TVB celebrates its golden jubilee with its grand anniversary gala.

TVB, the largest television station in Hong Kong celebrates its 50th anniversary recently in a grand fashion. Its dramas have been accompanying me for over 20 years. Despite the criticisms of having poor dramas in recent years, facing lack of talents and with many good artists leaving the station, it is undeniable that the station is the home that have trained many superstars we saw today. It is undeniable that the station is the home for all the classic series that we remembered till this day. It is undeniable that the station has had impacted lives of over millions of Chinese not only in Hong Kong or China but also throughout the world where there is Chinese people.

Since it is TVB’s grand golden jubilee, I would not want to miss the chance to watch its 50th Anniversary Gala last evening. The scale of the show is noticeably upgraded but there is still more that can be done. Since it is their golden jubilee, they should have some sort of fireworks display too to celebrate this significant occasion. The show should have been extended to 3 hours rather than the typical 2-hours time to allow for more performances. Celebrities who attended the show are Liza Wang, Eric Tsang, Carol Cheng, Nat Chan, Simon Yam, Ray Lui, Wayne Lai, Kristal Tin, Nancy Wu, Ruco Chan, Kenneth Ma, Vincent Wong, Benjamin Yuen, Wong Cho Lam, Ding Dang, Pakho Chau, Nancy Sit, Michelle Yim, Susanna Kwan, etc. Besides than Simon Yam and Ray Lui, I was actually expecting more heavyweight stars (formerly TVB artists) to attend the show.

It is also very obvious that the front segment of the show is heavily inspired by the movie ‘La La Land’ with the similar musical score. The performances by the 50 male artists and the 50 female artists are too ordinary and boring. They could have done much more (something challenging?). It is also very obvious that the singing by the artists are pre-recorded (I can see clearly the lip-sync by almost everyone). The ones not doing that are the three singers performing at the last section of the show and hence, you will noticeably hear poor live singing. And what are the three singers (from various countries) doing here? I thought they would be singing classic TVB theme songs. Totally irrelevant for that part. While I admire the ‘Hidden Heroes’ segment that honors all the less-known frequent faces in the past dramas, the way it is executed by ‘Fuk Luk Sau’ team (Wong Cho Lam, Louis Yuen, Johnson Lee) is awkward.

Besides that, too much time has also been wasted for excessive advertisement and segments showing the prizes that will be handed out for the evening (the 2-hour show is already not enough!). The one great section of the show that I enjoyed is the ‘recruit’ sketch by Eric Tsang, Kristal Tin, Wayne Lai, etc. The scene with Kenneth Ma and Bob Lam is particularly hilarious. The scene with FAMA who tries to imitate Carol Cheng and Eric Tsang is also funny to watch. This year’s gala show is certainly much better than last year but I was still slightly disappointed that the organizer didn’t want to further elevate it up. And when is this year’s TVB Anniversary Awards going to be held? Until now, there has been no news or date announced for the awards. There is speculation that the awards will be pushed to January next year. Does that mean from now on, the TVB Anniversary Awards will be held on January every year or this schedule only occurs for this year? This will mess up the standard annual schedule.

I’m particularly excited for this year’s best actor and actress race (forget about most favourite male and female characters’ categories). Out of sudden, Kenneth Ma is rising to be a top contender for this year’s awards due to his strong performance in the currently airing ‘The Exorcist’s Meter’. Before that, Vincent Wong is at the top of the pack in terms of the chance on winning the best actor since he has won at the Singapore’s Starhub TVB Awards and is rumored to win the same at TVB Star Awards Malaysia to be held this week. I’m picking Kenneth as he has been much longer in the industry that Vincent and he is really good in ‘The Exorcist’s Meter’ to my surprise. I find that it is a bit too early to hand in best actor to Vincent Wong. For best actress, I’m rooting for Kristal ever since I saw her performance in ‘Destination Nowhere’ early this year. There is no other strong contenders but I have a feeling that Kristal may not win in the end. What do you think of the gala show and the best actor and actress race this year?

(Images in this post are from various sources throughout the world wide web)

TVB 50th anniversary celebration begins with the usual lighting ceremony

This year, Hong Kong’s biggest television station TVB is celebrating its 50th anniversary. In conjunction with this significant and historic golden jubilee, the station has released many big-production series this year that includes many artists that we have not seen for a long time (although the overall quality is still questionable). So far, I have watched over 12 TVB dramas this year and I’m expected to watch few more before the end of the year. This makes 2017 the year with highest number of dramas that I have watched.

The anniversary celebration started with a lighting ceremony held last weekend. It is attended by Liza Wang, Carol Cheng, Ha Yu, Louise Lee, Michelle Yim, Moses Chan, Kristal Tin, Kenneth Ma, Bosco Wong, Vincent Wong, Maggie Shiu, Elena Kong, Sharon Chan, etc. It is the standard practice by the station to have this lighting ceremony to mark the start of many anniversary events to follow and also to introduce the anniversary dramas and programmes. Before this ceremony, there has been many speculations that there would be 7 anniversary dramas this year, rather than the typical 3 or 4. To allow all these dramas to finish airing and compete for this year’s awards, there has been rumour that TVB is pushing its annual TVB Anniversary Awards to early next year rather than in their usual mid-December slot.

The lighting ceremony has squashed all the rumours. There is only 4 anniversary dramas and they are ‘Heart and Greed’, ‘Oh My Grad’, ‘My Ages Apart’ and ‘The Exorcist’s Meter’. ‘Oh My Grad’ which is the third series in ‘Inbound Troubles’ franchise headed by Wong Cho Lam is currently airing and I am watching it too. Wong Cho Lam only has a very minor role in here and the result is there is not much fun and humor to be enjoyed from this series as expected earlier. The other series currently airing that I’m also watching is ‘Line Walker: The Pelude’ which is a prequel to the successful 2014’s Line Walker series. It is not bad but not up to the intensity and drama we have seen from its predecessor. I’m surprised that it is not selected as one of the anniversary dramas. On the other hand, I’m surprised that a supernatural drama (The Exorcist’s Meter) is one of the anniversary dramas. This genre usually doesn’t appeal to most audiences and are usually delivering mediocre result and yet is picked as one of the highlight of the station’s 50th anniversary. Hmmm…

I’m now only excited for the release of ‘Heart and Greed’, the third entry of the famous ‘Heart of Greed’ franchise about family feuds. The first two are classic and I hope this one could live up to that but I doubt it. I’m happy that the veteran cast are all back (Ha Yu, Louise Lee, Michelle Yim and Susanna Kwan) but I don’t like the junior line-up. It would be awesome if the previous cast (Moses Chan, Raymond Lam, Tavia Yeung, Fala Chen, Linda Chung, etc) all return but that would be impossible since most of them has gone their own way and left TVB.

So now this means that the ‘Deep in the Realm of Conscience’ (sequel to ‘Beyond the Realm of Conscience’) and a series starring Dicky Cheung (forgot the title) are not anniversary dramas and will only be released early next year. Media have been reporting on them since early this year and everyone is hyped but now they are pushed to next year. I can understand that since the station is not able to fit in all these dramas before the end of the year which is now fast approaching. So I guess these dramas will not be competing for this year’s TVB Anniversary Awards too. The awards will be held on end of December most probably, a week before Christmas. Before that, there will be the Anniversary Gala to be held on mid of November. There would be a special party next month to celebrate 50th anniversary of Liza Wang in the station too.

(Image in this post is from TVB’s Facebook page)

50 Architects You Should Know

The title of this post above refers to the exact title of a book by Prestel and written by Isabel Kuhl, Kristina Lowis and Sabine Thiel-Siling. I bought this book early this year and I never had a chance to complete the book not until just now, when I finally flipped to the last page of the book. I would rather say this is a good book to read and to spend your time, but still not informative enough with lack of explanation of told concepts behind some architects as well as lock of images which are far useful than words.

It is a thin book with around two to four pages dedicated to each architects listed from the Renaissance period whom many I do not recognize up till famous architects nowadays whom I have known almost all of their names from their masterpieces, or from their distinctive approaches in architecture.  There is an excerpt at the back of the book which basically summarizes the content of it;

‘Bold structures, dignified splendor, innovative designs – in all eras there have been architects of outstanding vision who have decisively shaped our towns and cities worldwide. In this volume, 50 of the most important architects since the Renaissance are brought together and represented by their major works. Lively accounts of their designs and careers are supplemented by additional information about architectural styles and historical contexts, making this book a unique and highly accessible work of reference.’

This book is useful and interesting if you wish to have a rough and basic ideas of each architectural styles or approaches by every architects listed. However, certain information seems to be unnecessary like mentioning of the architect’s background in too detail that did not help in his/her progress or interest in the field. Some examples of the works are just mentioned without the aid of even a single picture of it. However, I find the words used in this book are very well written and the content is very much written based on language of architecture which I can learn and apply to my future works too. It is very beneficial in mastering impressive English vocabularies for that.

So, here below is the list of the 50 architects you should know and how many of them do you recognize? Some of the architects are mentioned in the name of firm (a group or partner) which they are successful or famous not in individual basis but in that particular group. Hence, actually more than 50 architects are mentioned. They are Alvar Aalto, Tadao Ando, Leon Battista Alberti, Gunter Behnisch, Gianlorenzo Bernini, Donato Bramante, Filipino Brunelleschi, Daniel Burnham, Norman Foster, Antoni Gaudi, Frank O. Gehry, Von Gerkan and Marg Und Partner, Walter Gropius, Zaha Hadid, Herzog and de Meuron, Steven Holl, Victor Horta, Toyo Ito, Thomas Jefferson, Philip Johnson, Louis I. Kahn, Rem Koolhaas, Le Corbusier, Nicolas Ledoux, Daniel Libeskind, Richard Meier, Michelangelo, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Rafael Moneo, Balthasar Neumann, Richard Neutra, Oscar Niemeyer, Jean Nouvel, Andrea Palladio, Ieoh Ming Pei, Cesar Pelli, Auguste Perret, Renzo Piano, Gerrit Rietveld, Richard Rogers, Aldo Rossi, Eero Saarinen, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Gottfried Semper, SOM – Skidmore, Owings and Merill, Louis Sullivan, Kenzo Tange, Otto Wagner, Christopher Wren and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Some other famous architects that I have known but are not on the list in the book is Carlo Scarpa, Peter Zumthor, Glenn Murcutt, Robert Venturi, Kengo Kuma, Kohn Pedersen Fox, Terry Farrell, Kisho Kurokawa, Sir James Stirling, Jorn Utzon, and some others I might have forgotten at the moment. Many of the architects had even won the highest architecture honour, the Prtizker Prize in their respective year of fame. It seems like now I am writing a review for book too…haha…no, I just want to share my view on the book after I have read the whole book recently.

Seen a very special cash note just now…

Have you seen this Ringgit Malaysia cash note?

This is actually a real, genuine RM 50 of special edition, which is in limited number and released only in year 1998, to commemorate the 1998 Commonwealth Games held in  Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. That is the first time an Asian city hosted the world second largest international games. This is released to be kept as collection, and I think not many people (Malaysians) have seen this…

Even the cash note is kept savely inside a small pamphlet, which information related to the cash note and the commonwealth games are explained…this is the cover of the pamphlet, showing the main venues for the Commonwealth Games 1998 (so fast, 11 years ago)

Today, on dinner just now, my father’s brother took out this cash note, and we are surprised to see it. Gold in colour, polymer-made. It is the first polymer type of cash released in Malaysia, similar to the current RM5 note. Nicely-designed, with KL Tower, Sultan Abdul Samad Building and Petronas Twin Towers (3 landmarks of Malaysia) seen on the front, with the main stadium of 1998 Commonwealth Games, Bukit Jalil National Stadium with the games logo at the back. Last time, my uncle spent RM80 to bought the RM50 note, which my uncle has to wait to get it, how precious it is…this note is getting more valuable as day by day passes…now, people can even offer RM300 to buy it (I think)…of course, we won’t sell it..you won’t see this on public anymore, people who have it will definitely keep it…

Huh…now only I realized that I have written three posts (including this one) on this blog today…great…always updated, even in one day…you see great changes…

What a shocking news! MJ died….

The King of Pop or supposingly the King of Music that no one will forget, Michael Jackson just passed away this early morning (Friday – Malaysian time) meaning Thursday evening (USA time).

 

He dies at the age of 50+, leaving behind three children and has married twice. His death is a surprise since he didn’t show any symptoms lately on his health.

It is believed that he suffered heart failure in his home at Los Angeles and was sent to hospital with no breathing in ambulance. The hospital he was admitted which is UCLA Medical Centre is now fully packed with people and media.

He is a super famous singer that no one in this world (probably) will not recognize him. He reached his super famous period during 1980s. However, he is faced wth several scandals cases and side effects from plastic surgeries he undergoes.

He planned to have a world tour began from London to Asia, possibly including my home city too, Kuala Lumpur, beginning next month which we will never see again. Miss his song…long time didn’t hear his pop songs anymore…

Now, many people all around the world are expressing condolences to this pop star that will be never forgotten…This post is specially for him and for me to express condolences to him and his family. May you rest in peace, your music will never dies from our hearts…