“The Forgotten Valley” Ratings Top Over TVB Anniversary Dramas
The period drama The Forgotten Valley <平安谷之詭谷傳說> starring Raymond Wong Ho-yin (黃浩然), Grace Chan (陳凱琳), and Louisa So (蘇玉華) was an anticipated success, and according to a rumor, the drama achieved an average rating of 26 points last week, defeating TVB blockbuster dramas such as Heart and Greed <溏心風暴3> and My Ages Apart <誇世代>.
This rumored rating didn’t even take into account the “seven day all-platform total ratings points”, a method that TVB has been using to report its viewership ratings. Because of this, TVB has changed to reporting viewership ratings every two weeks instead of every week.
My Ages Apart reported an all-platform average viewership rating of 27.8 points on its last week of broadcast. TVB’s other anniversary drama Heart and Greed reported 24.5 points on the same week The Forgotten Valley started airing.
The final first-week rating for The Forgotten Valley has not been determined yet, but it is speculated that the total ratings would be higher than both My Ages Apart and Heart and Greed.
The Forgotten Valley producer, Andy Chan (陳耀全), is thrilled about the success of his new show. He shared and interesting story from Raymond, who was hospitalized earlier: “A woman who stayed in the bed next to him was urged by her son to pack and leave the hospital, but the woman said she wanted to watch an episode of The Forgotten Valley before leaving!”
The Forgotten Valley takes place in the early years of Republican Era China, and centers on a group of women who band together to fight the patriarchy that has so long controlled their lives. Lau Kong (劉江), Rebecca Zhu (朱晨麗), Katy Kung (龔嘉欣), Louis Yuen (阮兆祥), Zoie Tam (譚凱琪), and Jess Sum (沈卓盈) also star. The first episode premiered on January 15, 2018.
Source: HK01.com
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
This is one of the most interesting tvb dramas I’ve ever seen. Maybe because I’m a female and we now live in the modern world. I still can’t believe that such a village existed in the past (and maybe still exists) where women are treated like nobodies and are only useful for giving birth to sons.
Yep very interesting. The men were very chavinistic to women and thus were very disrespectful. I can’t believe how badly women were treated. So glad that I live in a Western country in a modern world and society, but even now we still are not equal to men
Nothing fresh about the theme. Am tempted to watch since ratings seem decent but am reluctant cos Grace the Terrible is in it. Btw Raymond was in hospital and a woman was in the bed next to him? Huh?
This isnt any new genre. But rather one we havent seen in awhile! and i love it!! Last drama to have similar theme was the one with damien lau and tavia.
Does anyone think Zoie Tam and Myolie Wu look alike?
@cutie Yes, from the pix.
I am quite enjoying it. And i don’t get the comments about Grace. She has improved and toned down her facial expressions and voice. And she has good chemistry with Raymond.
Louisa is doing a fine job leading. Zoie Tam, Katy, Jeannie and Jess are great. Their friendship is very moving to watch.
Raymond is OK to watch but his character is meant to be overshadowed by the women. All the men (Lau Kong, Wai Kai Hung, Yu Yang, etc…) are doing quite well as supporting casts, especially those who are acting mean to the ladies.
And thankful that for once, Timothy is not acting as a villain because he is in fact such a versatile actor. I quite like his character. if he wants to turn evil later on, I can definitely see why but I hope ends up with his love interest.
Storywise, the series gets straight to the point and doesn’t waste much time. You get the frustration and bitterness from the women living in such a time. The horror from this series is that stuff actually happened like this in the past where women were seen as property and in some parts of the world, it is still happening and people still think that a women should accompany her husband to death and think it is an honourable thing.
Kudos to TVB for exploring this theme. It has been done before but it is always good to be reminded that love and respect should be equal for both men and women.
@elizabeth It’s enjoyable to watch storywise. As for Grace, I don’t think she has improved much. So I disagree. Louisa So and Raymond Wong are good and Lau Kong etc are great and classic actors. They are the ones that make the show enjoyable, not Grace
This is definitely not a new genre and no breakthrough like ‘the Exorcists Meter’. In fact the genre is very outdated beginning decades back with the plain love and sequels where women were treated as inferior up to the more recent ‘silver chamber of sorrows’ and ‘Dance of Passion’. However, the series is still watchable compared to some of the TVB series nowadays. This is due mainly to the veterans and the 4 sisters group. I’m a massive fan of Raymond Wong but his character here is very indecisive and weak. Grace has improved slightly and it’s good to have her in the mix otherwise the series would be too dark and sorrowful. Overall I would rate this series to be a cheap and lazy version of ‘The Dance of Passion’.
@jimmyszeto completely agree this is poor man’s version of Dance of Passion. That was tour de force cast and acting. This is decent but pretty cliche.
Spoiler ahead.
I must not have watching the same series as everyone else … besides Louisa, Lau Gong and Raymond, everyone else’s acting is poor. I’m glad the four young females are getting opportunities to act and shine. None of them, however, wows me. As I said in another post, they must invested in a lot of eye drops because the girls cry with teary wet eyes and no other emotion or expression. Rebecca has been the weakest thus far. Hope she shows more range especially now she’s picked to be the next ZZR. She might be worse than Charmaine when she played the role, lol. I can’t say Grace improved or not. Her character has been one note and unrealistic. You would think a person who high herself as progressive thinking, would be smart enough to approach the villagers differently then outright said, you guys are stuck in the old ways and totally unreasonably wrong, lol. She should be like more Raymond’s character.
Besides some knee-jerk dailouges from the male villagers (eg, the doc rather has his daughter buried alive with her late husband then support/live with her; how they would save Louisa’s kid if the kid is a son and not a daughter; so forth), the story has been 99% predictable, boring and uninspiring. Scenes would be more impact if they go all out. E.g. Jeannette was so clean even though she just crawled up from a mud grave; her cloth was splotless after a year of roughing it. Though I must admit, her blazing death to save her sisterhood was not something unexpected. Also, glad to see a girls club is formed this early though the way it was formed kinda rushed…
Overall, not bad, not great. Passable thus far.
This drama in and of itself, requires huge suspense of disbelief. Let’s start with the whole “western educated” piece. Why does TVB always show that Chinese people get Western educated in such a merry way? I don’t think most Western societies back then actually taught Chinese people due to rampant racism. With exception to missionaries, who and where would Chinese people get educated in the West? Next, there were still a ton of gender inequalities even back in the Republican era in the West. The women might not have to do as much due to the burgeoning technologies at the time, but to say women are “equal” to men back then is hogwash. The way Grace & Raymond act – it’s as if they’re in modern times like now!
As to Raymond… on one hand he understands there is still a lot of gender inequality at home and most of it is due to his dad. But on the other, he tolerates his dad’s behavior and accepts how he acts. This makes him a very indecisive and hard-to-root for character. The rest of the lady cast, I have no major issues with. Because their lives and characterizations were pretty consistent with their environment and unfortunate circumstances. I think all of them are doing well, except I don’t get why Jeannie would want to die in the fire for the sake of all of them. She worked so hard to stay alive and now decided to die again. It’s terrible.
@coralie yes i don’t even think US officially allowed women to vote or own property during this time period. Most signs point to Shanghai being more “modern” in ideology than SF. But whatever.
I don’t love this series but kinda suffering from nothing to watch in January syndrome.
@coralie YES, THANK YOU!
I actually don’t mind the drama generally, but they handled Grace’s character and the whole concept around her Westernized character very poorly.
A lot of her knowledge, actions, and “rights” seem more of a 21st century/modern times thing than a Western vs. Eastern culture thing. Like you said, it’s super unrealistic to pretend that women and men were equal back then, even in the West. The story also acts like the “capital city” that they talk about has also achieved gender equality… there is barely gender equality in many parts of Asia now, let alone then!
As @jjwong mentioned above, someone as “educated” as they are trying to pretend Grace is, would not keep trying to butt heads with everyone there. She also doesn’t seem to understand that tradition is very difficult to change overnight, and she is actually as shockingly stubborn and insensitive as Lau Kong is with her rubbing her knowledge in everyone’s faces and refusing to pay “respect” while expecting everyone to accept her. The concept of her character is more irritating than anything.
@melia880
Yeh. I agree to a certain extent. Feels like Grace has time travelled back a century again to marry Raymond. However I don’t see a problem with her speaking up everytime something unreasonable occurs. Would be so frustrating to hold it in…
@coralie
A massive fan of Raymond but his character is frustrating to like here. He tries to apologise to his dad everytime he calls him out for murder and drug rape of a childhood friend. Should have knocked him out at the very least in my opinion. I like the old gold mine concept though. It never gets boring and is preparing the plot to end spectacularly.
Praise has to go Zoie Tam and Katy Kung for superb performances. Katy has improved a lot but she is too thin and does not provide enough charisma to me promoted to lead in 2018 though.