YOu guys noticed a trend....

[QF]

...that all the old TVB stars are coming back?

First its Michael Miu came back....now felix wong is back...galen lo is back, ray lui is back, jamie Tsik(Miu's wife) is back, Chow Hoi Mei is back....I mean damn....

Not that i'm complaining or anything...every one of those actors/actresses are better than today's actors/actresses. It also seems to me that all the lead roles are given to the "older"generation as well.... Lau Chung Yan, Gallen, Miu Kiu Wai...etc..etc..

I wonder if TVB is trying to tell us that older generation actors are better or more marketable than today's actors....


I seem to think so.

But i'm not complaining....I like the older actors anyways...


Keep them coming TVB!!


QF

[shortsight]

You know each time I saw an old guy coming back to TVB, I would think: "hah, the recession has caught this guy!".

Though, their acting skills are really a notch above the existing crop.

[viktle19]

You know, part of me thinks that a lot of the producers at TVB now, were probably teens watching their shows in the '80's and out of nostalgia, alot of these actors are being cast now.

But they ARE great actors, regardless...

[kidd]

I wonder if TVB is trying to tell us that older generation actors are better or more marketable than today's actors....

No. TVB is not trying to tell us that. They are just trying to get these big stars back to attract more audience. They also found out from the success of 'Heart of Greed' that audience love these old actors. So, they put these actors in big roles and big budget series.

It's not TVB trying to tell us older generation actors are better/more marketable. It's the other way around. Audience told TVB through ratings that older generations are more marketable. TVB just follow where the business is.

If TVB can convince audience with everything they say, I believe they would rather tell audience the younger generation actors are better and more marketable since the younger generations are less expensive than the big stars. TVB

[Ken Cheng]

It's telling that despite the return of some big-time stars from the 1980s, the actual quality of TVB scripts hasn't returned to the best of the 1980s material. TVB is sort of missing the point: it's not *just* the actors. Without the compelling scripts and storylines, even those great actors can't deliver.

[remember_Cedric]

You know each time I saw an old guy coming back to TVB, I would think: "hah, the recession has caught this guy!".

I'm with this!

[kidd]

It's telling that despite the return of some big-time stars from the 1980s, the actual quality of TVB scripts hasn't returned to the best of the 1980s material. TVB is sort of missing the point: it's not *just* the actors. Without the compelling scripts and storylines, even those great actors can't deliver.

I thought you have just started exploring the 90's TVB series after getting stuck with the 80's for ages. How come you know so much about the quality of the new series?

[Ken Cheng]

I thought you have just started exploring the 90's TVB series after getting stuck with the 80's for ages. How come you know so much about the quality of the new series?

Because my parents waste countless hours watching them. When I go to visit them, they're invariably watching the new stuff. All I need is five minute bursts of it to know: This stuff is TOTALLY different and inferior to the stuff I grew up watching. What the hell happened to *that* TVB?

Seriously: I don't see the current gang of jokers running the studio to produce anything 5% as good as THE BUND, THE SHELL GAME, or for that matter, THE SUPERPOWER. In terms of crafting good dramas, I think TVB gave up after the 1980s.

[Exodus]

yeah the oldies are leading the show which is cool but i wonder why there aren't many young newcomers

[QF]

yeah the oldies are leading the show which is cool but i wonder why there aren't many young newcomers

Not sure...

i've always wondered if TVB is under some new management because, unlike Ken Cheng, I actually thought that TVB's scripts are getting better and better and getting very captivating, adding that with the return of some old stars its like a perfect match.

I thought you have just started exploring the 90's TVB series after getting stuck with the 80's for ages.

Whoa....Mr. Cheng....you exploring the 90's series now?

It's telling that despite the return of some big-time stars from the 1980s, the actual quality of TVB scripts hasn't returned to the best of the 1980s material. TVB is sort of missing the point: it's not *just* the actors. Without the compelling scripts and storylines, even those great actors can't deliver.

Agreed. But so far, generally those of the older generation have been on good scripts.

You know, part of me thinks that a lot of the producers at TVB now, were probably teens watching their shows in the '80's and out of nostalgia, alot of these actors are being cast now.

But they ARE great actors, regardless...

You know i never thought about it like that...but it could be.


QF

[kidd]

Because my parents waste countless hours watching them. When I go to visit them, they're invariably watching the new stuff. All I need is five minute bursts of it to know: This stuff is TOTALLY different and inferior to the stuff I grew up watching. What the hell happened to *that* TVB?

Seriously: I don't see the current gang of jokers running the studio to produce anything 5% as good as THE BUND, THE SHELL GAME, or for that matter, THE SUPERPOWER. In terms of crafting good dramas, I think TVB gave up after the 1980s.

5 minutes is not enough to make a conclusion on the quality of a series. It's different from the 80's stuff but not necessarily inferior.

As for what happen to *that" TVB. Well, that TVB evolved and changed with the time like everything else in the world.

I personally find TVB series not has bad as you made them out to be. Like every era, there are lousy series and good series. TVB did produce some good series recently.

[kidd]

i've always wondered if TVB is under some new management because, unlike Ken Cheng, I actually thought that TVB's scripts are getting better and better and getting very captivating, adding that with the return of some old stars its like a perfect match.

I don't think so. I didn't hear any news of management change. But then, sehseh will know this kind of news better than me.

You can say many things about Stephen Chan, but, he is a person who is willing to listen to others opinion (this has been said several times by different TVB workers). So, I think he did listen to audience feedback and try to improve.

[Ken Cheng]

I thought you have just started exploring the 90's TVB series after getting stuck with the 80's for ages.

Whoa....Mr. Cheng....you exploring the 90's series now?

I don't know how you guys got that idea. In any case, it isn't true.

I draw a firm line for any TVB series first produced and/or released after 11:26 a.m., PDT, October 31, 1988. That doesn't really have anything to do necessarily with series quality, however. Strictly personal reasons. Call them *religious* reasons, if you want, although it really isn't religion as most people understand it.

Anyway, the TVB "Golden 1980s" label is a little deceptive, because it's not as if TVB began producing great series on January 1, 1980 and stopped producing anything good on December 31, 1989. Actually, the true "golden age" of TVB starts around 1974 and ends around 1986. I'd say the period between THE FATAL IRONY and the second POLICE CADET series was TVB's true golden age.

As for evolution...I think it's more like "de-evolution" or degeneration. Yes, times have changed, and TVB has changed with it. Not all change is improvement, however, and I certainly don't think TVB has improved since 1986. They've improved their filming technology. They've maybe improved some material things such as set pieces, props, and maybe costumes (not really, though; I find most of the current costumes something between indistinct to ugly), but in terms of reaching for the stars and getting them, TVB has taken a quantum leap backwards...or at least stagnated since 1986.

TVB's scriptwriters and directors during the 1970s and 1980s were profoundly influenced by Western film and television...in particular by the Western cinema of the 1930s - 1970s, which encompassed two distinct golden ages for Hollywood. In making THE BUND, for example, director Chiu Jen Keung was influenced by such classic Hollywood directors as Michael Curtiz (CASABLANCA) and Francis Ford Coppola (THE GODFATHER). Great, painstaking attention was paid to casting, costuming, lighting, camera angles (the technical aspects of a how a scene was shot), background music (including when not to use any), set arrangement...all to create the proper *mood* for every scene of a series. During the height of TVB in the 1970s and 1980s, the crews behind the camera invested a great amount of thought and work into getting these things right.

Quite frankly, I don't see that kind of craftsmanship in today's TVB series. Today, they just seem to put some random, decent-looking clothing on the actors, put them in front of a camera in some generic studio setting, and churn out the scene in an assembly-line-like process that involves no real craftsmanship whatsoever. Some time in the late 1980s, TVB seemed to adopt an attitude of, "The people in Hong Kong are creatures of habit. They'll watch our stuff no matter what kind of crap we put out because the competition (ATV) is pathetic. Why should we try so hard? Let's just put out cheaply-made, simpleminded crap and people will lap it up!"

And who can blame them? Apparently, it's worked. Why knock yourself out making another series of the caliber of THE BUND or THE SHELL GAME when it's much easier on the writers and the actors to produce GENERIC COP/LAWYER/DOCTOR DRAMA WITH TRITE ROMANCE SUBPLOT PART XXV?

As for the five minutes thing...yeah, five minutes alone would not be enough to judge. But how about five minutes x how many times I visit my parents (which is at least once a week) over more than a decade's time. It gives you a pretty good idea. When I first saw THE BUND and THE SHELL GAME as a kid, it took only five minutes to get me hooked. These current TVB series...after about five minutes, I feel an irresistible urge to leave the room.

Well, I hope you enjoyed reading that rant. I enjoyed writing it.

[viktle19]

In terms of wuxia, specifically, fight choreography has gone out the window. Part of it, I believe is that actors of the past, went through extensive training, almost Chinese opera-like, where they were trained in martial arts, acrobatics, etc. Actors could perform their own fights (to a degree). This allowed the directors to use long takes during during fights, and we could actually follow the progression of a battle.

Now, it's all masked by rapid cuts, close-ups, and of course CG effects. I can see how a fight scene would directed now in my mind right now...the actors are simply asked to make pose after pose, and rapid cuts and swish pans from the camera *simulates* movement. CG masks poor action by covering the screen in junk...oh yeah, and LOTS explosions (the Michael Bay school).

I'm currently watching Young Heroes from Shaolin...first time in nearly 30 years for me, and I am impressed by how good the actors are at their choreographed fights. Michael Miu had a stunt double in some his fights, for the leaps, etc, but the ground based fighting was definitely him. Shek Sau and, of course, Wei Tung, were AWESOME.

Newer shows have higher production values, to be sure. But the storytelling was so good with the older shows, that I was able to suspend my disbelief that the cheap wooden set WAS Shaolin, that 10 extras in poorly fitted costumes consitituted the Mongol army, that a Godzilla style costume was, in fact, the Condor.

This is something I've learned...if you have a limited budget, you make do, and focus on the storytelling to make a show/movie work.

Star Wars is a great example of that...Lucas got unlimited budget for Ep. 1-3 and completey failed at storytelling. Ep. 4 had 20 bucks and a box of scotch tape to make a movie, and it was amazing...the story had to be told by the STORY...not by the effects or the budget.

I think that TVB is suffering this right now.

[Ken Cheng]

In terms of wuxia, specifically, fight choreography has gone out the window. Part of it, I believe is that actors of the past, went through extensive training, almost Chinese opera-like, where they were trained in martial arts, acrobatics, etc. Actors could perform their own fights (to a degree). This allowed the directors to use long takes during during fights, and we could actually follow the progression of a battle.

Now, it's all masked by rapid cuts, close-ups, and of course CG effects. I can see how a fight scene would directed now in my mind right now...the actors are simply asked to make pose after pose, and rapid cuts and swish pans from the camera *simulates* movement. CG masks poor action by covering the screen in junk...oh yeah, and LOTS explosions (the Michael Bay school).

I'm currently watching Young Heroes from Shaolin...first time in nearly 30 years for me, and I am impressed by how good the actors are at their choreographed fights. Michael Miu had a stunt double in some his fights, for the leaps, etc, but the ground based fighting was definitely him. Shek Sau and, of course, Wei Tung, were AWESOME.

Newer shows have higher production values, to be sure. But the storytelling was so good with the older shows, that I was able to suspend my disbelief that the cheap wooden set WAS Shaolin, that 10 extras in poorly fitted costumes consitituted the Mongol army, that a Godzilla style costume was, in fact, the Condor.

This is something I've learned...if you have a limited budget, you make do, and focus on the storytelling to make a show/movie work.

Star Wars is a great example of that...Lucas got unlimited budget for Ep. 1-3 and completey failed at storytelling. Ep. 4 had 20 bucks and a box of scotch tape to make a movie, and it was amazing...the story had to be told by the STORY...not by the effects or the budget.

I think that TVB is suffering this right now.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Old TVB had a low-rent budget, but they were able to make you believe despite the flimsy props and sets.

New TVB has the big budget and all the bells and whistles that money can buy, but the new stuff has no soul.

[tweety365]

Well, TVB is in business to make money. And it is very true of any industry, why try so hard to produce a product when consumers are content with sub-par materials. To produce a show of The Bund's standards would cost too much money. Now if they had a strong competitor for the market, perhaps we will see some changes. But look at the other companies, they are also producing the same sub-par materials (with the once in a while gem). And if they can't come up with anything good, there are always re-makes.

Seeing the drop in quality is not so bad as watching one of TVB's award shows. What a joke. It's completely rigged and is basically a popularity show.

[kidd]

Seeing that some audience wouldn't even change channel when there's an 8 minutes transmission interruption and all TVB channel showed was snowflakes, you can see how hard it is for the competitors to compete.

Watching TVB has became a habit.

But, that doesn't mean TVB is relaxing. TVB is losing money with their pay channel and also losing audience to other entertainment outlet like the internet.

So, what is TVB gonna do? Go with audience's taste. Audience like 'Heart of Greed'? TVB gives them 'Moonlight Resonance'. Audience like D.I.E, here comes D.I.E2. Sometimes, the audience really has to be blamed. A lousy series like 'Moonlight Resonance' got the highest rating of the year peaking at 50 points, and you expect TVB to produce series with quality storyline?

But, TVB still produces some good dramas like 'Safe Guards', 'The Conqueror's Story', 'Last One Standing', 'Sweetness of Salt', 'You're Hired' etc