Behind the Banner: History

So you may have been wondering for some time now - who are the pretty women and dashingly handsome men that make up your banner?

Well, that's for me to know and for you to find out. Nah, I'm just kidding.

I'd be happy to tell you - these were all snapshots that I took from videos featuring these artists so let's get the cat out of the bag and on with the show!

No. 1 - Anita Mui
If you haven't already realized (or perhaps you're just new) I've mentioned the woman dubbed as the "Madonna of the East" many quite a few times, already. But this part of the welcoming banner was taken from her amazing performance of Paula Tsui's "The Windy Season" during the first ever New Talent Singing Awards in 1982. Okay, okay, I've actually posted the whole video for the 1982 NTSA contest but if you didn't see that, then at least choose to see this. It's pretty much the take-home message of the whole contest.


No. 2 - Elvina Kong
Okay, another lady like Anita Mui. I'm talking about Elvina's uncanny talent for being able to imitate Anita's voice and mannerisms perfectly. Well, this isn't of that but it is another NTSA clip - 1985. Yes! She was a contestant. She didn't win that year (Alex Delfino did) but I think just about everybody knows her as Diana from TVB's Best Selling Secrets and maybe you know of her Anita Mui impersonation skills from watching Fun with Liza and Gods or from those 2 old TVB series' (From Act to Act and Show Time Blues) starring Wayne Lai imitating Roman Tam and Cutie Mui singing like Sammi Cheng.

P.S. Hehe. I like how Tony Leung jokes about wanting Elvina to meet up with him when she's older before she takes the stage. Anyway, I present to you an 18-year-old Elvina Kong singing Danny Chan's duet with Sandy Lamb "Goodbye Puppy Love" (they were watching too!). I like how her contestant number matches her age.

No. 3 - Deric Wan
Yes, it's Gallen Lo's younger brother from Golden Faith! I actually really liked him in that role - he played the part perfectly. All the right dashes of humor here and there - all so convincing. Ah, I really wished that they made more TVB series like those back in the days. But actually this next clip is a trailer for the drama Conscience that aired during the 1994 TVB Sales Presentation. This drama also starred Maggie Siu and Amy Kwok as female leads.


No. 4 - Aaron Kwok
I must say though I'm not really a fan of Aaron, I must say that he looks quite cool in this shot. Why? This was probably because they used to put much more effort into their performances instead of just wearing a shower cap and flailing around on stage. Yep, he was actually competing not only for the title of Dancing King but for the judges and audience's approval at the 1994 TVB Anniversary for best performance act that night. Obviously he didn't take that prize, not because his performance was bad (it was actually very nostalgic of the late Michael Jackson) but Liza Wang's "Enchanting Pink Lady x Hot Coffee" performance was what topped the charts that night.


Note: You used to be able to find this video here but not anymore since…you'll find out if you go there. Issues with TVB. If people are watching your old things more than your new stuff, you've seriously gotta change your strategy. Oh and as a side note, please give credit to taqfiles.blogspot.com if you choose to repost the videos that are uploaded onto here (not the ones from Youtube, Youku or Tudou) since I do spend a reasonable amount of time editing the videos.  

So there you have it, the Big 4. Hope you enjoyed that roll of videos - more to come onto your plate.
Video credits: lovemui (youtube.com), 菊残犹有傲霜枝 (youku.com), taqfiles.blogspot.com

It was acceptable in the 80's...and it still is!

Okay, okay. You're probably still wondering why I've been so crab-appley when it comes to Cantopop (well, basically the whole HK entertainment industry). Well, I think the saying "A picture is worth 1000 words" fits the bill perfectly. Well, actually that would mean that videos would be worth like a million words. But enough of that nonsense.

Let's take a look back into NTSA. The year? 1982. So, kick back, relax and watch some of HK's finest TV history. Thanks to the uploader of this video, although it took me awhile to work out that the embed tags do actually work fine without the Iframe codes. Okay, I lied. It needs the Iframe codes .

If you haven't seen this, I do really encourage you to because not only did Hong Kong gain find a superstar to shine through the 80's but you'll totally understand why I've said that contestants who didn't even win were much better than those who did win in the more, uh, recent competitions. It was all about song choice, presentation and more importantly, talent.

The judging panel was also much stronger. The fact that there was a good mix of singers, composers, songwriters and singer-songwriters really shows balance. They even had Shinji Tanimura, famous for doing enka music (particularly well-known for his piece "Subaru" (星/Star), which was also covered by songbird Teresa Teng), perform and act as judge.

Well, anyway, enjoy!
The 1st New Talent Singing AwardsVideo credits: ～舞影～ (youku.com)

No surprise, Hubert Wu wins NTSA

Hubert Wu: Winner of the TVB 2010
International Chinese New Talent
Singing Championship 

I told you Hubert Wu would win the TVB International Chinese New Talent Singing Championship. Apart from his well-cemented relationships with most of the judging panel and his partial year of training on The Voice 2, he has quite a good voice. Still, it really saddens me that his versatility as an artist is strictly hindered by his song choice. I can't help but think whether people would actually buy his albums (excluding his hardcore fans, of course) because they wanted to hear all the different types of songs he could sing. I can't imagine listening to, or even wanting to listen to an album where every song is a slow and boring love ballad. Hell, it's not like he only got one chance do not miss your chance to blow to showcase his talent. It's good that Hubert can sing a steady falsetto and carries emotion, but his breathing is not as subtle or controlled as it could be. You might think that I'm tearing him apart but, the judges in Super Star really care about these subtle things and oh so much more.

I can see why they didn't send in Mag Lam to be HK's rep this year. It would be kind of pointless to do a repeat win since TVB owns everything. Listening to Mag's rendition of Sally Yeh's old-time classic really told me just how far apart Hubert and Mag are in terms of talent. Taking into account their ages...that would still convince me that Mag has an advantage over Hubert. They're practically the same age, give or take a year or two. It seems to me, that all you see, is violence and movies and sex on TV Mag really shines when she's got a power ballad to sing, like the time she sung G.E.M's A.I.N.Y on The Voice 2. Okay, so she's not the greatest singer in the world. She has much to improve on, like her pronunciation, accent and using the right type of voice to sing (yes, I noticed she sometimes uses her nose to power through some tones. But this nasal thing should clear up once the right techniques have been acquired). But I have to say, Mag's performance for A.I.N.Y. that day was one of the most memorable moments on The Voice 2. If Mag had been sent to represent HK along with Hubert at the NTSA, she would probably not only whip Hubert's butt again, but be the winner of yet another singing competition.

Mag Lam singing G.E.M's A.I.N.Y.


Image credit: facebook.comVideo credit: 2009127 (youtube.com)

TVB New Talent Singing Awards?

It's like TVB's been reading my Cantopop rant! *shudders* totally creepy Well, not really. I doubt that anyone's eyes have fallen onto this blog, apart from mine, of course. Anyway, I was ranting about how the New Talent Singing Awards show The point is, it's too late, much too late for TVB to 'buy back' the NTSA. By changing the format of the show, they've pretty much just killed it.

FTV's Super Star. Woot.

The TVB NTSA is something of a cross between Hong Kong's The Voice and Taiwan's Super Star except the standard is much lower than either of the two shows on their own. Instead of a one-shot contest where contestants in the past would choose one song to sing to impress the judges in a do-or-die deathmatch, the contestants perform every week, much like Super Star. The difference though, is talent. I much prefer to watch SS because the standard is much higher - even those singers who come in second-best are better than most of the singers in NTSA, considering both groups of contestants actually receive training.

The TVB International Chinese New Talent Singing Championship. What a mouthful. 

The scoring system in SS is much more easier to understand, as opposed to that of TVB's The Voice or NTSA. In fact, I've been watching for a few weeks now and have only just realized that the scores are out of 40. Because no one has even come close to this score, it's confusing. Why set points in such a weird manner that none of the contestants can reach? It would be better ranked out of 100 like SS. And yes, before you go on telling me that it's always been ranked out of 40, I must say it used to make sense in the past, because past winners and other competitors would actually get somewhere close to the maximum score. The first winner of NTSA, Anita Mui, was given a perfect score by lyricist James Wong while composer and friend, Joseph Koo gave her a near-perfect score (-1 point).

...and The Voice.  Is it just me, or is the newly remodeled NTSA look really based on this logo? 

The thing is when you take away the death element of a one-strike-and-you're-out match is that participants who stay back, tend to get a little bit lax about things. There are no real mentors who help the contestants out with choreography when it comes to dancing or generally performing on stage, like in past NTSA competitions. In fact, most of the contestants these days don't really know how to move. Since NTSA started accepting international entrants (regional winners from different countries), you would expect a vast array of talent. But unfortunately, it seems that past groups of contestants all solely from Hong Kong were more talented. Weird.

Hubert Wu

The competition is also partially slightly biased. Hubert Wu, sent as Hong Kong's representative for the NTSA has gone through many rounds during The Voice 2 competition and faced familiar judges. And if you're from Hong Kong, you're not going to tell me you're going to give Hong Kong a bad name, are you? That would just make HK lose face. And losing face = not good. They've got a variety of judges but there goes consistency being thrown out of the window. Judges opinions vary. Keeping a good handful of judges and leaving them that way will do. Heck, American Idol did well with just 3 - but perhaps Simon Cowell is worth more than one judge.

Sheldon Lo

The problem with song choice is still there. Many of the overseas participants are only comfortable  singing in Mandarin and thus, they commit a kind of suicide, damaging their versatility as performers. It's pretty much like what Sheldon Lo did on The Voice 2. Not that he couldn't sing, but his repertoire was restricted because his Cantonese wasn't fluent and everyone knows that the dialect relies on proper (or somewhat decent) pronunciation to get the (right) message across. Throughout that whole season of The Voice 2, I really only remember him singing one song in Cantonese with Julian Cheung. The other times was when he was forced to sing sang with the other contestants as a group. I don't think HK would ever accept someone like Sheldon into their music industry as a Cantopop singer, even though English pop music was pretty popular in the 70's or so in HK.

Vivian Chow singing Yoshie Kashiwabara's "Most Beloved"(Saiai/最愛）
I'm not against contestants choosing songs other than Cantonese to sing. It's been done plenty of times by past contestants of the past, including Vivian Chow and Rita Carpio who sung in Japanese and English, respectively. But that was one song that each sung for one performance. Just one. But that's not so for the revamped NTSA. No-siree. Contestants will pick the same types of songs to sing each time - Mandarin, Mandarin, Mandarin. Or English, Mandarin, English, which makes you really start questioning, can the contestants sing in Cantonese at all? Or any other Chinese dialect for that matter. Or even another language. I forgot to mention the fact that I like how divisions for Tai-Yu and Mandarin - really encouraging those who want to sing in the Taiwanese dialect to do so. If it's a weekly competition, as an audience member, I would much rather switch up your repertoire - songs, styles, languages. Performers exist for the sake of the audience. And remember, the name of the show is called New Talent Singing Awards. I'm just waiting for someone to show me something new and slap me in the face with their talent.

Image credits: angelphantom17.blogspot.com, avatars.plurk.com, tvb.com, wikipedia.org
Video credit: sonic1109 (tudou.com)