Shu Qi supported Donnie Yen, Netizens attacks

Regarding the war between Donnie Yen and Vincent Zhao while shooting new film Special Identity 特殊身份, the rumors have been getting more and more severe. Many artists from the industry have been speaking out in support for Donnie, and this resulted in unrestrained attacks. Among them was Shu Qi, who only wrote a message on Weibo supporting Donnie's professional attitude. This led to an 'invasion' of slandering messages on her Weibo. Recently, the attacks were taken to a higher level. Someone dug up Shu Qi's old nude photos that were taken before her debut, when she was on the cover of an adult magazine. The magazine photos were uploaded online for 're-visiting'.

With her past exposed online, Shu Qi suffered from a huge emotional impact. The other night, she already started deleting over 1,000 messages on Weibo. By yesterday, she had "0 Weibos" and "0 Following". She was once known as the 'Weibo Queen', but now she's protesting against online violence. Yesterday afternoon at 2pm, Shu Qi was spotted leaving her residence heading for Central to visit a friend. At the time, Angelababy and Kai Ko were working on a new film, and felt very surprised by Shu Qi's incident. It turns out that the producer of that film (Ms. Koon) was Shu Qi's former manager. At the time, Shu Qi saw that Ms. Koon was busy, so she sat alone in a far corner, but she was constantly looking at her watch. During the time, she couldn't help, but to let out her sadness and teared up. She kept using tissues to wipe away her tears, and after several minutes, her eyes were all swollen from the crying. Later, Ms. Koon came to comfort her and if was then when she started feeling better. When they discovered, reporters taking photos, she quickly got up and left. As a result, there were 5-6 people escorting Shu Qi to the car. When reporters went forward for interviews, Shu Qi was in a bad mood and politely declined: "It's my personal time, I don't want to be interviewed."

Regarding the whole incident, Donnie was furious too, he wrote on Weibo: "Thanks to my friends for all the support. It is also because of your support that I feel sorry that you were innocently dragged into the issue and have to face online violence that is getting out of control. I feel helpless, heartbroken!"

Source: Oriental Daily, Mingpao

Mingpao Interview with TVB producers Mui Siu Ching and Lau Ka Ho: 50 + 50 = 100 [PART 2 - FINAL]

** Translator’s Note: Due to the length of this interview, I decided to break it up into two parts to facilitate translation of the article.
Part 2 starts below:Leon Lai (黎明) responsible for bringing Michelle Reis (李嘉欣)
Not too long afterwards, a new siu sang rose to popularity at TVB – Leon Lai (黎明). Leon’s first 2 series prior to becoming popular were 1988’s A Friend in Need 《飛躍霓裳》and 1989’s Yankee Boy《回到唐山》—Mui Siu Ching was the producer for both series.

Mui Siu Ching: “After he [Leon] filmed those series, I bumped into him one day in the street -- he excitedly came over and told me he would like to participate in the promotion for both series. Since he only has a singer’s contract with TVB and not an artist’s one, when the series aired, he used his own money to buy a plane ticket back to HK to participate in the promotional events.”

Later on, Leon started gaining popularity in the music world and in 1991, he had his first official lead role in the series The Breaking Point 《今生無悔》, which was also produced by Mui Siu Ching. In the series, Leon plays a ‘prodigal son’ type who rides a motorcycle and makes a living in Taiwan as a stuntman – the inspiration for his character came from the real life background story of singer Dave Wang (王傑). Also, since Mui Siu Ching graduated from the National Taiwan University of Arts (NTUA) with a specialty in television broadcasting, she had a particular fondness for Taiwan arts and therefore incorporated that element into the series: “When I studied in Taiwan, I had a habit of going to the countryside after school and sit there reading a book, watching the sun set – it was very picturesque and idyllic. This is why The Breaking Point had a little bit of that ‘flavor’ to it [for the scenes filmed in Taiwan].”

Mui Siu Ching admits that in real life, she would constantly encourage her husband Lau Ka Ho to learn how to ride a motorcycle, but he never obliged because he felt it was too dangerous, so she had to satisfy that ‘dream’ through Leon’s character in The Breaking Point: “The seriousness that Leon showed toward filming is comparable to Alex Man – in efforts to help maintain good rapport and morale amongst the cast and crew, Leon would often arrange get-togethers during holidays such as the Mid-Autumn Festival and Christmas. Back then, the company [TVB] had a more ‘open’ system – even non-biological children such as Leon [he was signed to Polygram at the time] could become first male lead in a 40 episode series. Nowadays, it’s a lot harder for something like that to occur.”

In 1993, Leon had already become a ‘Heavenly King’ – at that time, TVB invited him to be the lead in the series The Legendary Ranger 《原振俠》. Due to his popularity, TVB allowed him to choose Mui Siu Ching to be the producer of the series – Leon ‘returned the favor’ by convincing 2 of his good friends to participate in the series:“Leon helped serve as the ‘go-between’ in helping us get Michelle Reis (李嘉欣) and Faye Wong (王菲) to participate in the series. He was good friends with them and also was close with their manager, so he helped facilitate a meeting between them and TVB. Faye only agreed to participate in a few episodes, so we purposefully added a couple episodes just for her.”

Siu Ching Jie continues: “Michelle pays a lot of attention to her physical appearance onscreen and always tries to look her best for the camera. Whenever I work on post-production editing for my series, I always cut out any excess shots that I feel are irrelevant to the production, however there was one particular shot involving Michelle that I couldn’t bear to cut. In the shot, the camera panned from Michelle’s legs all the way up to her face – from her makeup to her outfit to her hairstyle, Michelle looked so beautiful in that shot that I couldn’t help rewatching that shot again; in the end, I did not make any edits to that scene at all.”

Michelle Reis has often been criticized as being a ‘wooden beauty’. [TN: the ‘wooden’ in this case refers to Michelle’s acting]. Towards this, Mui Siu Ching stated that with The Legendary Ranger being a science fiction / fantasy – themed series, Michelle actually did a pretty decent job – in fact, it was actually Faye Wong’s acting that seemed a bit on the ‘elementary’ side at that time: “There was one particular scene that she [Faye] had to redo. I was personally in charge of the filming for that particular segment and when I gave her various instructions on how to act out that scene, she was very obedient. It wasn’t until later on that I found that was actually Faye’s unique style – she applies the same style with her singing and it’s actually very popular with audiences.”

The Charmaine Sheh (佘詩曼) / Kevin Cheng (鄭嘉穎) rumors appeared ‘somewhat real’

For most producers, it’s usually not too difficult to ‘figure out’ when a series’ male and female lead might be in a real-life relationship outside of filming. Mui Siu Ching admits that during the filming of The Legendary Ranger, she did feel that Leon Lai and Michelle Reis were ‘especially close’.

Lau Ka Ho states: “For some reason, my series seem to help bring together real-life couples! The Final Combat 《蓋世豪俠》brought about Stephen Chow and Jacqueline Law (羅慧娟) – it was obvious that they were dating at that time, as Jacqueline would constantly be on-set whenever Stephen was around, even though she didn’t have any scenes to film during that time; The Edge of Righteousness《龍兄鼠弟》brought Dicky Cheung (張衛健) and Jessica Hsuan (宣萱) together – I sort of sensed that the two of them were dating at that time, but I didn’t want to be nosy, so I didn’t ask, however I noticed that one time when we were filming on location in the U.S., Jessica secretly went over to knock on Dicky’s hotel room door to wake him up – at the time, I thought it was a bit unusual for her to be so good to him – it wasn’t until later that I found out the truth; the series Down Memory Lane 《萬里長情》brought Frankie Lam (林文龍) and Kenix Kwok (郭可盈) together – this was the pairing with the best real life result, as the two of them married and have a child now.”

Mui Siu Ching expressed that the female artist she admires the most in recent years is Charmaine Sheh (佘詩曼). The first series they collaborated in was Forensic Heroes 2《法證先鋒2》, in which the male lead was Kevin Cheng (鄭嘉穎).

Mui Siu Ching: “The emotional scenes between Charmaine and Kevin [in [i]Forensic Heroes 2[/i]] were truly done very well, very sweet, to the point that as a producer, I felt that I just had to make them a couple – with the Heavens as my witness, a lot of people actually felt the same way! Later on when I re-watched the clips, I thought to myself: no wonder they were able to absorb themselves in the performance – perhaps it’s because their relationship was ‘somewhat real’ at that time. After that, in Beyond the Realm of Conscience《宮心計》, Charmaine and Kevin were paired together again; even though this time around, there was a story arc with Charmaine and Moses Chan (陳豪) as well, there was no doubt in my mind that the way Charmaine did her scenes with Moses was very different from her scenes with Kevin – I could feel it. The scenes where Charmaine and Kevin’s characters elope and pledge their love to each other – the way they looked at each other, the expression in their eyes, etc. – all made me feel that there was truly something ‘real’ about their relationship [in real life]. There was another scene where the 2 of them embraced each other, both of them in tears – I had a similar feeling at that time too.”

In her position as a producer, of course Siu Ching Jie was not going to ask directly [whether Charmaine and Kevin were truly in a relationship] – plus there was no point asking anyway: “It’s very interesting….when they were hanging out in the studio waiting to film their scenes, the two of them rarely socialized with each other or even looked at each other, yet when I watch them perform their relationship scenes, I truly felt that they were [in a relationship].”

Siu Ching Jie cited yet another example from back when they were filming Forensic Heroes 2 . Siu Ching Jie admits that she is the type of producer who doesn’t always accept performances in one take -- there was one particular scene that she felt was well-performed and so had accepted it already, however Kevin Cheng actually called her later on and asked if he could re-shoot the scene. It turns out the scene that Kevin wanted to re-shoot was the one where his character declares his love to Charmaine’s character: “The re-shoot was truly a lot better! The shot where Kevin grasps Charmaine’s hand – the audiences don’t know it, but that was actually the second take.”

Kevin and Charmaine have never admitted to a real-life relationship and no one knows for sure whether they are together currently. Siu Ching Jie states: “I really like the 2 of them together, as I feel they match each other really well. The two of them are definitely artists with a lot of heart!”

Was ‘scared silly’ by Moses Chan

In recent years, Mui Siu Ching has taken a liking to both Charmaine and Kevin on a personal level.

Two years ago, even though Charmaine did not win the TV Queen award for her performance in Can’t Buy Me Love 《公主嫁到》(she lost to Sheren Tang), the series itself did win ‘Best Series’ that year. Looking back through the pictures from that night, Siu Ching Jie could see from Charmaine’s expression how sincerely happy she was that the series received recognition at the awards ceremony.

Siu Ching Jie expressed that every year, Kevin Cheng would make the effort to call her during the Chinese New Year holiday to send his new year’s greetings – even when he was not in HK during the holiday, he would still call her prior to leaving and send his early greetings. Last year, even after winning the TV King award, this ‘tradition’ continued. Siu Ching Jie says that she has great admiration for a man with such heart.

Moses Chan (陳豪) is another artist whom Mui Siu Ching helped to cultivate. When he first joined TVB, very few producers were willing to utilize him – the first series where he was heavily utilized was in 2002’s Where the Legend Begins《洛神》, which was produced by Siu Ching Jie: “At that time, his [Moses] raspy voice had just healed. The series was a costume drama and for the character of Cao Pi, I wanted to utilize a newcomer – only problem was that physically, Moses didn’t fit very well with the costume, especially the hairpiece; we had to tailor-make the costume and hairpiece specially for him, though to be honest, the overall ‘look’ still was not very pleasing to the eye. During the filming of the very first scene, Moses actually scared me silly! During that scene, he and Steven Ma (馬浚偉) had to walk across a traditional bridge (the type usually found in ancient seres) – with Steven’s experience, it was of course no problem for him, but when you look at Moses next to him, it was very obvious that Moses lacked experience – he wasn’t sure where to put his hands and he looked like a puppet; I was worried that perhaps I had chosen the wrong person to play the role. I didn’t want to call him to my office at that time because I didn’t want to hurt his self-esteem, so I used the excuse of the dialogue changing to ask him to re-shoot the scene – with each try, he truly continued to improve and in the end, he won the ‘Most Improved Male Artist’ award.”

Moses has great affinity with audiences and as a result, many of his subsequent series were well received. Mui Siu Ching continued to collaborate with Moses the following year in Family Man《絕世好爸》and after that, turned him over to Lau Ka Ho, who tapped into Moses’ comedic side with 2005’s The Gentle Crackdown《秀才遇著兵》—this route ultimately led to the character ‘Dak Dak Dei’ in Heart of Greed (2007) 《溏心風暴》, which is also the role that helped Moses win TV King.

Back during the filming of Love Bond 《心花放》in 2005, Mui Siu Ching expressed that she actually was not aware of Moses’ relationship with co-star Bernice Liu (廖碧兒) until near the end of filming: “One of the last scenes that we filmed was their kiss scene and at that time, I remember thinking -- wow, so much feeling, great acting there! It wasn’t until I went to ask the director that he told me: ‘Yes [they’re dating]! You didn’t know that?’”

Teaching by example

After 2007, Lau Ka Ho and Mui Siu Ching’s series have been ratings winners almost every year – this helped them break into the Mainland China market and now, it’s time for them to begin a new chapter in their lives:“Both in terms of salary and position, there is definitely more room for development. Our son is almost done with his 2 year lawyer training and will be able to start out on his own soon, plus we are finished paying off the mortgage on our house in West Kowloon, so we can feel more at ease trying our luck outside.”

Since submitting their resignation letters in September of last year (2011), both Lau Ka Ho and Mui Siu Ching are grateful for the warmth and support they have received. These past 6 months have been especially memorable for them: “After having submitted our letters to human resources on the 2nd floor, we were walking back to our offices on the 7th floor when our cell phone rang – turns out that the HR department had contacted Stephen Chan (陳志雲) almost immediately; he invited us to his office for a discussion and later on, Mark Lee (李寶安) joined the discussion as well.

In efforts to urge the couple to stay, management offered to let the couple head up their own production team that would be independent of the current 2 teams headed by Catherine Tsang (曾勵珍) and Tommy Leung (梁家樹). Though the offer was definitely enticing, the couple decided not to reconsider: “Through our attitude toward our jobs, we want to teach our son by example. He has seen with his own eyes how seriously we take our work – even when we get off work and go home, we are still not completely off work, as we head to our separate rooms and work on editing the scripts to our series for hours on end. This helps him understand that making a living is not easy – to get something done right requires a lot of persistence and sacrifice. We hope that in the future, he will take his work as seriously as we do with ours.”

Source: Mingpao Weekly, Issue 2263