linda's characters develop, I know that alot of people stopped watching the series after the storyline started straying off course, which is very unfortunate.
This series was produced by Lau Ka Ho and one thing I’ve noticed about his series in general is that a lot of times, the storylines veer off course and the scripts are not as tightly written as they could be. When I first started watching WI, I thought this series might be an exception, but now after finishing this series, turns out that it still followed a similar pattern – the only difference is that at only 20 episodes, this series is way shorter than many of LKH’s other ‘epics’ and so there was less room for the ‘dragginess’ that I typically see with his other series (most of which were 30 episodes or more). Given the way the script was written, perhaps this was a good thing? Personally though, I think this series would have benefited from having another 5 episodes at least -- I think that if that had occurred, then the storyline would have likely gone in a more ‘appropriate’ direction and the sub-stories as well as many of the other supporting characters could have been more properly developed.
One last thing about the script….maybe it’s just me, but with the way the script was written, there were quite a few characters in the series who were pretty much ‘useless’ and really were just ‘there’ for the sake of being there – for example: Brian Chu’s character as Jo Jo’s younger brother, Deno Cheung’s character as the leader of one of the police teams, Glenn Lee’s character as Mrs. Kiu’s (Rachel Kan) younger brother (he only appeared for like 2 scenes), etc. Even Rachel Kan’s character was kind of ‘nonessential’ if you ask me – though she gets plenty of screen time compared to some of the others, her character really didn’t do much. To me, these characters were basically just ‘fillers’, as they didn’t advance the storyline much at all and didn’t serve any real purpose in the series. It sort of made me wonder why the scriptwriters even bothered writing their characters into the script and ‘wasting’ precious ‘plot space’ (as well as screen time) that could have been used to develop other sub stories.
Speaking of characters, what an appropriate segue into a discussion of the cast….
CAST / CHARACTERS
As I said earlier, when I first read the cast list for this series, I wasn’t much impressed, as there were quite a few artists in the series that I didn’t particularly care for in terms of acting and the ones I do care about I didn’t think would have significant roles – but after watching some of the preview clips that had aired the week prior to the official premiere of the series (no, not the ‘fake’ promo clip that was pretty much just a ‘gimmick’ and had nothing to do with the series), I decided to give the series a chance, since I saw that a few of my favorite actors (namely Paul Chun and Ram Tseung) would have pretty ‘meaty’ roles in the series. Turns out I made the right decision!
In terms of cast, I definitely wouldn’t consider this one ‘all-star’, as there were quite a few ‘newer’ artists whose names I didn’t even know prior to watching this series. But as I’ve been noticing more and more the past few years, there doesn’t necessarily need to be a whole lot of ‘big names’ in a series in order for it to be a ‘good’ series – with the right combination of good acting, well-written characters, and a decently written script, a series can still have a strong impact on audiences and garner good word of mouth as well as high ratings (as this series did).
Again, unlike some of my past reviews, I’m not going to go into too much detail about the characters themselves but rather just focus on my thoughts toward the characters as well as the artists who portrayed them.
So without further adieu, here’s my ‘take’ on the main cast…
Bosco Wong (Hui Wai Sum / Hui Sir) – Bosco’s character is a cop who, for the first half of the series, is the leader of the Witness Protection Unit (WPU) and due to his success in that role, he’s promoted in the second half of the series and transferred to the criminal investigation unit to head up a team there. In my opinion, the character of ‘Hui Sir’ is definitely one of the biggest draws of this series, as his character is written in such a way that it’s really hard for audiences not to like him or be smitten by his charm. Personality-wise, Hui Sir is the epitome of ‘cool’ and ‘suave’ – he’s smart, handsome, and is pretty much a natural-born leader (which came about in part because of his independence at an early age due to him growing up in an orphanage). It can be said that Hui Sir was born to be a cop, as he has strong investigative instincts as well as an unwavering sense of righteousness and justice. One of the biggest traits that sets Hui Sir apart from others is his extremely high EQ – no matter how difficult a situation is, he is always able to handle it with a calm, composed disposition.
Bosco did a great job with his character in this series and definitely left a deep impression on me with his performance. I will admit that I was never really fond of some of the roles Bosco played in the past – in fact, in general, I can’t really even remember too many of his past performances (probably because I never really paid attention). Therefore, I was actually a little bit surprised myself that I came to like his character so much – of course, part of the credit goes to the writers for the way they developed the character, but Bosco should also be given credit for the way he portrayed the character – in other words, for the way he ‘acted’ the part. When I first started watching this series and read the description of the character, I was a bit concerned in the beginning on whether Bosco would be convincing enough in such a mature, serious role – mainly because most of his roles in the past were sort of catered to his boyish, ‘sunshine’ image (even the past roles where he played a ‘professional’ such as a cop or a fireman, he still had that ‘boyish’ trait to him – probably the only other role where I didn’t get that impression was his villain performance as ‘Bai Co’ in last year’s Lives of Omission). However, it turns out that my concern wasn’t warranted, as Bosco handled the role of Hui Wai Sum extremely well.
What I liked most about Bosco’s performance in this series was how ‘natural’ and ‘comfortable’ the role came across –with the way his character was written, there was quite a lot of ‘inner acting’ involved, since there were many moments where his character doesn’t say much, but yet still manages to convey his thoughts and feelings through his facial expressions as well as the way he carried himself (this was especially apparent during the first half of the series). Though I’m not a fan of Bosco’s by any means, this was one performance that definitely changed my impression of him as an actor and made me realize that with all the similar roles he played, his potential wasn’t really properly tapped into in the past (which is not surprising since that’s TVB’s typical way of managing their artists). I feel that with the proper cultivation in the right direction, Bosco has the potential to take his acting to a higher level – at this point in his career, he really should be taking on more mature, challenging roles rather than the ‘playful’ ones that he’s had in the past. With his role in his series as well as in LOO last year, looks like he’s headed in the right direction (for now at least…).
Linda Chung (Kiu Ji Lam / Hailey) – Linda plays the daughter of a rich tycoon who has a mood (anxiety) disorder resulting from a few tragic events that she had encountered when she was a child. In the beginning of the series, she is very anti-social and doesn’t like to talk or interact with anyone – she relies on playing the cello to release her inner tensions and regularly sees a therapist for treatment. However, after meeting Hui Sir and the rest of the WPU team and interacting with them for a certain period of time (since they were assigned to protect her after she witnesses a shooting), she starts to open up more and becomes a more cheerful person. By the end of the series, her personality has completely changed from what it was in the beginning and she no longer needs to go through therapy treatments in order to live a ‘normal’ life.
Contrary to popular opinion, I feel that Linda actually did a pretty good job with her acting in this series (don’t shoot me!). That’s actually saying a lot given the fact that I’ve never been impressed with Linda’s acting because I’ve always felt that somehow, her acting tends to come across as ‘exaggerated’ and ‘fake’ to me – especially when she tries to take on roles that are outside of her realm (such as a ‘bad girl’ type character or someone who is mean-spirited for example). Of course, part of the reason why I’ve never really been able to tolerate most of Linda’s performances in the past is because I can’t stand weak, pathetic, weepy, wishy-washy type characters and somehow she almost always ends up playing these types of characters.
Interestingly enough, Linda’s portrayal of Hailey actually left a completely different impression on me. Some might say that the role of Hailey was not too different than Linda’s usual ‘good girl’ type roles (which I kind of agree with), but in my opinion, the character was a bit better written than some of her other roles and most importantly, the role really suited her well (I heard the role was especially written for her?). Now I will say that Linda’s acting in the first 3 episodes (when she’s supposed to have that mood disorder illness that caused her to be very anti-social and paranoid about everything) was truly not that good (and in a few scenes, were probably ‘cringe-worthy’), but starting with episode 4 up through the end of the series, she actually does get a lot better – to the point that I actually started liking her character and really was able to feel for her throughout the series. One thing that impressed me about Linda’s acting in this series is that she did the ‘I’ve got a huge crush on Hui Sir’ scenes quite well – those scenes were very convincing and sweet. Also, Linda’s crying scenes were more tolerable in this series versus her previous works – I’m guessing that she toned down her crying a bit after being criticized for so many years about it? Well, the improvement is pretty obvious because outside of the first 3 episodes, Linda’s crying scenes were adequately done throughout the rest of the series (at least I didn’t find her annoying in this series at all).
One area that I feel Linda has definitely improved on is her use of facial expressions – there were quite a few scenes throughout the series where I felt that Linda’s facial expressions were very ‘on the spot’ and conveyed just the right amount of emotion. Of course, she’s still young and her acting still has A LOT of room for improvement (for instance, I don’t feel that her acting is mature enough to handle certain roles yet) – hopefully she will continue to get better with time.
With all that said though, my opinion of Linda overall does not change in that I'm still not tremendously fond of her as an actress because I feel that she’s still too much of a ‘hit and miss’ when it comes to her acting and therefore really can't carry a series on her own yet. For me, whether I'm able to tolerate Linda in a series or not really depends upon her role in the particular series as well as who she is paired up with. With my overall low tolerance level, I definitely wouldn't purposefully seek out a series and watch it just because Linda is in it, but if a series of hers happened to come on TV, I wouldn't mind watching it -- in other words, I'm not the type of person to stop watching / not watch a series just because I dislike a particular artist....to me, the storyline matters alot too and without attempting to watch the series, it's hard to truly know whether the series will be any good. Most of the time, I usually give the series a try and let the acting / storyline 'persuade' me to keep watching (or not)....
Bosco / Linda pairing– I never thought I would say this, but I’m absolutely smitten with this pairing after watching this series (yes, once again, I was surprised myself at how much I grew to ‘love’ this pairing). The chemistry that Bosco and Linda had in this series was quite amazing! I can’t think of any other series where 1) the main ‘couple’ never even officially become a couple in the series (from the beginning until the very end, Hui Sir and Hailey never officially get together – their relationship was pretty much ‘doomed’ before it even started), and 2) the ‘love’ feelings are pretty much one-sided throughout the entire series (Hailey has a crush on Hui Sir and even though he later develops feelings for her, those feelings never really turn into ‘love’), yet so many audiences (myself included) loved their pairing. [And I’m not just saying this – the proof is in the numbers: when Linda posted a photo of herself and Bosco (as Hailey and Hui Sir) on her Weibo during WI’s finale week, it received over 40K ‘retweets’ and over 15K comments in less than a day!]
This was actually the third time that Bosco and Linda were paired together as a couple (the previous 2 times were in Gem of Life and Moonlight Resonance – I will be absolutely honest and say that I don’t remember anything about their previous 2 pairings whatsoever, even though I had watched both series. I’m sure they had plenty of ‘sweet scenes’ in those 2 series too, but I don’t remember a single one – either I didn’t really pay attention and completely missed their scenes (which is possible but highly unlikely) or they didn’t have as much chemistry onscreen back then as they did in this series. After watching WI, I ‘adore’ this couple a lot for some unexplainable reason – I enjoyed every single one of their scenes together (even the ‘painful’ ones where they part ways with each other) and every time there was a ‘sweet moment’ between these two (mostly through eye contact or some other subtle expression), I couldn’t help myself from going: “Aww, how sweet!” [Some examples of Hui Sir / Hailey ‘sweet’ moments: the garden scene in episode 4, the cactus scene in episode 6, the Disneyland scenes in episode 8, and of course, the scene in episode 7 when Hailey gets shot and Hui Sir catches her from falling to the floor just in time, then picks her up and protectively carries her in his arms and runs through door after door to get her to the car and to the hospital (and accidentally hurting himself in the process)....true, a bad situation had happened, but the way it was filmed made it more sweet than it was tragic! I even found the scenes where Hailey would ‘steal glances’ at Hui Sir (unbeknownst to him) to be very cute and sweet!].
I definitely miss this pairing now that the series is over (especially with the tragic way that the series ended) – hope that I’ll get to see this pairing again in the near future!
Paul Chun (Kiu Kong San / Big Mr. Kiu) -- Paul Gor’s character is a rich tycoon with a shady past who lost both his wife and his son earlier on, so he focuses all his effort on loving his daughter and giving her everything possible. To be honest, despite Kong San’s past, I really don’t feel that he’s truly a ‘villain’ in this series, as the ‘motivation’ for a lot of the ‘pushing the envelope’ stuff he does in the second half of the series was primarily out of love for his daughter – he just goes about it the wrong way. I actually like his character better in the first half of the series, as his love for his daughter as well as his younger brother (Ram Tseung’s character) was more apparent and the stuff that he did actually made sense – some of his actions in the second half were sort of questionable to me and overall just didn’t jive that well with the overall storyline. I mean, yes, the sub-story about Kong San’s past was intriguing, but I feel that the writers could have written that whole story arc a little tighter and not drag it out for so long.
In terms of the acting – well, what can I say? It’s Paul Gor after all -- he’s one of the best ‘elder’ / veteran actors out there! I grew up watching Paul Gor in movies and television series, so I’m already very used to his style of acting – I love his versatility as an actor and how he can play a wide range of roles: from the most cold-blooded of villains to one of the most benevolent, lovable fathers we’ll ever find. I can truly say that I enjoyed Paul’s performance throughout the entire series, even in the second half when the storyline started to unravel a little bit and strayed from the original theme. I’m actually really glad that Paul Gor had such a significant role in this series (his screen time was actually not that much less than Bosco’s) because even if I didn’t really like the direction of the series in the second half, I could at least still enjoy his acting!
Ram Tseung (Kiu Kong Hor / Little Mr. Kiu) – Ram’s character Kong Hor is the younger brother of Paul’s Kong San. The best way to describe Kong Hor is ‘laid-back’– he has a very friendly personality and playful sense of humor that helps him get along well with practically anyone. With the way that he’s always cracking jokes and taking pretty much everything that happens in stride (even something as ‘serious’ as getting shot in the head), he sort of reminds me of a hyper little kid in a man’s body. I really liked his character in the first half of the series especially, where he was the constant ‘comic relief’ and always managed to bring a smile to everyone’s face. His biggest flaw though was that he liked to ‘shoot off his mouth’, especially after he’s had a few drinks (this gets him into trouble early on and almost costs him his life). Unfortunately, his character changes a bit in the second half of the series – no, he doesn’t turn evil (thank goodness!), but his character does become a little more ‘serious’ and loses the humorous ‘charm’ that he consistently had through most of the first half. It’s too bad because I really did like his character and was looking forward to seeing more of his charm…
I actually was a bit surprised at how significant Ram’s role was in the series, especially in the first half – because the past few years, he had been relegated to playing lesser roles (or a villain role) for the most part. Not that I’m complaining though, since Ram has always been one of my favorite supporting actors – I always enjoy watching him in series because he always manages to bring his role to life with his performance, no matter how big or small his part is. In fact, whenever he’s in a series, I usually find myself watching most of the scenes that he’s in, even if I end up skipping the rest of the series because I can’t stand the storyline or the rest of the cast – and whether he’s playing a good guy or a villain, he’s always very convincing with his performance (yes, he’s THAT good!). He’s definitely very underrated as an actor and I really wish that TVB would give him more significant roles to play. Ah well – I’ll still continue to support him regardless of the types of roles he gets!
Ronald Law (Yeung Yiu Dong / Ba Da) – Ronald’s character is a young cop with a lot of potential who looks up to Hui Sir (Bosco) as a mentor and ‘big brother’ of sorts. He first met Hui Sir while at the academy and later when he was assigned to work with him in the WPU, they became best friends – Hui Sir treats him just like his own little brother (hence Ronald’s nickname in the series ‘Ba Da’). Ba Da is actually a very endearing character because he always has a certain earnestness and boyish charm about him – he’s a very sweet, super nice person who pretty much anyone would find likable (of course, those dimples of his help a lot too…LOL!) One of Ba Da’s most admirable traits is that he is extremely loyal and once he makes a decision to follow someone, he’s unwavering in his dedication and loyalty – he’s like that with Hui Sir as well as with Jo Jo (Hui Sir’s cousin), whom he has a huge crush on throughout the series. I actually really liked Ronald’s character in this series and enjoyed his interactions with Bosco’s character – I loved the ‘heart to heart’ conversations that they would have in the series where they would encourage one another and give each other advice (though more often than not it was more like Hui Sir giving Ba Da advice and trying to steer him in the right direction in terms of his life and career). The brotherly chemistry between the two was done very nicely!
In terms of acting, I would say that Ronald did a pretty good job considering he’s a newbie – of course he still needs polish, but he did come across quite natural in his role of you ask me (though part of that could have been because the role fit him well). Prior to this series, I really wasn’t too familiar with Ronald, as the only other series that I had seen him in was When Heaven Burns and his role in that series was definitely less significant compared to this one. I liked him in this series and from his strong performance, it looks like he has does have potential as an actor – give him a couple years and if developed correctly, I think he will do well.
Cilla Kung (Lee Hau Yan / Jo Jo) – Cilla’s character is a typical materialistic youth who is overly ambitious when it comes to climbing the social ladder and is constantly chasing the latest societal as well as fashion trends. Her goal in life is to marry a rich person in the future so that she can be set for life and also be ‘known’ in upper society -- which is why she is ecstatic when she finds out that her cousin Hui Wai Sum (Bosco) is assigned to protect Hailey (Linda), daughter of a rich tycoon. Not surprisingly, she becomes good friends with Hailey and even tries to serve as the ‘matchmaker’ for her and Hui Sir. Jo Jo actually isn’t a bad person by any means, she’s just a little bit annoying at times with her overzealousness in trying to become rich and famous. I was ok with her character, though I really didn’t like the way that she would treat Ba Da (basically leading him to think that he had a shot at being her boyfriend so that he would continue to give her gifts and such). Luckily she redeemed herself in the latter part of the series when she recognizes how wrongly she had treated Ba Da and resolves to be a more responsible person (though of course, it was too late to salvage her relationship with Ba Da, since he was killed off in episode 17). I don’t really have much opinion about Cilla as an actress because I haven’t watched enough of her performances to fairly judge. I will say though that she wasn’t too bad in this particular series – in fact she came across quite natural, since the character she played was probably close enough to her real age and seemed to suit her style.
Eric Li (Tong Jun Gai / Shawn) – Eric’s character Shawn actually does not have a whole lot of screen time, but his character is quite significant in terms of story development. He consistently appears in the first few episodes, then pretty much disappears for awhile and doesn’t appear again until the final 2 episodes. In the beginning, I was a little confused in terms of Shawn’s character and what his relationship was with the Kiu family (they never really properly introduced him) – at first, I thought that he was some sort of relative of the family, but it turns out he’s not related to them at all. Basically, he’s the son of a deceased tycoon whom Kong San takes under his wing and provides for him (we only find out the real reason why Kong San provides for Shawn later on in the series). To be honest, I don’t really like the way Shawn’s character was written because he was kind of all over the place and it was not really clear until the end of the series what the significance was of his character – I think his character could have definitely been developed more and perhaps have the story arc focus more on him in the second half of the series (rather than just in the last 2 episodes). To me, it seemed kind of ‘random’ the way he would pop in and out throughout the series and sort of made it difficult to really get into his character.
I was actually hoping that Eric wouldn’t have to play the villain again in this series, especially after his awesome performance as a good guy in Bottled Passion earlier in the year. Unfortunately, he does go down the ‘villain’ path in this series as well – though I guess if we want to get technical, he wasn’t exactly the ‘bad guy’ in the traditional sense of the word. He basically becomes a totally different person in the last 2 episodes of the series because of the stuff he encounters (losing all his money, taking drugs, etc.) and that’s really what affects his actions – I guess we could say that he was more a confused drug addict than he was a murderous villain. I’ve really got to hand it to Eric for his performance in this series – despite his limited screentime and the not very well-written character, he was quite excellent in his role. He really shined in the last 2 episodes of the series when his character returned as a delirious drug addict – he had changed so much physically that I actually was not able to recognize him from the pictures and spoiler scenes that I had seen prior to those episodes airing! He really played the drug addict role well (couldn’t help but laugh at his “my doctor told me to take lots of medication (drugs)” dialogue). I know, I should probably hate Shawn after what he does to our beloved Hui Sir, but I’m sorry – I like Eric too much as an actor recently that it’s really hard for me to be mad at him for long….
Add’l Cast / Characters
With the way the storyline developed primarily around the Kiu family and Hui Sir, there were actually quite a few artists who participated in the series on a lesser scale with relatively minor roles. Here are a few ‘honorable mentions’ (note that one ‘common theme’ with the below characters is that all of them could really have benefitted from being furthered developed – instead, many of them were ‘short-changed’ due to the way the script was written).
Rachel Kan (Tina) – Kong San’s second wife, Hailey’s stepmother. As mentioned earlier, I sort of felt Rachel’s character was ‘nonessential’ in that she really doesn’t do anything to further the plot except for maybe have a few ‘minor’ conflicts with Hailey in the first few episodes. After that, I don’t see much significance in her character – during the second half of the series, she’s basically just ‘there’. Even after finishing the series, I was still scratching my head and wondering what the writers’ / producer’s purpose was for including Rachel in this series. Don’t get me wrong – she did do a decent job with the acting given what she had (though honestly, I don’t think Rachel is that much older than Linda so for her to play her stepmother was a little bit far-fetched), but it was sort of a waste, I feel
Queenie Chu (Kelly) – Hailey’s therapist and also good friend. Compared to some of the other series she’s been in, Queenie has a relatively minor role in here as Kelly, the therapist / psychiatrist who is responsible for treating Hailey (Linda). Maybe her character wasn’t written well or something because I honestly didn’t really like her character much – I mean, she was a good friend for Hailey and goes beyond what a normal therapist would do by accompanying her on trips and other events, but as a psychiatrist / therapist, I didn’t feel that Kelly was ‘professional’ enough. The ‘advice’ that she gives Hailey throughout the series is sort of ‘suspect’ in that it wavers back and forth – to the point that at times, I felt that Kelly was being insincere (it was like she just tells Hailey what she wants to hear to appease her). I don’t know too much about psychiatry / therapy, so I’m probably not the best person to comment about it, but overall, her character just came across a little strange to me, that’s all.
Lee Sing Cheong (Ho Siu Leung) – Kiu Kong San’s ultra-loyal assistant. Ah Leung is the person whom Kong San (Paul) trusts the most outside of his own brother. He has worked for Kong San for decades and is super loyal to him, even willing to sacrifice his own life for him. In the first half of the series, his role is relatively minor, but near the middle / end of the series (for probably about 2-3 episodes), he becomes more of a critical character. Even though his role was small in this series, Lee Sing Cheong definitely delivered the goods (as usual) – his few ‘essential’ scenes in episodes 15 to 17 were done really well, especially the crying scenes. Lee Sing Cheong is another veteran actor whom I grew up watching – his villain roles are generally quite good and very convincing….too bad his role was relatively minor, as I would have liked to see more significant screen time from him.
Savio Tsang (Poon Sir) – As the head of the criminal investigation unit, Savio’s character only appears once in the first half of the series – it’s not until Bosco’s character Hui Sir is transferred to Poon Sir’s department that he takes on a more significant role (since Hui Sir reports to Poon Sir directly). With that said however, Savio actually doesn’t have a whole lot of screen time either, which was a little disappointing for me because I like him as an actor and his character had good room for development. I liked how Poon Sir was a very cool, understanding boss who goes very much by the rules, but still is able to maintain a good relationship with his subordinates. I also liked the way he interacted with his staff, especially with Hui Sir, whom he treated more as a friend than as his staff. Though I can understand why his role was less significant in the scheme of things, I really would have liked to see more of him as well.
Joseph Lee Kwok Lun (Sapura) – Rich tycoon from Indonesia with ties to the Kiu brothers’ past. He only appears in a few episodes during the second half of the series and even after he dies, most of the storyline in that segment of the series revolves around his case. This was yet another ‘run of the mill’ villain role for Joseph – a role so easy that he could have probably done it with his eyes closed (especially with his acting experience and skill). Again, I’m not really complaining because Joseph is another one of my long-time favorite veteran actors and I’m happy to still see him in series nowadays – but his appearance just seemed way too short…
Law Lok Lam (Yung Sui Bong) – Another actor I like a lot, but unfortunately his character was kind of insignificant as well. He’s one of the rich tycoons in the series on the same level as Paul Chun’s character, but we really don’t get to see much of him and when we do, it’s usually at some sort of gathering with Kong San and his other rich tycoon friends. Law Lok Lam is definitely underutilized in this series, which is really a shame because he’s too good of an actor to be given such a minor role. TVB should have just had someone else play this role instead and not waste LLL’s time!
WPU team: Jonathan Cheung (Wong Chi Tong / ‘Flat Tire’), Lee Yee Man (Cheung Lai Kuen / ‘See Jie’), Yeung Ching Wah (Chan Ka Si / ‘Sa See’), etc. – Considering the WPU team consisted mostly of newbies and artists whose names I didn’t even know, I was surprised by how much I liked watching this team interact with each other. As a team, they really did a great job of bringing to light a lot of the ‘essential elements’ of the WPU – including team spirit and cooperation, reacting quickly to unexpected situations that arise, being constantly on alert and ready to take action, etc. – they were very ‘serious’ about their work when they needed to be, but outside of that, they were a playful bunch. The chemistry between the entire team and their leader (Bosco) as well as with the other ‘main players’ (i.e. Linda’s and Ram’s characters, etc.) was excellent and very well portrayed – in fact, I was quite saddened to learn that we wouldn’t be seeing anymore of this team after episode 10 (well, except for a brief appearance in episode 17 at Ba Da’s funeral) because I really really liked them as team. Together, they were key in making the first half of the series so good and even though a few of them get pulled over to the criminal investigation department along with Hui Sir, it just wasn’t the same ‘feeling’ anymore. Definitely makes me wish that the writers would have kept to the witness protection theme in the second half of the series as well and somehow still incorporate the team into the rest of the series…
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THE ENDING / CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Ok, I decided not to completely give away the ending after all (though it probably doesn’t make a difference at this point since the ending was already plastered all over Weibo and entertainment news sites even before the finale aired last Friday). All I’m going to say with regard to the ending is that it wasn’t really as bad as people made it out to be – true, I didn’t want the series to end the way it did given how much I loved the character of Hui Sir as well as the Bosco / Linda pairing, but I actually felt that the ending was appropriate given the circumstances. I mean, it was pretty much already a given that a ‘happy’ ending was impossible given everything that had occurred leading up to that point – and to be honest, forcing a ‘happily ever after’ ending would have been worse because it would have been too fake. Though the ending was tragic and yes, some parts of it was a bit overdramatic, I would have to say that overall, it was a fitting ending and appropriate ‘closure’ to the Hui Sir / Hailey relationship – the ending made sense and most important of all, it was both bittersweet and memorable (though not exactly favorable). [I’ll probably talk more about the ending later on in the comments section, since I don’t want to ruin it for those who haven’t watched the series].
As for the the massive ‘movement’ of netizens to push for a sequel or change the ending to the series – I’m actually on the opposite side of the fence in that I absolutely do NOT want a sequel (because TVB would just screw it up like they do with all their other sequels – plus the chemistry won’t be the same anyway) and do NOT want the ending changed (I’ve never been a fan of alternate endings because most of the ones that I’ve seen have been lame and stupid). What’s done is done, so just leave the series the way it is please!
So do I recommend this series? Obviously, yes!! As I mentioned earlier, the script is a bit flawed and as a result, the flow is a little inconsistent, but taken as a whole, this was definitely one of the better series of the year so far. The series has a good enough combination of action sequences, suspense, romance, family drama, investigative scenes, etc. that there should hopefully be something in there for all interests. The first half of the series was especially awesome and almost guaranteed to go by quickly (most of the big action sections are in the first half) – it’s only when we reach the second half of the series that things slow down a little bit too much (for me it wasn’t really a problem, but some people found the change in pace annoying). If the inconsistencies in the script is a big issue for you, then I recommend watch this series for the cast – as I said earlier, the performances from pretty much everyone were quite good….even those whom I’m usually not too fond of I ended up liking in this series.
Despite its flaws, I felt that this was a great series overall – one that I would rewatch in a heartbeat and still enjoy it as much as I did the first time!
Cast: Bosco Wong (黃宗澤), Linda Chung (鍾嘉欣), Paul Chun (秦沛), Ram Tseung (蔣志光), Ronald Law (羅鈞滿), Cilla Kung (樂瞳), Queenie Chu (朱慧敏), Rachel Kan (簡慕華), Eric Li (李天翔), Lee Kwok Lun (李國麟), Geoffrey Wong (黃子雄), Savio Tsang (曾偉權), Yeung Ching Wah (楊證樺), Lee Yee Man (李綺雯), Jonathan Cheung (張穎康), etc.
**SPOILER ALERT: For those who haven't watched this series and don't want to be 'spoiled' with knowing some of the details of the series beforehand, then I recommend not reading this review, as there are details mentioned that I feel are necessary in order for me to write this review properly. Not to mention there will also be some mention of the ending as well, especially since there was quite a bit of 'controversy' surrounding it.
Before I start, I will say that I am probably in the 'minority' in terms of people who really liked this series and felt that pretty much everyone (from the main leads to the supporting cast) did a good job with the acting. I know that certain artists in the series have a lot of anti-fans (which is quite obvious based on all the on-line comments I’ve read the past few weeks) and as a result, there may be quite a few people out there who refused to watch this series at all or if they watched, skipped majority of the scenes with particular artists – that’s definitely those audience’s prerogative and I have no intention of changing it. However the point that I want to make is that as a neutral bystander who neither likes nor dislikes the main leads, I am writing this review from the 'neutral' perspective and everything contained in it is my personal impression of the series, regardless of what my feelings are towards any of the artists – so basically, those who hate any of the artists in the series and can't bear to hear anything good said about them should just skip this review completely.
Ok, so with the 'disclaimers' out of the way, on to the actual review....
Witness Insecurity [referred to in the rest of this review as WI] just finished airing this past Friday and already, I’ve watched the series twice (partly because I liked the series but also because of the convenient timeslot that it airs here in the U.S., which allows for re-airing of each week’s episodes on the weekend). I will be the first to admit that I absolutely did not think that I would like this series, primarily because the premise of the series wasn't fresh or creative (the whole witness protection thing has definitely been done before, more than once in fact) and also I'm not a fan of Bosco or Linda (especially Linda, since her last few series left a bad taste in my mouth and so I didn't think that I would be able to tolerate her in this series). Therefore, I went into this series without any expectations whatsoever and to my surprise, I actually ended up liking the series quite a lot (I was pretty much hooked from episode 1 all the way to the end…)
In my opinion, one of the biggest things that made this series so good was the cast -- from the main leads (Bosco and Linda) to the 'heavy supporting' artists (Paul, Ram, Ronald, Cilla, Queenie, Lee Sing Cheong, Eric Li, Savio Tsang, etc.) to the 'lesser supporting' artists (Lee Yee Man, Jonathan, Lee Kwok Lun, Rachel, the rest of the artists who portrayed either WPU staff or police officers in the criminal investigation department, etc.) -- no matter how big or small the role, practically everyone put in good performances...THAT's really what left a deep impression on me in terms of this series (I’ll go into more detail about each person’s performance later on in this review). I know a lot of people might disagree with me here, but hey, it’s my opinion after all…
Of course, no series is without flaws and this series was definitely no exception -- in fact, I would have to say that there were plenty of flaws and 'inconsistencies' in the script as well as several moments where, while watching the series, I felt like I just wanted to 'kill' the scriptwriters (more about this later). Even though this did detract from the series overall, it wasn’t completely unsalvageable, at least not for me – I still continued watching the series and enjoyed it
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SCRIPT / STORYLINE
My biggest complaint about the series is really with the script. The series actually started off quite good in the beginning, with the engaging storyline involving the WPU and the exciting action sequences as well as the 'setting up' of the romantic storyline between Hui Sir and Hailey -- plus the interaction and chemistry between the entire cast was at its best during these first 11-12 episodes or so: I especially enjoyed the chemistry between the WPU team and was really looking forward to seeing more of them....but unfortunately, during the second half of the series, the storyline sort of 'fell apart' in that the series moved away from the 'witness protection' theme (since the assignment to protect Hailey was over and Hui Sir was promoted and subsequently transferred) and focused primarily on the conflict between the Kiu brothers and Hui Sir. I probably would have been ok with this had they [the writers] developed the romantic relationship between Hui Sir and Hailey more in the second half (since, after all, that was the whole point of the series, right?) -- BUT, that didn't happen either....instead, we have this 'tortured' pseudo-romance storyline between the two main leads and even up until the tragic end, they don't officially even get together. It was definitely disappointing to see the second half of the series stray so far away from the original premise and theme of the series.
Don't get me wrong, there were still quite a few scenes in the second half of the series that I enjoyed, but as a whole, the first half was definitely way better -- the storyline in the second half was too messy and the direction that the writers decided to take was not really logical. Even though I still liked the series overall and continued to stick with it because I like the cast and also because I wanted to see how the relationship between Bosco and Linda's characters develop, I know that alot of people stopped watching the series after the storyline started straying off course, which is very unfortunate.
This series was produced by Lau Ka Ho and one thing I’ve noticed about his series in general is that a lot of times, the storylines veer off course and the scripts are not as tightly written as they could be. When I first started watching WI, I thought this series might be an exception, but now after finishing this series, turns out that it still followed a similar pattern – the only difference is that at only 20 episodes, this series is way shorter than many of LKH’s other ‘epics’ and so there was less room for the ‘dragginess’ that I typically see with his other series (most of which were 30 episodes or more). Given the way the script was written, perhaps this was a good thing? Personally though, I think this series would have benefited from having another 5 episodes at least -- I think that if that had occurred, then the storyline would have likely gone in a more ‘appropriate’ direction and the sub-stories as well as many of the other supporting characters could have been more properly developed.
One last thing about the script….maybe it’s just me, but with the way the script was written, there were quite a few characters in the series who were pretty much ‘useless’ and really were just ‘there’ for the sake of being there – for example: Brian Chu’s character as Jo Jo’s younger brother, Deno Cheung’s character as the leader of one of the police teams, Glenn Lee’s character as Mrs. Kiu’s (Rachel Kan) younger brother (he only appeared for like 2 scenes), etc. Even Rachel Kan’s character was kind of ‘nonessential’ if you ask me – though she gets plenty of screen time compared to some of the others, her character really didn’t do much. To me, these characters were basically just ‘fillers’, as they didn’t advance the storyline much at all and didn’t serve any real purpose in the series. It sort of made me wonder why the scriptwriters even bothered writing their characters into the script and ‘wasting’ precious ‘plot space’ (as well as screen time) that could have been used to develop other sub stories.
Speaking of characters, what an appropriate segue into a discussion of the cast….
CAST / CHARACTERS
As I said earlier, when I first read the cast list for this series, I wasn’t much impressed, as there were quite a few artists in the series that I didn’t particularly care for in terms of acting and the ones I do care about I didn’t think would have significant roles – but after watching some of the preview clips that had aired the week prior to the official premiere of the series (no, not the ‘fake’ promo clip that was pretty much just a ‘gimmick’ and had nothing to do with the series), I decided to give the series a chance, since I saw that a few of my favorite actors (namely Paul Chun and Ram Tseung) would have pretty ‘meaty’ roles in the series. Turns out I made the right decision!
In terms of cast, I definitely wouldn’t consider this one ‘all-star’, as there were quite a few ‘newer’ artists whose names I didn’t even know prior to watching this series. But as I’ve been noticing more and more the past few years, there doesn’t necessarily need to be a whole lot of ‘big names’ in a series in order for it to be a ‘good’ series – with the right combination of good acting, well-written characters, and a decently written script, a series can still have a strong impact on audiences and garner good word of mouth as well as high ratings (as this series did).
Again, unlike some of my past reviews, I’m not going to go into too much detail about the characters themselves but rather just focus on my thoughts toward the characters as well as the artists who portrayed them.
So without further adieu, here’s my ‘take’ on the main cast…
Bosco Wong (Hui Wai Sum / Hui Sir) – Bosco’s character is a cop who, for the first half of the series, is the leader of the Witness Protection Unit (WPU) and due to his success in that role, he’s promoted in the second half of the series and transferred to the criminal investigation unit to head up a team there. In my opinion, the character of ‘Hui Sir’ is definitely one of the biggest draws of this series, as his character is written in such a way that it’s really hard for audiences not to like him or be smitten by his charm. Personality-wise, Hui Sir is the epitome of ‘cool’ and ‘suave’ – he’s smart, handsome, and is pretty much a natural-born leader (which came about in part because of his independence at an early age due to him growing up in an orphanage). It can be said that Hui Sir was born to be a cop, as he has strong investigative instincts as well as an unwavering sense of righteousness and justice. One of the biggest traits that sets Hui Sir apart from others is his extremely high EQ – no matter how difficult a situation is, he is always able to handle it with a calm, composed disposition.
Bosco did a great job with his character in this series and definitely left a deep impression on me with his performance. I will admit that I was never really fond of some of the roles Bosco played in the past – in fact, in general, I can’t really even remember too many of his past performances (probably because I never really paid attention). Therefore, I was actually a little bit surprised myself that I came to like his character so much – of course, part of the credit goes to the writers for the way they developed the character, but Bosco should also be given credit for the way he portrayed the character – in other words, for the way he ‘acted’ the part. When I first started watching this series and read the description of the character, I was a bit concerned in the beginning on whether Bosco would be convincing enough in such a mature, serious role – mainly because most of his roles in the past were sort of catered to his boyish, ‘sunshine’ image (even the past roles where he played a ‘professional’ such as a cop or a fireman, he still had that ‘boyish’ trait to him – probably the only other role where I didn’t get that impression was his villain performance as ‘Bai Co’ in last year’s Lives of Omission). However, it turns out that my concern wasn’t warranted, as Bosco handled the role of Hui Wai Sum extremely well.
What I liked most about Bosco’s performance in this series was how ‘natural’ and ‘comfortable’ the role came across –with the way his character was written, there was quite a lot of ‘inner acting’ involved, since there were many moments where his character doesn’t say much, but yet still manages to convey his thoughts and feelings through his facial expressions as well as the way he carried himself (this was especially apparent during the first half of the series). Though I’m not a fan of Bosco’s by any means, this was one performance that definitely changed my impression of him as an actor and made me realize that with all the similar roles he played, his potential wasn’t really properly tapped into in the past (which is not surprising since that’s TVB’s typical way of managing their artists). I feel that with the proper cultivation in the right direction, Bosco has the potential to take his acting to a higher level – at this point in his career, he really should be taking on more mature, challenging roles rather than the ‘playful’ ones that he’s had in the past. With his role in his series as well as in LOO last year, looks like he’s headed in the right direction (for now at least…).
Linda Chung (Kiu Ji Lam / Hailey) – Linda plays the daughter of a rich tycoon who has a mood (anxiety) disorder resulting from a few tragic events that she had encountered when she was a child. In the beginning of the series, she is very anti-social and doesn’t like to talk or interact with anyone – she relies on playing the cello to release her inner tensions and regularly sees a therapist for treatment. However, after meeting Hui Sir and the rest of the WPU team and interacting with them for a certain period of time (since they were assigned to protect her after she witnesses a shooting), she starts to open up more and becomes a more cheerful person. By the end of the series, her personality has completely changed from what it was in the beginning and she no longer needs to go through therapy treatments in order to live a ‘normal’ life.
Contrary to popular opinion, I feel that Linda actually did a pretty good job with her acting in this series (don’t shoot me!). That’s actually saying a lot given the fact that I’ve never been impressed with Linda’s acting because I’ve always felt that somehow, her acting tends to come across as ‘exaggerated’ and ‘fake’ to me – especially when she tries to take on roles that are outside of her realm (such as a ‘bad girl’ type character or someone who is mean-spirited for example). Of course, part of the reason why I’ve never really been able to tolerate most of Linda’s performances in the past is because I can’t stand weak, pathetic, weepy, wishy-washy type characters and somehow she almost always ends up playing these types of characters.
Interestingly enough, Linda’s portrayal of Hailey actually left a completely different impression on me. Some might say that the role of Hailey was not too different than Linda’s usual ‘good girl’ type roles (which I kind of agree with), but in my opinion, the character was a bit better written than some of her other roles and most importantly, the role really suited her well (I heard the role was especially written for her?). Now I will say that Linda’s acting in the first 3 episodes (when she’s supposed to have that mood disorder illness that caused her to be very anti-social and paranoid about everything) was truly not that good (and in a few scenes, were probably ‘cringe-worthy’), but starting with episode 4 up through the end of the series, she actually does get a lot better – to the point that I actually started liking her character and really was able to feel for her throughout the series. One thing that impressed me about Linda’s acting in this series is that she did the ‘I’ve got a huge crush on Hui Sir’ scenes quite well – those scenes were very convincing and sweet. Also, Linda’s crying scenes were more tolerable in this series versus her previous works – I’m guessing that she toned down her crying a bit after being criticized for so many years about it? Well, the improvement is pretty obvious because outside of the first 3 episodes, Linda’s crying scenes were adequately done throughout the rest of the series (at least I didn’t find her annoying in this series at all).
One area that I feel Linda has definitely improved on is her use of facial expressions – there were quite a few scenes throughout the series where I felt that Linda’s facial expressions were very ‘on the spot’ and conveyed just the right amount of emotion. Of course, she’s still young and her acting still has A LOT of room for improvement (for instance, I don’t feel that her acting is mature enough to handle certain roles yet) – hopefully she will continue to get better with time.
With all that said though, my opinion of Linda overall does not change in that I'm still not tremendously fond of her as an actress because I feel that she’s still too much of a ‘hit and miss’ when it comes to her acting and therefore really can't carry a series on her own yet. For me, whether I'm able to tolerate Linda in a series or not really depends upon her role in the particular series as well as who she is paired up with. With my overall low tolerance level, I definitely wouldn't purposefully seek out a series and watch it just because Linda is in it, but if a series of hers happened to come on TV, I wouldn't mind watching it -- in other words, I'm not the type of person to stop watching / not watch a series just because I dislike a particular artist....to me, the storyline matters alot too and without attempting to watch the series, it's hard to truly know whether the series will be any good. Most of the time, I usually give the series a try and let the acting / storyline 'persuade' me to keep watching (or not)....
Bosco / Linda pairing– I never thought I would say this, but I’m absolutely smitten with this pairing after watching this series (yes, once again, I was surprised myself at how much I grew to ‘love’ this pairing). The chemistry that Bosco and Linda had in this series was quite amazing! I can’t think of any other series where 1) the main ‘couple’ never even officially become a couple in the series (from the beginning until the very end, Hui Sir and Hailey never officially get together – their relationship was pretty much ‘doomed’ before it even started), and 2) the ‘love’ feelings are pretty much one-sided throughout the entire series (Hailey has a crush on Hui Sir and even though he later develops feelings for her, those feelings never really turn into ‘love’), yet so many audiences (myself included) loved their pairing. [And I’m not just saying this – the proof is in the numbers: when Linda posted a photo of herself and Bosco (as Hailey and Hui Sir) on her Weibo during WI’s finale week, it received over 40K ‘retweets’ and over 15K comments in less than a day!]
This was actually the third time that Bosco and Linda were paired together as a couple (the previous 2 times were in Gem of Life and Moonlight Resonance – I will be absolutely honest and say that I don’t remember anything about their previous 2 pairings whatsoever, even though I had watched both series. I’m sure they had plenty of ‘sweet scenes’ in those 2 series too, but I don’t remember a single one – either I didn’t really pay attention and completely missed their scenes (which is possible but highly unlikely) or they didn’t have as much chemistry onscreen back then as they did in this series. After watching WI, I ‘adore’ this couple a lot for some unexplainable reason – I enjoyed every single one of their scenes together (even the ‘painful’ ones where they part ways with each other) and every time there was a ‘sweet moment’ between these two (mostly through eye contact or some other subtle expression), I couldn’t help myself from going: “Aww, how sweet!” [Some examples of Hui Sir / Hailey ‘sweet’ moments: the garden scene in episode 4, the cactus scene in episode 6, the Disneyland scenes in episode 8, and of course, the scene in episode 7 when Hailey gets shot and Hui Sir catches her from falling to the floor just in time, then picks her up and protectively carries her in his arms and runs through door after door to get her to the car and to the hospital (and accidentally hurting himself in the process)....true, a bad situation had happened, but the way it was filmed made it more sweet than it was tragic! I even found the scenes where Hailey would ‘steal glances’ at Hui Sir (unbeknownst to him) to be very cute and sweet!].
I definitely miss this pairing now that the series is over (especially with the tragic way that the series ended) – hope that I’ll get to see this pairing again in the near future!
Paul Chun (Kiu Kong San / Big Mr. Kiu) -- Paul Gor’s character is a rich tycoon with a shady past who lost both his wife and his son earlier on, so he focuses all his effort on loving his daughter and giving her everything possible. To be honest, despite Kong San’s past, I really don’t feel that he’s truly a ‘villain’ in this series, as the ‘motivation’ for a lot of the ‘pushing the envelope’ stuff he does in the second half of the series was primarily out of love for his daughter – he just goes about it the wrong way. I actually like his character better in the first half of the series, as his love for his daughter as well as his younger brother (Ram Tseung’s character) was more apparent and the stuff that he did actually made sense – some of his actions in the second half were sort of questionable to me and overall just didn’t jive that well with the overall storyline. I mean, yes, the sub-story about Kong San’s past was intriguing, but I feel that the writers could have written that whole story arc a little tighter and not drag it out for so long.
In terms of the acting – well, what can I say? It’s Paul Gor after all -- he’s one of the best ‘elder’ / veteran actors out there! I grew up watching Paul Gor in movies and television series, so I’m already very used to his style of acting – I love his versatility as an actor and how he can play a wide range of roles: from the most cold-blooded of villains to one of the most benevolent, lovable fathers we’ll ever find. I can truly say that I enjoyed Paul’s performance throughout the entire series, even in the second half when the storyline started to unravel a little bit and strayed from the original theme. I’m actually really glad that Paul Gor had such a significant role in this series (his screen time was actually not that much less than Bosco’s) because even if I didn’t really like the direction of the series in the second half, I could at least still enjoy his acting!
Ram Tseung (Kiu Kong Hor / Little Mr. Kiu) – Ram’s character Kong Hor is the younger brother of Paul’s Kong San. The best way to describe Kong Hor is ‘laid-back’– he has a very friendly personality and playful sense of humor that helps him get along well with practically anyone. With the way that he’s always cracking jokes and taking pretty much everything that happens in stride (even something as ‘serious’ as getting shot in the head), he sort of reminds me of a hyper little kid in a man’s body. I really liked his character in the first half of the series especially, where he was the constant ‘comic relief’ and always managed to bring a smile to everyone’s face. His biggest flaw though was that he liked to ‘shoot off his mouth’, especially after he’s had a few drinks (this gets him into trouble early on and almost costs him his life). Unfortunately, his character changes a bit in the second half of the series – no, he doesn’t turn evil (thank goodness!), but his character does become a little more ‘serious’ and loses the humorous ‘charm’ that he consistently had through most of the first half. It’s too bad because I really did like his character and was looking forward to seeing more of his charm…
I actually was a bit surprised at how significant Ram’s role was in the series, especially in the first half – because the past few years, he had been relegated to playing lesser roles (or a villain role) for the most part. Not that I’m complaining though, since Ram has always been one of my favorite supporting actors – I always enjoy watching him in series because he always manages to bring his role to life with his performance, no matter how big or small his part is. In fact, whenever he’s in a series, I usually find myself watching most of the scenes that he’s in, even if I end up skipping the rest of the series because I can’t stand the storyline or the rest of the cast – and whether he’s playing a good guy or a villain, he’s always very convincing with his performance (yes, he’s THAT good!). He’s definitely very underrated as an actor and I really wish that TVB would give him more significant roles to play. Ah well – I’ll still continue to support him regardless of the types of roles he gets!
Ronald Law (Yeung Yiu Dong / Ba Da) – Ronald’s character is a young cop with a lot of potential who looks up to Hui Sir (Bosco) as a mentor and ‘big brother’ of sorts. He first met Hui Sir while at the academy and later when he was assigned to work with him in the WPU, they became best friends – Hui Sir treats him just like his own little brother (hence Ronald’s nickname in the series ‘Ba Da’). Ba Da is actually a very endearing character because he always has a certain earnestness and boyish charm about him – he’s a very sweet, super nice person who pretty much anyone would find likable (of course, those dimples of his help a lot too…LOL!) One of Ba Da’s most admirable traits is that he is extremely loyal and once he makes a decision to follow someone, he’s unwavering in his dedication and loyalty – he’s like that with Hui Sir as well as with Jo Jo (Hui Sir’s cousin), whom he has a huge crush on throughout the series. I actually really liked Ronald’s character in this series and enjoyed his interactions with Bosco’s character – I loved the ‘heart to heart’ conversations that they would have in the series where they would encourage one another and give each other advice (though more often than not it was more like Hui Sir giving Ba Da advice and trying to steer him in the right direction in terms of his life and career). The brotherly chemistry between the two was done very nicely!
In terms of acting, I would say that Ronald did a pretty good job considering he’s a newbie – of course he still needs polish, but he did come across quite natural in his role of you ask me (though part of that could have been because the role fit him well). Prior to this series, I really wasn’t too familiar with Ronald, as the only other series that I had seen him in was When Heaven Burns and his role in that series was definitely less significant compared to this one. I liked him in this series and from his strong performance, it looks like he has does have potential as an actor – give him a couple years and if developed correctly, I think he will do well.
Cilla Kung (Lee Hau Yan / Jo Jo) – Cilla’s character is a typical materialistic youth who is overly ambitious when it comes to climbing the social ladder and is constantly chasing the latest societal as well as fashion trends. Her goal in life is to marry a rich person in the future so that she can be set for life and also be ‘known’ in upper society -- which is why she is ecstatic when she finds out that her cousin Hui Wai Sum (Bosco) is assigned to protect Hailey (Linda), daughter of a rich tycoon. Not surprisingly, she becomes good friends with Hailey and even tries to serve as the ‘matchmaker’ for her and Hui Sir. Jo Jo actually isn’t a bad person by any means, she’s just a little bit annoying at times with her overzealousness in trying to become rich and famous. I was ok with her character, though I really didn’t like the way that she would treat Ba Da (basically leading him to think that he had a shot at being her boyfriend so that he would continue to give her gifts and such). Luckily she redeemed herself in the latter part of the series when she recognizes how wrongly she had treated Ba Da and resolves to be a more responsible person (though of course, it was too late to salvage her relationship with Ba Da, since he was killed off in episode 17). I don’t really have much opinion about Cilla as an actress because I haven’t watched enough of her performances to fairly judge. I will say though that she wasn’t too bad in this particular series – in fact she came across quite natural, since the character she played was probably close enough to her real age and seemed to suit her style.
Eric Li (Tong Jun Gai / Shawn) – Eric’s character Shawn actually does not have a whole lot of screen time, but his character is quite significant in terms of story development. He consistently appears in the first few episodes, then pretty much disappears for awhile and doesn’t appear again until the final 2 episodes. In the beginning, I was a little confused in terms of Shawn’s character and what his relationship was with the Kiu family (they never really properly introduced him) – at first, I thought that he was some sort of relative of the family, but it turns out he’s not related to them at all. Basically, he’s the son of a deceased tycoon whom Kong San takes under his wing and provides for him (we only find out the real reason why Kong San provides for Shawn later on in the series). To be honest, I don’t really like the way Shawn’s character was written because he was kind of all over the place and it was not really clear until the end of the series what the significance was of his character – I think his character could have definitely been developed more and perhaps have the story arc focus more on him in the second half of the series (rather than just in the last 2 episodes). To me, it seemed kind of ‘random’ the way he would pop in and out throughout the series and sort of made it difficult to really get into his character.
I was actually hoping that Eric wouldn’t have to play the villain again in this series, especially after his awesome performance as a good guy in Bottled Passion earlier in the year. Unfortunately, he does go down the ‘villain’ path in this series as well – though I guess if we want to get technical, he wasn’t exactly the ‘bad guy’ in the traditional sense of the word. He basically becomes a totally different person in the last 2 episodes of the series because of the stuff he encounters (losing all his money, taking drugs, etc.) and that’s really what affects his actions – I guess we could say that he was more a confused drug addict than he was a murderous villain. I’ve really got to hand it to Eric for his performance in this series – despite his limited screentime and the not very well-written character, he was quite excellent in his role. He really shined in the last 2 episodes of the series when his character returned as a delirious drug addict – he had changed so much physically that I actually was not able to recognize him from the pictures and spoiler scenes that I had seen prior to those episodes airing! He really played the drug addict role well (couldn’t help but laugh at his “my doctor told me to take lots of medication (drugs)” dialogue). I know, I should probably hate Shawn after what he does to our beloved Hui Sir, but I’m sorry – I like Eric too much as an actor recently that it’s really hard for me to be mad at him for long….
Add’l Cast / Characters
With the way the storyline developed primarily around the Kiu family and Hui Sir, there were actually quite a few artists who participated in the series on a lesser scale with relatively minor roles. Here are a few ‘honorable mentions’ (note that one ‘common theme’ with the below characters is that all of them could really have benefitted from being furthered developed – instead, many of them were ‘short-changed’ due to the way the script was written).
Rachel Kan (Tina) – Kong San’s second wife, Hailey’s stepmother. As mentioned earlier, I sort of felt Rachel’s character was ‘nonessential’ in that she really doesn’t do anything to further the plot except for maybe have a few ‘minor’ conflicts with Hailey in the first few episodes. After that, I don’t see much significance in her character – during the second half of the series, she’s basically just ‘there’. Even after finishing the series, I was still scratching my head and wondering what the writers’ / producer’s purpose was for including Rachel in this series. Don’t get me wrong – she did do a decent job with the acting given what she had (though honestly, I don’t think Rachel is that much older than Linda so for her to play her stepmother was a little bit far-fetched), but it was sort of a waste, I feel
Queenie Chu (Kelly) – Hailey’s therapist and also good friend. Compared to some of the other series she’s been in, Queenie has a relatively minor role in here as Kelly, the therapist / psychiatrist who is responsible for treating Hailey (Linda). Maybe her character wasn’t written well or something because I honestly didn’t really like her character much – I mean, she was a good friend for Hailey and goes beyond what a normal therapist would do by accompanying her on trips and other events, but as a psychiatrist / therapist, I didn’t feel that Kelly was ‘professional’ enough. The ‘advice’ that she gives Hailey throughout the series is sort of ‘suspect’ in that it wavers back and forth – to the point that at times, I felt that Kelly was being insincere (it was like she just tells Hailey what she wants to hear to appease her). I don’t know too much about psychiatry / therapy, so I’m probably not the best person to comment about it, but overall, her character just came across a little strange to me, that’s all.
Lee Sing Cheong (Ho Siu Leung) – Kiu Kong San’s ultra-loyal assistant. Ah Leung is the person whom Kong San (Paul) trusts the most outside of his own brother. He has worked for Kong San for decades and is super loyal to him, even willing to sacrifice his own life for him. In the first half of the series, his role is relatively minor, but near the middle / end of the series (for probably about 2-3 episodes), he becomes more of a critical character. Even though his role was small in this series, Lee Sing Cheong definitely delivered the goods (as usual) – his few ‘essential’ scenes in episodes 15 to 17 were done really well, especially the crying scenes. Lee Sing Cheong is another veteran actor whom I grew up watching – his villain roles are generally quite good and very convincing….too bad his role was relatively minor, as I would have liked to see more significant screen time from him.
Savio Tsang (Poon Sir) – As the head of the criminal investigation unit, Savio’s character only appears once in the first half of the series – it’s not until Bosco’s character Hui Sir is transferred to Poon Sir’s department that he takes on a more significant role (since Hui Sir reports to Poon Sir directly). With that said however, Savio actually doesn’t have a whole lot of screen time either, which was a little disappointing for me because I like him as an actor and his character had good room for development. I liked how Poon Sir was a very cool, understanding boss who goes very much by the rules, but still is able to maintain a good relationship with his subordinates. I also liked the way he interacted with his staff, especially with Hui Sir, whom he treated more as a friend than as his staff. Though I can understand why his role was less significant in the scheme of things, I really would have liked to see more of him as well.
Joseph Lee Kwok Lun (Sapura) – Rich tycoon from Indonesia with ties to the Kiu brothers’ past. He only appears in a few episodes during the second half of the series and even after he dies, most of the storyline in that segment of the series revolves around his case. This was yet another ‘run of the mill’ villain role for Joseph – a role so easy that he could have probably done it with his eyes closed (especially with his acting experience and skill). Again, I’m not really complaining because Joseph is another one of my long-time favorite veteran actors and I’m happy to still see him in series nowadays – but his appearance just seemed way too short…
Law Lok Lam (Yung Sui Bong) – Another actor I like a lot, but unfortunately his character was kind of insignificant as well. He’s one of the rich tycoons in the series on the same level as Paul Chun’s character, but we really don’t get to see much of him and when we do, it’s usually at some sort of gathering with Kong San and his other rich tycoon friends. Law Lok Lam is definitely underutilized in this series, which is really a shame because he’s too good of an actor to be given such a minor role. TVB should have just had someone else play this role instead and not waste LLL’s time!
WPU team: Jonathan Cheung (Wong Chi Tong / ‘Flat Tire’), Lee Yee Man (Cheung Lai Kuen / ‘See Jie’), Yeung Ching Wah (Chan Ka Si / ‘Sa See’), etc. – Considering the WPU team consisted mostly of newbies and artists whose names I didn’t even know, I was surprised by how much I liked watching this team interact with each other. As a team, they really did a great job of bringing to light a lot of the ‘essential elements’ of the WPU – including team spirit and cooperation, reacting quickly to unexpected situations that arise, being constantly on alert and ready to take action, etc. – they were very ‘serious’ about their work when they needed to be, but outside of that, they were a playful bunch. The chemistry between the entire team and their leader (Bosco) as well as with the other ‘main players’ (i.e. Linda’s and Ram’s characters, etc.) was excellent and very well portrayed – in fact, I was quite saddened to learn that we wouldn’t be seeing anymore of this team after episode 10 (well, except for a brief appearance in episode 17 at Ba Da’s funeral) because I really really liked them as team. Together, they were key in making the first half of the series so good and even though a few of them get pulled over to the criminal investigation department along with Hui Sir, it just wasn’t the same ‘feeling’ anymore. Definitely makes me wish that the writers would have kept to the witness protection theme in the second half of the series as well and somehow still incorporate the team into the rest of the series…
.---.
THE ENDING / CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Ok, I decided not to completely give away the ending after all (though it probably doesn’t make a difference at this point since the ending was already plastered all over Weibo and entertainment news sites even before the finale aired last Friday). All I’m going to say with regard to the ending is that it wasn’t really as bad as people made it out to be – true, I didn’t want the series to end the way it did given how much I loved the character of Hui Sir as well as the Bosco / Linda pairing, but I actually felt that the ending was appropriate given the circumstances. I mean, it was pretty much already a given that a ‘happy’ ending was impossible given everything that had occurred leading up to that point – and to be honest, forcing a ‘happily ever after’ ending would have been worse because it would have been too fake. Though the ending was tragic and yes, some parts of it was a bit overdramatic, I would have to say that overall, it was a fitting ending and appropriate ‘closure’ to the Hui Sir / Hailey relationship – the ending made sense and most important of all, it was both bittersweet and memorable (though not exactly favorable). [I’ll probably talk more about the ending later on in the comments section, since I don’t want to ruin it for those who haven’t watched the series].
As for the the massive ‘movement’ of netizens to push for a sequel or change the ending to the series – I’m actually on the opposite side of the fence in that I absolutely do NOT want a sequel (because TVB would just screw it up like they do with all their other sequels – plus the chemistry won’t be the same anyway) and do NOT want the ending changed (I’ve never been a fan of alternate endings because most of the ones that I’ve seen have been lame and stupid). What’s done is done, so just leave the series the way it is please!
So do I recommend this series? Obviously, yes!! As I mentioned earlier, the script is a bit flawed and as a result, the flow is a little inconsistent, but taken as a whole, this was definitely one of the better series of the year so far. The series has a good enough combination of action sequences, suspense, romance, family drama, investigative scenes, etc. that there should hopefully be something in there for all interests. The first half of the series was especially awesome and almost guaranteed to go by quickly (most of the big action sections are in the first half) – it’s only when we reach the second half of the series that things slow down a little bit too much (for me it wasn’t really a problem, but some people found the change in pace annoying). If the inconsistencies in the script is a big issue for you, then I recommend watch this series for the cast – as I said earlier, the performances from pretty much everyone were quite good….even those whom I’m usually not too fond of I ended up liking in this series.
Despite its flaws, I felt that this was a great series overall – one that I would rewatch in a heartbeat and still enjoy it as much as I did the first time!
Monday, July 23, 2012
Weibo Fever # 17: Producer Lau Ka Ho’s Series Through the Years
Yesterday (7/22) was ‘golden’ producer Lau Ka Ho’s (劉家豪) birthday. In addition to many of his friends and colleagues giving him birthday wishes via Weibo, one of the HK entertainment news sites gave him a very special gift: a fan-made video clip that incorporates the themesong videos from 23 of the series that LKH produced over the past 3 decades (late 1980s to 2012).
I really enjoyed watching this clip (even though at a little over 37 minutes, the clip is LONG) because it brought back a lot of memories for me, since I’ve either watched (or am currently watching) all 23 series featured in this clip (though of course, some of the series I watched awhile back ago -- especially the ones from the 80s -- so I'm not necessarily going to remember everything about them). It also made me realize how long I’ve been ‘following’ TVB (I guess I really am ‘old’…haha).
Anyway, here is the list of the 23 series that Ka Ho Gor produced (the same series featured in the clip) as well as a [partial] cast list (I actually decided to list out the cast on my own). I’m sure that a lot of TVB fans (especially long-time fans) will recognize majority of these series (especially the ones that were anniversary series / grand productions).
This clip absolutely worth keeping, especially given the fact that Ka Ho Gor has already left TVB – he was definitely a very important part of TVB history and even though he may not have produced as many series compared to other TVB producers, many of his series were 'classics' that helped to secure the careers of many artists over the decades.
Lastly, just wanted to take this opportunity to say:
HAPPY [belated] BIRTHDAY KA HO GOR!!!
*****
8). The Hunter’s Prey 烏金血劍 (1990)
Cast: Canti Lau (劉錫明), Gallen Lo (羅嘉良), Vivian Chow (周慧敏), Eddie Cheung (張兆輝), Gordon Lau (劉家輝), Stella Wong (王敏明), etc.
9). The Big Family 大家族 (1991)
Cast: Alex Man (萬梓良), Elizabeth Lee (李美鳳), Tien Niu (恬妞), Kenneth Tsang (曾江), Chu Kong (朱江), Kwan Hoi San (關海山), Canti Lau (劉錫明), Benz Hui (許紹雄), Ha Ping (夏萍), Fung So Bor (馮素波), Wayne Lai (黎耀祥), Cutie Mui (梅小惠), etc. [This was 1991’s anniversary series and actually had a huge cast – too many artists to list out completely].
10). The Key Man 巨人 (1992)
Cast: Alex Man (萬梓良), Dicky Cheung (張衛健), Idy Chan (陳玉蓮), Monica Chan (陳法蓉), Wilson Lam (林俊賢), Louise Lee (李司棋), Kwan Hoi San (關海山), etc.
11). The Edge of Righteousness 龍兄鼠弟 (1993)
Cast: Alex Man (萬梓良), Dicky Cheung (張衛健), Jessica Hsuan (宣萱), Athena Chu (朱茵), Monica Chan (陳法蓉), Kent Cheng (鄭則仕),Kwan Hoi San (關海山), etc.
12). Down Memory Lane 萬里長情 (1995)
Cast: Alex Man (萬梓良), Michelle Yim (米雪), Frankie Lam (林文龍), Kenix Kwok (郭可盈), Dominic Lam (林嘉華), Candy Law (羅霖), Gordon Lam (林家棟), etc.
13). The Gentle Crackdown 秀才遇著兵 (2005)
Cast: Moses Chan (陳豪), Niki Chow (周麗淇), Wayne Lai (黎耀祥), Michelle Yim (米雪), Yuen Wah (元華), Lee Sing Cheong (李成昌), Johnson Lee (李思捷), Mimi Chu (朱咪咪), Eddy Ko (高雄), Cindy Au (歐倩怡), etc.
14). When Rules Turn Loose 識法代言人 (2005)
Cast: Liza Wang (汪明荃), Ha Yu (夏雨), Myolie Wu (胡杏兒), Sammul Chan (陳鍵鋒), Wayne Lai (黎耀祥), Patricia Liu (劉綽琪), Marco Ngai (魏駿傑), etc.
15). Heart of Greed 溏心風暴 (2007)
Cast: Louise Lee (李司棋), Ha Yu (夏雨), Susann Kwan (關菊英), Michelle Yim (米雪), Moses Chan (陳豪), Linda Chung (鍾嘉欣), Bosco Wong (黃宗澤), Tavia Yeung (楊怡), Louis Yuen (阮兆祥), Raymond Lam (林峯), Chris Lai (黎諾懿), Fala Chen (陳法拉), Yoyo Mung (蒙嘉慧), Lee Sing Cheong (李成昌), etc.
16). Devil’s Disciples 強劍 (2007)
Cast: Kevin Cheng (鄭嘉穎), Bosco Wong (黃宗澤), Bernice Liu (廖碧兒), Sharon Chan (陳敏之), Shirley Yeung (楊思琦), Wayne Lai (黎耀祥), etc.
17). The Gentle Crackdown 2 秀才愛上兵 (2008)
Cast: Steven Ma (馬浚偉), Yumiko Cheng (鄭希怡), Wayne Lai (黎耀祥), Ha Yu (夏雨), Law Koon Lan (羅冠蘭), Lee Sing Cheong (李成昌), Johnson Lee (李思捷), Savio Tsang (曾偉權), Evergreen Mak (麥長青), etc.
18). Moonlight Resonance 溏心風暴之家好月圓 (2008)
Cast: Louise Lee (李司棋), Ha Yu (夏雨), Susann Kwan (關菊英), Michelle Yim (米雪), Wayne Lai (黎耀祥), Lee Heung Kam (李香琴), Moses Chan (陳豪), Linda Chung (鍾嘉欣), Bosco Wong (黃宗澤), Tavia Yeung (楊怡), Louis Yuen (阮兆祥), Raymond Lam (林峯), Chris Lai (黎諾懿), Fala Chen (陳法拉), Kate Tsui (徐子珊), Lee Sing Cheong (李成昌), Vincent Wan (溫家恆), etc.
19). In the Eye of the Beholder 秋香怒點唐伯虎 (2010)
Cast: Moses Chan (陳豪), Ha Yu (夏雨), Myolie Wu (胡杏兒), Fala Chen (陳法拉), Johnson Lee (李思捷), Savio Tsang (曾偉權), Chris Lai (黎諾懿), Elaine Yiu (姚子羚), etc.
20). Mysteries of Love 談情說案 (2010)
Cast: Raymond Lam (林峯), Tavia Yeung (楊怡), Kenneth Ma (馬國明), Bernice Liu (廖碧兒), Law Lok Lam (羅樂林), Evergreen Mak (麥長青), Jazz Lam (林子善), etc.
21). Yes Sir Sorry Sir 點解阿Sir係阿Sir (2011)
Cast: Moses Chan (陳豪), Tavia Yeung (楊怡), Linda Chung (鍾嘉欣), Ron Ng (吳卓羲), Savio Tsang (曾偉權), Law Lok Lam (羅樂林), Queenie Chu (朱慧敏), Lee Kwok Lun (李國麟), Ronald Law (羅鈞滿), Cilla Lok (樂瞳), Dickson Wong (黄得生), Brian Chu (朱敏瀚), etc.
22). Witness Insecurity 護花危情 (2012)
Cast: Bosco Wong (黃宗澤), Linda Chung (鍾嘉欣), Paul Chun (秦沛), Ram Tseung (蔣志光), Ronald Law (羅鈞滿), Cilla Lok (樂瞳), Queenie Chu (朱慧敏), Rachel Kan (簡慕華), Eric Li (李天翔), Lee Kwok Lun (李國麟), Geoffrey Wong (黃子雄), Savio Tsang (曾偉權), Yeung Ching Wah (楊證樺), Lee Yee Man (李綺雯), Jonathan Cheung (張穎康), etc.
23). Three Kingdoms RPG 回到三國 (2012)
Cast: Kenneth Ma (馬國明), Raymond Lam (林峯), Tavia Yeung (楊怡), Kaki Leung (梁嘉琪), Lee Kwok Lun (李國麟), Savio Tsang (曾偉權), Law Lok Lam (羅樂林), Jimmy Au (歐瑞偉), Lee Sing Cheong (李成昌), Ruco Chan (陳展鵬), etc.
I really enjoyed watching this clip (even though at a little over 37 minutes, the clip is LONG) because it brought back a lot of memories for me, since I’ve either watched (or am currently watching) all 23 series featured in this clip (though of course, some of the series I watched awhile back ago -- especially the ones from the 80s -- so I'm not necessarily going to remember everything about them). It also made me realize how long I’ve been ‘following’ TVB (I guess I really am ‘old’…haha).
Anyway, here is the list of the 23 series that Ka Ho Gor produced (the same series featured in the clip) as well as a [partial] cast list (I actually decided to list out the cast on my own). I’m sure that a lot of TVB fans (especially long-time fans) will recognize majority of these series (especially the ones that were anniversary series / grand productions).
This clip absolutely worth keeping, especially given the fact that Ka Ho Gor has already left TVB – he was definitely a very important part of TVB history and even though he may not have produced as many series compared to other TVB producers, many of his series were 'classics' that helped to secure the careers of many artists over the decades.
Lastly, just wanted to take this opportunity to say:
HAPPY [belated] BIRTHDAY KA HO GOR!!!
*****
Link to Video Clip: Lau Ka Ho’s series
Source: HK Channel's Weibo
picture credit as listed
1). When Silken Hands Get Rough 靜待黎明 (1987)
Cast: Barbara Chan (陳敏兒), Susanna AuYeung (歐陽珮珊), Eddy Ko (高雄), Margie Tsang (曾華倩), Sean Lau (劉青雲), Lau Kong (劉江), Gregory Lee (李永豪), etc.
2). The Rise of a Kung Fu Master 南拳蔡李佛 (1988)
Cast: Meng Fei (孟飛), Cecilia Wong (黄杏秀), Kitty Lai (黎美嫻), Andy Dai (戴志偉), Paul Chun (秦沛), Ng Man Tat (吳孟達), Eddy Ko (高雄), Lau Kong (劉江), Samuel Kwok (郭鋒), etc.
3). Behind Silk Curtains 大都會 (1988)
Cast: Adam Cheng (鄭少秋), Liza Wang (汪明荃), Stephen Chow (周星馳), David Siu (邵仲衡), Yang Kwun (楊群), Jamie Chik (戚美珍), Spencer Leung (梁思浩), Wing Lam (林穎嫺), etc. etc. [Note: This was a special 5 episode series that featured pretty much every single artist working for TVB at the time – most of them appeared in cameo roles, with a few seconds to few minutes screentime, so cast list is too huge to list out completely.]
4). And Yet We Live 當代男兒 (1988)
Cast: Alex Man (萬梓良), Ray Lui (呂良偉), Lee Heung Kam (李香琴), Barbara Chan (陳敏兒), Dominic Lam (林嘉華), Wing Lam (林穎嫺), Mak Chui Han (麥翠嫻), Maggie Siu (邵美琪), Dicky Cheung (張衛健), Sean Lau (劉青雲), Andy Dai (戴志偉), Teresa Mo (毛舜筠), etc.
5). Ho Ching 豪情 (1989) [Note: Not sure about English title]
Cast: Wilson Lam (林俊賢), Ray Lui (呂良偉), Margie Tsang (曾華倩), Carina Lau (劉嘉玲), Wong Wan Choi (黃允財), etc.
6). The Final Combat 蓋世豪俠 (1989)
Cast: Stephen Chow (周星馳), Jacqueline Law (羅慧娟), Francis Ng (吳鎮宇), Yammie Nam (藍潔瑛), Ng Man Tat (吳孟達), Cutie Mui (梅小惠), Lau Kong (劉江), etc.
7). The Justice of Life 他來自江湖 (1989)
Cast: Alex Man (萬梓良), Stephen Chow (周星馳), Ng Man Tat (吳孟達), Tien Niu (恬妞), Teresa Mo (毛舜筠), Anthony Wong (黃秋生), Lee Heung Kam (李香琴), Cutie Mui (梅小惠), Kwan Hoi San (關海山), etc.8). The Hunter’s Prey 烏金血劍 (1990)
Cast: Canti Lau (劉錫明), Gallen Lo (羅嘉良), Vivian Chow (周慧敏), Eddie Cheung (張兆輝), Gordon Lau (劉家輝), Stella Wong (王敏明), etc.
9). The Big Family 大家族 (1991)
Cast: Alex Man (萬梓良), Elizabeth Lee (李美鳳), Tien Niu (恬妞), Kenneth Tsang (曾江), Chu Kong (朱江), Kwan Hoi San (關海山), Canti Lau (劉錫明), Benz Hui (許紹雄), Ha Ping (夏萍), Fung So Bor (馮素波), Wayne Lai (黎耀祥), Cutie Mui (梅小惠), etc. [This was 1991’s anniversary series and actually had a huge cast – too many artists to list out completely].
10). The Key Man 巨人 (1992)
Cast: Alex Man (萬梓良), Dicky Cheung (張衛健), Idy Chan (陳玉蓮), Monica Chan (陳法蓉), Wilson Lam (林俊賢), Louise Lee (李司棋), Kwan Hoi San (關海山), etc.
11). The Edge of Righteousness 龍兄鼠弟 (1993)
Cast: Alex Man (萬梓良), Dicky Cheung (張衛健), Jessica Hsuan (宣萱), Athena Chu (朱茵), Monica Chan (陳法蓉), Kent Cheng (鄭則仕),Kwan Hoi San (關海山), etc.
12). Down Memory Lane 萬里長情 (1995)
Cast: Alex Man (萬梓良), Michelle Yim (米雪), Frankie Lam (林文龍), Kenix Kwok (郭可盈), Dominic Lam (林嘉華), Candy Law (羅霖), Gordon Lam (林家棟), etc.
13). The Gentle Crackdown 秀才遇著兵 (2005)
Cast: Moses Chan (陳豪), Niki Chow (周麗淇), Wayne Lai (黎耀祥), Michelle Yim (米雪), Yuen Wah (元華), Lee Sing Cheong (李成昌), Johnson Lee (李思捷), Mimi Chu (朱咪咪), Eddy Ko (高雄), Cindy Au (歐倩怡), etc.
14). When Rules Turn Loose 識法代言人 (2005)
Cast: Liza Wang (汪明荃), Ha Yu (夏雨), Myolie Wu (胡杏兒), Sammul Chan (陳鍵鋒), Wayne Lai (黎耀祥), Patricia Liu (劉綽琪), Marco Ngai (魏駿傑), etc.
15). Heart of Greed 溏心風暴 (2007)
Cast: Louise Lee (李司棋), Ha Yu (夏雨), Susann Kwan (關菊英), Michelle Yim (米雪), Moses Chan (陳豪), Linda Chung (鍾嘉欣), Bosco Wong (黃宗澤), Tavia Yeung (楊怡), Louis Yuen (阮兆祥), Raymond Lam (林峯), Chris Lai (黎諾懿), Fala Chen (陳法拉), Yoyo Mung (蒙嘉慧), Lee Sing Cheong (李成昌), etc.
16). Devil’s Disciples 強劍 (2007)
Cast: Kevin Cheng (鄭嘉穎), Bosco Wong (黃宗澤), Bernice Liu (廖碧兒), Sharon Chan (陳敏之), Shirley Yeung (楊思琦), Wayne Lai (黎耀祥), etc.
17). The Gentle Crackdown 2 秀才愛上兵 (2008)
Cast: Steven Ma (馬浚偉), Yumiko Cheng (鄭希怡), Wayne Lai (黎耀祥), Ha Yu (夏雨), Law Koon Lan (羅冠蘭), Lee Sing Cheong (李成昌), Johnson Lee (李思捷), Savio Tsang (曾偉權), Evergreen Mak (麥長青), etc.
18). Moonlight Resonance 溏心風暴之家好月圓 (2008)
Cast: Louise Lee (李司棋), Ha Yu (夏雨), Susann Kwan (關菊英), Michelle Yim (米雪), Wayne Lai (黎耀祥), Lee Heung Kam (李香琴), Moses Chan (陳豪), Linda Chung (鍾嘉欣), Bosco Wong (黃宗澤), Tavia Yeung (楊怡), Louis Yuen (阮兆祥), Raymond Lam (林峯), Chris Lai (黎諾懿), Fala Chen (陳法拉), Kate Tsui (徐子珊), Lee Sing Cheong (李成昌), Vincent Wan (溫家恆), etc.
19). In the Eye of the Beholder 秋香怒點唐伯虎 (2010)
Cast: Moses Chan (陳豪), Ha Yu (夏雨), Myolie Wu (胡杏兒), Fala Chen (陳法拉), Johnson Lee (李思捷), Savio Tsang (曾偉權), Chris Lai (黎諾懿), Elaine Yiu (姚子羚), etc.
20). Mysteries of Love 談情說案 (2010)
Cast: Raymond Lam (林峯), Tavia Yeung (楊怡), Kenneth Ma (馬國明), Bernice Liu (廖碧兒), Law Lok Lam (羅樂林), Evergreen Mak (麥長青), Jazz Lam (林子善), etc.
21). Yes Sir Sorry Sir 點解阿Sir係阿Sir (2011)
Cast: Moses Chan (陳豪), Tavia Yeung (楊怡), Linda Chung (鍾嘉欣), Ron Ng (吳卓羲), Savio Tsang (曾偉權), Law Lok Lam (羅樂林), Queenie Chu (朱慧敏), Lee Kwok Lun (李國麟), Ronald Law (羅鈞滿), Cilla Lok (樂瞳), Dickson Wong (黄得生), Brian Chu (朱敏瀚), etc.
22). Witness Insecurity 護花危情 (2012)
Cast: Bosco Wong (黃宗澤), Linda Chung (鍾嘉欣), Paul Chun (秦沛), Ram Tseung (蔣志光), Ronald Law (羅鈞滿), Cilla Lok (樂瞳), Queenie Chu (朱慧敏), Rachel Kan (簡慕華), Eric Li (李天翔), Lee Kwok Lun (李國麟), Geoffrey Wong (黃子雄), Savio Tsang (曾偉權), Yeung Ching Wah (楊證樺), Lee Yee Man (李綺雯), Jonathan Cheung (張穎康), etc.
23). Three Kingdoms RPG 回到三國 (2012)
Cast: Kenneth Ma (馬國明), Raymond Lam (林峯), Tavia Yeung (楊怡), Kaki Leung (梁嘉琪), Lee Kwok Lun (李國麟), Savio Tsang (曾偉權), Law Lok Lam (羅樂林), Jimmy Au (歐瑞偉), Lee Sing Cheong (李成昌), Ruco Chan (陳展鵬), etc.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
TVB Series “Witness Insecurity”《護花危情》(2012): Theme Song Translation
I’m currently watching (well, more like 'chasing') the TVB series Witness Insecurity 《護花危情》 (starring Bosco Wong, Linda Chung, Paul Chun, Ram Tseung, etc.) and so far, it’s quite an enjoyable series (in fact, I’m sort of ‘obsessed’ with this series just like I was with BP and THC earlier in the year). Since I’m planning on writing a review on the series when it finishes airing in a couple weeks (I have a bunch of notes on it already), I’m going to refrain from going into detail about the series itself in this post. Instead, I’m going to focus primarily on the theme song only.
The theme song to this series is called ‘The Most Blissful Thing’ (最幸福的事) and is sung by the series female lead Linda Chung. At first, when I first heard this song, I wasn’t too crazy about it, partly because I felt Linda’s performance of the song was a little lacking, but after listening to it over and over again (since there is no sub-theme song for this series, so the theme song is played during both the opening and closing credits), I’ve come to love this song (quite a lot actually). I guess you could say that this song ‘grew’ on me the more I listened to it.
I really like the melody of the song because it’s very easy to listen to and also fits so well with the theme of the series – the cello instrumental part at the beginning of the song especially moves me and draws me in (the song ends with the same instrumental segment as well). In fact, there’s actually a complete instrumental version of the song that was released as well (part of it is played throughout the series, since Linda’s character plays the cello so this is the song that she plays each time). The lyrics are also very beautiful and moving – gives off that ‘bittersweet’ vibe that’s inline with the overall storyline. [In fact, if we pay close attention to the lyrics, perhaps there’s a little hint of how Hui Sir (Bosco) and Kiu Ji Lam’s (Linda) relationship will turn out? (I’m sure those who are currently watching the series will know what I mean)].
Overall, the song is beautifully composed and written -- however the only flaw is the vocal performance (aka the singing) of the song by Linda. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Linda’s performance of the song wasn't good – in fact, I feel that she actually did a decent job with the song considering she’s not a professional singer…however, the reason why I feel her performance was lacking was because it didn’t have the emotional ‘umph’ that would have made this song perfect. When it comes to theme songs, I’m a bit on the ‘picky’ side in that in order for the song to be ‘successful’ in my eyes, it needs to 1) remind me of the series so much that I have the urge to go watch the series all over again just from listening to the theme song being played (believe me, I’ve done it many times with certain series / theme songs) and 2) move me emotionally in some manner – whether it brings a warm smile to my face or pulls at my heartstrings to the point that it brings tears to my eyes. I must say that as much as I enjoy listening to the theme song for this series, it still doesn’t have as ‘powerful’ of an emotional effect on me as other songs have in the past (though definitely whenever I listen to the song, I feel the urge to watch the series…LOL).
Personally, I feel that the theme song would have a different affect on me if someone else sang it rather than Linda. As I’m writing this, the person who comes to mind who would have been the ‘perfect’ candidate to perform this song (and do it the justice it deserves) is Joyce Cheng. She has that beautiful, sweet yet strong voice that fits the song perfectly, but most important of all, Joyce sings with a lot of emotion as well as conviction (despite being a newcomer to the music industry). Every time I listen to Joyce sing (especially the slow ballads that she does), I get a bit emotional and sometimes even teary-eyed. No offense to Linda (because again, like I said earlier, she gave it a good shot), but I just feel that Joyce would have been able to make the song more ‘impactful’ from an ‘emotion’ point of view. [As a sidenote, I absolutely loved the theme song ‘Intuition’ that Joyce sang for the series “Speech of Silence” a few years back – in my opinion, this song is along the same lines as that one (except for the instrumental piece), which is another reason why I think Joyce would have been a better fit for the song…]
Anyway, no matter what I think about who should try singing the song, at the end of the day, it’s still a beautiful song regardless and it definitely enhances my experience of watching this series.
Below is the English translation of the song, along with a link to listen to the song from Youtube (if you want to watch the full opening theme video to the series – the actual 3:52 version rather than the short version currently airing with the series – I highly recommend checking it out on TVB’s website). As is the case whenever I do song translations, the translation below is purely my own interpretation of the lyrics and so most likely will be different from other translations of the song that may be out there.
Also, if anyone has feedback regarding the theme song itself, please feel free to comment!
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*** PLEASE CREDIT IF RE-POSTED!! THANK YOU! ***
最幸福的事
The Most Blissful Thing
電視劇《護花危情》 主題曲
TV Series “Witness Insecurity” theme song
主唱：鍾嘉欣
Performed by: Linda Chung
作曲: 鄧智偉
Composed by: Tang Chi Wai
填詞: 張美賢
Lyrics by: Cheung Mei Yin
編曲: Johnny Yim
Musical Arrangement by: Johnny Yim
就算雨傘破了 身體濕透 沒法子
Even if the umbrella breaks, body gets wet, can’t help it
就算冷笑冷到不是味兒
Even if a grim smile is so cold to the point of being tasteless
就算我向世界飛奔千百里 又再輸
Even if I dash a thousand miles toward the world, lose once again
就算跌過百次 再尋下次
Even if fallen a hundred times, once again search for another chance
溫室無非逃避災或雨
Greenhouse used for nothing else but to avoid disaster and rain
心鎖從來沒有鎖匙
There was never a key to my locked up heart
心弦若果 頻率很類似
If the heartstrings seem to pull at a very similar frequency
相看像照鏡子 淚痕仍似詩
Looking at each other is like looking in a mirror, the tear stains still resemble a poem
曾想象太好 歷太多失意
Once imagined it too good, experienced too many frustrations
孤單的滋味 天知我知
The feelings of loneliness, Heavens know, I know
太幸福的事也許要變卦幾次
Too blissful of a thing, perhaps need to change my mind several times
方悟到珍惜的意思
Before the meaning of ‘cherish’ is understood
失望太多 就試多一次
Too many disappointments, then try it one more time
不捨的思念 不可遏止
The longing and reluctance to let go cannot be held back
最著緊的事已經錯過無限次
The thing [I] care about most, already missed it unlimited times
請讓我將心中句子 認真講你知
Please allow me to take the words in my heart and tell them to you earnestly
閉起門窗 誰願給耐性
[If] shut all the doors and windows, who is willing to be patient
心聲原來是最真誠
Turns out the feelings from the heart are the most sincere
失眠日子 年月很動聽
[During] sleepless days, over time, still very pleasant to listen to
天際倦到再黑 夜闌仍有星
No matter how tired and dark the horizon becomes, in the darkness of the night there are still stars
曾想象太好 歷太多失意
Once imagined it too good, experienced too many frustrations
孤單的滋味 天知我知
The feelings of loneliness, Heavens know, I know
太幸福的事也許要變卦幾次
Too blissful of a thing, perhaps need to change my mind several times
方悟到珍惜的意思
Before the meaning of ‘cherish’ is understood
曾失望太多 就試多一次
Too many disappointments before, then try it one more time
不捨的思念 不可遏止
The longing and reluctance to let go cannot be held back
最著緊的事已經錯過無限次
The thing [I] care about most, already missed it unlimited times
請讓我將心中句子 認真講你知
Please allow me to take the words in my heart and tell them to you earnestly
The theme song to this series is called ‘The Most Blissful Thing’ (最幸福的事) and is sung by the series female lead Linda Chung. At first, when I first heard this song, I wasn’t too crazy about it, partly because I felt Linda’s performance of the song was a little lacking, but after listening to it over and over again (since there is no sub-theme song for this series, so the theme song is played during both the opening and closing credits), I’ve come to love this song (quite a lot actually). I guess you could say that this song ‘grew’ on me the more I listened to it.
I really like the melody of the song because it’s very easy to listen to and also fits so well with the theme of the series – the cello instrumental part at the beginning of the song especially moves me and draws me in (the song ends with the same instrumental segment as well). In fact, there’s actually a complete instrumental version of the song that was released as well (part of it is played throughout the series, since Linda’s character plays the cello so this is the song that she plays each time). The lyrics are also very beautiful and moving – gives off that ‘bittersweet’ vibe that’s inline with the overall storyline. [In fact, if we pay close attention to the lyrics, perhaps there’s a little hint of how Hui Sir (Bosco) and Kiu Ji Lam’s (Linda) relationship will turn out? (I’m sure those who are currently watching the series will know what I mean)].
Overall, the song is beautifully composed and written -- however the only flaw is the vocal performance (aka the singing) of the song by Linda. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Linda’s performance of the song wasn't good – in fact, I feel that she actually did a decent job with the song considering she’s not a professional singer…however, the reason why I feel her performance was lacking was because it didn’t have the emotional ‘umph’ that would have made this song perfect. When it comes to theme songs, I’m a bit on the ‘picky’ side in that in order for the song to be ‘successful’ in my eyes, it needs to 1) remind me of the series so much that I have the urge to go watch the series all over again just from listening to the theme song being played (believe me, I’ve done it many times with certain series / theme songs) and 2) move me emotionally in some manner – whether it brings a warm smile to my face or pulls at my heartstrings to the point that it brings tears to my eyes. I must say that as much as I enjoy listening to the theme song for this series, it still doesn’t have as ‘powerful’ of an emotional effect on me as other songs have in the past (though definitely whenever I listen to the song, I feel the urge to watch the series…LOL).
Personally, I feel that the theme song would have a different affect on me if someone else sang it rather than Linda. As I’m writing this, the person who comes to mind who would have been the ‘perfect’ candidate to perform this song (and do it the justice it deserves) is Joyce Cheng. She has that beautiful, sweet yet strong voice that fits the song perfectly, but most important of all, Joyce sings with a lot of emotion as well as conviction (despite being a newcomer to the music industry). Every time I listen to Joyce sing (especially the slow ballads that she does), I get a bit emotional and sometimes even teary-eyed. No offense to Linda (because again, like I said earlier, she gave it a good shot), but I just feel that Joyce would have been able to make the song more ‘impactful’ from an ‘emotion’ point of view. [As a sidenote, I absolutely loved the theme song ‘Intuition’ that Joyce sang for the series “Speech of Silence” a few years back – in my opinion, this song is along the same lines as that one (except for the instrumental piece), which is another reason why I think Joyce would have been a better fit for the song…]
Anyway, no matter what I think about who should try singing the song, at the end of the day, it’s still a beautiful song regardless and it definitely enhances my experience of watching this series.
Below is the English translation of the song, along with a link to listen to the song from Youtube (if you want to watch the full opening theme video to the series – the actual 3:52 version rather than the short version currently airing with the series – I highly recommend checking it out on TVB’s website). As is the case whenever I do song translations, the translation below is purely my own interpretation of the lyrics and so most likely will be different from other translations of the song that may be out there.
Also, if anyone has feedback regarding the theme song itself, please feel free to comment!
.****.
Link to song: ‘The Most Blissful Thing’
[Translated by: llwy12]
*** PLEASE CREDIT IF RE-POSTED!! THANK YOU! ***
最幸福的事
The Most Blissful Thing
電視劇《護花危情》 主題曲
TV Series “Witness Insecurity” theme song
主唱：鍾嘉欣
Performed by: Linda Chung
作曲: 鄧智偉
Composed by: Tang Chi Wai
填詞: 張美賢
Lyrics by: Cheung Mei Yin
編曲: Johnny Yim
Musical Arrangement by: Johnny Yim
就算雨傘破了 身體濕透 沒法子
Even if the umbrella breaks, body gets wet, can’t help it
就算冷笑冷到不是味兒
Even if a grim smile is so cold to the point of being tasteless
就算我向世界飛奔千百里 又再輸
Even if I dash a thousand miles toward the world, lose once again
就算跌過百次 再尋下次
Even if fallen a hundred times, once again search for another chance
溫室無非逃避災或雨
Greenhouse used for nothing else but to avoid disaster and rain
心鎖從來沒有鎖匙
There was never a key to my locked up heart
心弦若果 頻率很類似
If the heartstrings seem to pull at a very similar frequency
相看像照鏡子 淚痕仍似詩
Looking at each other is like looking in a mirror, the tear stains still resemble a poem
曾想象太好 歷太多失意
Once imagined it too good, experienced too many frustrations
孤單的滋味 天知我知
The feelings of loneliness, Heavens know, I know
太幸福的事也許要變卦幾次
Too blissful of a thing, perhaps need to change my mind several times
方悟到珍惜的意思
Before the meaning of ‘cherish’ is understood
失望太多 就試多一次
Too many disappointments, then try it one more time
不捨的思念 不可遏止
The longing and reluctance to let go cannot be held back
最著緊的事已經錯過無限次
The thing [I] care about most, already missed it unlimited times
請讓我將心中句子 認真講你知
Please allow me to take the words in my heart and tell them to you earnestly
閉起門窗 誰願給耐性
[If] shut all the doors and windows, who is willing to be patient
心聲原來是最真誠
Turns out the feelings from the heart are the most sincere
失眠日子 年月很動聽
[During] sleepless days, over time, still very pleasant to listen to
天際倦到再黑 夜闌仍有星
No matter how tired and dark the horizon becomes, in the darkness of the night there are still stars
曾想象太好 歷太多失意
Once imagined it too good, experienced too many frustrations
孤單的滋味 天知我知
The feelings of loneliness, Heavens know, I know
太幸福的事也許要變卦幾次
Too blissful of a thing, perhaps need to change my mind several times
方悟到珍惜的意思
Before the meaning of ‘cherish’ is understood
曾失望太多 就試多一次
Too many disappointments before, then try it one more time
不捨的思念 不可遏止
The longing and reluctance to let go cannot be held back
最著緊的事已經錯過無限次
The thing [I] care about most, already missed it unlimited times
請讓我將心中句子 認真講你知
Please allow me to take the words in my heart and tell them to you earnestly
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Oriental Daily interview with Michael Tao and Kathy Chow: Kathy ‘unties’ the knot in Michael’s heart, leave the ‘kissing’ up to fate
Here's the last of Michael Tao's 4 part interview with Oriental Daily (this is the one with Kathy Chow that I had mentioned in previous posts).
Just like with the other 3 interviews (the first one with Kenix Kwok reminiscing about DIF, the second one with Bobby AuYeung and Felix Lok talking about FOJ, and the third one with Wayne Lai where they chatted about ATV's "Showbiz Tycoon"), I definitely enjoyed this last one one with Kathy (and yes, as predicted, the focus was on the 3 series that they collaborated on at ATV). The interesting thing about this particular interview though was that Michael and Kathy had collaborated in numerous series back in the 80s/90s at TVB, but their 'friendship' only started in 1999 when they started collaborating on ATV series (though I'm pretty sure they had already developed a good rapport with each other back in their TVB days, it's just that working together so frequently in a short amount of time at ATV made it easier to have a closer friendship).
Anyway, whatever the case, this was another great interview! I will definitely miss these interviews now that the last one has been published (what am I going to look forward to reading next Sunday?).
*****
************
Chinese version
周海媚解宇心結 有緣再咀
陶大宇和周海媚（海味）於1999年起結劇緣，合作過三部劇集，二人所演角色，有情侶、母子及主僕，令大宇感覺刻骨銘心，並笑言海味在他的「戲場」穿插，幾乎令他「變態」。事緣當年海味因病辭演，大宇要跟替身拍情深款款的咀戲，只能自我催眠當眼前替身就是海味。海味得知大宇有此委屈，笑說：「當我欠你一場咀戲，遲啲還番畀你！」
周：大宇，跟你合作過三套劇《縱橫四海》、《縱橫天下》及《影城大亨》之後，都未有再合作，之後我去咗北京發展，2008年喺上海出席你嘅生日會，之後商演都遇上兩次，雖然碰面唔多，但今次我哋坐埋傾偈，你畀我感覺依然冇變！
陶：嗰次我喺上海拍劇，你又咁啱喺附近，好多謝你到賀，不過，我哋總係欠點緣分，雖然拍咗三套劇，但我同你之間嘅關係太撲朔迷離，你簡直令我「變態」！
周：吓……點解咁嚴重？
陶：當年拍《四海》，你拍咗大半部戲後因為病而休息，留番你嘅替身同我做戲，劇情寫我狂追你，用詞情深款款，但你嘅替身完全唔知發生咩事，又冇演戲經驗，談情戲惟有全程「食自己」，即係自己同自己演，最好笑我對住替身講好愛你，佢就回我12345，哈哈，問你死未！最慘係我明明有機會同你拍咀戲，我卻要將一個唔係周海媚嘅替身幻想為周海媚，咁你話我仲唔係變態？
冇患紅斑狼瘡症
周：當年我身體唔舒服，但唔係患「紅斑狼瘡症」，只係天生血小板低，輕微碰撞都好易瘀，我最近都撞親個頭，啲瘀血好耐都唔散，好彩唔使開工，既然依家聽你咁講，即係話我欠你一場咀戲啦，哈哈！
陶：又唔係咁講，嗰時你唔舒服我哋都好擔心，到拍《天下》時，我以為有機會同你再續未了緣，點知今次個劇你係做我阿媽！當日喺化妝間見到你化老妝，嚇得我，我仲記得好愕然咁問「你喺度做乜嘢呀」？我真係接受唔到囉！
周：哈哈哈哈，我覺得係王晶（《天下》監製）玩你囉！
陶：直到拍《影城》，我仲有期盼，演電影公司老闆應該有機會親近旗下花旦，點知因為角色關係，我演一名好有地位嘅老闆，面對旗下女演員，只抱一種提攜後輩嘅態度，好似做你老竇咁，細姪女冇得咀！
演阿媽角色夠勇
周：我個角色係好仰慕你喎，但你又唔喜歡我，我哋關係只係有點曖昧，難怪你會咁變態！我相信我哋總有機會再合作，今年七月一日，我簽咗新經理人公司「星美國際」，嚟緊會有好多新嘅發展，到時我哋認認真真「行埋」（合作），一定有機會還番畀你（咀戲）！
陶：演《天下》時我好佩服你，一般女星唔會咁冒險接「阿媽」角色，我好記得你當時同我講係特登接嘅，想挑戰呢個角色，我覺得你好有性格、好勇敢！
周：因為我覺得角色寫得好好，劇中有好多「Flash Back」場面，我同松哥（劉松仁）談情，劇本好，寫我失憶變番一個細路仔嘅性格，我好想演，所以唔介意接，當時我拎住自己阿媽張相不停諗點樣先可以變老。
拍拖十年 和男友似夫妻
陶：你真係唔需要擔心老，保養得好好，我仲聽聞你蜜運中？
周：其實我拍咗拖十年，男友比我年輕十年，佢做建築，係朋友介紹認識，起初男友好抗拒我做呢行，講真，頭兩、三年為咗拍拖，我推咗好多Job，搵錢的確重要，但我嘅人生唔可以不停為了搵錢，唔想逼自己咁辛苦。講到結婚，男友頭幾年已向我求婚，但我真係唔急，唔想放低演藝工作，我哋關係好穩定，已經同夫妻冇分別，只係欠一紙婚書，遲啲可能突然想結咪結囉，好隨意，不過會低調唔需要大搞，因為我拍結婚戲太多，古今中外嘅婚紗都着過好多次！
素顏行街冇問題
陶：北京已經係你嘅「新天地」，今次返香港又為乜呢？
周：早前拍電影《楊門女將》好辛苦，喺內蒙零下三十幾度好凍，拍個武打鏡頭，吊威吔360度轉落地仲被劈咗刀，隻腳都腫晒！我都唔知點捱過嚟，真係要抖吓，工作咗兩年幾都未休息過，趁休息返嚟探吓屋企人。香港同北京生活係唔同，但我喺香港都會好悠閒周圍行街、食雪糕，記者影我搭港鐵、食雪糕，冇所謂嘅，咪影囉！我平日上街都唔愛化妝，又唔覺有問題喎，只要企企理理唔影響巿容就得，我仲會喺街邊拮魚蛋添！
陶：好欣賞你不拘小節嘅性格，唔怪得你keep住年輕，好似食咗防腐劑！
周：其實我個樣cool咋，識我嘅人笑死，唔識嘅就嚇死！試過返公司化妝，梳頭啲阿姐幫我整頭都好驚，又跌髮夾又跌梳，有時我拍外景，化妝阿姐話叫我補妝，我都話唔使啦，好靚啦！
陶：我諗每個演員都有一種氣質，而你嘅氣質來自你嘅自信！
後記：
在陶大宇的四篇訪問中，他最關心是受訪嘉賓的需要，先是擔心會否阻礙郭可盈照顧女兒的考試，而歐陽震華和駱應鈞的衣着配搭又是否平均，與黎耀祥訪談時興起飲紅酒會否影響其駕駛安全；最後得悉周海媚撞傷頭令到面有瘀痕，又怕她影相不靚，一度延遲遷就。大宇對朋友的心細如塵，難怪一班老友對他讚口不絕，邀約訪談冇托手o架。
周： 周海媚 陶： 陶大宇
文：影視組
攝：司徒國榮
Just like with the other 3 interviews (the first one with Kenix Kwok reminiscing about DIF, the second one with Bobby AuYeung and Felix Lok talking about FOJ, and the third one with Wayne Lai where they chatted about ATV's "Showbiz Tycoon"), I definitely enjoyed this last one one with Kathy (and yes, as predicted, the focus was on the 3 series that they collaborated on at ATV). The interesting thing about this particular interview though was that Michael and Kathy had collaborated in numerous series back in the 80s/90s at TVB, but their 'friendship' only started in 1999 when they started collaborating on ATV series (though I'm pretty sure they had already developed a good rapport with each other back in their TVB days, it's just that working together so frequently in a short amount of time at ATV made it easier to have a closer friendship).
Anyway, whatever the case, this was another great interview! I will definitely miss these interviews now that the last one has been published (what am I going to look forward to reading next Sunday?).
*****
Oriental Daily interview with Michael Tao and Kathy Chow: Kathy ‘unties’ the knot in Michael’s heart, leave the ‘kissing’ up to fate
Source: Oriental Daily
Translation: llwy12
Starting in 1999, Michael Tao (陶大宇) and Kathy Chow (周海媚) collaborated on 3 series while they were at ATV – in those 3 series, the two of them got the chance to play lovers, mother and son, master and servant. These collaborations left a lasting impression on Michael, who playfully expressed that at one point, Kathy kept ‘popping up’ in many of his scenes and almost made him ‘go crazy’. Michael expressed that back in the day, Kathy had to resign from one of the series due to illness, which resulted in Michael having to do a kiss scene with a stunt double instead of with Kathy herself –he had to ‘hypnotize’ himself to pretend that the stunt double was Kathy. When Kathy found out about Michael’s ‘grievance’, she laughingly told him: “Ok, I owe you a kiss scene then – I’ll pay it back to you later!”
MT = Michael Tao
KC = Kathy Chow
KC: Michael, after we collaborated on the 3 series Flaming Brothers《縱橫四海》, To Where He Belongs《縱橫天下》, and Showbiz Tycoon《影城大亨》[at ATV], we did not get the chance to collaborate any more. Afterwards, I shifted my career to Beijing [Mainland China] and in 2008, I attended your birthday party in Shanghai -- we also bumped into each other 2 more times later on during a commercial event. We may not see each other often, but sitting down to chat with you today, the feeling you give me is that you haven’t changed one bit!
MT: That time when I was filming in Shanghai, you just happened to be in the area – thank you for stopping by and giving me birthday greetings. However, it seems that we still somehow lack a bit of affinity – even though we filmed 3 series together, our ‘relationship’ is a bit confusing…in fact, you actually caused me to ‘go crazy’!
KC: Huh…that serious?
MT: Back when we were filming Flaming Brothers, you had to quit after already filming half the series because you became ill, leaving your stunt double to finish filming our scenes with me. The storyline was about me madly pursuing you and there was a lot of deeply emotional dialogue [involved in those scenes], but your stunt double had no clue what was going on and she also had no acting experience, so for all the ‘romance’ scenes, I essentially had to act with myself! The funniest part was when I had to tell your stunt double ‘I love you’ and she responded with ‘1-2-3-4-5’…hahaha! The worst was that I originally had the opportunity to do kiss scenes with you, but in the end, I had to keep convincing myself in my mind that a stunt double was you – now you understand why I ‘went crazy’?
Does not have SLC illness
KC: That time I was not feeling well, but it wasn’t SLC (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus) as rumored – from birth, I’ve always had a low blood platelet count in my body, so whenever I bump into anything, I bruise very easily. In fact, I recently hit my head accidentally and the bruise took a long time to heal – luckily I didn’t have to work at the time. Listening to you speak just now, it sounds like I owe you a kiss scene then…haha!
MT: Well, not really. When you were sick back then, all of us were very worried about you. Later on, when we got the chance to collaborate on To Where He Belongs together, I thought we would finally get the chance to pick up where we left off previously – to my surprise though, this time around, you played my mother in the series! When I saw your ‘old lady’ look in the dressing room, I was so scared – I remember I asked you with a shocked expression on my face: ‘What are you doing?’ At the time, I really could not accept it!
KC: Hahahaha! I feel that Wong Jing (王晶) [the series’ scriptwriter] was trying to play a joke on you!
MT: Then when we did Showbiz Tycoon, I was hopeful once again, since I would be playing the boss of a movie production company so it would make sense that I’d have the opportunity to ‘get close’ with the female artists who work for me. But the way my character was written, I played a boss with high standing who only has an attitude of ‘mentoring the next generation’ towards his female artists – it was almost like I was your ‘father’ in a sense, so of course no opportunity for kiss scenes!
Very brave to play ‘mother’ role
KC: My character admired you a lot, but you never had romantic feelings toward me – at most, our relationship was just a little bit ‘ambiguous’. No wonder you said that you felt like going crazy! However, I believe we will have the opportunity to collaborate again in the future. On July 1st, I signed with a new management company [SMI Corporation] and there will be a lot of new developments coming up, so we can talk more at that time – I should definitely have the chance to repay you [the kiss scene]!
MT: I admire you a lot for taking on the ‘mother’ role in To Where He Belongs, as most female artists wouldn’t take such a risk playing that type of role. I remember you telling me at the time that you purposefully took that role because you wanted to challenge yourself – I feel that you’re very brave!
KC: I took the role because I felt the character was very well-written. I was paired with Damien [Lau] (劉松仁) and a lot of the storyline was told via flashback scenes – the script was also very attractive: my character loses her memory and regresses back to having the personality of a little kid. I really wanted to challenge myself with this type of character, so I didn’t mind taking it on. I remember at the time, I would stare at a picture of my mom and constantly think about how to make myself look old.
Dated for 10 years, relationship with boyfriend similar to a ‘married couple’
MT: You really don’t have to worry about looking old, as you’ve taken care of yourself well over the years. I even heard that you’re currently dating someone?
KC: I’ve actually been dating for 10 years already. My boyfriend is 10 years younger than me – he’s an architect whom I met through a friend. In the beginning, my boyfriend was really opposed to me being in the entertainment industry – to be honest, during the first 2 -3 years that we dated, I declined a lot of job offers…true, making money is important, but I can’t let that be the only focus in my life – I don’t want to push myself too hard. In terms of getting married – my boyfriend actually already proposed to me the first few years we started dating, but I’m really not in a hurry, as I don’t want to completely give up my acting career right now. Our relationship is very steady right now and it’s no different than that of a married couple – the only thing missing is the marriage contract. I’m pretty much letting things happen at will – if later on I suddenly feel like getting married, then I’ll do it, but it will definitely be low profile…no need to have a huge ceremony because I’ve filmed way too many wedding scenes in my career and pretty much have already worn every type of wedding dress imaginable.
No problem walking out in the street with no makeup
MT: Since Beijing is already your ‘new home’, what brought you back to Hong Kong this time?
KC: Earlier I did the movie The Yang Female Warriors《楊門女將》and the filming process was extremely exhaustive: we had to film in Inner Mongolia, where the weather was 30 degrees below zero and since there were a lot of fight scenes, we were pulled on wires a lot – I even got hit with a sword accidentally and it caused my leg to be swollen for a long time! I don’t know how I lasted through it, but now that it’s over, I really need to rest – I’ve pretty much been working for more than 2 years straight without much rest, so with the opportunity to take a break right now, I figured I’d come back to HK to visit relatives. The lifestyle in HK versus Beijing is very different – when I’m in HK, I usually go around shopping or running errands very leisurely. Reporters have snapped pictures of me taking the subway, eating ice cream, shopping, etc., but I don’t mind – they can take pictures all they want! Usually when I go out, I don’t like to put on makeup – I don’t see anything wrong with that, as long as I’m not affecting others. Sometimes, I even stand around the street corners eating fish balls from the local street vendors!
MT: I really admire your ‘not bothering with trifles’ personality! No wonder you’ve been able to keep yourself looking so young!
KC: Actually, my face just ‘looks’ cool – those who know me would laugh at me and those who don’t would probably be scared to death! Doing makeup and hair is a clumsy experience for me —the ladies who do my hair at work all dread doing it because each time, there are hair clips and combs all over the place. Sometimes, if we’re filming on location somewhere and I’m asked to touch up on my makeup, I usually tell the crew not to bother, as it looks fine the way it is!
MT: I feel that every artist has a certain temperament about them – your temperament is a result of your self-confidence!
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EPILOGUE
Over the course of doing the 4 interviews with his friends, Michael Tao’s biggest concern was making sure that the needs of his guests were taken care of. With Kenix Kwok, he wanted to make sure that the interview didn’t interfere with her daughter’s exams [for getting into school]; with Bobby AuYeung and Felix Lok, he was concerned about whether the accessories he chose for them to wear were equally balanced; with Wayne Lai, he was concerned whether drinking wine during the interview would affect his ability to drive and wanted to make sure he got home safely; and with Kathy Chow, when he found out she still had bruises on her head from accidentally hitting it, he was concerned about her feelings doing a photo shoot for the interview, so he delayed the interview until her injury was healed. With the careful attention that he gives to his friends, no wonder all his buddies have nothing but praise for him and when he invited them for these interviews, they agreed readily!
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Chinese version
周海媚解宇心結 有緣再咀
陶大宇和周海媚（海味）於1999年起結劇緣，合作過三部劇集，二人所演角色，有情侶、母子及主僕，令大宇感覺刻骨銘心，並笑言海味在他的「戲場」穿插，幾乎令他「變態」。事緣當年海味因病辭演，大宇要跟替身拍情深款款的咀戲，只能自我催眠當眼前替身就是海味。海味得知大宇有此委屈，笑說：「當我欠你一場咀戲，遲啲還番畀你！」
周：大宇，跟你合作過三套劇《縱橫四海》、《縱橫天下》及《影城大亨》之後，都未有再合作，之後我去咗北京發展，2008年喺上海出席你嘅生日會，之後商演都遇上兩次，雖然碰面唔多，但今次我哋坐埋傾偈，你畀我感覺依然冇變！
陶：嗰次我喺上海拍劇，你又咁啱喺附近，好多謝你到賀，不過，我哋總係欠點緣分，雖然拍咗三套劇，但我同你之間嘅關係太撲朔迷離，你簡直令我「變態」！
周：吓……點解咁嚴重？
陶：當年拍《四海》，你拍咗大半部戲後因為病而休息，留番你嘅替身同我做戲，劇情寫我狂追你，用詞情深款款，但你嘅替身完全唔知發生咩事，又冇演戲經驗，談情戲惟有全程「食自己」，即係自己同自己演，最好笑我對住替身講好愛你，佢就回我12345，哈哈，問你死未！最慘係我明明有機會同你拍咀戲，我卻要將一個唔係周海媚嘅替身幻想為周海媚，咁你話我仲唔係變態？
冇患紅斑狼瘡症
周：當年我身體唔舒服，但唔係患「紅斑狼瘡症」，只係天生血小板低，輕微碰撞都好易瘀，我最近都撞親個頭，啲瘀血好耐都唔散，好彩唔使開工，既然依家聽你咁講，即係話我欠你一場咀戲啦，哈哈！
陶：又唔係咁講，嗰時你唔舒服我哋都好擔心，到拍《天下》時，我以為有機會同你再續未了緣，點知今次個劇你係做我阿媽！當日喺化妝間見到你化老妝，嚇得我，我仲記得好愕然咁問「你喺度做乜嘢呀」？我真係接受唔到囉！
周：哈哈哈哈，我覺得係王晶（《天下》監製）玩你囉！
陶：直到拍《影城》，我仲有期盼，演電影公司老闆應該有機會親近旗下花旦，點知因為角色關係，我演一名好有地位嘅老闆，面對旗下女演員，只抱一種提攜後輩嘅態度，好似做你老竇咁，細姪女冇得咀！
演阿媽角色夠勇
周：我個角色係好仰慕你喎，但你又唔喜歡我，我哋關係只係有點曖昧，難怪你會咁變態！我相信我哋總有機會再合作，今年七月一日，我簽咗新經理人公司「星美國際」，嚟緊會有好多新嘅發展，到時我哋認認真真「行埋」（合作），一定有機會還番畀你（咀戲）！
陶：演《天下》時我好佩服你，一般女星唔會咁冒險接「阿媽」角色，我好記得你當時同我講係特登接嘅，想挑戰呢個角色，我覺得你好有性格、好勇敢！
周：因為我覺得角色寫得好好，劇中有好多「Flash Back」場面，我同松哥（劉松仁）談情，劇本好，寫我失憶變番一個細路仔嘅性格，我好想演，所以唔介意接，當時我拎住自己阿媽張相不停諗點樣先可以變老。
拍拖十年 和男友似夫妻
陶：你真係唔需要擔心老，保養得好好，我仲聽聞你蜜運中？
周：其實我拍咗拖十年，男友比我年輕十年，佢做建築，係朋友介紹認識，起初男友好抗拒我做呢行，講真，頭兩、三年為咗拍拖，我推咗好多Job，搵錢的確重要，但我嘅人生唔可以不停為了搵錢，唔想逼自己咁辛苦。講到結婚，男友頭幾年已向我求婚，但我真係唔急，唔想放低演藝工作，我哋關係好穩定，已經同夫妻冇分別，只係欠一紙婚書，遲啲可能突然想結咪結囉，好隨意，不過會低調唔需要大搞，因為我拍結婚戲太多，古今中外嘅婚紗都着過好多次！
素顏行街冇問題
陶：北京已經係你嘅「新天地」，今次返香港又為乜呢？
周：早前拍電影《楊門女將》好辛苦，喺內蒙零下三十幾度好凍，拍個武打鏡頭，吊威吔360度轉落地仲被劈咗刀，隻腳都腫晒！我都唔知點捱過嚟，真係要抖吓，工作咗兩年幾都未休息過，趁休息返嚟探吓屋企人。香港同北京生活係唔同，但我喺香港都會好悠閒周圍行街、食雪糕，記者影我搭港鐵、食雪糕，冇所謂嘅，咪影囉！我平日上街都唔愛化妝，又唔覺有問題喎，只要企企理理唔影響巿容就得，我仲會喺街邊拮魚蛋添！
陶：好欣賞你不拘小節嘅性格，唔怪得你keep住年輕，好似食咗防腐劑！
周：其實我個樣cool咋，識我嘅人笑死，唔識嘅就嚇死！試過返公司化妝，梳頭啲阿姐幫我整頭都好驚，又跌髮夾又跌梳，有時我拍外景，化妝阿姐話叫我補妝，我都話唔使啦，好靚啦！
陶：我諗每個演員都有一種氣質，而你嘅氣質來自你嘅自信！
後記：
在陶大宇的四篇訪問中，他最關心是受訪嘉賓的需要，先是擔心會否阻礙郭可盈照顧女兒的考試，而歐陽震華和駱應鈞的衣着配搭又是否平均，與黎耀祥訪談時興起飲紅酒會否影響其駕駛安全；最後得悉周海媚撞傷頭令到面有瘀痕，又怕她影相不靚，一度延遲遷就。大宇對朋友的心細如塵，難怪一班老友對他讚口不絕，邀約訪談冇托手o架。
周： 周海媚 陶： 陶大宇
文：影視組
攝：司徒國榮
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