Okay, I’ve been more than lazy as far as blogging/updating goes. Blame Twitter. It’s simply much, much easier to post about these short meta, media stuff there. Excuse accepted right? Awesome. Then, here’s a gift for all the fangirls. Issue 676 of TVB Weekly has Raymond Lam splattered everywhere. I’m quite sure it’s supposed to be an issue covering The Mysteries of Love, but Raymond is obviously more important. TVB is really trying to put his name and face out there this year with concerts, dramas, movies, and whatnots. After the TV King trophy slipped from his hands in 2008, Raymond of course went home unsatisfied. Hence, I suppose he’s working extra hard to make that trophy his this year. Although I’m not too keen about Mysteries or Raymond’s performance as Kingsley, shortened to Kings (OMG, dies laughing), I can’t deny that the guy is going to be everywhere during the latter, more important half of the year. I mean, seriously, not mentioning his concerts and movies, we’re already hinted that Growing Through Life and tentatively known as An Uninvited Date will air before anniversary time. What are the odds?

On a related note, I really wonder if Tavia Yeung will be the first female in TVB to land the awards in the most hilarious order. You know? The supporting actress, the favorite female character, and then the best actress award in 3 consecutive years. It would be a new page in TVB history, lol. That’s not to say I think Tavia should win this year. I actually think she shouldn’t.

Moving on to the next cover story, issue 677 features Ghost Writer‘s three leads Steven Ma, Linda Chung, and Fala Chen. (Why is Sunny Chan left out?!) It has been a while since I last watched—that is to say since TVB last produced—a somber ancient costume tragedy with fantasy elements involved. Moreover, it is a story based on a true historical figure, Pu Song Ling, famous for his many stories of liao zhai. Thus far, the drama is rolling along firmly with a consistent atmosphere and intriguing characters. I’ll leave it at that since I want to save my thoughts on the execution, script, and acting for another post. In any case, I absolutely love the design of the magazine’s pages for the cover story; very minimalistic yet elegant.

Remember that actual images are huge. Be careful if you have slow internet.

Issue 675 of TVB Weekly covers soon-to-end drama Sisters of Pearl and spotlights the 4 main characters, portrayed by Bowie Lam, Kiki Sheung, Jessica Hsuan, and Michael Tao. Ratings for the show have not been too high, averaging around 29 pts according to my rough estimation, but the show has managed to generate some talks and there are many speculations about its characters and schemes. Not too shabby, although it is getting overshadowed by the hype of The Mysteries of Love. Hopefully, more viewers will tune in to this last week to see how the family struggles toward a resolution. The cover story does have a page focusing on scenes/summaries of the last few episodes, but I’m not posting that page because it is crazily spoilerific. Yes, I think I already know the ending. *Growls*

Also, there is some confusion over how many episodes Sisters have in total. To clarify, TVB is airing 28 episodes in Hong Kong while fans overseas should be able to grab the DVD version totaling 30 episodes. I don’t think the cut scenes are that significant and the ending should be the same for both versions. Besides, two episodes with TVB pacing mean nothing.

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Issue 670 of TVB Weekly features the fantasical world of latest TVB "science fiction" Fly With Me, where Ada Choi holds the helm as the almighty superwoman Janet Bin. If I remember correctly, the last time we saw Ada was in The Gem of Life in which her performance was better received than the entire series. Now, behold Ada as the new talk of the town, whether it’s her big butt as Leung Hau Chi, her transformed whip-like graphite hair, her violet butterfly mark, or her many, many, many flashy earrings and sharp outfits. Meanwhile, Moses Chan comes back on screen as a more poised, serious, remote, quiet genius–a role rather contrary to his last, Tong Bak Fu in In the Eye of the Beholder–and of course, donning gray hair well beyond his actual years.

Check out the series and let these two carry you away! (However, I cannot guarantee whether they do it with a kiss, punch, kick, or nice powerful twisted karate chop.)

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If you’ve been checking the Photobook at least weekly, you’ve probably noticed that I had added scans for issue 667 of TVB Weekly a couple weeks ago. I didn’t post about it at the time because I was way too busy. Plus, I had nothing to say since I haven’t even started the series yet and the scans aren’t very interesting either. (I think TVB is abusing Tavia Yeung‘s rise in popularity and that’s not good in any way, shape, or form.) Nevertheless, now you know and you might also know that A Fistful of Stances (Kevin Cheng, Kenneth Ma, Selena Li) didn’t do well in terms of ratings until it’s last few episodes, notably its finale, which I hope to catch up to as soon as exams are over.

I’ve heard both positive and negative comments about Fistful, more so positive than negative. I’m going to keep my expectations low though, in the case that positive reviews are just from spazzing fangirls and shippers who aren’t critical thinkers. *Ahem* No offense to anyone really. I’m a fangirl at times too.

Issue 669 of TVB Weekly then is about Suspects in Love (Flora Chan, Joe Ma, Sharon Chan), which barely started its run a couple weeks ago. Not many TVB fans and/or viewers are tuning into Suspects, and I can totally understand why. It doesn’t have much appeal, does it? Other than being Flora’s return series, the rest of the cast is pretty bland and the love triangle is … well, another love triangle. However, I did catch 2 episodes of Suspects last week and will post my impressions on them soon along with some extremely delayed reviews.

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Issue 664 of TVB Weekly highlights newest ancient costume comedy In the Eye of the Beholder, starring Moses Chan and Myolie Wu. While the cover features the on-screen couple in a sweetheart-like pose, the next couple of spreads present them in a cat-versus-dog fashion. Cute, funny, childish, you choose.

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Issue 663 of TVB Weekly features the main cast of currently airing sitcom O.L. Supreme, including Liza Wang, Denise Ho, Chapman To, Ron Ng, and Koni Lui. I haven’t started the show but according to most of the viewers, O.L. Supreme is enjoyable. Liza takes on a different persona from her super bossy and powerful image in the War of In-Laws duology. Ron is a bus geek, very detached from his previous hot-tempered roles. Koni exerts more feminine charms. Chapman and Denise create hilarious situations. What’s not to see?

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Issue 662 of TVB Weekly is all about the "I love you, you love me" scenario and the "feminine husband, masculine wife" couple from laugh-out-loud romantic comedy My Better Half, starring Maggie Cheung and Michael Miu. (Thoughts on show coming soon!) The cover story talks about their characters Lai Sum and Ching Sum, respectively, as well as what each of them are currently filming. Maggie is working on Women Hurt the Most while Michael is on the set of COPS.

(I’m not sure if there are more pages with Teresa Lee and Michael Tse since our scanner didn’t send me any. I would like to see them featured too! But there is a section devoted to In the Eye of the Beholder and you can find the scans at the Myolie Wu site. I had no idea Wayne Lai is in Beholder. That’s something to look forward to.)

Denise Ho stands tall on the cover of TVBeauty Queen. If you like her, don’t miss her appearance in O.L. Supreme!

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