Monday, November 19, 2012

Review: TVB 45th Anniversary Gala (2012)

If you want to watch the gala, you can watch it at hyn5's blog here. Okay, so the title’s a little misleading. This isn’t really a review but more of a rant. As one of the most hyped up events since who knows when TVB started and of the whole year, another disappointment in the sack. The past few years haven’t been any better, unfortunately. What happened to the anniversary gala? When did it become more about promoting new artists and less about being a show for the audience? This is why I’m with Felix Wong (and a lot of other people) when they say that TVB just don’t cut it anymore. There needs to be competition. Although my cable provider is a proud supporter of TVB, I’d be happy for them to up their game and to see new (and good) series from other television stations. Just like a lot of their programming, the gala has become a joke. One big farce.

Opening sequences, full of self-promotional material and trying to kiss up to the government by trying to convince them not to hand out a free-to-air license to CTI. After some bad singing (Cally Kwong was just about the only Miss HK that could sing) and some bad dancing (especially by Pierro Ngo – so stiff! Stick to acting man!), we finally have the hosts come out.

Girls’ team, a dance around a net and doing some hanging acrobatics. Seriously not really impressive, to be honest. But nice song. “Once Upon A December” from 20th Century Fox’s Anastasia, if anyone’s interested.

Running up walls and climbing monkey bars from the boys’ team. I really didn’t see any entertainment value in that. Adding a little bit of fire for effect also did not add any points to the performance.

 I think it’s safe to say that even though there were performances and acts this year, some were just crude. Way too crude. Now, don’t get me wrong, I can take the cream pie in the face act easily as much as the next person, but what I found BLATANTLY DISGUSTING was Eric Tsang’s behaviour towards King Kong. Alright, sure his Cantonese is funny and he’s been laughed at for looking like a monkey but that just simply doesn’t give Eric Tsang the right to stuff his half-eaten bun covered in his spit and glob into King Kong’s mouth. His lack of cleanliness and respect for people amazes me sometimes. If he wasn’t standing so high in the hierarchy that is TVB and whatnot, he wouldn’t be able to get away with this kind of behaviour. This is not what TVB is supposed to stand for. Quite frankly, I am sick of their clear disrespect towards the audience, thinking that we would find something as disgusting even the slightest bit funny. Now I don’t know if the local Hong Kong audience find that kind of stuff funny, but as someone who actually has to pay for cable, I’m seriously considering pulling the plug.

More random filler-in acts, with singing and dancing, with slapstick stuff. What do I say? BRING BACK THE MUSICALS! I didn’t see a hint of collaboration or cohesiveness within any of the groups – the dancing was all over the place (you could clearly see some actors and actresses moving in the opposite direction from the rest of the group). However, I must commend Kiki Sheung on her very good acting ‘in numbers’ segment. That being said, I would have enjoyed it if she sung a song. In a musical. They should really get their singers to sing and their actors, to well, act. Of course, if an actor can sing well, then that’s another story. Just jam them into a musical. And you know what? I don’t care if they lip-sync (to their own voices, of course). It was somewhat funny to see the men dressed up in women’s clothing, like Moses Chan and Wayne Lai but they should really keep these slapstick kinda acts to a minimum (just 1 per show sounds just about right). Johnson Lee’s impression of Adam Cheng was pretty LOL. I thought it was nice how they paid tribute to the stars of EYT. Tributes are always welcome.

But on a sidenote, it’s nice to see that Wayne Lai’s been rewarded for his long slog at TVB. The competitions for their staff (mainly their actors and actresses) I mean, I have no problem with. The gala, after all, should be about celebrating the success of the television station, as well as rewarding the people who make up part of that success. My problem is with the quality of the gala, the acts that go in and the performances that come out. I don’t even know why the flag was awarded to Eric Tsang’s group. Sure, they say it’s votership, but that sounds like a whole lot of crap to me. THIS IS A GALA. People want to be entertained. I saw some half-asleep and very bored audience members when the cameraman chose to pan to them. So there you have it, like the half-eaten bun that King Kong got stuffed into his mouth, this year’s gala was something you had to force yourself to watch and spat out like leftovers nobody wants.

2 comments:

  1. Wow, long time no see. Nice summary here, although I have not seen the whole thing. Cally Kwong out singing again? Nice! Haven't seen her for a while, and I miss her singing (and yes, she sings really well =) Eric Tsang, I'm not so much appreciative of him but once when he collaborated with famous lyricist 林敏驄, the duo made some very funny shows and songs.

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  2. Haha, yes - that is mainly due to my own disappearance. But nice to hear from you again! But as for the Cally, she didn't appear at this gala but they were singing her songs, yes. She did appear at an old Miss HK event or something of that nature. Believe me, there was not much on at this gala. And yes, Andrew Lam really did have a sharp intellect and gift of the gab.

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