Grace Chan’s Makes a Convincing Vampire in “Blue Veins”
Grace Chan (陳凱琳) wasn’t very well-received when she had her leading lady debut in last year’s Captain of Destiny <張保仔>, but some netizens are retracting their negative comments about her after watching Blue Veins <殭>.
In the latest episodes of Blue Veins, Grace Chan’s Yoyo is finally turned into a vampire by Ling Fung (Joel Chan 陳山聰). To win the heart of Ying Wut-cheuk (Kevin Cheng 鄭嘉穎), she goes against her older sister Mung-nam (Kay Tse 謝安琪), an ancient vampire, and attempts to kill her.
Upon seeing Grace Chan transforming into a vampire with soulless black eyes, fangs, and claws, netizens said they were on the edges of their seat as they watched Grace and Kay’s confrontation scene. A netizen said, “Grace Chan looks really scary here. It’s enough to win TV Queen!”
Several netizens said they were shocked by Grace’s transforation, praising that she looked like a convincing vampire. “Even her voice change was creepy! She’s definitely the scariest of the lot!”
Meanwhile, Ho Yuet (Anjaylia Chan 陳嘉寶), who is turned into zombie by a mysterious vampire, attempts to kill Ying Wut-cheuk, her previous master and ally. Netizens said Anjaylia’s tragic transformation was convincing on screen; her performance as a cold-blooded corpse was scary. A netizen pointed out that Anjaylia didn’t blink at all during a long scene.
Source: Oriental Daily
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
A netizen says……. and several praised her… how much is the amount actually? I can’t help but felt Jane is loop sided here.
And to me, I think her acting is not convincing enough to be scared by her vampire thing……Actually, the whole series is jot scary at all.
@dramadrama the series is not even scary, but maybe im old. When i was young, i thought MDWAV was scary.
@dramadrama To be fair, the original article in Chinese is the one that talked about the netizens’ praise for Grace….Jaynestars merely translated what the original article stated. The original article itself is from Oriental Daily, which is one of the pro-TVB media outlets in HK that likes to hype up TVB-related artists, series, etc. so I’m not surprised at all with the tone of the article and its bias toward TVB (though to be honest, it’s better than their television news arm OnTV, which I like to refer to as “TVB’s media mouthpiece”). With that said though, I do agree that there seems to be quite a few articles about Grace lately on Jaynestars – not sure what the criteria is for deciding which articles get translated and which ones don’t, but since Jaynestars isn’t an official media site anyway, it’s kind of a moot point if you ask me.
A netizen said, “Grace Chan looks really scary here. It’s enough to win TV Queen!”
Wow just wow
@ivan lol
That comment was too exaggerated! I thought that scene was decent, but the rest of her scenes, especially the beginning were meh to me.
Low standards much?
Enough to win TV Queen? Surely that’s sarcasm?
Anjaylia Chan is by far a better actress, her performance is not cringey at all and actually quite pleasant/enjoyable despite her transformation into a zombie.
One good scene, and it had to take a pair of vampire contact lenses, fangs, claws, even a scary voice for the audiences to accept her. That said a lot. They don’t like her eyes, her smile, her voice, I mean, just don’t like anything about Grace, unless she turn into a completely different person. She won’t make it, although I enjoyed that short moment too. She’s not going to be a vampire in every series. Lol
Win TV Queen with one good scene? That’s shallow. And why is that one exaggerated comment important? Too silly!
@kaykay408 heheheheh talk about ouch!
Tv queen? I think not…..
@happybi I just hope this one netizen’s comment doesn’t encourage TVB to keep throwing her into lead roles….TVB will be like ” oh great, look they like her!” 🙁
@kaykay408 Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s going to happen, as that’s just how things work in the industry. The media seizes onto one comment or a sentiment made by one person and all of a sudden it is hyped up to the point that it will be made to seem like that is everyone’s sentiment. As is standard with the gossip culture (especially in HK where most audiences are either too busy or don’t care about reading anything past surface level), once this type of comment is spread around, no one is going to bother to go back and ‘vet’ the information or realize that it was the opinion of one person and doesn’t represent majority. And then of course, TVB is going to use this sentiment as ‘proof’ that their strategy of over-promoting Grace is correct.
@llwy12 It seems like TVB will just promote whoever they want regardless that person is a good/bad actor. I feel pity for those talented second line and third line actors who have toiled for decades at TVB in minor roles and never get promoted to leading status.
@unknown Well, unfortunately, that has always been the case with TVB, even dating back to the 70s/80s/90s eras. The difference is that back then, it was less noticeable due to the overwhelming abundance of talent that TVB had at the time, to the point that even when their first lead artists left, there were enough equally talented individuals to immediately step up and take their place so that the “bad” ones didn’t affect things much. Of course, TVB also did a better job training and grooming back then with their acting classes (especially in the 70s and 80s), which they were still able to reap the benefits of for many years after that despite changing the format of the classes (plus all the instructors as well as the creators of the acting class leaving TVB). And of course, the environment was slightly different back then — not in terms of policies and such, since those obviously haven’t changed in 4 decades – but rather in the management style as well as the way artists were treated back then under Sir Run Run Shaw’s reign (many artists were willing to endure harsh conditions and stay in supporting roles because they felt they were part of the TVB family). When Run Run Shaw’s wife Mona Fong took over in the early 2000s, she pretty much destroyed TVB with the idiotic managers she hired and the many stupid decisions that were made, which TVB is still paying for now despite being under new ownership. I constantly hear various artists (both newer artists and veterans alike) talk about how staffing at TVB come and go all the time and how it’s ‘normal’ and TVB isn’t lacking talent, etc. etc., but what many of them fail to see (which isn’t surprising of course) is that TVB is truly in the worst situation it has ever been in now as compared to the past – the talent pool is essentially all dried up now due to the lack of focus on training and cultivating talent over the past 2 decades or so….it is biting them in the butt now and it shows in the poor quality of their productions (of course there are other factors that contributed to TVB’s deterioration into its current sorry state, but won’t go into all of that now).
I actually applaud all those second/third/fourth line veteran artists (i.e. Lee Kwok Lun, Lee Sing Cheong, Lau Dan, Law Lok Lam, Lau Kong, Chan Wing Chun, etc.) who have essentially dedicated their lives to TVB but rarely get any recognition (some artists have been there 30 to 40 years, yet majority of audiences don’t even know their names!) — yet these artists continue to toil in their same positions without complaint and will probably continue to work for TVB until they retire or can’t work anymore. TVB should be grateful that they still have these artists and need to treat them better, as artists like them are the main reason why people like me continue to “tolerate” TVB despite how many times TVB has let me down over the years.
@llwy12 Off topic, but I would like to know who is your top favourite minor actors/actress from TVB?
My favourite actros:
Mak ka lun He was always typecast in unlikeable roles or as one of the office manger/shareholder that you will see in the meetings.
Kwok Yiu Ming He started off quite well in A kindred spirit, have always wondered why TVB didn’t promote him anymore after Time Off. TVB just keep typecasting him in villain roles to act in ever since Time Off. He got the looks and the acting skills but not the luck to be promoted.
Lee Wai Kei He’s the one who acted as Paul Chun’s second son in At the Threshold of an Era. He mostly play the villain roles.
Too bad both of them has already retired from the showbiz. We can no longer see them act.
@unknown Hard question to answer, as there are way too many for me to list out, plus the definition of “minor” is a bit subjective in my opinion — some artists technically were supporting or even lead artists back in the day (i.e. 70s/80s/early 90s) but have pretty much been relegated to ‘minor’ roles in recent years (Law Lok Lam, Savio Tsang, and Jimmy Au come to mind, though there are definitely more). To start with, the senior artists that I listed in my previous post are definitely on my list of favorites, along with many other current and former supporting actors such as Jimmy Au, Chun Wong, Deon Cheung, Wilson Tsui, Angelina Lo, Ng Yuen Yee, Lee Heung Kam, etc. plus the more well-known ‘major’ supporting artists such as Samuel Kwok, Paul Chun, Felix Lok, Mary Hon, Helena Law, Savio Tsang, etc. etc. etc. (again, the list goes on and on and on).
If I had to choose, I would probably say Chan Wing Chun and Leung Kin Ping are both near the top of my list in terms of talented actors I enjoy watching who were pretty much relegated to kelefe roles at TVB for most of their career. Leung Kin Ping made the right decision to leave TVB and join HKTV, as that’s where he met his current manager, who was able to secure quite a few great opportunities for him in both television and movies. In recent years, LKP has carved out a pretty good movie career and is finally getting the type of recognition and opportunities that he never got in the 26 years he was with TVB. In addition to his cameo in Korean series Fated to Love You several years back, he also got the opportunity to star as lead actor in a short film back in 2014 – the film received a lot of accolades at several international film festivals and was even nominated for the Best Short Film award at the Toronto Film Festival (regardless of whether the film won or not, it made Leung Kin Ping a more recognizable name on the international circuit). And I’m sure more HK audiences know him now after his involvement with the film Ten Years (where he starred as lead in one of the 5 stories in that film). Chan Wing Chun is still with TVB unfortunately and is still playing kelefe roles. Though I totally understand his reasoning for staying with TVB and actually respect him even more for it, I still can’t help feeling sad for him. I doubt he will leave TVB now and will probably work for them until retirement, so I can only hope that TVB treats him better.
In terms of the 3 artists you listed, I actually agree with you, especially Mark Kwok (Kwok Yiu Ming), who definitely had potential both looks-wise and acting skill….he could’ve probably become really good with the right guidance and training. The last time I heard anything about him (which was several years ago), sounded like he was doing well in his current job as an insurance broker, so hopefully things continue to go well for him. Not sure if he has any interest in acting still, though judging from the way he left the industry behind him completely after becoming yet another ‘victim’ of the stupid HK paparazzi dogs (which is rumored to be the reason why TVB stopped promoting him), doesn’t seem to me that he would want to put himself in the line of fire again (unless he truly has a passion for acting of course and is willing to sacrifice his sanity for it).
i think she does well in scenes where she doesn’t talk 😀 but everything else is dreadful
@estuurc I think it would just be wonderful if we don’t have to see grace Chan in any drama.
What a joke. TVB and other HK news don’t report anything about her terrible acting throughout the entire drama. She has ONE decent scene, and suddenly she’s TV Queen status? And it’s being reported everywhere? All the other actresses should just quit then.
Plus, like someone already mentioned, it was only a decent scene with fake claws, fake teeth, fake eyes and even a fake voice… you can barely tell the expressions are made by her.
Last thing I have to say is that Grace’s acting is usually way too exaggerated, so it’s not surprising that this scene would have been decent or good. Being a vampire required her to act exaggerated.
TV queen for Grace Chan…you’ve got to be kidding..
1 good scene with a computer altered voice but what about the rest of the series…pretty average i think…
Actually Jeannie Chan did better than Grace as a vampire and looked more scary …
False encouragement. Grace was mediocre at best in the drama. Same with Tavia in BTROC – the makeup helped a lot
Can i just say, HER CHARACTER IS SO ANNOYING IN THIS DRAMA! MOST UNLIKED OF THEM ALL! UGH! lol But her acting kinda has improved…
@yummiki24 her character is not just annoying in this drama…it was super annoying in COD as well…the way she screamed.
Grace Chan has a fierce look, suitable for evil role
I think there is some improvement from “Captain Of Destiny” and she does do well acting as a mute and her facial expressions are more natural. But when her acting does go downhill after she is bitten as her character is so crazy and annoying (fault of the scriptwriter, yoyo is nuts). The acting is ok but nothing spectacular. Good try though. Acting wise, I actually prefer Moon Lau.
she was alright in that scene , nothing outstanding
I preferred it when her character was mute, and she would do voice overs instead. Her talking voice is so annoying, it’s like she doesn’t know how to control her voice and she just ends up sounding like a whiny little brat, she should have stayed mute in the whole series.
I don’t know if I should blame her for making her character so unlikable, or is it the writers fault?
[SPOILER ALERT] There’s a lot of problems with this series, I can’t believe they just killed a bunch of people in the last few episode. I would much rather prefer the ending to be a showdown between the 8 or 9 不死人 and the powerful vampires (Joel Chan, Jeannie Chan and the blind vampire). Only saw 3 不死人s in the whole series which was disappointing, they should have explored more into that instead of boring unnecessary side stories such as 何年 getting the red hair girl pregnant. What annoys me the most them killing off the series’s interesting characters (Hubert Hu as 杰仔, the blind vampire guy, Jeanie Chan, and Eddie Kwan) all died. I also felt they shouldn’t have filmed that many unnecessary scenes in Netherlands. But oh well it’s TVB, can’t expect them to make a master piece with an amazing plot twist.
@melody I like Grace before, but after seeing Blue Veins and reading her articles each day, I’m beginning to dislike her. Thanks TVB! I didnt even like when Grace was mute. She always does that little pout(closing her mouth) that bothers me. It will be better if she can learn sign language and not commute on post-it all the time. I like when Fala on Heart of Greed when she was mute.
[SPOILER ALERT] Oh my gosh, worst ending ever! The last episode ruins the whole drama, too unnecessary stories about Wong You Nam, Winki Lai, and C Kwan. I admit that it has been a while since a TVB drama exites me this much. I would catch an episode each day(rarely with any drama) and get excited when Kevin and Kay have a scene together. But this drama had so much useless scenes!!! Unnecessary love scenes of Winki Lai(the red hair) and Wong You Nam, Wong You Nam and C Kwan pursuing Grace, unnecessary scenes in the Netherlands like when they went to console Grace, the annoying shifu(wrong cast) with C Kwan and Wong You Nam, the moping scenes of Wong You Nam and C Kwan after Anjaylia got into a coma, the fighting competition, etc… They really need to hire a new action choreography because all the fighting scenes suck and weak. C Kwan and Wong You Nam look really stiff when they practiced kungfu! Don’t get me wrong, I like Anjaylia, Wong You Nam and C kwan’s role, but they should have focus the stories onto other interesting characters like Joel, Eddie, Moon, Hubert, Jeanie, blind vampire, Stephanie. And why did they kill Jeanie in the most suckiest way!!! I thought she was powerful! They should have turn Hubert evil and brings all the vampires to attack his father (in the trailer) then do that dying scene. I prefer an ending where they truly make Grace evil…Grace will pretend that she had already given up Kevin and asked for forgiveness after she let Joel bite Kay. Since TVB want Grace to have more scenes then let her died, she can come with Kevin and Grace to Holland to save the future, but actually on Joel’s side to kill Kay. At the fighting scene between Kay and Joel, Grace will pretend to help Kay and then push her to the blackhole. Grace will also tried to kill Joel, but since Joel is more powerful he also send her to the black hole. Then Kevin kills Joel and the rest of the undead came to help Kevin kills all the vampires. It will be better, if there is a showdown between other undead and the powerful vampires: Jeanie, Blind Vampire, Joel, etc…At the end, Kay and Grace came back to see Kevin, thinking they are cure. When Kevin and Kay about to walk, Grace turn into a vampire and stapped Kay in the back…the end…at least she can be memorable and not a useless and annoying character!!! And that Kay and Kevin’s kiss scene is too weird and quick!!! Im mad! At least give me a sweet dialoque then do the kiss! Wish it was more passionate!
I still cannot accept Graces acting , not much of an improvement , her facial expression stays the same , i prefer Kay Tse , hope TVB don’t promote her as lead actress any more, what about the rest who are much better and senior than Grace , like Eliza sum , no wonder many good ones are leaving TVB
Blue Veins finale viewership rating pts at only 25.8, its a flop!
@yummysukiyaki LOL…depends on who you ask. I just read some articles that praised Blue Veins to the sky and there are already talks about doing a sequel because the series ‘was so well-accepted by netizens’ (*vomit*). There are praises that both Kay and Grace did extremely well and now all of sudden, both are Best Actress material. Wow…..the HK mainstream media has definitely gotten worse and worse over the years in their bias towards TVB and severe lack of shame in jumping on the TVB promo bandwagon at every opportunity possible. Pathetic!!
@llwy12 even though I like Kay’s character, she is not close to being TV Queen/Best Actress.
@jessehsuan I absolutely agree, which is why I felt like vomiting when I skimmed some articles that claimed Kay did an excellent job and now she’s thinking about cutting short her self-imposed temporary ‘retirement’ to come back and film for TVB again. And then there are the supposed fans who are pushing for a ‘sequel’ to Blue Veins (again, it’s only a handful of netizens, but the media is making it sound like EVERYONE is asking for a sequel). In the other corner, the cast and crew of that Mafia Retirement series just had a celebration dinner to ‘congratulate’ the series for hitting the 30 point peak mark on ONE episode (average ratings for that episode was still under 30 points and overall ratings for the entire series so far is still low 20s). Talk about false encouragement! Sad that things have gotten to the point where TVB now has to grasp onto every little insignificant occurrence and blow it into astronomical proportion (with the help of certain media outlets of course) in order to ‘justify’ their continued dominance of the HK television market.
I find the Gangster drama is much better, with Alice Chan superb acting. Wonder why Jaynestar don’t covers it. Jayne is promoting Grace too??
@dramadrama Grace seems very popular in this website. She doesn’t cover many HK artists that is why I also went to other sites for entertainment news.
@jessehsuan @llwy12 Any English site for HK entertainment? I stick to here cos it’s in English. I cannot read Chinese. …. And when I Google, nothing much in English…
@dramadrama you can check ahmike.com as I use this site and that for english ent. news.
@dramadrama ahmike.com and aspot.net but these two sites have no engaging readers like jaynestars
@dramadrama Unfortunately, there are not a whole lot of ‘official’ mainstream media sites in HK where the news articles are actually written in English instead of translated by someone from a traditional Chinese media site. The 2 biggest truly English-language papers in HK are South China Morning Post (SCMP) and The Standard, however neither one has a dedicated HK entertainment section equivalent to the Chinese language papers, at least not the online version (both do cover some of the ‘major events’ in the entertainment industry, but the pickings are slim overall and you pretty much have to dig through the website under the country-specific sections or other generic sections such as Lifestyle, People, etc.). RTHK has an English news arm as well but I don’t think it has a dedicated entertainment section either. There’s also the Asia arm of international media outlets such as Yahoo, MSN, CNN, etc. that have entertainment news, so that’s an option too (though covers all of Asia and not necessarily specific to HK). Other countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, etc also have English-language news sites that cover entertainment news in HK (though again, not to the extent as Chinese -language sites)…there’s also Time Out Hong Kong (English language publication based in London) that often has some good articles related to HK’s cultural arts (television, movies, music, theater), including the occasional interview with famous celebrities. If you’re looking for sites similar to Jaynestars (private fan sites/discussion forums that post news articles translated from Chinese sites into English), there are actually quite a few of them with varying degrees of ‘variety’: Asian Universe, Asianfanatics, Asian E-news, Asian Pop News, Popular Asians, Ahmike, etc, just to name a few….may want to try Googling again and I’m sure more will pop up….
@dramadrama At the end of the day, Jaynestars is not an ‘official’ media site, but rather a fansite for certain artists and series. There are actually a lot of things that happen in the HK entertainment industry (major headlines such as certain famous celebrity deaths and other ‘current entertainment-related events’ that are being talked about by practically everyone in HK) that doesn’t get covered on this site, so if you’re looking for actual entertainment news coverage, probably better to go with the mainstream HK media sites (which unfortunately are all mostly in Chinese). Even the mainstream media sites have their biases (with Apple Daily and Oriental Daily taking up the 2 polar extremes of the spectrum where TVB is concerned), but at least you get more variety instead of having to hear about the same artists all the time.
@llwy12 As mentioned, Jaynestar is not an official media site. IN fact, it is a private site and Jaynestar has its rights to broadcast media news as it wishes.
yeah that rack of bones makes for a very scary vampire indeed!
her face and beauty is considered to be more exotic than most hk woman, so i feel that was what contributed to her winning the pageant. but to be honest, her acting is just not up to par. i did not think she should have gotten a lead actress role with only two other supporting (if even that) roles.
but the subject at hand is her scenes in blue vein and she honestly didnt do much with her role. there were so many layers of her character and it had the potential to be great because she had so many scenes. this one scene of her being a vampire was entirely contributed to a digitally altered voice.
i think she has potential ( a really long way to go) but she needs to take some acting lessons. her fame came from dating kevin cheng whose a respectable veteran actor which created so much drama and infamous news.
i would have rathered the other two women who also had supporting roles, either one of them, to have taken this role instead.
this one scene in a drama (a drama in which kay tse stole the show anyways) does not give her any credit (nor does she deserve any) to win any awards at all.
with her winning the most improved award last year from two dramas, was a slap in the face to rosina lam. and depicts the obvious non stop promotion from tvb which unfair and biased.
@jeling “her fame came from dating kevin cheng”. Exactly what I was thinking all the time. She keeps talking about her relationship at every event instead of talking about her works. Instead of promoting herself or her works in the entertainment industry, she is using her relationship with her uncle as her selling point to gain fame. Frankly speaking, I was really disappointed TVB has given her the MI award last year which she didn’t even deserve it. The award should go to Rosina Lam or Tracy Chu.
@celin That’s why im starting to dislike her and i rarely comment on an artist, which said something about her. She nevers talk about her works but only her relationships! And how did she got Most Improved??? Definitely should be Rosina or Tracy! I hope she wont get Best Supporting Actress this year, especially on Blue Veins…that is a joke!
I agree with the last netizen’s comment. Anjaylia has more potential than Grace. If only TVB would give more opportunities to Anjaylia. Grace also needs to learn how to breathe with her nose before doing her dialogues because the mouth inhale sound is getting VERY ANNOYING.