PART 2 (article continued from previously):Andy Lau and Deanie Ip’s mother/son relationship in “The Emissary”
In the 70s, TVB’s biggest competition was RTV [TN: Rediffusion Television, which later became ATV] and during that decade, a big focus for both stations was filming police dramas. After years of filming heavily male-oriented police investigative series, Lee Tim Sing (Tim Gor) suddenly had a thought – instead of filming regular police dramas, why not film a series about police cadets?: “Just like that, the series “The Emissary” was born!”
Prior to this series, Andy Lau did have some acting experience, however since this was his first time in a lead role, a bit of nervousness was unavoidable: “If you ask me whether Andy’s acting skills were always proficient, I would tell you ‘of course not!’ In the beginning, his acting was extremely stiff – my assistant would tell me: ‘that’s not going to work!’ to which I would reply: ‘give him a few more days and he’ll be fine!’” Tim Gor had a lot of confidence in Andy and very carefully helped him figure out where the problem was: “In times like that, you absolutely cannot yell at the actors because if you do, the situation becomes worse. Plus, at that time, it wasn’t completely Andy’s fault – during filming, there were a lot of people in the studio and it was quite noisy – unless you’re used to that type of filming environment, it’s difficult not to become slightly intimidated. As a producer, as long as you understand the circumstances, then it’s no big deal – the more at ease the artists are, the better the acting becomes. A few days later, when I bumped into Andy in the makeup room, I gave him a pat on the shoulder and told him: ‘You’ve been doing much better!’”
Of course, let’s not forget that Andy also had great ‘teachers’ to learn from, as other artists participating in the series included Deanie Ip (葉德嫻), Paul Chun (秦沛), Lau Kong (劉江), etc. – all of them were veteran artists who are known for their solid acting skills: “The veteran artists were very willing to help teach the younger artists at that time; after all, helping the younger artists was the same as helping themselves, since it meant everyone could get off work on time.” In real life, Deanie Ip and Andy Lau truly have a special ‘mother/son’ relationship and have remained close even now, 30 years later – with regard to Tim Gor’s role in bringing these two together, he states: “Actually, there really wasn’t any special reason why I decided to cast Deanie Ip in the series. My intention at the time was to create a very close-knit, unique mother/son relationship where the two of them could joke with each other and act like sister and brother rather than mother and son. I knew Deanie from years back, around 1972 or so, when I was still in an assistant (場務員) role and she was already singing in “Star Show” – later on, we got the chance to collaborate on a series – I remember that every time I saw her, I noticed that she was always smiling, so she was perfect for the ‘happy mother’ character I had in mind for “The Emissary”.”
‘Golden’ pairing of Chow Yun Fat (周潤發) and Dodo Cheng (鄭裕玲) in “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” 《網中人》and “The Fate” 《火鳳凰》
Talking about ‘classic’ collaborations – Tim Gor’s 1979 production “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” created the ‘golden’ pairing of Chow Yun Fat (Fat Jai) and Carol (Dodo) Cheng: “Chow Yun Fat’s acting skills are unquestionably great and Dodo is an actress I love collaborating with! I remember back when CTV (Commercial Television) closed down, TVB had bought a lot of that station’s series. One of my scriptwriters at the time told me I should go watch Dodo Cheng’s performance in those series – to be honest, in the past, what time would I have to check out CTV’s series?” [TN: Dodo Cheng started her television career at Commercial Television in the mid 70s – when CTV went bankrupt and TVB bought them out in 1978, she became a TVB artist].
As soon as Tim Gor saw Dodo’s performance, he knew immediately that she was a talented actress – but, how she ended up becoming part of the ‘golden pairing’ with Chow Yun Fat was partly due to fate and the right timing. As we all know, in the series “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”, Fat Jai was also paired up with actress Cora Miao (繆騫人) and part of the storyline revolved around which woman he would ultimately choose: “The original plan [for the storyline] was that when a man [Fat Jai’s character Cheng Wai] is faced with two women – one who is a perfect match for him in terms of background, education, and thought process and who he had once been in love with [Dodo’s character Fong Hei Mun] and the other who is his dream ‘goddess’ and who understands him well, takes care of him, and is very considerate of his thoughts and feelings [Cora’s character He Ying] – who will he ultimately choose?”
Before the writers had a chance to make a decision, fate already made the choice for ‘Cheng Wai’: “After Cora Miao resigned in the middle of filming the series, the answer was already obvious, as there was no other choice – Fat Jai will definitely be paired with Dodo in the end. Any other characters who were added as love interests after that (Susanna Au Yeung for example) were all ‘facades’ whose purpose was to ultimately bring Fat Jai and Dodo together and move their relationship forward.” Back when the series aired, TVB claimed to have received 200 letters from audiences on a daily basis complaining about ‘Cheng Wai’ being paired with a different love interest as well as requesting that he and ‘Fong Hei Mun’ reunite. When the pair did get back together in the finale, it appeared that TVB had complied with the audiences wishes, but in reality, Tim Gor already had that ending in mind long ago: “Actually, as soon as He Ying was written out of the script [the character died in a car accident], the storyline of Cheng Wai ultimately getting back together with Fong Hei Mun was already set. When Cora quit, we had to ‘give up’ a lot of the storyline that we had originally planned for her – for instance, we had written that George Lam (林子祥)’s character was originally going to fight Cheng Wai for He Ying, but in the end, his character was forced to ‘disappear’. With much of the storyline gone, there was a huge hole that we had to fill and on such short notice, it was not feasible to switch over artists who were currently filming other series, so in the end, we picked Susanna Au Yeung (歐陽佩珊).” When Tim Gor asked for Susanna’s help to participate in the series, he was very up front with her: “It was necessary to be honest from the start that her character (Au Hui Wah) was ultimately going to die – I told her that it was definitely unfair to her and I felt sorry having to wrong her like that, but since we lost Cora, we really didn’t have much choice.”
In the end, Susanna’s character is killed while trying to save Cheng Wai and his mother and later on, he gets back together with Fong Hei Mun – the series ends with the famous ‘last scene’ where Fat Jai and Dodo kiss for close to 35 seconds, which at that time, was billed as the ‘marathon kiss of the century’: “We never planned the timing of the kiss itself – my only request during filming was that the cart pushing the camera do one full circle. The cart had to be pushed slowly because if it went too fast, the cameraman would get upset – after practicing the speed a few times, we did the official take with Fat Jai and Dodo…we finished in one take.” Why not film a few more takes so that there would be more options to choose from? “Camera film was expensive in those days: it cost almost a dollar a foot, and that didn’t include printing and developing – if you film too many excess scenes, the company didn’t like it!”
The ratings for the series went through the roof and there was also much praise from the audiences. However, there were a few audiences who questioned a few aspects of the storyline: “Some people complained that it didn’t make sense for Fat Jai’s character to ruin his career and life by stealing $100,000 in order to help his mother [played by the late Tang Bik Wan (鄧碧雲)], as he could have easily borrowed that money. When I heard that complaint, I was puzzled – why would someone go borrow $100,000 from someone else for no good reason, especially considering that was the year 1979?” At the time, there were also complaints that Liu Wai Hung (廖偉雄)’s character Cheng Chan eating 30 hamburgers in one shot was unreasonable, to which Tim Gor responded: “Yes, I understand that it is difficult for an ordinary person to eat 30 hamburgers all at once, but the purpose of that scene was to show how foolish and ridiculous the character’s thought process was as well as demonstrate the concept of new immigrants wanting to try Western trends [eating a hamburger].” Indeed, the character of ‘Cheng Chan’ had a huge effect on HK audiences and even helped to coin the phrase ‘Ah Chan’ as a nickname for new immigrants settling in HK from Mainland China: “During that time, it was common for HK people to go back to visit their ancestral relatives in the villages and oftentimes, they would exaggerate how HK was a ‘land of gold’, which caused a lot of Mainlanders to come here illegally. I basically ‘borrowed’ the idea after listening to several brothers from the village tell their stories and based the character on this. As for why we chose the name ‘Ah Chan’ – well, that was due to a lot of the stereotypical nicknames that were prevalent in our old society.”
While “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” reflected the struggles of ordinary citizens trying to survive everyday life, Tim Gor’s series “The Fate”《火鳳凰》reflected a different type of struggle – one on a more psychological and emotional level involving the upper eschelons of society. Once again, Chow Yun Fat and Dodo Cheng were paired together – was this arranged by the company given the couple’s popularity from earlier? “No – the most important thing for me is the character and how suited the artist is to portray the role. The main character in “The Fate” is the adopted son of a former triad king and starting from the first scene, there are already scenes involving his background – when it comes to portraying ‘grassroots’ characters, Fat Jai definitely has a knack for it!”
Dodo’s character in the series is the daughter of a rich lawyer, so in order to emphasize the importance of her family’s background, Tim Gor specially purchased a real leather sofa worth ten thousand dollars (remember, this is back in 1981) to use as part of the setting for the scenes involving her home: “Of course, the company complained about the expense, but from my perspective, the family is affluent and in order to match the background and storyline, it made sense to have an expensive sofa – would you expect them to have a sofa made from cheap fabric in their home? Besides, I only bought that one piece of furniture!” Tim Gor was persistent, but it paid off: “Sure, I got yelled at a little, but I don’t care – as long as I’m able to put the investment to good use and it pays off, those people will stop complaining.”
Filming grand production anniversary series “The Yang’s Saga” 《楊家將》
In 1985, the ‘golden couple’ of Chow Yun Fat and Dodo Cheng was taken to a different level – both became ‘deities’! In the grand anniversary series “The Yang’s Saga”, Fat Jai played Lui Dong Bun and Dodo played Ho Sin Gu [TN: historical characters], however both roles were only cameos that they agreed to do to help the company [TVB] fight a war: “At the time, the ratings for flagship program EYT had dropped drastically (and the company had to battle ATV’s Miss Asia pageant finals) – in order to fight back, the company ordered that all their resources be utilized for a grand production and filming had to commence 10 days from the order being handed down. Back then, the organization and structure of the company was strong – as soon as the order was received, we notified the Artists department and they immediately posted letters to all the artists’ lockers letting them know to be prepared. Artists such as Fat Jai, Dodo, Maggie [Cheung] all had series that they were currently filming, so they were asked to return for 1 or 2 days only to film cameo roles as ‘deities’. The director at that time was Johnnie To (杜琪峰) and he asked me how deities were supposed to appear, as it’s not ‘realistic’ to have them just walk out – after some thought, I realized he was right. The result was that we created a precedent by utilizing 18 wires all at once to have all the deities ‘fly’ out in the first scene of the series!”
The reason why the historical story of the Yangs was chosen for this series was primarily due to the short timeframe with which the series needed to be filmed and released: “If we had done a modern series instead, we would have had to spend too much time explaining the story to audiences and promotion of the series would be too strenuous – however as soon as we say “The Yang’s Saga”, everyone already knows the story.” With the popularity of the 5 Tigers at the time, it made sense that they would be recruited to play major roles in the production: “Michael Miu, Felix Wong, Andy Lau, and Tony Leung were arranged to play the roles of the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Yang brothers, all of whom carried much of the storyline – the personalities and mannerisms fit perfectly.” (Kent Tong did not participate because he was on hiatus due to Barbara Yung’s passing).
In the studio, everyone was originally in high spirits and ready to fight the battle, however after filming nonstop for a few days without any sleep, the situation became a bit volatile: “Everyone hadn’t slept for days, many people were in bad moods, and people were complaining. Johnnie To was pretty much yelling at people left and right – if the crew did their jobs quickly, then of course everything would be fine, but if they slowed down a little bit, then he would get upset and yell. At this point, I had no choice but to be the mediator and help settle things.” But Tim Gor also was filming without rest, right along with them: “Yes, but if I got upset too, we’d be dead! I had to keep the big picture into consideration.”
Tim Gor is definitely deserving of the title ‘natural born leader’!
Source: Mingpao Weekly, Issue 2252
Translated by: llwy12 @ AsianFanatics
