Finally! Sammi Cheng won her first best actress honor from Hong Kong Film Awards!

Finally! After 10 nominations in over 20 years, Sammi Cheng finally won her first ever best actress honor from the prestigious Hong Kong Film Awards. The 41st Hong Kong Film Awards which is often known as the Hong Kong equivalent to the American Academy Awards was held a moment ago (16th April 2023) to honor the best in Hong Kong films released last year (2022).

Those who knew me must have been well aware that I’m a fan of Sammi Cheng. She is my favourite idol. She enjoyed immense success in Hong Kong music industry from 1990s till now and is regarded as Cantopop queen/diva. However, the same success cannot be replicated for her involvement in acting industry as her acting in close to 40 films in nearly 3 decades do not appear to receive significant recognition.

All that changes this year with multiple local film awards honoring her with best actress honor from her performance in 2022 film ‘Lost Love’. In the film, she portrayed a grieving mother who lost her 3-year old son to illness and decided to devote herself to foster children with her husband. I watched the film last weekend when I was back in KL and I’m indeed moved by her performance.

After all the hard work switching from her signature early works in romance-comedy movies back in early 2000s to more drama films in later years, her effort finally paid off. For her impressive performance in this film, she had so far swept 4 best actress honors from Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards, Hong Kong Directors’ Guild Awards, Hong Kong Online Film Critics Highlight Awards and the most recent 41st Hong Kong Film Awards in 2023.

She had been very emotional during her acceptance speech just now. She had waited over 20 years for this and it is finally in her hand. Also can feel her immense joy near the end of her speech. Very well deserved. She is now Hong Kong music queen and film queen. An astonishing feat! It is also a beautiful moment when she received this award from her frequent film co-star, Andy Lau who is the evening’s guest presenter for best actress award. What a nice arrangement for him to present this award to Sammi. She had also won ‘best original film song’ earlier at the awards ceremony for her song ‘Live a Life’ in the same film.

Well, I hope her film ‘Lost Love’ will be able to contend at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards near end of this year and also at next year’s Asian Film Awards so that she can go on a winning streak. What a good news for her and also for me. It gives me a much needed ‘feel good moment’ at this period of time when I was seriously feeling very down.

There are actually quite a number of past films where she delivered brilliant performances too but didn’t seem to have the luck to win major awards back then. Those films are ‘Wu Yen’, ‘My Left Eye Sees Ghost’, ‘Everlasting Regret’, ‘Blind Detective’, ‘Fatal Visit’, and ‘Fagara’. I also particularly enjoyed her funny light-hearted roles in ‘Love on a Diet’, ‘Needing You’, ‘Love for all Seasons’ and ‘Marry a Rich Man’. There is no doubt her acting isn’t always the best, sometimes feeling not natural and often her ‘superstar image’ sticks around her making audiences felt like she couldn’t able to dissolve into the characters. However, she had truly improved a lot over the years and is certainly overdue for a recognition. And her well deserved recognition finally comes today.

She will be holding her concert at Hong Kong’s Coliseum at this coming July. I do have a wish to watch it. I have watched her past concerts (I think twice) at Malaysia’s Genting Highlands but I have the desire to watch her performing at her home turf on 4-sided stage at Coliseum. It would be a wonderful experience.

(Images in this post are from various online sources)

Japan won Thomas Cup for the first time. No luck for Malaysia this time.

Ohh….that was the last word I shouted before we turned off the TV. That is sad. The FINAL match between Japan and Malaysia in Thomas Cup, world’s most premier international men team badminton championship had just concluded. And unfortunately, Japan won. My country, Malaysia lost. The match started at 5.30pm (3pm at India time as the event was held at New Delhi for this edition) and had just ended approximately on 11.30pm (took six long hours). Must be a five neck-to-neck matches in the FINAL. Yes it was.

As expected, Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia overpowered Kenichi Tago of Japan (21-12, 21-16) easily in the first men single match, proving that he is someone very hard to be defeated in this sport eventhough he is now almost 32 years old. We were very confident of him and he secured the first point for our country. Fantastic. We were very happy as it is a good start for our national team. Next came our first men double pair; Hoon Thien How and Tan Boon Heong against Japan’s Kenichi Hayakawa and Hiroyuki Endo. Our pair won the first round, and we thought that we could win this match too. Then, everything should be safe and smooth for us.

However, we were disappointed in the end. The Japan’s pair fight back to win the second game before triumphing again on the deciding game. Our Malaysian pair contributed quite a fair performance and I can see that both of them fight very hard. However, luck is not on their side especially on the last few crucial points which were then awarded to the Japanese pair. The result of this match is 12-21, 21-17 and 21-19 in favor of Japan. Now, it’s 1-1 (draw).

Then, came the second men single match. Our team had Chong Wei Feng and Japan sent in Kento Momota. Chong appeared to have better statistics in early matches of this tournament, but now truly facing a great challenger. In the end, he lost out in two straight games (21-15, 21-17). Opps…not good, not good. The standing is now at 2 for Japan, and 1 for Malaysia. We had to depend on the second men double to save the day. And yes, fortunately, they successfully brought joy for Malaysia back as they won the match in three games (21-19, 17-21, 12-21). They delivered outstanding performance and put back the standing to a draw. Wonderful.

Now, all hope is on the last men single match to decide on the winner of this year’s Thomas Cup. We had Liew Daren and Japan brought forward Takuma Ueda. The high pressure mounted on the players of this match is inevitable. I find that Daren doesn’t have the spirit or energy to play in the first game, hence losing it easily to the Japanese. He also tend to make a lot of serious mistakes eventhough his opponent was showing quite poor skills on court too. That was bad. However, he fought back with much effort and won the second game. This eventually led to the final rubber game. Heartstopping moments then started. And….haaihh….we were all excited as their points were very close to each other but Japan permanently stood ahead two to three points. Accompanied with little luck only to the Malaysian, Japan won the last match (21-12. 18-21, 21-17). Hmmm…

 

(Uber Cup trophy on the left which was won by China after winning Japan yesterday and Thomas Cup trophy on the right. Uber Cup represents female team championship)

All our hope ended. So near yet so far. We couldn’t manage to bring back the prestigious Thomas Cup trophy back to Malaysian land. The last time we celebrated the win of this tournament was way back 22 years ago in 1992. This time, we lost again unfortunately. We can see obviously the looks of all Malaysians especially our local supporters over there in the stadium. Luck is not on our side. Year 2014 must have been a bad year for Malaysia. Anyway, both Japan and Malaysia had made this FINAL very intense and awesomely displayed some of the best badminton ‘shows’ I have ever seen in recent years.

A big congratulation to Japan on winning the Thomas Cup for the first time in history. Their performance now stunned and surprised me. They had seriously improved a lot until that they can even defeat China (always regarded as the badminton giant) back in the semi-final. They were proven to be a dark horse, and they successfully won it. Hope that our national team don’t give up, get up for further training on improvement, and fight back on the next Thomas Cup in 2016.

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

MH370 still undiscovered after being missing for over 100 hours.

It has been over 100 hours since the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 reported missing, and yet there is still not a single clue, trace or sign of the ill-fated plane till today. The flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing carried 227 passengers and 12 crew members departed KLIA 40 minutes past midnight on 8th March 2014 and lost its radar about two hours later. It should have reached destination on 6.30am the same day. But no. And since then, this incident had been making the headlines of all local and international news. Malaysia had never been in global spotlight to this scale.

But putting the country into fame through this way is something not to be proud of. It is instead saddening and I hoped not to have it happened at all. It’s now already the 5th day of the plane gone missing, and despite multi-national search and rescue operations going on, there isn’t any outcome at all, neither positive nor negative. Over 10 countries joined in the effort to search for the plane, to investigate the cause, and also to uncover more details of the incident. Malaysia do appreciate their assistance as our country is never capable of doing this task on our own.

I have been staying closely to the updates, particularly from the media conference held daily. There had been many rumours circulating from irresponsible parties and I do hope that kind of act should ceased immediately. Stop spreading false news. I also do understand the reasoning behind reports of the flight passengers’ family members and relatives being emotionally angry to Malaysian authorities’ inefficient way of handling the matter. There are many reports putting the blame on Malaysian authorities. It’s fair and I do agree, but let’s put our focus back to search for the plane first before going elsewhere. Remember, no one wanted this to happen in first place.

The latest case of the bomoh (shamans) performing rituals at KLIA recently to locate the plane is truly embarrassing. They purposely did this at KLIA to attract attention and to get their faces captured in global news. I understand you guys came with good hearts and objective, but you can do it privately without the need of showing off to the whole world like what you had done now. This certainly tarnished the image of the country at this time of crisis. More and more negative remarks to the country. Haiz…

Missing for over 100 hours, it is obvious that hope fades. But let’s be positive and still pray for MH370 to come back. Search area is now expanded to include Strait of Malacca from previous effort to only locate the plane at South China Sea. Its’ disappearance remains a big mystery. I truly hope that it will be found soon.

 

(Images and information from this post are from various credible sources throughout the world wide web)

Pray for MH370.

Really a heartbreaking news today. Woke up this morning to hear my dad calling home to inform that a Malaysia Airlines’ plane had gone missing on its route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. From that moment onwards, I kept refreshing several pages of local and international online news portal the whole day to look for latest updates of the tragic incident in hope that nothing bad will happen to the plane.

The plane departed from Kuala Lumpur International Airport on 12.40am in 8th March 2014. It is supposed to arrive at Beijing International Airport on 6.30am. However, the signal from the plane is lost at about 1.30am or some says 2.40am in the midnight. From the time onwards, the plane is officially missing at the South China Sea between Malaysian and Vietnamese water. The search and rescue effort is still on-going as no sight of the plane or its wreckage is found so far.

There have been a lot of false rumours spreading today including news of the plane having made a safe emergency landing at Nanning, China. The Vietnamese authority also reported that the wreckage has been discovered near one of its islands but this had not been confirmed yet. Kindly stop spreading lies and check the truth first before sharing. It is now almost 20 hours after the ill-fated plane is reported missing. This is really sad as many had expected the worst already.

What angers me is that the airline department and authority here did very little things or acted very slow in the first few hours which are very critical to determine the fate of the plane and the 239 passengers on board (227 passengers and 12 crew members). Shameful. Fortunately, now, we have search and rescue teams also from various countries. Really appreciate their emergency assistance.

This tragedy had been making headlines as breaking news in various international news including CNN, BBC, etc as this is a major event, but of something extremely saddening. Will update this post when the discovery of the plane is known. Pray for MH370.

Hong Kong Open 2012: Malaysia in two finals, but lost out both to China.

Lee Chong Wei is back in action after his wedding with Wong Mew Choo early this month. Hong Kong Open 2012 is his first outing after getting a long break in preparation for his wedding, and he haven’t even had the time for honeymoon with his newly-wed wife. Perhaps he is already absent from training for quite some time, and hence his performance dropped slightly as seen from his game in the final match against Chen Long just now at the Yonex Sunrise Hong Kong Open 2012 that concluded few hours ago.

 

(Image source: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pc-NzL222zc/UK8ejTWUmKI/AAAAAAAACPU/vId2GeGZ4vs/s1600/banner+logo+badminton+hong+kong+open+2012.jpg)

And so, he lost out unexpectedly to Chen Long in two straight games. I have watched a bit of the match and it’ quite a neck-to-neck game but luck seems to go on Chen Long’s side. In previous meetings, Lee Chong Wei won the most. But on this meeting, he lost it, and that made Chen Long to became so joyous and happy to have defeated the current world ranked number one men single player. There is a saying that once a badminton player gets married, his quality of play would drop as time goes. One of the best examples for that would be Taufik Hidayat from Indonesia. He had won Athens 2004 Olympic Games, but after he got married, he is not much seen again in finals of many tournaments due to poor performance. So, it seems to be the same pattern to Chong Wei for now.

Or maybe it’s not. Let’s hope it’s not so that Malaysia still stands a chance for a gold medal in men single badminton in future Asian Games or Olympic Games. Lee Chong Wei has to get back on ground for intensive training so that his solid performance returns. It is quite unlikely that Chen Long can beat him, and he had done it today, and so there must be something wrong on Malaysian side. Congratulation to Chen Long. He seems to perform better and better in tournaments, and he is seen as a great replacement to China once Lin Dan retired. But wait, where is Lin Dan on this championship? Perhaps he is still enjoying married life as he was also just getting married few months ago.

Okay, fine…Chong Wei lost the final this time. We still have the men doubles from Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong. But who are their opponents? Ahh! China again, by Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng. Another very strong opponent, which I already expected that it must be a tough match for this Malaysian pair whom have not won any title for such a long time already. Pity them. Their performance just went downhill in recent years and it’s so disappointing. Their superb style of play back in 2006-2008 just gone, and no where to be found! As predicted, they lost out to the much better China’s team in two straight games as well. They did take lead in middle of games but still gets defeated in the end. Anyway, without the presence of Malaysia’s team, it would be all China vs. China in all the five finals today at Hong Kong Open 2012. That would be quite boring. But now the result seems to make not much difference, as China won all the five finals, which again indicating their supremacy over this sport.

Deep respect to the hero of Malaysia, Lee Chong Wei! Eventhough he lost to Lin Dan, but he had captured the hearts of all Malaysians from his wonderful performance in the very exciting final at London 2012

Every Malaysians now would be feeling very down. I am not an exception. The result of the just-concluded men single final between Lin Dan from China and Lee Chong Wei from Malaysia in badminton of London 2012 Olympic Games is truly heartbreaking to all Malaysians. Chong Wei, the only hope for Malaysia to get first ever Olympic gold medal lost to his long-time arch nemesis, the mighty Lin Dan in three games; 21-15, 10-21, 19-21. It is a very close and narrow contest between the two, known as the top two best men single badminton players in the world currently.

Too bad, my prediction is true and that luck is not on Malaysia side. It appears that my country has no fate with the Olympic gold medal. Every Malaysians purposely had their dinner early so that they could get back home on time to watch the much anticipated final, giving chance to make the country proud from Lee Chong Wei. The chance to win the gold medal heightened as soon as Chong Wei won the first game (21-15). It is quite unbelievable and we are so excited by that time as Chong Wei had shown a very good start. Things don’t go smooth for Chong Wei in the second game. Lin Dan is much more aggresive and widen the gap between their points, hence winning the second game easily (10-21).

Then, left the last rubber game, which is the most essential. Our attention never gets off the TV screen and my heart was pumping so fast that I somehow sense a strong nervosity in my mind. I believe every Malaysians must be feeling the same. It’s the deciding game. It is a very close contest between the two. Lin Dan made some very obvious net mistakes and sometimes had his shuttlecocks aimed out of boundary. That is good for Chong Wei to earn points. However, Chong Wei himself also did several major mistakes and he is found weak on his backhand skill. Well, both played to their very best and it seems that Chong Wei’s performance is now on par to Lin Dan. What’s separate Chong Wei from winning the gold medal just now is only the luck.

Luck is not on Malaysia’s side at the last minute of the game when the score is 19-19. Few rounds earlier, it is Chong Wei that stood nearer to gold medal point, but then Lin Dan strike back hard to make the score even. Then, without wasting any further time, Lin Dan do his attacks and Chong Wei countered it with unlucky mistakes and finally lost in a very saddening way. Chong Wei immediately kneel down in a sign of extreme disappointment which is inevitable as this would be his last Olympic outing and he did not make it for the gold once again. While on the other hand, Lin Dan is too happy and excited, screaming out loud, taking off his shirts and doing a lot of patterns after becoming the first ever Olympic defending champion (won in two straight editions of the games) in badminton. It is a great achievement for him once again, but it’s a serious heartbreaking thing for Chong Wei to face. It is really sad to see him in moment after losing the last game. We all felt so sad, and to be honest, now I’m seriously feeling very down and in no mood situation. Hope Chong Wei would rise up from all those disappointments and pressure, and don’t take this defeat too seriously. You have had captured every Malaysian’s heart from your wonderful performance just now which is shown to be extremely better than his meeting with Lin Dan in Beijing 2008.

It is such a pity that he lost it out in the last few minutes of the deciding game. Luck is seriously not on Chong Wei’s side but we all know he did his very best and his performance just now is extremely good and impressive. He at least gave a very good fight and both delivered a badminton performance in the very best quality ever I have seen in men single category. Chong Wei would be forever champion in all Malaysians’ hearts despite not able to win Olympic gold medal. Nevermind, he still had two silver medals for Malaysia (one from Beijing 2008, and latest one from London 2012). He already made the country very proud. He is forced to settle for silver medal once again. On another news, Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong lost to the Korean pair in men double bronze match not long ago (few hours earlier). I didn’t watch that match because I expected Malaysia to lose for that since Korean pair is much more superior. But getting fourth placing that comes with no medal at all appears to be another big disappointment to the Malaysian pair and to the whole country. Well, this is what it is. We have to accept that. No matter what, Malaysia Boleh!

(Images from this post are not mine and are obtained from various sources in Facebook)

Chong Wei lost to Lin Dan for world’s title…but it was a good game!

It’s the most anticipated badminton match not only of the competition, but also of the year. It’s the men single final of Yonex BWF Badminton World Championship 2011, and the finalists are Lin Dan from China and Lee Chong Wei from Malaysia. Of course I am supporting my own country, and so my hope is high on Chong Wei whom is honoured ‘Datuk’ title due to him winning silver medal back in Beijing 2008. Lin Dan and Chong Wei are no doubt the top two best badminton players in the world in our generation, but when facing each other in this final, who will win?

It turned out that Lin Dan won the title again, which is among the greatest title for a badminton player. He have had won the title in several editions, while Chong Wei’s list of winning tournaments did not includes the grand ones like Olympics and this World Championship, and that data remains the same till today after the final clash between him and Lin Dan. Lin Dan won in three games, losing the first one, but giving all out in last two games to nail it. Chong Wei won the first game in quite a difficult and challenging situation, leading the margin of 2 points to win the first game; 22-20.

That is a very good and promising start for Chong Wei. However, in the second game, Lin Dan took over Chong Wei easily and gained many points to further the gap and finally Chong Wei lost the second game; 14-21. Then, it’s up to the third game to decide the winner and the atmosphere is going extremely strong, not only in the stadium at London, but also in many homes in Malaysia where people are watching and supporting like me and my family. The points are close together, and that is what makes the game much more intense and exciting as both players tried their best for not only the title, but also for a good game. It’s 20-20, and they stayed on for a good fight before the luck goes to Lin Dan on winning the deciding game; 23-21. It’s really a heart-stopping moment at that time…Really felt very disappointing!

There had been many meetings between the two players and Lin Dan won majority of it. This final is not an exception. After the winning moment, Lin Dan as usual quickly getting overreacting to show his dominance as the true world best badminton player despite Chong Wei is the world number one ranked player due to his record in winning many tournaments (smaller scale). Anyway, the final between them just now is truly a good game; very interesting and exciting. Both delivered brilliant performance that couldn’t be attempted by any other players. Congratulation to Lin Dan for winning the world’s title again, and also a word of encouragement for Chong Wei to try his best again in future, especially in London 2012 Olympics. Now it is proven that Chong Wei is truly presented as a player that could really challenge Lin Dan for a real fight on badminton court. Wow…my facebook page now is flooded with this badminton news!

 The match just now is truly a thrilling and sensational 81-minutes badminton game at its best!

Ooh…Malaysia lose to China as usual…Sudirman Cup 2009

Yesterday, after completing 70 percent of my habitat assignment, then get ready to be at front of TV to watch the live telecast of the Sudirman Cup, SemiFinal between Malaysia and China…

At first, I put some hope on Malaysia team and really wished that we can beat China at least one time…

The game started with mixed double by Mohd Fairuzizuan and Wong Pei Tty (Malaysia) against He Han Bin and Yu Yang (China). This match, at first i already think that Malaysia will lose..ok..nevermind…we knew that our mixed double is very weak…Finally, they really lose until very disappointing (11 – 21, 14 – 21)

Next, is the long awaited men single between world no 1 (Lee Chong Wei from Malaysia) and world olympic champion (Lin Dan). Both are super top two players in badminton world and it will be very exciting to watch both of them on court. Really nice. Their performances are absolutely good, but anyway, the same fate is one Chong Wei. He still lost to Lin Dan (16 – 21, 16- 21). Anyway, this time he did not lost until very ‘ugly’ and disappointing..thumbs up to him too, since Lin Dan is too perfect.

 

Next, men double which I see a little hope on Malaysia team at first. Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong from Malaysia will meet with Fu Hai Feng and Cai Yun from China. At first, the Malaysian pair showed some strengths and winning fate for Malaysia. They won the first game but lost the last two, leading to a failure by Malaysia team again. (21 – 19, 15 – 21, 21 – 23). Anyway, it is a great fight and the results are very near, and the performances are exciting. Only luck is not on Malaysia.

Now, China won the three out of five matches already, leading to the final result of 3 – 0. Matches of women single and women double are no need to be played and China, as usual went to the Final and determined to win the 7th consecutive title of Sudirman Cup Champion. China is too great in badminton, no other countries can beat them, only some are able to put a slight block on their pathway to the championship, but at last does not work too.

Today evening we will see the Final between China and Korea, no more Malaysia…anyway, Malaysia did their best by getting into its first semifinal of Sudirman Cup and they need to improve…

Anyway, these are the rankings of the countries in badminton level: (based on Sudirman Cup and world ranking players).

1 – China.

2 – Korea.

3 – Malaysia.

4 – Indonesia.

5 – Denmark.

6 – England.

7 – Japan.

8 – Thailand.

9 – Hong Kong.

`10 – Russia.

Anywa, happy with Malaysia getting third place…not bad…thumbs up again!