Producer Discusses Selena Lee’s Character Shift in “The Queen of News”
With The Queen of News <新聞女王> ending its broadcast, viewers were shocked and in turn displeased by Selena Lee’s (李施嬅) character shift. In the drama, Cheung Ka Yin (Selena Lee) did not receive punishment despite all her wrongdoings.
In response to the controversy, producer Chung Cheng (鍾澍佳) personally uploaded a long post on social media. He wrote, “Cheung Ka Yin’s background makes her one of the strongest women among the queens. She graduated from a prestigious university and is highly skilled. She is even more competitive than Man Wai Sam (Charmaine Sheh 佘詩曼). You can say her life was always been easy and she didn’t have any obstacles.”
However, Cheung Ka Yin suffered an 180-degree turn after her breakup, reunion with Tang Zhi Yao (Hera Chan 陳曉華) and betrayal by Sha Nau Wing (Eddie Pang 彭懷安).
Chung Cheng also wrote, “I’m so happy many netizens are displeased with Cheung Ka Yin’s character, who represents most people in this world. Like the rest of us, she is a little bit selfish and puts herself above others. It’s not that she doesn’t want to be nice, but she’s not a saint. She will maintain status quo if her sincerity is met with rewards and if she suffers no losses. Over and over again, Cheung Ka Yin ends up with the short end of the stick. She couldn’t even protect her most important news piece, how could she protect anything else? That’s why she ends up choosing herself over others.”
In response to the controversy about Cheung Ka Yin not getting the punishment she deserves, Chung Cheng explained in his post, “Sorry, I originally planned to have a cast of evil women’ from the very beginning. Everyone did get the punishment they deserved – just that no one has noticed. For example, Man Wai Sam’s (Charmaine Sheh’s) guilt for the past decade caused her to suffer from insomnia. Cathy (Samantha Ko 高海宁) lost her father. Regina Ho’s (何依婷) character has a mental illness after losing a loved one. Even after Cheung Ka Yin receives her promotion, she is seen alone in her red-colored office while everyone else celebrates – symbolizing her loneliness which is similar to the old Man Wai Sam. Justice and punishment in real life can be very different – it doesn’t have to be in the typical ways where we have a clear winner and loser. Not everything is black and white, or life and death.”
Source: [1]
This article is written by Su for JayneStars.com.
I liked Selena’s performance but I’m also in the camp that complete character turn around didn’t really work that well,
Yes it was just too excessive. Not sure what the reasoning was as she was never power hungry.
To be honest I saw it coming from a mile so I didn’t mind. I was disappointed that she was not devious enough. After 3 quarters of the series telling us how capable she is, but didn’t really see her do anything especially devious even to the end. Would be more interesting if she “turned” earlier and we got to see her grow in as the “evil” Selena.
Agreed. I really liked her in the first half, she was in my top 3 performances. I also didn‘t love the sudden change and then in the last episode, she suddenly decided to do the right thing again. The timeline is too short for a character to change/not enough context. Did her wrong honestly.