HKTV Drama, “The Menu” Talks about Press Ethics
Although a free broadcasting license for the new station is still pending, HKTV is showing no signs of slowing down its drama production.
On Wednesday afternoon, the cast and crew of HKTV’s new television drama, The Menu <導火新聞線>, held its blessing ceremony press conference. Targeting on the topic of Hong Kong press freedom, the main focus of The Menu will be on the ethics of press censorship and control. For mass appeal, The Menu will also incorporate elements of thriller and suspense, with stories concerning the gripping experiences and sacrifices that must be taken in order to strive in the press industry’s fast, deadline-driven environment.
The project was first announced to be in production last year at HKTV’s Sales Presentation event, in which a 2-minute teaser trailer was released.
The Menu will star Kate Yeung (楊淇), Catherine Chau (周家怡), and Noel Leung (梁小冰) as three news reporters who clash with each other due to their different outlooks and philosophies in regards to news reporting. The editor-in-chief only has eyes for money and will not hesitate to over exaggerate news to gain attention, while the hot-blooded news director and reporter will do anything to reveal the injustices of society.
Directed by established television director Fong Chun Wah (方俊華), who has directed many famous TVB dramas in the past, The Menu is written by former TVB scriptwriter Poon Man Hung (潘漫紅), best known for her work in Armed Reaction 2 <陀槍師姐II>. Ex-TVB scriptwriter Lam Siu Chi (林少枝), whose last work with TVB was 2010’s Can’t Buy Me Love <公主嫁到>, will serve as The Menu’s creative director.
Shek Sau (石修), Benji Chiang (姜文杰), and Kwok Fung (郭鋒) will also star.
“The Menu” Trailer
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Source: ihktv.com
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
I hope hktv gets their license soon. I am so sick of rape scenes and broken cantonese actresses. Please give them their license.
*amused* Somehow bernice magically improved her Cantonese when she went off to mainland?
Hate to break it to you, but you are getting the same old “broken Cantonese actress” and then some. (check out danson tang) 😀
I think she meant the newer actresses, Bernice’s canto improved a lot from when she first started( thats been a long time ago) not when she just go to mainland. Also I heard Danson is gonna be dubbed so yeah..
I know! I totally agree about the broken Cantonese. For me, it’s really annoying to have the cross-over between China and HK
Oh yes! The industry could do with some competition. I actually like some of the RTHK series (ICAC and Fire fighter series) although the casts are less than spectacular. At least they are different from the same old recycled TVB plots and faces.
So what exactly is the purpose of the blessing ceremony? It already finished filming and it’s not airing anytime soon either.
It’s filming now. It hasn’t started filming yet.
OMG….. It Noel Bing… Been so long since I last saw her acting… Still look as good as ever… Missing her aciting so much… One of the feels good female actress…
“the menu”? but they are reporters?
Probably they are serving up victims of crime or even their own conscience on a platter to be consumed by the ruthless media so they called it the “Menu”?
I don’t know, but it seems much more interesting that the family dramas. Noel looks great. Have always missed her on screen.
But I have to say, some of the HKTV series are very bad, like the vampire one or the singing one. Out of all of them, I only have interest in “The Menu” and the dramatic one with Felix as a policeman in changing HK (not the supernatural one which looks strange).
Now I am confused. Is it CTI or HKTV?
Ricky Wong publicly stated last month that they will be getting their free-broadcasting licence this month. We are only a week away to April. What’s going on?
Just to clarify….it wasn’t Ricky Wong who said it…it was the Media and their so-called ‘experts’ who were ‘speculating’ that the licenses would come the month of March due to it coinciding with some government meeting or something. Ricky Wong has pretty much stopped talking about the ‘when’ part (in terms of the licenses) because he was burned too many times in the past 3 years with ‘false messages’ from the government and Media about the licenses ‘being issued soon’. Plus even if the gov’t does decide to issue the licenses this month, HKTV most likely still can’t start up because of all the legal proceedings they have to go through (remember that both ATV and TVB already launched judicial reviews against the government issuing licenses, so that has to be dealt with first)….analysts predict that the legal mess with the judicial reviews, counter lawsuits, etc. could put the licensing thing on ‘hold’ for at least the next 2 years (I’m hoping that the analysts ‘over-estimated’ the time frame)…at this rate, Ricky is better off releasing the series to overseas audiences instead (the HK audiences can thank TVB and ATV for screwing them over if it turns out they don’t get the chance to watch HKTV’s series).
I am so excited for HKTV’s shows. Particularly this one – Noel Leung. Enough said. 🙂
Wasn’t one of those actresses used to have small bit parts at tvb? THe other one has flared nostrils, I’m just saying. Are the other two actresses supposed to be popular that’s why they are the lead in here?
I dunno, there was one part that was pretty graphic. Call me old fashion but I guess I long for the days when series were not trying to constantly pushing the envelope looking for ratings.
Yeah it may not be a rape scene, but bloody scenes aren’t that much better imo.
However HKTV’s bloody scenes are better made than Txb’s, really so. Txb’s blood is staying in the 90s or sometimes, worse.
Exactly! The acting and scripts aside, one thing that’s pretty much guaranteed at this point is that the graphics for HKTV’s series will be much more beautiful and realistic than TVB’s series, since HKTV is using state of the art equipment to film their series (same equipment that Hollywood uses to film movies) plus every series utilizes real location filming (as opposed to all those fake sets that TVB uses). That right there makes HKTV’s series more ‘high quality’ from a visual aspect, which I’m sure is a welcome change from TVB’s cheap, fake-looking CGI effects (if you could even call it that)….well, for me at least! :0)
The Menu? Yikes.
the series sounds promising. i believe tvb has never attempted this kind of genre because they only stick to cop series and family series which is stupid. the reporter genre will also give hktv good rapport with media since hktv is featuring the good side of the media too.
Yup…TVB hasn’t done such a series yet, though ironically, they did have a chance to at one point. Inbound Troubles’ producer Wong Wai Sing once said in an interview that he had wanted to make a drama that was practically identical to The Menu (same theme, genre, etc.) – he came up with an outline and presented it to TVB management, but they shot it down and refused to let him film it, saying that it wouldn’t appeal to their ‘housewife’ audiences and would garner too many complaints. Well, HKTV is attempting the series now because they’re not trying to cater to just the housewife audiences like TVB is (and they don’t stifle creativity like TVB does either).
This is why whenever I hear people keep ‘claiming’ that since the scriptwriters and producers who used to work for TVB have now jumped ship to HKTV, they are going to churn out the same old ‘crap’ that they did at TVB, I beg to differ…people don’t realize that part of the reason why a lot of TVB’s scripts suck is because the working conditions were different at TVB in that 1) the writers had to ‘cater’ to management and TVB politics (i.e.: ‘tailor’ scripts to certain artists they wanted to promote, refrain from writing about things that wouldn’t appeal to majority audience, etc.) – the scriptwriters actually didn’t have much creative freedom at all, 2) the writers worked pretty much the same way the artists did – endlessly day after day without rest (it’s hard to come up with creative ideas when your brain is so fried that you can’t even think properly) and 3) due to the frequency of the number of series that needed to be churned out, a lot of the scripts aren’t complete yet at the time of filming, so there’s the rush to change and rewrite things throughout the time the series is being filmed (hence the reason why a lot of times the character descriptions and plot summaries published in the beginning don’t match the actual series).
At HKTV, the scriptwriters can pretty much do whatever they want in that they can take whatever idea they have and run with it – they are not being ‘restricted’ in their creativity like they were at TVB. Ricky Wong actually put it best when he stated during one of his speeches that when the scriptwriters/directors/producers were at TVB, they were in a ‘zoo’ while now at HKTV, they are back in the ‘wild’, free to roam as they please…very true if you ask me….
There was a horror trailer I saw that will be starring Leila Tong and some other people. Cant wait to see that. My husband and I have been waiting anxiously since last year. Wonder when they will start airing.
“Leila Tong and some other people” ahahha sounds like you’re a fan of Leila. i’m anticipating on this series too! it’s called Amazing Century/驚異世紀 btw
Looking at the first photo, so many good supporting cast have jumped ship.