Eric Tsang’s Birthday Used to Coax Charmaine Sheh’s TVB Return?
Celebration is still ongoing for Eric Tsang (曾志偉) 60th birthday. With wild parties held at convention halls, clubs, hotels and even Disneyland, Eric was recently been treated to a dinner at a hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui by TVB Chairman, Norman Leung (梁乃鵬). Many ex-TVB artists were invited, including Charmaine Sheh (佘詩曼). It was alleged that the party was just a cover-up to cajole Charmaine to return to the television station.
After filming 2011’s Let It Be Love <4 in Love>, Charmaine left TVB to focus on the mainland Chinese market. As Charmaine’s management contract with China’s Creative Entertainment ended in March, HKTV, Now TV and Emperor Entertainment have been competing to sign Charmaine due to her ratings guarantee. Now TV’s Mui Siu Ching (梅小青) used her close relationship with Charmaine to persuade her to sign a contract. Charmaine admitted that she had met with NowTV earlier.
TVB’s Ploy
TVB is also interested in winning Charmaine back, even to the extent of using Eric Tsang’s birthday as the perfect opportunity.
An insider revealed, “Charmaine still owed TVB one series. It was initially planned for her to begin filming in April for You’re Hired 2 <絕代商驕> with Dayo Wong (黃子華). But due to conflicts with Charmaine’s work schedule and to prevent further delays for Dayo, Kate Tsui (徐子珊) was chosen instead.”
Charmaine is now given the option of choosing her own costar for her next TVB project. Nevertheless, Charmaine is biding her time. Exasperated, TVB has to seek the help of Charmaine’s mentor good friend, Eric Tsang. The insider said, “When TVB organized a lavish banquet for Eric, they were hoping that he would be able to use that opportunity to convince Charmaine to go back to TVB. Charmaine was afraid to attend, so now TVB has to try again.”
On April 16, Norman Leung organized a birthday dinner for Eric at the Royal Garden Hotel and invited Michael Miu (苗僑偉), Alex Fong (方中信), Lawrence Ng (吳啟華), Eddie Cheung (張兆輝) and Charmaine to attend. Present at the dinner were also TVB’s senior executives, Tommy Leung (梁家樹), Viriginia Lok (樂易玲), and other artists such as Christine Kuo (苟芸慧) and Nat Chan (陳百祥) and his wife. Lawrence said he is looking forward to collaborate with Charmaine again.
Perhaps due to the negative backlash over Eric’s wild party at Disneyland, the hotel dinner ended on a sane note. Eric was barely drunk and obliged the reporters by getting everyone to gather around for a group shot.
Source: Oriental Sunday #802 via ihktv.com
This article is written by Karen for JayneStars.com.
christine got to attend too? isn’t she kinda out of that league?
The birthday party was hosted by TVB, so anybody and everybody at TVB is probably invited.
I thought tvb has already organized a lavish 3 million dollar party for Eric.? This one is prolly a smaller, a more personal get together. Anyone knows who were the other guests that are not mentioned in this article?
since charmaine did not film any tvb series in 2012, does that mean she will have to film 2 series this year?
Nope since she signed a per series contract.
What is there tp coax? I mean
1. depends on script
2. depends on her free time
3. depends on fee
If TVB can fulfill 1-3 then no need to invite her to any party or eat cake or whatever.
Funny that they mention Let it Be Love and then say Charmaine is a ratings guarantee. Get better behind the scenes talent and they won’t have to resort to begging people to come back.
Wish Chermain will be back to film for TVB
YEAH! (x miss her.
So true, if TVB actually had good scripts and behind the scene workers, then there wouldn’t be this problem.
I didn’t know Lawrence and Charmaine were in a series togehter?
Gosh these people can act. Can we get them back, I am bored of all these newbies who can’t speak proper cantonese and can’t express their feelings across the screen.
Yes. I’m so over watching these so called actresses with bad Cantonese and bad acting. They are not actresses, and they need proper training.
There are actresses with proper acting training but wooden at max, so cant blame the newbie. And there are actresses who acted for years but still go downhill with acting and fans claime for “first time” or “sickness” as excuses. Hence, give the newbie chances and time. Dont be too harsh on them. There is thing called “improvement”.
HSDS ’00 also starring Gigi Lai.
Charmaine still owes TVB one series. She has to film a series for TVB sooner or later. Why TVB want to use up all its bullets now? Can keep it for later.
Likely because they can’t develop these artist to audience liking quick enough…
They are currently discussing with Charmaine to film the 2014 series with Tony Leung Ka Fai & Michael Miu.
TVB is not just aiming to ask her to film series, her per series contract with TVB (including the restriction to appear and speak Cantonese in other HK TV stations) is going to expire this month or latest May.
Also they are establishing their own production house in China soon, their current young batch of contracted artistes do not have much star power to attract investors. So they are actively trying to sign ex-artistes especially those with large Mainland fans following.
4 in Love was one of the worse series I have ever seen in my life. TVB is so desperate that they want as many people back as possible.
The worst series for me is season of love. Bullet Brain is a close second