Lawrence Ng and Tracy Chu Make Odd Couple in “The Hippocratic Crush 2”
After the critical success of last year’s The Hippocratic Crush <On Call 36小時>, TVB producer Poon Ka Tak (潘嘉德) pulled out all the stops for the sequel, hoping to attract more viewers and even higher ratings. To inject new life into the series, he recruited veteran actor Lawrence Ng (吳啟華) and cast him opposite newcomer, Tracy Chu (朱千雪). The two unlikely costars will share many scenes together and their characters will even enter into a romantic relationship.
Lawrence Ng, best-known for his role as Dr. Paul Ching (程至美) in TVB’s Healing Hands <妙手仁心> series, will once again don a doctor’s coat in the upcoming medical drama. He portrays pathologist Lok Yin Sang (洛彥笙), or Lokman, a quiet and passive man who shuts himself off from the rest of the world. Lokman’s stoic personality is a result of his traumatic past. As a child, Lokman witnessed his parents being burned alive. The event left him psychologically scarred and caused him to distance himself from others.
By contrast, Tracy Chu’s character Heung Chin Yi (向芊兒) is an outgoing, stubborn, and competitive medical intern full of ambition. Chin Yi had a boyfriend who one day disappeared without a trace. Since his disappearance, Chin Yi took on the responsibility to take care of his only son and spends all of her spare time searching for her missing lover.
Lokman and Chin Yi’s stories intertwine when they meet at a local cafe owned by Lokman. Chin Yi frequents the coffee shop to conduct searches for her boyfriend and Lokman took notice. At first, Lokman thought Chin Yi was just a young girl wasting time at the cafe. His views changed however when he learned about Chin Yi’s story and the two slowly became close. Their opposite personalities often clash, resulting in heated arguments.
Lawrence Ng commented on Lokman and Chin Yi’s relationship. “Our personalities and ways of thinking are complete opposites. I eventually begin to change as I spend more time with Tracy. Her involvement made a big impact on my perspective of life. In the end, she heals the darkness in my heart, and allows me to handle life more positively.”
The Hippocratic Crush 2 <On Call 36小時 II> marks Tracy’s acting debut since winning second runner-up in last year’s Miss Hong Kong pageant. The first-time actress finds Chin Yi’s personality closely resembling her own, making it easy for her to get into character.
Lawrence revealed that he shares many scenes with Tracy and praised her for her efforts. “In the series, I’m either looking at the microscope or I’m looking at Tracy Chu! I think she gave a good performance, you wouldn’t notice it is her first time acting. Of course she would make minor mistakes, she is a newcomer after all. However, she did a very good job even as a new actress!”
Source: TVB Zone #825 via ihktv.com
This article is written by Katrine for JayneStars.com.
She’s a lucky son of a gun! I’m sure she has the HK audience’s support too since Miss HK.
She does have this leading actress potential aura about her though.
I agree. Still blows my mind how she didn’t win miss hk though. she should have been the winner!
i second that!
i hate her!
REally TVB? you invite a veteran actor back for a hit series and you get this girl as his gf? Yes, she’s Miss HK, probably doesn’t have any acting experience, nobody knows her, and this is basically her debut.
This is TVB’s new approach and policy in getting veteran actors back to promote their brand new actresses. Feel sorry for those veterans.
I don’t see this as new tactic. All actresses have to start somewhere. They had always mixed veteran actors with new actresses. If you look back at Sonija Kwok, Charmaine Sheh, Nancy Wu’s first major roles or any other actress’ acting roles, they were placed with established actors and actresses as well. TVB has always used this technique but they have used it more often due to the talent drain and lack of fadans/siu sangs.
But yes you could see it as a way to “promote” the new actresses
nancy was paired with ron in her first major role in twins of brothers. besides tvb never really promoted nancy. only recently this practice more noticeable. rebecca paired with kenneth and ron in her first role. tracy pairing with lawrence in her first role. jason pairing with linda in his first leading role.
well i only wanted to put straight that nancy wasn’t paired with established actor in her early days. both nancy and ron are newbies that time.
Actually, her first series with a supporting role was The Driving Power (非常外父). In that series, there was Adam Cheng, Cecilia Yip, and Michelle Yip. Triumph in the Skies were her second series with a supporting role.
It’s not new at all. It’s the way it has always been and always will be. That’s why actresses usually get popular at a younger age and actors can stay popular late into their career.
i agree with you, sel_fi_wu 🙂
I feel that we shouldn’t mind these facts.. I just hope that TVB have a good script and an interesting drama with good acting skills. However, if Tracy Chu’s acting is “horrible” or have no expressions, that’s understandable because it’s her first role as a debut actress.
The use of pageant winners is not new, but it seems to me that at least the pageant winners in past years (I’m talking about the period from the late 80s to 90s) had actual camera presence and charisma. Since the 2000s, most of the newbies seem to have no actual acting ability and only a few of them seem to make it. (This goes for the men too, although its much worse for the women). I mean, how many of todays lead actors can you envisage becoming award winners in the calibre of Tony Leung, Chow Yun Fat, Maggie Cheung, Cherie Chung etc.
@CM: I agree, but I mean some of the pageant winners from 80 – 90s weren’t that great at newbies either. I remember Charmaine wasn’t as good as she is now when she first debuted, etc.
True, not all of the actresses who came out of beauty pageants were great as newbies, but CM does have a point too in that many of those that came out of the 80s/90s era pageants (and even as far back as the 70s) – both winners and finalists only – had way more charisma and screen presence than the ones today do. (I’ve always been of the sentiment that the Miss HK ladies from back then (70s/80s/part of the 90s) were a true embodiment of the pageant’s “Beauty and Intelligence” slogan.). Just to throw out a few names for example – from the 70s, there were the likes of Angie Chiu, Cora Miao, Olivia Cheng, Regina Tsang, etc.; from the 80s, there were Cherie Chung, Cally Kwong, Maggie Cheung, Barbara Yung, Michele Reis, Kathy Chow, etc.; from the 90s, there were Anita Yuen, Amy Kwok, Kenix Kwok, Maggie Cheung Ho Yee, etc.;…..and that’s just scratching the surface. Sure, some of these actresses had natural acting talent and some of them had to go through training to build up those skills, but either way, the charisma was there. Nowadays, the ‘aura’ is different – the ‘quality’ of the contestants overall is lower and majority of them don’t have the ‘charisma’ and ‘presence’ that their predecessors did, so when TVB does their usual strategy of plucking contestants out of beauty pageants and sticking them into TV series with no training whatsoever, it backfires more often than it succeeds. Personally, I don’t have much confidence that this latest attempt (putting Tracy in THC2 opposite Lawrence) will work out, but of course no one will actually know until the series airs and we see how her performance is like (though if any of the pageant winners from the past decade are any indication, the prospects don’t look that great…). I guess we’ll just have to ‘wait and see’….
Tracy is either going to be hated or loved.