Mingpao Interview with TVB producers Mui Siu Ching and Lau Ka Ho: 50 + 50 = 100 [PART 1]
** Translator's Note: Due to the length of this interview (it's quite long), I decided to break it up into several parts to facilitate translation of the article. The remainder of the interview will be translated and posted within the next 2 days.**Just recently, both Mr. and Mrs. Six (aka Run Run Shaw and his wife Mona Fong) have decided to step down from their decades-long role of leading TVB -- now, another husband and wife couple have also decided to leave Tseung Kwan O: golden producers Mui Siu Ching (梅小青) and Lau Ka Ho (劉家豪). Two series that they produced in recent years – Lau Ka Ho's Moonlight Resonance《家好月圓》and Mui Siu Ching's Beyond the Realm of Conscience《宮心計》—each broke ratings records by peaking at 50 points back when the series were broadcast. Due to this accomplishment, the couple have a 'catchphrase' that they've been using of late: "He [Lau Ka Ho] contributes 50, I [Mui Siu Ching] contribute 50, and together, we contribute 100%." Such a catchphrase is in line with the usual 'easy to remember' and 'easy to understand' golden phrases that are usually found in TVB series.
March 23rd marked the couple's last day at TVB – they will be starting at 'rival' station NowTV in April. Our [Mingpao] reporter saw the recent episode of "The Scoop" 《東張西望》that reported on the farewell dinner that TVB executives held for the couple – in the report, Lau Ka Ho was nowhere to be seen and only Mui Siu Ching's hand as well as half her face were shown – of course, we all understand the 'reasoning' for this. No matter what though, the couple expressed that their departure is an amicable one -- there are no complaints – rather, there are many precious memories from their past experiences working at the company and in the future, if they happen to cross paths again, it will definitely be a 'happy' meeting.
Alex Man's 'blood-stained shirt incident'
Lau Ka Ho and Mui Siu Ching married in 1981. Both started in the industry back during the Rediffusion Television era [their contemporaries included Johnny Mak (麥當雄) and Shiu Yeuk Yuen (蕭若元)] and later on, they became one of ATV's 'golden' behind-the-scenes couples. [TN: Rediffusion Television (aka RTV) is ATV's predecessor – RTV became ATV in 1982]. In 1986, Lau Ka Ho jumped ship to TVB to 'test the waters' and 9 months later, his wife joined him – with the blink of an eye, they have already been with TVB for 26 years.
The first peak in Lau Ka Ho's career was back in the late 80s when he produced the 2 series that shot comedic actor Stephen Chow (周星馳) to fame: The Final Combat 《蓋世豪俠》and The Justice of Life 《他來自江湖》.
Lau Ka Ho recounts that 'peak' in his career this way: "Well, actually we should go back to 1988 with the production of the 5 episode 'golden' series Behind Silk Curtains 《大都會》. Led by Adam Cheng (鄭少秋) and Liza Wang (汪明荃), the series boasted an 'all-star' cast, as it utilized practically every single artist employed by TVB at the time. Stephen Chow played Adam's son – a slippery fellow with a careless attitude – and Tony Leung (梁朝偉) played the honest and righteous older brother; it was during that production that I realized Stephen's potential as an actor and started to feel that he was not a simple person. My next series [in 1989] was a 30 episode martial arts costume drama – we wanted to go against tradition, so we had actually considered naming the series 'I Am Not a Martial Arts Hero'《我不是大俠》, since the protagonist in the series is not the typical martial arts hero, but rather a cowardly fellow who makes a living by opening a winery. I needed a completely new 'face' for the role, so the first person I thought of was Stephen Chow – the result was success." [TN: The information about Behind Silk Curtains is erroneous: Tony Leung did NOT play Stephen Chow's older brother in the series -- Adam's older son was played by Stephen and his younger son was played by Spencer Leung (梁思浩). Tony's character had nothing to do with Adam or Stephen.]
Stephen Chow is well-known for his habit of changing a script's dialogue. However, back then, since he was still a newbie, he would obediently do his research and then meet up with the producer and scriptwriters to pitch his suggestions – even back then, he was very persuasive.
That same year (1989), the anniversary series was to be The Justice of Life, which would be led by actor Alex Man (萬梓良). As producer of the series, Lau Ka Ho decided to add Stephen Chow to the cast, which turned out to be a good move, as the series garnered high ratings. In the subsequent years, Lau Ka Ho was responsible for producing several of TVB's anniversary series, including 1991's The Big Family《大家族》, 1992's The Key Man 《巨人》, and 1993's The Edge of Righteousness《龍兄鼠弟》 – the artist he collaborated the most with at the time was Alex Man. It was during the filming of The Big Family that Alex Man's famous 'blood-stained shirt incident' occurred: to protest his dissatisfaction over the lack of availability of filming timeslots, Alex wore a T-shirt with the words 'Beg the chicken feather commanding officer to grant filming timeslots' 「乞求雞毛司令賜廠期」written in red paint (to represent blood) and went around having reporters take pictures.
Lau Ka Ho: "I understand how Alex is – he's the type of actor who throws his heart and soul into every series. Back then, filming timeslots were definitely very limited and many times, near the end of a production, the filming would be very rushed, which put a lot of pressure on all of us. The last couple days of filming were especially crazy, as the studio would be so filled to capacity that there were no timeslots available whatsoever. Alex took that action out of frustration, however at the time the incident occurred, I was not aware of it. I know he had good intentions and was merely fighting to get more timeslots added so that productions wouldn't be delayed, but unfortunately, the company has its rules on how timeslots are distributed – if I had known what he was going to do, I would have stopped him."
It turns out that the 'chicken feather commanding officer' who was in charge of distributing filming timeslots at that time was none other than TVB's current 'golden' producer Lee Tim Sing (李添勝).
Lau Ka Ho: "I apologized many times to Tim Gor already, as I know that the company has its policies and the lack of filming timeslots is not his fault. Alex is an actor with a lot of 'heart' – even after he finishes filming his own scenes, he would stay behind to help his co-workers with their scenes."
Source: Mingpao Weekly, Issue 2263
Translated by: llwy12 @ AsianFanatics
Best Viewed in IE9, Mozilla Firefox 11 & Google Chrome 17
Li Bing Bing Vogue Italia Interview
Comments