Wong Jing and TVB’s “Bet Hur” Starring Patrick Tse Premieres June 19
Wong Jing (王晶) and TVB’s gambling drama Bet Hur <賭城群英會> is Patrick Tse’s (謝賢) first drama in thirty years. Premiering next week, the suspenseful TV series also teams up Natalis Chan (陳百祥) and Monica Chan (陳法蓉), whose last Hong Kong television drama was The Duke of Mount Deer 2000 <小寶與康熙>.
Also starring Charmaine Sheh (佘詩曼), Kenneth Ma (馬國明), Raymond Wong (黃浩然), Mat Yeung (楊明), Dominic Ho (何浩文), Connie Man (文凱玲), Samantha Ko (高海寧), and 2015 MHK Louisa Mak (麥明詩), Bet Hur is a revenge story about a hidden gambling god (Patrick Tse) and his opponent, portrayed by Lau Siu-ming (劉兆銘). Nat Chan and Monica Chan play Patrick’s disciples, who are being constantly threatened by their enemies. In the end, Patrick has to pass on his gambling skills to Monica’s disciple Charmaine Sheh to win their last defining battle.
Bet Hur has been compared to 1990’s All for the Winner <賭聖>, but Wong Jing said the show is actually more of a homage towards Patrick’s own The Shell Game <千王之王>, which was also produced by Wong Jing.
In regards to inviting both Patrick and Monica back to a TVB drama, Wong Jing said, “They are both very good friends of mine. The roles I’ve had for them were also very suitable for them, which is why I decided to call them back.” Monica and Nat play an ex-couple, who eventually reunite thanks to their own disciples, portrayed by Charmaine and Kenneth.
While Monica and Nat are leading the second generation of gamblers, Charmaine and Kenneth lead the third. Bet Hur is the duo’s first television drama collaboration as a couple. It is also their first collaboration with Patrick. Charmaine said, “Brother Four was the star in The Shell Game. He knows a lot of card tricks, and he will show them all off in [Bet Hur]. I’m just standing by his side, watching him. It’s like magic.”
Playing Monica’s disciple—Charmaine hasn’t collaborated with Monica in 18 years—Charmaine’s character is cutthroat ambitious, but her competitiveness comes to a cost of losing the most important person by her side.
In her first television drama since her debut in 2012, Connie Man plays Charmaine’s younger sister who starts a romance with Raymond Wong. She said, “This is my first time collaborating with many of them, and I’ve learned a lot from them as well. I feel that TVB actors really know how to take care of themselves. They don’t need the crew to remind them of where they should be. That synergy they have is great. It’s all about teamwork. We all worked together to make a good show, and so far, it’s definitely been a very happy experience for me.”
Dominic Ho, best known for his role in The Gigolo <鴨王>, will be having a Romeo and Juliet romance with Louisa Mak, who plays Lau Siu-ming’s granddaughter. Bet Hur is Louisa’s first acting role since winning the Miss Hong Kong Pageant in 2015. She anticipates receiving constructive criticism, adding, “I just hope I won’t make people hate me!”
She added that being an actress is a lot harder than she originally thought, saying, “You stiff up once you’re in front of the camera. I know I have this image where I’m good with memorizing things, but once the camera rolls, there are many other things to consider besides memorization. You need to get used to the camera. I really once to thank Dominic Ho for being such a good partner. Also my father Joseph Lee (李國麟) and brother Carlo Ng (吳家樂).”
Source: On.cc
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
Since this is Wong Jing after all, I’m not expecting much in terms of quality or creativity. The only reason I will consider watching this series is to see the boatload of veteran actors and actresses that Wong Jing was able to get to participate in this series (mostly as guest stars), especially those he was able to pull out of retirement and those who already shifted their careers elsewhere. It will be nice to see those veterans onscreen again, even if only for a few short moments.
WJ is rly one trick pony huh? His last “TVB” series was God awful. Is he rly srill that successfully and popular in HK and/or China??? His movies are cringe af. The innuendo makes my skin crawl and not funny at all. Bleh. Predictable plot. Same old. Same old. Wow.
@jjwong Yup…that’s the way Wong Jing has always been…that’s why he never gets any recognition in terms of awards in the movie industry. His stuff is formulaic and he’s best at rehashing old storylines, scripts, plots, etc. — this is well-known in the industry. If it weren’t for his plethora of connections in the industry (though many of those connections were due to his famous father), he wouldn’t have been able to get as far as he has all these years. China loves him because he kowtows to them — he’s a big Mainland advocate and actually writes all his scripts with a Mainland bias. I honestly don’t even know why they are calling Bet Hur a HK series because technically it’s not….just like his last movie From Vegas to Macau, the script was deliberately written for Mainland audiences….
could not care less about this show (that trailer sucked!), but this article mentioned that that was charmaine and kenneth’s first collaboration as a couple— weren’t they a couple in those time for love vignettes? still tv, no? semantics?
@rucofan1100 Yea, mostly semantics — they can technically say that Time for Love wasn’t a “true” TVB full-length drama series, which justifies the “first-time collaboration” comment in the article. Or that they weren’t truly a couple in that series? (I obviously didn’t watch the first or second installments of the series so I have no clue whether this is true or not). Sure, it’s a stretch, but not everyone pays attention to these things, which is what these media companies bank on (meaning they know they likely won’t get called out on it). This kind of “lazy writing” is one of the reasons why I dislike Oriental Daily – most of their articles are worded this way and if audiences don’t read from other sources or don’t pay attention / scrutinize what they read, they could be easily misled. Of course, Oriental Daily isn’t the only HK media outlet that has this issue, but it’s definitely one of the worst. It’s sad that so few media companies nowadays actually take the time to do their research and make sure they are writing accurate info. The above actually isn’t half as bad as some of the stuff I’ve read over the years where you have “after 90s” and/or “after 2000s” reporters/media people trying to write about things that happened in the industry back in the 70s or 80s and the info is totally wrong…you can tell that the reporters didn’t do their research (which would’ve been necessary especially if the reporters weren’t even born yet when those things occurred) – but of course, most people nowadays won’t know the difference so they are able to easily get away with it.
Kenneth Ma’s acting might make this series even worse ol.
@lileric it’s ok…as long as grace chan is not in this drama…nobody can make the ratings drop.
in fact, this would be like watching 千万之王…reminds me of my childhood except there are younger characters.
I don’t understand why people supposedly compared it to one of the few gambling movies Wong Jing had nothing to do with? Why didn’t they compare it to God of Gamblers? I mean even that’s kind of a stretch but at least it was written and directed by Wong Jing. All for the Winner was a Jeffrey Lau (thank God) movie and a parody on gambling films.
@peanutbutterjelly Comparing WJ with JL is more of a jab at WJ IMO. That’s why I think WJ so quickly said, nah, it’s more like a movie I made and not another person’s work. Eventhough WJ hasn’t have an ounce of originality as of late….
@jjwong LOL…true, but given Wong Jing’s reputation, if I were Jeff Lau, I would be offended at the comparison….
@jjwong I beg to differ. Jeff Lau is an all around better director than Wong Jing. His quirky brand of comedy is not something that is digestible for everybody but I’m glad he was part of the HK film industry during its glory days and gave us classics like All for the winner and A Chinese oddysey part 1 and 2. Not to say he didn’t make a lot of crappy movies also but his best works are miles better than anything Wong Jing has ever touched.
@peanutbutterjelly @llwy12 I didn’t mean to imply that WJ is better than JL. I was just saying WJ didn’t want to be compared to JL hence he said this series is more like on of his own films. I said he (WJ) himself saw it a jab to himself. Trust me, I agree that JL is a better influence than WJ.
This drama is boring so far. I need something to hook me in. I am warming up to the Kenneth Charmaine couple, but there’s not much to speak of and they’re bogged down by weak supporting cast and storyline.
Kenneth Ma? no no
I prefer the pairing of Monica Chan and Natalis Chan. Monica looks like she hasn’t aged a day. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that she and Charmaine were about the same age.
@jing2x
What? Monica looks good for her age, but to say, that she hasn’t aged a bit, is a far stretch. There are very visible wrinkles on her face and neck.
First time watching Louisa Mak’s acting. It’s so raw and stiff. I find it unbearable to watch. It’s not like Louisa is good looking either. I think her face is odd looking. That’s my opinion of course.
TVB needs to do a better job with casting and developing new actresses. If they can’t act then they shouldn’t be placed in prominent roles. I just finishing watching ViuTV’s Psycho Detective drama series. Not only it was one of the best Cantonese drama series that I’ve watched in recent years. Their rookies are far better actors and actresses in their supporting roles than TVB’s. Totally inexcusable considering TVB’s been around for half a century and ViuTV just started up like a year or 2 ago.
what a sorryass series. It’s boring and has nothing to do with gambling beside a few clips. my gosh, TVB can’t find someone better looking than Natalis Chan?
@skyking
I agree! if it wasn’t for Monica Chan, Charmaine Sheh and Ming sir. I wouldn’t have made it so far in this series as I could care less for the other actors and the plot itself is lengthy and dull. There are so many pointless scenes and predictable twists.
Raymond Wong should have been chosen to play the lead character instead of Kenneth Ma.