May-June Variety Shows

It’s time for another round-up of TVB’s variety shows under the direction of Eric Tsang and Wong Cho Lam. Through May and June, it felt like TVB was producing variety shows at a breakneck pace and ended up giving short shrift to its shows. Many of the concepts have potential, but was not given enough time to develop. 

• Dub of War (好聲好戲): The show shined a spotlight on the unseen voice actors at TVB. It was amazing to learn about how dubbing works and all the skills it takes to do a good job. I was genuinely surprised by the excellent performances from some of the participants. Rating: 9/10. 

My top five most impressive performances: 

5. Yuki Law and Marktwo Lee - For newbies, this was an impressive performance. Especially when Marktwo says his first line, I thought they were using Ron Ng’s voice.

4. Moon Lau and Tedford Wong - Moon and Tedford were better at dubbing characters outside of their age range than the three finalists. 

3. Sisley Choi and Owen Cheung - They sounded as if they were playing the original clip. The chip goes through a lot of emotions and both of them were handled it well. Owen Cheung has always been more impressive doing imitations than using his own voice. 

2. Yoyo Chen - Yoyo was able to speak in another dialect as if she was fluent and no one even taught her!

1. Joey Thye - I was most surprised by Joey’s performance. She sounds just like Grace Chan and even timed her breathing and crying perfectly with the clip. 

Bonus: Coty Wong and Tinson Lung - They are instructors for a reason. Their performance was at the next level. 

• Case Unclosed (死因有可疑): In the first head-to-head battle with ViuTV, TVB brought a knife to a gunfight. The show looked like an amateur production next to ViuTV’s serious efforts. It is disappointing because I really like the concept of a murder-mystery show. Rating: 5/10. [Full review here]

• Top Sales (識貨): This was essentially an advertising spot disguised as a show. Zero interest from me when I couldn’t (and wouldn’t, even if I could) buy the products they were selling. But Yoyo Chen is on a hot streak. Rating: 2/10. 

• Prelude to TVB All Star Games: The Ring (明星運動會前哨戰: Fight盡): The show suffered from some major cutting issues. Training, interview and competition clips were haphazardly thrown together like a tossed salad. The show also makes a lacklustre effort to introduce the fighters to the audience. The audience can’t feel like they are part of the fighters’ journeys when they only see them for seconds at a time and barely know who they are. Rating: 4/10. 

• Mean Talk: I loved the juicy gossip that was being spilled on the show! Six episodes was definitely too short. There’s plenty more tea to be spilled. Rating: 7/10.

Mean Talk Gossip

I love juicy gossip about the entertainment circle and Mean Talk has plenty of it! 

Mean Talk is a talk show hosted by Elena Kong and Bob Lam where they make guests share their juiciest, “meanest” stories from the industry. Let’s see if we can guess who the guests are talking about!

Actress who leaked to paparazzi:

In episode 2, Dickson Yu revealed that an actress he worked with secretly invited the paparazzi to their filming location and purposely acted intimately with him. Here were the clues he gave:

• This was a few years ago. Both of them were relatively new.
• A short article was published about them and included photos of the girl’s arm in his arm.
• The girl is still in the industry. Her fame is similar to Dickson. He said people would recognize her, but she is not super famous. 

Could he be talking about Kamen Kong? This article was published in 2018 when Dickson and Kamen were filming The Ghetto-Fabulous Lady. At that time, both of them were relative newcomers (the article even mentioned Kamen had just joined the industry for three years). The article says that they received “reliable intel” (from the source directly?) that Dickson and Kamen had been secretly dating for three months. It also describes how Dickson would drive Kamen home every night. (Dickson said that the girl asked him for a ride, but he refused because he knew what was up.)  The only clue that doesn’t match is the photos with the girl’s arm in his arm, but the article does include photos of Kamen hitting him playfully and massaging his leg. 

Actor who asked Lee Ka Ding for "more acting":

In episode 3, Stephanie Ho revealed that an actor once asked veteran actor Lee Ka Ding to give him "more acting." She said they were filming a wedding scene where actor had to shake hands with Lee Ka Ding. The actor was also slapped in the face in the same scene. 

Netizens quickly identified the actor was Hinson Chou. Here he is in Raising the Bar with Lee Ka Ding and Stephanie:

Tiger Cubs actor who tried to pursue M Club actress

In episode 3, Winki Lai revealed that while they were filming Never Dance Alone, an actor from the neighboring Tiger Cubs set would often come to their dressing room to talk to one of the actresses.  Winki said:

• The actress had an ugly wig that looked like William So. 
• The actor's last name is Ho. 
• He has left TVB already.

Quick-working netizens discovered the Tiger Cubs actor was Quinn Ho, who left TVB in 2018 and now runs a business in Mongolia. The M Club actress is believed to be Cheronna Ng, who was the only one of the young actresses who had to wear a short wig. 

Mr. W who favored females over Vincent Wong

In the Have a Big Laugh edition of Mean Talk, Vincent Wong revealed that while filming Murder Diary, a male colleague was always more friendly while talking to female colleagues than males. Vincent said the male colleague's English name started with "W".  

Looking at the cast list, Willie Wai is a possibility. However, Vincent did not say if the male colleague was an actor or other crew member. Do you have any guesses?