TVB Anniversary Awards 2020 (萬千星輝頒獎典禮2020) Review
Hey everyone! We are back after two days of releasing our TVB 2020 Drama Countdown post for a very exciting review of the 53rd TVB Anniversary Awards for 2020 (萬千星輝頒獎典禮2020). This award show is always one of the most anticipated ceremonies at TVB, and after a year of hard work by all cast, crew members, singers, etc. at TVB, it is time to repay their efforts. This event took place on January 10th, 2021 and can be viewed on TVB's YouTube channel. The entire show was put on live on YouTube, and you can watch the video here:
Without further ado, let's give you our thoughts and opinions about the award show! Here are a few general notes we wanted to talk about before delving into the full winner list. We were very pleased that we could see this show live on YouTube which was very convenient and had no technical difficulties. We hope this will continue in the coming years. We thought it was nice that they mentioned the cleaning procedures and precautions they took this time to ensure that it was as safe as they could make it. It was nice to see that the artistes, hosts, crew members and audience were all wearing face shields. Why Moses Chan was the odd one out wearing a blue mask then taking it off during his speeches, we have no idea. Liza Wang made a very inspirational speech that acknowledged the efforts, hard work, and courage to continue working despite COVID-19. She even advocated for them by asking TVB executives to give everyone a pay raise once things get better, which she has done before. It was a great way to open the ceremony, though we can't say we enjoyed her outfit. The hosts of the show were Dodo Cheng, Luk Ho Ming, and Crystal Fung, who did a good job overall facilitating the events for the whole night. We were pleased with the results, and enjoyed that most awards were given to those that were deserving instead of the "favourites" or with the intention of pushing forth TVB's agenda for the coming years, although it is obvious that this can't be avoided. The amount of thank you's to Catherine Tsang and Virginia Lok seemed to be endless for the night as per previous years.
Lifetime Achievement Award: Cast and Crew of Come Home Love: Lo and Behold (愛·回家之開心速遞)
Liza Wang presented this first award that is usually given to a veteran actor/actress that has been with TVB for a very long time. Surprisingly, this was awarded to all of Lo and Behold. The sitcom started in 2017 and has now reached over 1100 episodes, now airing every day of the week since last year. We were happy to see this award get shared among the whole team, since they have really worked hard, producing new episodes nonstop even when the pandemic hit the world. It is a show that we have been watching ourselves since the very beginning, and it has been nice to see this sitcom get recognized quite a lot over the past few years winning different awards. We have got to say that the outfits of most of this cast look pretty horrendous especially with Joyce Tang and Mandy Lam's choices. We hope that this award will renew the passion for the cast and crew so we can enjoy some fresh ideas and story lines.
Most Improved Female Artiste: Angel Chiang (蔣家旻) - Al Cappuccino, Hong Kong Love Stories, Solo World
We are really happy with this win. She was the most deserving out of the top 5 competitors of Regina Ho, Iris Lam, Moon Lau, and Gloria Tang. Angel truly showed the most improvement this year with her outstanding role of 水姐 in Al Cap that was very different than the roles she has played so far. We hope to see more of her in the future. It's unfortunate to see Moon not really getting any opportunities, and it feels like she's been quite stagnant over the past couple of years.
Most Improved Male Artiste: Brian Chu (朱敏瀚) - Airport Strikers, Al Cappuccino, Go! Go! Go! Operation C9
This award was presented by Brian to himself. It was definitely awkward to watch Crystal Fung touch all of the top 5 nominees' chests, not to mention unnecessary. Otherwise, we think Brian is deserving of this win. We enjoyed Brian's speech about hoping that he can maintain his passion for acting that keeps him awake at night from excitement after shooting a scene, and that he hopes that the tradition of "mixing TV and rice" will continue. His attire was formal and agreeable for the night. A few years ago, we would have definitely classified Brian as the "forgettable, someone's brother" character, but once again, Al Cap brought Brian into a new light as an actor. We hope to see Brian continue to improve especially with emotional scenes. Shoutout to Mark Ma and Joey Law who got to try some new roles and were provided different opportunities in the past year.
Best Supporting Actress: Winkie Lai (賴慰玲) as 蔣千霞/大小姐 - Al Cappucino
The Best Supporting awards are typically awards we greatly look forward to because they usually award artistes with true acting ability. Unfortunately, we didn't see the top 5 nominations clip for the Best Supporting awards which we would have liked for a refresher of the roles the competitors played. This award was presented by Sisley Choi, Winkie's close friend. Once again, we are very pleased with this outcome. Her speech was very well structured and smooth, and she seems like an eloquent speaker, and it was surprising to hear that she actually felt unconfident frequently. She did a great job as the big sister in Al Cap and was able to hold her presence well. We hope there will be more in store for Winkie to uncover her potential. Having said that, we would've been happy if Yoyo Chen won too since she really stole the show with her role as Sabrina in Life After Death.
Most Popular Drama Theme Song: "凡人不懂愛" by Hubert Wu - The Exorcist's 2nd Meter
After Best Supporting Actress was given, they moved on to this award instead of Best Supporting Actor which was presented later. We were kind of confused by the 4 award presenters who were only around 14 years old wanting to become singers. Also, Crystal Fung mentioned the wrong singer for 哭牆 which is actually Vivian Koo and not Kayee Tam lol. This was not a surprise at all to see Hubert win the best theme song, since there weren't that many good songs this year, and it seems like this one got the most views on YouTube for its MV. This is also the second year he's won for a song from the TEM series, but it was nice that this time it was for a slower and more touching song. We really do think this is one of the best songs for a drama this year. We feel that Hubert has gotten more confident over the years. The live version of the song wasn't too bad.
Vincent had a very short speech and seemed to think this award was for Al Cap instead of Legal Mavericks. He kind of seemed unexcited for this award but he did thank the Malaysian fans for their support. It was nice that he got the chance to add in a few more words when Malaysia's Favourite Drama award was given. For the presentation side though, it was awkward and difficult to watch these two new competition winners trudge through their cantonese. We wished there would've been other more established presenters or perhaps artists who are Malaysian Chinese.
Malaysia's Favourite Actress in a Leading Role: Katy Kung (龔嘉欣) as Dark Angel - Death By Zero
Katy seemed to be overjoyed with this award with tears in her eyes as she gave out her acceptance speech. We weren't huge fans of DBZ, but we did think that Dark Angel was a very unique character that was never really seen before. It had a memorable image and appearance, so we can accept the outcome here.
Malaysia's Favourite TVB Drama: Al Cappuccino (反黑路人甲)
It was nice to see that Malaysian fans got their pick for the Best Drama of the year and showed support for this drama. We also enjoyed that they took the time to mention the screen and scriptwriters who also deserved recognition for this original story.
Best Supporting Actor: Bak Biu (白彪) as 陳漢聲 - Hong Kong Love Stories
When we saw Lau Dan going up to present the award to his "friend", we were kind of thinking it might be Tsui Wing because they collaborated together in Come Home Love as father and son before, but it was actually Bak Biu who have worked together long before. We enjoyed seeing their friendly banter. Bak Biu gave the funniest speech of the entire night. Other people might have thought he was just talking nonsense, but we understood that he tried to interconnect all the characters he played this year from Lo and Behold to LM2 to LW3 to Hong Kong Love Stories, which he ran out of time to talk about haha and had to get kicked out by Do Jeh. Thankfully, during interviews afterwards he was able to thank his HKLS crew for his character. He did a very realistic portrayal of a loud and lazy husband always yelling at his family members. The other competitors in this category were also very strong this year like Tsui Wing and John Chiang from Al Cappuccino.
Best Hosts: Pakho Chau (周柏豪) & Benjamin Yuen (袁偉豪) - The PakhoBen Outdoor Show
We saw a few episodes of this but then didn't have the time or motivation to continue. It was a good change in scenery, and it's great to see that they are good friends outside of work. Hopefully they can go camping in other countries as they mentioned and inspire more people to appreciate nature amidst the concrete jungle of HK.
Best Non-Drama Programmes:
Miss Hong Kong Pageant 2020 - 香港小姐競選
Life on the COVID Map - 你還好嗎
Scoop - 東張西望
See Me Fly Again - 衝上雲霄大選
Happy Dinner Together -今晚請客
We didn't watch any of these. It's interesting to see Miss Hong Kong get the award. Scoop and Life on the COVID Map getting awards were a nice way to recognize that some of the staff worked and went to frontlines to report despite the pandemic. No comment for the others.
Most Popular On-Screen Partnership: Vincent Wong (王浩信), Owen Cheung (張振朗), Brian Chu (朱敏瀚) - Al Cappuccino
Pretty much what we expected. We thought it was funny how Vincent and Owen were just talking and Brian was just staring at them which kind of sums up their roles and dynamic of the relationship in Al Cap. This was one of the funniest partnerships of the year.
It's sad to see many TVB talents pass away this year. We kind of wished that the wouldn't zoom into Nancy and kept the focus on the slideshow. No complaints on her singing from us since we know she's not a professional singer.
Most Popular Female Character: Katy Kung (龔嘉欣) as 邱凱琪 - Hong Kong Love Stories
Congratulations to Katy for her second award of the night for a different character! Looks like this really was Katy's year in the spotlight. We enjoyed seeing her as the female lead in HKLS, even though it was only a 12 episode show. Her role as middle aged HK woman 邱凱琪 struggling with her family problems and working hard to save money to buy a property as a newly wed was down to earth and required subtle acting that felt real. What we enjoyed about these characters were that they felt like actual people you might see in daily life instead of a distinct TV character. It was an emotional speech, especially to hear that Katy's grandfather set her picture as his wallpaper after she won in 2016 for BSA. We hope that Katy will continue to show different sides of her to the audience when it comes to acting.
Best Actress: Sisley Choi (蔡思貝) as 趙正妹/癲姐 - Legal Mavericks 2020
We were quite satisfied that Sisley won this year! There was no competition in this category in our opinion. The top 5 nominees were not great and it seriously reduces the validity of the Best Actress award but they gotta have one every year so this is it. Ali's character was forgettable this year, and they weren't gonna give it Katy again. It also seemed unlikely Mandy Lam would get it for the sitcom. As for Mandy Wong, she must have felt disappointed that she went home empty-handed since there was so many rumors that TVB would give it to her this year, but we thought her Madam G from LW3 was probably the weakest of these 5 contenders. Priscilla Wong honestly might've made more sense in Top 5 instead Mandy Lam or even Mandy Wong for her lackluster portrayals this year. Sisley was calm and had a well-thought out and reflective speech looking back at her career and this year's efforts. We like how she compared this time to 3 years ago when she won the favourite character award for Legal Mavericks where she was unconfident and said she didn't like herself to now. She has grown tremendously throughout the last 3 years and were given numerous opportunities to act with some very experienced actors and actresses. We can clearly see that her acting has matured from her very first roles where she was stiff and awkward. 癲姐 was one of the most memorable female characters this year to us. Compared to 3 years ago, 癲姐 was even funnier and was a more complex and dynamic character in this sequel. Her portrayal brought the character to life as she mentioned that producer, Lam Chi-wah once told her. We are hearing that she is getting blasted on some online platforms because people weren't happy with this win, which is unfortunate. We believe it was a well-deserved win in terms of acting, especially with the fact that the competitors were so weak this year.
Poor Lau Dan misinterpreted Nancy Wu's misleading remark that he had a chance of winning and thought he won and stood up. Everyone also began clapping, so it's hard not to be confused. Joe Ma immediately stepped in to say he has a "chance". That was just a really awkward moment especially with a silence afterwards when they were waiting for the top 5 nomination video to play. But we soon found out that this was not even the most awkward moment of the night (more on that later)...
There were tears in Owen's eyes as he walked up the stage trying to process his win. Lau Dan did not seem to take it well when Owen rubbed salt on his wound haha.
This was another satisfying win this year, though Vincent as Cheung Sai-lun was also the star of the show. It was really their chemistry together that made the characters a lot of fun to watch. We remember Owen winning Most Improved last year, and we began feeling doubtful of him after leading Airport Strikers early this year with an unlikable character. We were proven wrong after seeing Owen 3 more times this year with very different characters in LW3, LM2 , and Al Capp, all of which were done well. He has worked hard in completing all sorts of feats like doing action heavy scenes, making jokes, or being completely naked at times. We hope to see even more of his improvement in the coming years.
Best Actor: Vincent Wong (王浩信) as 文申俠/盲俠 - Legal Mavericks 2020
Vincent was a big winner this year, with this being his third award of the night. This is also notably the second time he won Best Actor for the same character as Hope Man. Both Sisley and him snagged the big awards for LM2. Playing a blind lawyer is not easy, since you have to experience being blind and also be a good speaker for the lawyer part. Vincent puts great emotion into his scenes and is a distinguished actor, whether in this role or in Al Cap. There was a lot of buzz for Raymond Lam to win this year, but he did not show up which might show that he does not care for these awards anymore. He also wasn't a big part of LW3. But we must ask, did Vincent forget what character he was getting the award for? Because he just went on about his character for Al Cap and thanked the whole team and cast for that show, but did not mention LM2 at all. It's likely due to the fact Al Cap was more special to him, and he had a more unique and fresh character from that - but still a very absurd acceptance speech.
Probably the most discussed moment of the night that was not even award related was when Vincent wanted to thank his wife, Yoyo, for taking care of their daughter. Yoyo had a cold, expressionless face in reaction to this that garnered a lot of media attention. Some netizens also pointed out that he referred to her as "Yoyo" and not his wife which was interesting. Yoyo did mention when interviewed afterward that she was feeling a bit sick which might be the reason she was caught by surprise. She was also seen congratulating and hugging him later on in the ceremony, so it's up to you how you want to interpret it.
Most Popular Short Series: Hong Kong Love Stories (香港愛情故事)
This award was tailor made for this 12 episode show and newly added this year. It seems like TVB is always struggling to split the pork for everyone. This was a very different TVB romantic drama from what we have seen so far. We did enjoy this series with the look into different relationships at different age groups and the problems encountered by these couples specifically in Hong Kong.
Best Series: Al Cappuccino (反黑路人甲)
Al Cap was the award sweeper of the night, having won most awards of the night. This was also our top drama of the year because of its creativity and parodies of different Hong Kong films. We were impressed with how fun the characters were along with its refreshing and dramatic plot, and we were glad to see so much recognition given to it tonight. More details on our thoughts about drama from our countdown post here.
Red Carpet
We will give some brief comments on the red carpet looks this year. Many of the looks were disastrous... maybe they didn't have sponsors or something. The actresses necks were looking quite bare as well, definitely a sign of a missing deal with Luk Fook Jewelry.
These 4 looked nice and classic, with King's velvet suit to Shiga's cute headband and Venus's puffed sleeves and Mark's 3 piece suit.
Who is the person beside Bowie Cheung dressed for a winter snow day? We found out he is some host, but we haven't seen him much around.
Elaine had a safe choice this year, no comment. Is Edwin wearing a skirt?
Kelly Fu had a nice purple floral look and had one of our favourite looks of the night!
- CeeJay
Overall for the awards I feel really happy with the results and after reading your post, I share the exact same sentiments as you! I felt that almost every award was well deserved and honestly, happy because some of my favourites did get the awards, like Owen and Vincent. Especially when Vincent won so many awards from both LM2 and Al Cap!
ReplyDeleteI hope to see more of Angel Chiang as she’s really pretty and also I liked her in Al Cap. The same can be said for Winki too! As for the song award, It was a very tough choice between the songs for LW3, TEM2 and Al Cap for me. Hubert deserved it, but I personally loved LW3’s songs, all 3 of them from Hana and Raymond. Kathy Kung won quite a few awards too, but I only watched her in DBZ, so idk.
On-screen partnership award has to go to the Al Cap trio! Vincent and Owen even had to do a kiss! Now that’s a really big sacrifice!
For Best Actress award, I think Sisley deserves it. I really loved her character in LM2! She did well and I like the character of 癫姐! I thought Mandy Wong would win it as LW3 would help her, but I was wrong. But I was really sad to see so many online comments from various platforms like douyin and youtube bashing her… I just don’t understand why. Maybe in LW3 and Airport Strikers they may not like her, but this award was for her LM2 role which she did well in.
As for Popular Male Character Award, I think Owen definitely deserves it as Ko Bun was heavily favoured and even online comments said that in Al Cap, they liked him even more than Sai Lung!
For Best Actor, Vincent deserves it too! This year is his year with both Al Cap and LM2. As for Raymond Lam, I think his screen time was way too little in LW3 and its not even his fault, when he was on for scenes like Lam Nam’s death and knowing Ah Deng’s “death” he really displayed solid emotions.
Best series has to go to Al Cap, no doubt about that. Honestly imo, only DBZ and LW3 had a chance at it.
As for the Vincent and Yoyo thing, This overshadowed him winning the award. I think lots of factors like her expressionless face and Vincent not referring to her as “wife” gave reporters a field day. Online comments were all bashing Vincent and pointing blames at him when nothing about their marriage situation is known. I couldn’t believe it! But I would guess that Vincent didn’t spend time with his family and only Yoyo took care of their daughter most of the time. I wish him the best of luck.
As for dressing, I think Regina Ho, Kelly Cheung, Priscilla Wong and Yoyo Chen, stood out nicely.
I noticed that Moses was the only one who wore a proper face mask, haha good guy Moses. I couldn’t believe that LW3 and no one from LW3 didn’t win a single award. While yes, it wasn’t a great drama, but I thought TVB would have given it something since it was a TVB-China collab. Guess Michael and Raymond came back for nothing.
Overall, after reading your well written and elaborate post, I think we can both agree that majority of this year’s awards went to the rightful winner and we are both happy about that! :D
Hi Nicholas,
DeleteThank you for your reply and for taking the time to read our post! Glad to hear that you share the same thoughts on the awards show this year! We didn't mention the on screen kiss shared between Vincent and Owen but you are totally right! That alone deserves the best partnership award since they are always breaking new barriers to create new sparks for the audience.
We have heard about the backlash of Sisley's win as well, and frankly any winner would've had backlash for this category in our opinion. If Mandy won then the audience who truly watched the show would've known that she wasn't able to bring her character to life. This is an acting award, not an award for who has been in the industry the longest. Having said that, hopefully Mandy is able to pick it up again and show us her skills.
Thank you Cee and Jay for posting another fantastic review in such a short time. I enjoyed watching the show this year, and the rewards went to well deserved recipients. Yes! 反黑路人甲 is the big winner.
ReplyDeleteHawkLo
Hello HawkLo
DeleteThank you for the comment! We are glad you enjoyed Al Capp!
CeeJay
I watched the award show, hoping to find something to bash as the previous ones were incredibly disappointing but this was comparatively better.
ReplyDeleteTVB is really trying to split the pork here, making a new category for the mini-series thing when there's only one or two dramas fitting that role? Personally, I think the Lifetime Achievement Award should've gone to another veteran actor, despite the CHL team's hard work even during the pandemic, because it's supposed to be that way. It's good for CHL to be recognised, yes but maybe not using this award.
I can't really comment a lot on the actor awards since I haven't watched a lot of them but I don't think Katy Kung's role in DBZ (uh not Dragonball Z) was really deserving of an award. It was a new type of character and I think she handled it well but not really award-worthy imo, probably should've gone to either Yoyo Chen or Shiga or even Priscilla.
Just had a look at the nomination list, and it is long... like, really long. I don't see the value of being nominated anymore since there are so many not so good performances with the great performances. Cannot believe FH4 got a nomination in every category except the partnership and most improved female artistes.
Hello Tacocat,
DeleteThanks for your comment, glad to see you back on our blog! TVB is definitely carrying on with their splitting pork antics and it now seems more like a school awards show to congratulate students on a job well done over the past year. This is reflected in their nomination list of nominating everyone who had a remote role in every drama like Sharon Chan in FH4 for best supporting actress.. we forgot what she even did.