“Chinatown” Grace Wong, Elaine Yiu, and Natalie Tong Brace for Intense Fight Scenes
Chinatown <唐人街> is saving the best for last.
It’s been four months since the TVB martial arts drama rolled cameras, and our female leads have been feeling the weight of their roles. Donned in black assassin outfits, Grace Wong (王君馨) and Elaine Yiu (姚子羚) shared that any scenes involving those outfits would mean that they would have a long day of fighting ahead.
Chinatown has been exceptionally challenging for Grace, whose character specializes in fighting with her legs. Having to compete against martial artists of many different family styles, Grace said she’s still recovering from the hundreds of bruises she’s sustained from all the fighting.
Elaine, on the other hand, has to do twice the amount of fighting for Chinatown compared to The Unholy Alliance <同盟>. “It’s been struggle,” explained Elaine. “I accidentally hit my head when I attempted to do a backflip the other day, and I also had many scenes where I had to jump off a cliff or jump into the sea. In addition to having to manage my jewelry business, life’s been extremely busy.”
For an actress who hasn’t had as much action experience as her costars, Natalie Tong (唐詩詠) ironically plays the drama’s best fighter. “No one would ever consider me to be a fighter, but now I have to play the best one,” Natalie said with a laugh. “It’s hard work. I have a lot of catching up to do, but I’m having a great time. We’re saving the most intense scenes for last. The most challenging thing for me is having to memorize all the fight sequences. I don’t want to injure anyone.” In regard to her rumored non-celebrity boyfriend Samuel being “a big flirt” and always seeing different women, Natalie said, “We are just friends. It’s not that serious! I always have my male friends pick me up from work too!”
Chinatown is produced by Jazz Boon (文偉鴻) and stars Ruco Chan (陳展鵬), his third drama with Jazz Boon after 2016’s A Fist Within Four Walls <城寨英雄> and 2017’s The Unholy Alliance. Ruco’s role in Chinatown isn’t any easier compared to Four Walls and The Unholy Alliance, and the lead actor has sustained too many bruises and cuts to count in the last four months.
Mentioning that his schedule for Chinatown makes it nearly impossible for Ruco to spend time with his wife Phoebe Sin (單溫柔), who will soon give birth, Ruco said, “Our families are with her. I’ll be announcing the good news when it comes. The priority is for my wife to be comfortable and happy. (What about her pregnant women mood swings?) That phase is over! Once you get used to [the pregnancy] then everything is fine. The first few months can be difficult because there are so many things you can’t eat. We’ve been following our seniors’ advices.”
Source: Yahoo! HK
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
This drama looks like a ripoff from AFWFW, down to the Thai element. Btw why do women assassins always have to wear sexy tight fitting leather outfits and have a swishy long pony tail?
@passingby2 Fan service. Killing people in tight leather clothing is so impractical.
I have a feeling everyone will be boycotting this series. No one likes the same cast after a horrendous flop in ‘the unholy alliance’
@jimmyszeto OMG, that unholy alliance – I couldn’t even get pass 2 episodes it was that bad for me even thou I do like Ruco in some series. AFWFW series is also pretty overrated to me. I still didn’t get why so popular besides Phillip Ng can really fight all the others are just yawnnn….. lol And the customes of this Chinatown omfg….hhaa
@wm2017
No one really like to watch casts who cannot fight at all suddenly become world class Kung fu champions. It’s ok now and again but you don’t want sequel after sequel especially when the previous one was horrendous. Who wants to watch Elaine, Nancy and Natalie fighting with slow mo choreography? Who wants to watch Ruco act like he was an inexperienced 20 years old again in search to make a name for himself in the martial arts world?
@jimmyszeto I am boycotting Jazz Boon, the executive producer. He follows a formula and his productions always end tragically for no reason.
@coralie
Not just ending tragically. He does not know how to pace a series or maybe scenes and scripts are just written on the go. His series are all incoherent messes. It ends up with characters going berserk and action crammed up within a few episodes.
@jimmyszeto He’s very manipulative as a producer; pacing usually starts out very well in the beginning on purpose. He pays a huge load of attention on making the start engaging, but then it always feel like he hands the rein to someone else a quarter of the way in. That’s why his show’s ratings are always high initially and then in the end, when all his characters die. He milks the ratings for all they’re worth. No effs to give on what happens in the middle or integrity of plot. For that reason alone, I can’t support this guy. He’s trash. Just like Wong Jing.
Off-topic, but I started watching an old movie called Mission Milano this weekend from 2016. Had an all-star cast, so thought it should be decent at least (Andy Lau, Huang Xiaoming, Wong Cho Lam and Ouyang Nana.) But it was terrible. So terrible that I remember thinking I can’t believe films like this are made…why do these stars sign up for crap movies like this? Couldn’t finish it. Upon googling the movie, discovered it was produced by Wong Jing. Answers everything. Similarly, when “The Great Adventurer Wesley” was airing, my husband thought it sounded interesting and gave it a try. Knowing it was a Wong Jing production, I pretty much ignored the drama. Not even 4 episodes in, he agreed with me that it’s really crappy. I avoid bad producers as much as possible now.
@coralie
I remember guessing on here very early that in ‘Fist Within Four Walls’ the ‘pudding man’ was the final boss. It had potential after the good start. Then the pudding man was turned into this crazy cartoon character with exploding shirt in every fighting scene. Incoherent mess all his series. I miss the mid 90s when epic productions all flowed and paced brilliantly and they turn into classics where we can rewatch numerous times. None of these line walkers and crappy Ruco series will be regarded as classics…
not going to say i’d boycott but not highly anticipated b/c of nataile. just don’t see her what roles would suit her better than than the girly, flimsy, weak roles.
on the other hand, grace and elaine, steamy!
In every TVB drama series, there are always 3 to 4 scriptwriters with the good ones writing the start of the series to attract the audience. The middle of the series are usually the worst parts of the series. That is the approach used by TVB scripts department.
So Natalie Tong has shoe shined and ass kissed again to earn the best fighter role with zero dancing and fighting background…
When I see this cast and costumes, I can’t help but laugh.
Natalie is nice enough, but I am really not interested to see her as the lead, especially a fighter. She has low energy and not enough presence. Maybe she can play a tragic supporting character instead.