6 Artists Who Surprisingly Never Won TVB’s Best Actor or Actress
2015 has been a rather underwhelming year for Hong Kong television dramas, and not many artists or television dramas have stood out. But the 2015 TVB Anniversary Awards, which were held on December 13, did meet the public’s expectations. TV King went to the experienced Anthony Wong (黃秋生), who received unanimous applaud for his performance in Best Drama winner, Lord of Shanghai <梟雄>. TV Queen went to the hard-working Nancy Wu (胡定欣), who experienced a rise in popularity after starring in Ghost of Relativity <鬼同你OT>.
While many are happy to see Nancy finally receiving the acknowledgement she deserves, netizens can’t help but to voice out that there are still many artists who are just as deserving for the honor.
Netizens listed out three actresses and three actors who they believe are long overdue for a TVB’s golden statuette.
Maggie Shiu (邵美琪)
From 2006’s Dance of Passion <火舞黃沙> to later works like The Confidant <大太監> and Master of Play <心戰>, Maggie Shiu’s talent has long been recognized. Although she portrayed only a small supporting character in this year’s Captain of Destiny <張保仔>, her role stood out among a story that lacked memorable female characters. Her lead performance in the currently-airing The Executioner <刀下留人> is also receiving widespread acclaim, and many netizens said they would support her for TV Queen. Maggie has been nominated multiple times for the honor, but she never won the award—not even Best Supporting Actress.
Linda Chung (鍾嘉欣)
Linda Chung has been one of TVB’s most promoted artists ever since she made her debut in the industry with the sitcom Virtues of Harmony <皆大歡喜> in 2004. At only 22 years old, she was the youngest winner to receive TVB’s Most Improved Female Artist award in 2006. The former beauty queen’s career received another big boost after finding success in high profile dramas such as 2007’s Heart of Greed <溏心風暴>, 2008’s Moonlight Resonance <溏心風暴之家好月圓>, and 2011’s Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir! <點解阿Sir係阿Sir>.
But despite her popularity and large fandom, Linda never managed to win the hearts of TVB judges. Linda has been nominated eight times for TV Queen, reaching top five for seven of them, but the award always ended up slipping from her hands. Although Linda’s performance in this year’s Limelight Years <華麗轉身> was a favorite among netizens, she ultimately lost the Best Actress award to Nancy Wu.
Alice Chan (陳煒)
Former ATV actress Alice Chan switched over to TVB in 2012 and started off playing smaller guest roles first before moving to bigger supporting roles. This year, she dropped jaws with her fantastic performances in the comedy drama With or Without You <東坡家事> and Lord of Shanghai. Her roles were completely different from each other, and viewers were impressed with Alice’s flexible acting. Alice’s role as Yiu Gwai-sang in Lord of Shanghai is a favorite among netizens, and many supported her to win Most Popular Female Character. However, she lost the award to Ghost of Relativity’s Kristal Tin (田蕊妮).
Kenneth Ma (馬國明)
Much like Linda, Kenneth is constantly snubbed by the TVB Anniversary Awards committee. 2015 is already Kenneth’s fifth year contending for Best Actor, but the Lord of Shanghai actor leaves home empty-handed each time. However, Kenneth did win Most Popular Male Character for his well-received performance in 2012’s The Hippocratic Crush <On Call 36小時>, so his efforts and improvements are not completely overlooked.
Adam Cheng (鄭少秋）
Adam Cheng is without a doubt one of the forefathers of Hong Kong television, and the 68-year-old has starred in numerous classic television dramas in the last four decades. His 1992 drama, The Greed of Man <大時代>, brought public attention to TVB’s midnight rerun timeslot this year, and the series won Most Popular Classic Drama at the TVB Anniversary Awards. It’s kind of hard to imagine that despite Adam’s legendary career, he has never won a TV King award from TVB.
Raymond Lam (林峯)
The former TVB star was the king of many fangirls’ hearts when he made his television debut in the early 2000’s. 15 years later, Raymond’s popularity is still as high as ever. Although Raymond has won two Most Popular Male Character awards—the most of any other TVB artist—he has failed to obtain a coveted Best Actor award in all these years.
Besides these six artists, who else do you think had no luck in the TVB Anniversary Awards?
Source: Yahoo! HK
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
from this list i think only adam cheng really deserve it,but in his prime tvb award doesnt exist,so its not a surprise he never won it.
For me, it’s not necessary about getting much luck from the TVB Anniversary Awards, but recognition from the audience. Kenneth Ma and Linda Chung may not be TVB’s TV King/Queen yet, but they are already A List Actors who are the favourite among viewers and sponsors. I would much rather wait for an award where I get recognition from audience then get an award with no recognition from others.
The so-called TVB awards is a joke in my opinion.
鄭少秋’s telephone award speech for best rerun whatever award as so unbearable. So acceptance speech was so ‘leung’. It was so cringeworthy, dodo had to cut him short. don’t know how she kept a straight face listening to the crap he was saying.
I would love to see Maggie up there for once to officially receive an award. I’d be so happy for her. I think I’d probably cry for her. She’s so pretty, talented, humble, and loyal to TVB!
To me that list would be way too long if they included all the other former TVB actors/actresses. Back in the TVB golden time there wasn’t awards like this. And even when they stared this anniversary award in the late 90, many well deserving actors didn’t get awarded anyways. These awards really can’t measure their talents and hard works. After all, there can only be 1 queen and king, or 1 each category. However they got the biggest awards of all, the love of fans. And we’re forever loyal to them!
And I’m not talking about the new batch of artistes. Some or many of them just straight suck, or even are just promoting tools, aka puppets, walking flowers, you name it. Those make the awards look cheap and meaningless nowadays.
@kaykay408 I’m with you on this. Always a fan of Maggie and hope she will win an award 1 day!!! Or at least be the main lead again!
The only one that’s a “true surprise” IMO is Raymond. If I was a betting person, I would had bet he would have win a BA when TVB had all audience vote. The year where Wayne won and Kenneth with the stupor face. As far as I know, Raymond had/has a huge fan base in HK. Excluding the whole politics (as in TVB didn’t want to give him the award or promote him bc he was leaving anyways, yada yada yada), it was very surprising that he didn’t.
I discounted Adam because there was no awards in his prime year. By the time award show came around, he was on his way out and new crops were creeping in anyways. So I’m not surprise he didn’t win any BA. He now has hosting awards though. So good for him!
Of course Maggie Shiu hasn’t won. She was never really a lead in any series when award show happened xD She’s a good actress though. Unfortunately, her prime years have passed. With TVB wanting to promote the youngings (i.e. Grace, Tracy, Sisley, etc), I really doubt Maggie will ever get a BA.
I not only think Linda and Kenneth acting don’t warrant BA, but also think they have a case of bad luck or character curse. With the exception of On Call, Kenneth has no other memorable role. Linda had a chance with ABTIS and TC2 but she totally bombed them both.
Though I was rooting for Alice to win MPFC this year. I hope she’ll continues to get good roles. She’s in the same boat with Maggie in my opinion. I question if she’ll ever get a lead in the future due to her age and TVB practice. I was very surprise that she was considered to be a lead in LoS.
Overall comment, whoever had come up with list like this needs to do their homework. A lot is just comparing apples and oranges, which doesn’t jive with the title most of the time…
@jjwong I agree with you. This is a dumb article and whoever wrote it didn’t do their homework at all (a little off-topic but there are tons of articles like this nowadays, as a lot of the reporters are newbies who weren’t even born back when TVB had their golden era and so they are essentially just pulling information from their butts to throw an article together and get it out rather than thoroughly do the research and write stuff that actually makes sense).
Anyway, back to this article….first of all, Alice Chan shouldn’t even be on the list because she just switched to TVB in 2012 and hasn’t filmed that many series for them, so netizens need to stop making it sound like she’s worked for TVB for years but kept getting overlooked. I like Alice and yes her acting is heaps better than most of TVB’s current actresses, but this is truly the WRONG LIST to put her on! The more appropriate ‘list’ would’ve been ‘Actresses who’ve played supporting roles for decades and still can’t get to Lead status’.
Adam shouldn’t be on this list either because as everyone has mentioned, the awards weren’t around back when he was in his prime (which was essentially back in the 70s and 80s). And no need to throw The Greed of Man into this because no matter how ‘stellar’ Adam’s performance was in that series, the fact still remains that the awards DID NOT EXIST back then, so it’s definitely a moot point.
Kenneth and Linda – no comment except that I don’t feel they should be on this list either for the same reasons everyone else already mentioned. No comment on Raymond either.
The only one I feel truly deserves to be on this list is Maggie. She has had way too many memorable roles to count and was once one of TVB’s top fadans, but like jjwong mentioned, TVB put her in mostly supporting roles for the past, oh, 10 to 15 years so of course she has no chance at TV Queen. Even so, it’s also ridiculous that she hasn’t gotten BSA either, especially in recent years when TVB’s actress pool has been so severely lacking.
@llwy12 Can this, and a few others, even be consider as “articles”? I mean, they’re just someone’s ranting and listing of their opinions and personal piece-meals. These feel more like a blog. In that sense, I wouldn’t call them reporters, they’re more like bloggers. If these youngins truly aspire to be a writer/reporter of any sort, they need to learn that being young isn’t and shouldn’t be a reason or excuse for bad journalism practice xD
@jjwong Believe me, I’ve seen way worse. I’ve read some articles where the information was so blatantly wrong and misleading, I felt like writing to the editors asking for those reporters to be fired (but then after thinking about it, that entire agency is probably that way, so it would’ve been useless anyway, lol). Coincidentally, I was listening to a radio program the other day that talked about this – how entertainment journalism in HK is so different now from what it was in the past ever since Next Media and those other gossip rags started up in the 90s. Reporters in the old days used to have good relationships with artists and many became close friends who trusted each other with information – in some cases, artists were willing to reveal some very personal things to certain reporters and allow them to get ‘exclusives’ and ‘inside scoops’ on stuff because of the trust they had built. Interviews had more substance and articles had more depth (plus the scruples were higher too). Nowadays, artists and the Media are like sworn enemies and since a lot of reporters can’t get inside scoop anymore, they resort to using underhanded tactics to spy on artists or just plain make crap up. Or you have articles like the one above where reporters just throw stuff together to meet a deadline without regard for whether information is legit or even makes sense for that matter. Basically, the mentality is different now — the younger reporters mostly focus on quantity (so they half-axx articles just so they could get more through) while the old-school reporters still value quality more (they prefer the long route of actually researching and producing articles with more substance). It’s actually quite interesting (though at times frustrating) reading some of these articles — oftentimes you’ll be able to tell from the content and writing style whether the reporter writing the article is a newbie or an old-school reporter…
@llwy12 Yes, Alice shouldn’t be on the list. She only joined TVB last year. Of course, she never won. None of her roles last year qualified for ‘Best Actress’ Category.
I like Alice Chan, although she started playing supporting roles from day 1 when she first joined TVB. Her acting is very versatlle. She may have passed her peak, but I am very sure given the opportunity she can be the next Sharen Tang. She definitely can outshine the younger batch of actresses if good roles are offered to her.
@titi I agree that Alice has potential and if given the right opportunities, could become successful as lead someday. With that said however, I don’t believe she will be the next Sheren, as there is no comparison. Yes, Alice is a versatile actress and even in supporting roles, with her good acting skills, she can run circles around TVB’s current actresses no problem — but there is no comparison to Sheren in my opinion because, frankly, Sheren is in a league of her own in terms of acting. To me, Sheren is a natural-born actress – there aren’t very many actresses out there who can get very minimal acting training (she was part of the short-lived 3 month ‘Artist Recruitment’ classes that TVB created back in 1984 to replace their full-fledged, formal Acting Classes – those were the same classes that other 80s fadans such as Maggie Siu and Kitty Lai were part of too) and then be thrown into a lead role right from the start (her debut was in 1985’s Legend of the General Who Never Was – she was the female lead opposite one of TVB’s top actors at the time, Alex Man), yet still do such a phenomenal job – it made sense that she continued to be in lead roles throughout the 80s and even up until she left TVB in the mid-90s. Sheren is unique in that she established herself as a formidable actress from the getgo and has remained consistently great with her acting throughout her career, regardless of whether she played lead roles or supporting roles.
I do agree though that TVB should focus their efforts on promoting supporting actresses with acting talent (such as Alice) more and push them into lead roles rather than take pageant winners fresh off their wins and throw them into lead roles with no training whatsoever (they might as well just pluck some stranger off the street and stick them in lead roles then). Sure, the overall caliber / quality of the actors/actresses nowadays (even some of the supporting ones) pale in comparisons to those from the 70s/80s/90s, but they could still get close to that level if TVB knew how to manage it right. But since current TVB management (referring to the management that took over starting in the early 2000s as well as the new management under Charles Chan) is either too stupid or don’t care, the result is that we get actors/actresses every year that are only mediocre at best. Until TVB is willing to change their strategies and tactics, that’s pretty much the way it’s going to be going forward.
@llwy12 I’m with @titi regarding to how Alice *can* be the next Sheren. It’s true that their path into acting is different but it’s not 100% guarantee that Alice cannot be as good as Sheren in the future. I’ll give Alice benefit of the doubt since she’s new and does seem improving one series after the next. With this momentum, she can be like Sheren as far as acting chop goes.
It’s a pity that they no longer have acting class to help these artists to improve. However, that doesn’t mean they can’t imiprove themselves. I don’t think TVB provided Charm acting classes throughout her career, yet she had improved heaps and hounds from her start until now (I’m not saying she’s at Sheren’s level but I can’t deny that she’s a good actress). So really if the artists put effort into better themselves and brush up their acting, they can be the next 70s/80s/90s golden children.
One thing works against Alice is that she started acting too late in the game. TVB seems to be notorious about promoting solely by age. If Alice was 5-10 years younger with her current acting skill, she would be fadan for sure.
@jjwong All valid points. I still stand by my argument though, so we can agree to disagree on the ‘Alice becoming the next Sheren’ piece.
In terms of the Acting Classes – TVB actually still does have acting classes, it’s just the caliber and quality is not the same as the ones in the past and it’s not consistently done every year. And it’s more of a ‘on the side’ thing now instead of a big focus as it was in the early days. I think one of the biggest mistakes TVB has made over the past 40+ years is the way they handled the acting classes, turning it into something that most people largely take for granted now. In the 80s alone, TVB switched the acting class format twice and in the 90s they kept switching it back and forth too and in the after 2000s era, they did away with it completely certain years then would reinstate it again, but in a different format (i.e. turn it into a ‘fast-track’ crash course type thing). My guess on the reason why the acting classes have deteriorated to the point they have is because of TVB’s lack of resources – namely, the lack of qualified instructors. The last couple years, they’ve had to bring King Sir back to spearhead a couple of the classes (which of course was most appropriate given his status as being the forefather of the Acting Classes, having had a hand in creating the classes back in the 70s/80s), but with his age and his busy theater schedule, plus filming series, there is only so much time he can devote. I know they invited Lawrence Cheng back to teach a few classes a few years back and both Carol (Dodo) Cheng and Eric Tsang have taught classes as well, but all of them have their own careers to manage (especially Lawrence and Eric, since they have active careers outside of TVB as well). It’s gotten to the point where it’s pretty much an “at whim” thing now — TVB will do the classes if they feel like it (and they have the resources), but if they don’t then forget it.
@llwy12 Ah, yes, yes, agree to disagree. I’m all for that. It’s all mere spectulations at this point. Time will tell which one of us will hit the jackpot with Alice 🙂
Appreciate the history/status of the acting classes. It’s a pity that TVB doesn’t emphasize on it anymore. You would think with their monopoly empire and fortune size, they can hire some real drama teachers besides from former TVB associates. On the other hand, because they’re the only player, they don’t really need to make any improvement after all. Gah, I miss HKTV xD
Really, TVB doesn’t need fancy, infamous, well known, award winning teachers. They just need (to begin with) someone who can teach the basic stuff, like voice control, facial expression, body movements, being natural, etc. With small snippits like that would definitely help Grace, Sisley and the likes.
@jjwong Yup…you are absolutely correct! And you know what the irony is – there are actually more acting classes being taught OUTSIDE of TVB than within it, and by former TVB artists, to boot! For example, veteran actress Ng Yuen Yee pooled some resources together with other current/former veteran actors/actresses to open a school that specialized in teaching acting to local youngsters – each of the veterans would take turns teaching the classes so it would be less of a burden for one person and they would invite guest speakers to teach on particular topics that they might not be familiar with. The school has been running for a few years already and even though it’s not large-scale by any means, it’s a sincere effort by veteran artists who are passionate about their craft and want to use their experience to help cultivate the next generation of actors/actresses (and give back to society in the process). I’ve read about other veteran artists who’ve done similar things – starting acting classes of their own in efforts to pass on their knowledge and experience and do their part in preventing the craft from dying out. Whenever I hear about these efforts, I can’t help but think how sad it is that a TV station that employs actors/actresses and relies on the work they produce in order to stay in business either doesn’t bother to provide necessary training to help them do their jobs or if they do, it’s done halfheartedly….while on the other hand, we’ve got veteran artists who’ve dedicated most of their lives to acting and have no financial obligation to teach the next generation, yet they are the ones putting in the most effort to have others properly learn the craft. Such a messed up system!!
Oh, and please don’t get me started on HKTV (lol)– because you know I will rant on and on forever about what happened to them (and get all worked up all over again in the process)!
@llwy12 It’s awesome that the vets are banding together and wanting to pass on their passion and skill in acting. It’s very sad indeed that TVB is so nonchalant about it and doesn’t recognize the important of giving their employees (the actors and actresses) the basic tools to be successful in their job (acting). I hope the vet classes are success and enduring. I have a feeling they may not last long though because one has a better chance in being recognize with crappy acting and winning/joining MHK. Sooo unfortunate. I feel like talents are a dying breed in HK…
I feel like the new breed of actors and actresses are acting as a job and not as a passion like the older generation. To me, if the new gen really want to stay in acting, they really should take these classes on their own free time and dime. Then again, they might not feel the need to take them because 1) they’ll still have a job without taking these classes, 2) the ones being heavily promoted will still get opportunity regardless if they can act or not (fact), and 3) others will still be stuck as kelefe even if they can act better or not anyways. So if management (TVB) doesn’t change, I don’t see the quality in acting, script and filming will forever be stagnant, worse decline to rock bottom -_-;
*jumps off the soap box* xD Oh and I’ll be ranting with you regarding to HKTV. Lol.
Of this list, the only deserving from their past work are Adam Cheng and Raymond Lam. Alice Chan is new to TVB and is capable of winning if given the right opportunity and leading role. I think she’s one of the best female actors TVB have today.
The rest like Linda Chung, Maggie and Kenneth have been in the industry long enough to be given enough opportunities to win. I think their acting is average at best. If they can’t win by now, they never will.
adam cheng and maggie, i understand why it’s surprising…maybe even raymond i get why people may think he deserved one….
but linda, kenneth, and alice? i don’t find it surprising at all that they haven’t won yet. linda and kenneth are still young and still need to work on their acting skills. and alice chan hasn’t even had that many leading roles in tvb, if at all. makes perfect sense she hasn’t won yet.
@hkeni THIS ^
I never liked Linda or Kenneth. And, I’ve yet to see any improvements. Honestly, they’ve become an eyesore to me haha. Hopefully Alice Chan is given more lead opportunities!
Most deserved TV Queen is definitely Maggie! My fav actress since i was a kid.
Maggie is indeed experienced. it’s a pity she didn’t get any awards. i like her.
Linda is still with TVB so I don’t know why this article is stating that it’s surprising that she never won.
Kenneth still has a stab at it but I secretly wish he’ll leave TVB for other opportunities. He’s too nice to TVB for too long.
As for Alice, she was never that popular to begin with although I like her. She has only been receiving supporting roles in smaller productions since her return to TVB. Not surprised at all that she hasn’t won, but she’ll most likely get more recognition now that she’s proven herself to netizens.
Raymond could’ve totally won it for Line Walker, but who did they decide to give it to last year? The winner was so great that I already forgot. *face palm. But Raymond also had a number of slump years where the roles he was playing was a boring as ever.
It’s unfair to put Maggie and Adam on the list as TVB didn’t have awards back then. While Maggie has always been a solid actress, her roles are also more supporting these days. And when she’s in a big budget production like Dance of Passion or whatever, there will always be a number of actresses that outshine her. Agree that it’s unfair for her, but not surprised.
@ladykriselle
Maggie is a solid actress in her own right. However, if you’ve seen her in productions where she stars among her peers. She’s never able to elevate her role and shine through. Meanwhile, her peers make her look average. This is why she never won a best actress.
@anon Maggie Shiu was a pretty actress, but her acting skills were not great when she was young. However, she has improved a lot in the last 10 years. I think she deserved a Best Supporting Actress Award in her drama series in the last few years.
@orchid123
This was never a debate about her looks, rather her talent. I haven’t watched many TVB dramas in recent years, so I can’t assess her acting. But honestly though, just about any good actor outside of TVB can win a Best Actor/Actress award these days if they wanted to be in a TVB drama, so I don’t doubt that she can win if she was given the right opportunity. The talent pool simply isn’t even comparable to the TVB of the old. We don’t even need to go back far, just 10 years ago, TVB’s acting pool was far greater than it is now today.
@ladykriselle
“She has only been receiving supporting roles in smaller productions since her return to TVB”
‘Return’ is a nismoner when it’s used onn Alice Chan and TVB since Alice Chan was never in TVB before she joined last year. She started out in ATV by winning the Miss Asia Pageant. She was promoted straight away with a co-lead role in ‘The Snow is Red’. Her acting was very bad in that first role, but, slowly improved in later series.
Alice Chan was one of ATV’s fadans in the 90s, along with Joey Meng and Kristy Yang. ATV had a few more fadans besides those three.
@kk12345 Kristy Yang is pretty. Didn’t she jump to TVB way back when already? I think I’ve seen her in a couple of TVB series… She didn’t really make it in TVB since then TVB had a surplus of good actresses who truly qualified to carry the fadans title imo.
@jjwong Kristy Yang has never been in any TVB series. The only TVB show I have seen her attend was the ‘Beautiful Kitchen’ show. Kristy Yang went from ATV, straight to movie than to China.
A few ATV artist jump to TVB back then, but Kristy Yang didn’t. Maybe you are talking about Annie Man?
@kk12345
I watch exclusively ATV dramas in the 90s because my uncle owned an ATV rental shop then. I remember those fadans. 🙂
Beside Alice and Joey Meng, there were also Wong Mei, Annie Man, Ewong Yung, Erica Choi, Strawberry Yeung, Veronica Yip, Christine Ng. I miss them.
Elena Kong has also lead in a few series back then. And then there were those who never lead but featured a lot in series such as Kristal Tin, Po Pui Yun, Jan Lau, Tiffany Yeung.
Esther Kwan moved early to TVB, so, I think very few know that she was an ATV fadan. She was one of the highly promoted actress back then, so it came as a surprise than she took the risk to move to TVB.
Lastly, there was 1st sister Amy Chan.
@kidd
Oh yes. I finally remember her name. Strawberry. haha. Weird and unique name. I always wondered why she named herself Strawberry. Maybe she likes eating them.
Just recently, I watched one Korean drama that copied ATV’s old drama. They were too lazy to even change the dialogue. So it became a copy and paste session. I bet you will also have a fun time laughing as well if you come across this “recent” Korean drama.
@kk12345
What series is that?
Don’t tell me which ATV series they copied. I want to guess.
@kidd
Empress Ki. They did edit some parts, but it was very little, to suit their own history. haha. It was still a heavily copied good show.
Another funny part was that the people who died in the Hong Kong version were exactly the same people who died in the Korean version.
One of the lead characters, Wang Yu. Okay, I know, he’s one of the more popular actors in Shaw Era. The Korean actor was dressed almost the same way as Wang Yu was in Shaw movies. Probably a parody or joke.
I am not at all surprised at the list provided. Although, I think the Alice girl is underrated, I find her quite good from ATV.
一山還有一山高， 所以沒得獎並不代表甚麼！
Linda and Kenneth Should be replaced by Kate Tsui and Ron Ng, in this list. Too bad most of the TV King and Queen deserving actors left TVB already. I’d like to see Kate, Ron and Raymond in more movies.