HK Actress Kabby Hui Overcomes Homesickness for “Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Sabre”
Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Sabre, the latest Chinese television adaptation of Jin Yong’s (金庸) The Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre <倚天屠龍記>, premiered in Hong Kong and Macau on April 15th. A Chinese adaptation, a majority of the cast members are actors from the mainland, with the exception of a few—including rookie actress Kabby Hui (許雅婷) from Hong Kong.
“It was my very first mainland drama,” said Kabby, who debuted as a member of the HK girl group Girls’ Sample (少女標本) back in 2015. “I’m happy to know that it’s finally showing in Hong Kong.”
Prior to getting cast for the role of Xiao Zhao (Siu Chiu) on the show, Kabby did a lot of her own research, such as watching prior Heavenly Sword film and TV adaptations, and also reading the original source material. “I was very happy when I got cast in the role of Xiao Zhao. I really like this character. She’s also very different from myself.”
It was a big challenge for Kabby to leave the comfort of her home to film the show across the country. “I’d miss my family. I’d miss the food in Hong Kong. I’d miss my friends. I spent six months filming this show. In costume dramas, you do wear a lot of layers, but it won’t keep your warm in the winter. And in the summer, it won’t keep you cool either.”
On her favorite scenes of the show, Kabby named the War of Guang Ming Ding and her final scene with Zhang Wuji, which was also the last scene she shot for the show.
In the future, Kabby will continue to focus her acting career in Mainland China, and is open to pursuing more music.
Source: On.cc
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
I’ve seen parts of this adaptation here and there and the slo-mo with every single fight scene is super-irritating. And the series drags like crazy…the worst part though is the mis-cast of practically every single character (ok, maybe second worse because the very worst is the acting, which is very unnatural and cringe-worthy with many of them — at some points, the performances were so laughable, I thought I was watching a comedy rather than a serious wuxia drama). More specifically in reference to this article, the girl who plays Siu Chiu is actually very meh in my opinion— she is supposed to be known for her beauty (as was her mother before her), but the 2 actresses who play the 2 characters really aren’t pretty (and they can’t act either).
For me, the best ever version of HSDS will always be the 1986 TVB version starring Tony Leung. The casting in that series (from main characters to supporting / minor ones) was absolutely perfect, the acting was superb, and the overall production trumps even the ones that came after it (this was in the days when CGI was not available, so they had to rely on the real stuff, such as wires and actual martial arts training for the actors/actresses). To this day, I still re-watch this version at least once a year (though it’s been much harder in recent years because watching the older classics reminds me of how badly TVB — and the HK entertainment industry as a whole — has deteriorated).
@llwy12 Glad to hear from someone else who also thinks it’s terrible. At first I was indifferent but watching more it’s like…what the heck is this?? This is not wuxia at all.
I’m too young for the 86 adaptation but I’ve watched the 2001 one and even with the cheap props and super old ZWJ it’s so much better than this version…