Bernice Liu Returns to Hong Kong for ViuTV’s “Margaret and David”
ViuTV’s first television drama, Margaret and David: Green Beans <瑪嘉烈與大衛系列 綠豆>, held a press conference on March 30. ViuTV, Hong Kong’s new free-to-air television broadcaster, will hit airwaves next month.
Margaret and David: Green Beans, which is based on a novel, was first announced at a ViuTV press conference in early March. The series stars Bowie Lam (林保怡), Catherine Chau (周家怡), Kathy Yuen (湯怡), Poon Chan-leung (潘燦良), and also Bernice Liu (廖碧兒), her first Hong Kong television drama since HKTV’s Once Upon a Song <童話戀曲201314>, which was shot in 2012.
“I’ll be working with Bowie,” said Bernice at the Green Beans event. The actress spent the last three years in Canada and Singapore for various film projects. “It’s been a while since I last did a show in Cantonese. I’m very happy for this opportunity.”
Bernice also added that it’s been ten years since she’s last worked with Bowie. The duo’s last collaboration was 2005’s Healing Hands III <妙手仁心III>.
The 37-year-old former TVB actress shared that she just received the script for Green Beans and had a costume fitting earlier Wednesday morning. She said she cannot talk too much about the script, but revealed that most of her character’s arc will be shared with Bowie.
As Bernice spent most of her time overseas in the last few years, she is cherishing this opportunity to meet with family and her pet dogs in Hong Kong. “I’m very fortunate to be able to travel to different places for work,” she said. “But I really miss Hong Kong.”
When speaking about shooting non-local movies and series, Bernice said, “After doing outside projects, I’ve realized how different Hong Kong is.”
Bowie and Catherine, respectively playing the lead characters David and Margaret, have already started filming the show. In the series, the costars play an unmarried couple who have lived together for many years.
When speaking about filming for the series, Bowie recalled with a laugh, “There was this scene about me waking up from Margaret’s loud snores. Because Catherine does know how to snore deeply, I hid in the background and did the snoring sound for her. The sound I made was too funny and the crew couldn’t stop laughing. Even Catherine couldn’t stop laughing. That scene took a long time to complete.”
Bowie, who plays a taxi driver, said he had to disregard all the acting he learned in the past for this role. “I’m using a different acting style for this series,” he said. “I’ve erased all the experiences I’ve learned from the past, and now re-learning as a student. This is a fresh new take for me.”
Margaret and David premieres on ViuTV on April 11, 2016 at 11 pm.
Source: Oriental Daily, HK 01
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
It is finally Catherine’s chance to shine!
@jimmyszeto Yup! Definitely happy for Catherine with all the opportunities she’s been getting (both in television and movies). I’m actually quite looking forward to this series overall — refreshing cast, interesting storyline, non-typical filming methods, etc. Heck, I may even consider reading the book that this series was based on just to get some background when watching the series!
Glad to see Poon Chan Leung decided to film for ViuTV. I enjoyed his performance in HKTV’s To Be or Not To Be and am pretty sure that he will do well in this series (yes, I admit that I have an affinity for stage/theater artists, lol). Wasn’t too impressed with Kathy Yuen in her previous few series with HKTV, but she wasn’t at the ‘unbearable’ stage in terms of acting, so I guess I can tolerate her once again here. Have always been indifferent towards Bernice and her acting, so not much comment there….she does look quite different though — happier and more refreshed? Looks like getting away from HK for awhile and taking up a hobby she’s passionate about (wine cultivation) have been positives for her — good for her if that’s the case!
@llwy12
Catherine had worked in many series with Bowie Lam before but only as 4th or 5th line actress. She has come a long way and it us very much deserved.
HKTV was all over tv and news, shot many drama but never got a license and this ViuTV out of nowhere got it? LOL
@vodka Hmmm…weren’t you the same person who claimed that HKTV was a major failure because they couldn’t get a license? Not sure what you have against HKTV, but it seems to me that you enjoy jumping at every possible opportunity to bash HKTV, and most of the time without valid reason. If the fact that HKTV didn’t get a license is the only ‘argument’ you’re able to come up with to bash them — well, sorry but you need to do better than that, as I’m sure some of us on this forum can come up with a dozen counter-arguments to support why the government was wrong in not granting them a license.
Regarding the comment about ViuTV coming ‘out of nowhere’ to get a license — not sure if you just haven’t been paying attention to anything that’s been going on in the HK television industry the past few years or you are truly confused. Anyone who has been following the free TV license saga knows that ViuTV did not ‘come out of nowhere’ — ViuTV used to be known as HKTVE and is cable network NowTV’s free to air channel. They had submitted a free TV license application around the same time as i-Cable and HKTV, it’s just that the HK government illogically decided to give licenses to NowTV and i-Cable and deny HKTV. Now that they’ve been granted a license, ViuTV is merely moving forward with fulfilling the terms of their license by officially launching their free TV channel.
I honestly don’t see the need to bash HKTV in this instance — makes absolutely no sense to me….
@llwy12 true I dislike HKTV but I ain’t bashing them here just a comparison. But its just funny ViuTV got a license when they weren’t all over the news much. I’m comparing them to HKTV because they did much more to try to get one.
Well I have a life, I don’t follow every station and news on what is going on, the only news from HK I get in touch with it’s most likely from jaynestar.
Competition is always good I wouldn’t like TVB to monopolize the market. Anyway ViuTV or HKTV whatever I don’t care as long as it can produce a good serie to be enjoyable then im fine with it.
Never was much a fan of Bernice acting but she looks good in that photo.
@happybi Yeah, thought she quit acting. Good to see that she’s doing well.
@peachyogurt Nah. she was in a drama at HKTV with William So.. and she was in a few movies if I remember correctly?
@happybi Bernice was most enjoyable in Virtue of Harmony with her funny chinese accent.
Most of these people are probably no longer in contract w/TVB right since we don’t see any of them anywhere anymore. Well, I haven’t much of anything except for Ruco’s COD and Bowie Lam? Wow, I thought he disappeared from the entertainment circle.
hooray! i like bowie lam.
@janet72 Love Bowie!
This is going to flop. The cast is not a A cast listing.
Plus this airing at 11:00pm in the evening…not even primetime
Against TVB. Just shows you the confidence this ViuTV has in its own production.
Its going to be another . ATV im afraid
@mulder99 Disagree that it’ll be a flop because of the reasons you listed. HKTV series didn’t have prime slots and a few did quiet well. The Menu had no A-lister and looked at its popularity. I’m curious who do you consider as “A-list”? Besides Lord of Shanghai, what TVB series have A cast listing in one sitting for the past years? There are people who can act in this list and as long as the story is compelling, I’m confident that it’ll succeed. Then again, our definition of success is probably different as well. Regardless, I look forward to this series more than 80% of the to-come from TVB.
@jjwong Agreed!
I rather watch this “non-A-list” drama series than anything TVB has churned out in the past 15 years.
@jjwong
Sometimes a series can gain critical acclaim but still barely any viewers. The problem is that people do not like change. Most loyal TVB viewers will stick to watching TVB because that has been their daily habit for many years. Whether the series is good or not people will mindlessly watch it. TVB have also attempted to take risks such as When heavens burn and Master of Play but received poor ratings although in my opinion When Heavens Burn is the best series to come out of TVB in many years. Ratings of this series might flop just because it’s not labelled as TVB. The series itself could be amazing though.
@jimmyszeto ah, k if @mulder99 is comparing tvb style pt rating then i can see how this one might be a ‘flop’ in thier eyes. Hktv series had low rating too but got so much recognition. To me that’s more better sign of success or flop.
I did like WHB. One of the few outside the box series in a long time. It also did have a solid cast. It’s actually a great example of being a ‘flop’ (low pt ratings) but still is a success bc it nit only won best series but also generated a lot of fans.
@mulder99 most people watch on demand tv now so eexcept for school kids, the time doesn’t matter much since they can watch it whenever.
@mulder99 Let’s keep in mind that ViuTV is not trying to directly ‘compete’ with TVB – that was never its intention from the getgo, even back when it was still HKTVE under NowTV. If ViuTV were truly serious about grabbing TVB’s market share, they would’ve gone after TVB’s core audience by structuring their station with filming series at its core rather than the ‘factual entertainment’ program route that they’re doing currently. ViuTV is trying to go after the younger audiences and those who have given up on traditional television (pretty much the audiences that don’t even watch TVB anymore). Even the timeslot thing was deliberately done so as not to be in direct competition with TVB – ViuTV’s ‘golden timeslot’ isn’t the traditional 2 hour ‘family’ timeslot that TVB and ATV have done for decades…again, ViuTV’s target audience is the younger ‘Internet’ crowd who are used to watching what they want when they want and not be bogged down by a specific ‘timeframe’.
Also, not sure how many people actually took the time to research the book that this series is based on or its author, or perhaps read parts of the book. If you do, you will probably realize that this series is going to be very different from the traditional fare that TVB churns out and is definitely not intended for the traditional ‘housewife’ audiences who prefer mindless soap operas that don’t require them to do much ‘thinking’ or ‘reflecting’.
This is why, in my opinion, trying to measure ViuTV’s success or failure against TVB standards at this point is ludicrous, since the comparison is essentially apples to oranges. In addition, trying to ‘measure’ success using the traditional TV ratings method is ridiculous too, especially in this day and age when most people don’t even watch TV on a traditional TV set anymore. Even TVB knows this, otherwise they wouldn’t be going with a different method of measuring ratings as they’ve agreed to do this year (though it probably won’t go into effect until later in the year or maybe even early next year).
I think more and more, people need to stop looking at the HK television industry through ‘TVB-colored glasses’, as it’s obvious that the days when HK television was ‘synonymous’ exclusively with TVB are gone now. The ‘TVB way’ is no longer the ‘only’ way and unfortunately, those audiences who still hold so steadfastly to TVB being the ‘end all be all’ for the HK television industry and are unwilling to accept any other television-related entertainment outside of TVB will likely find themselves with nothing to watch in a couple years….
Watching it for Bowie!
Yes! More Poon Chan Leung!
I wonder why they don’t go for a much younger cast if they want the younger audience, or at least a “younger” theme.
Is this series going to be on daily? Based on how soon it will premiere, it seems like a weekly thing where they will record and be on air pretty quickly (more like american series).
@hellome
Which younger casts would be more suitable, marketable, as good, or better actors than this panel?
I can’t think of any.
@anon
Well, not for this series if this was based on a book.
In general, if they’re hoping for a younger audience, I would think it would start with a younger cast- basically a whole different series with a younger theme!