TVB Lacks Competent Leading Actresses

With TVB actresses leaving, getting married, and taking leave to raise babies, the station is left in a void when casting competent actresses in leading roles. Furthermore, after Jacqueline Wong (黃心穎) and Elaine Yiu’s (姚子羚) promotion to leading actresses, their controversial love lives cast a shadow on their careers. Despite heavy promotion of supporting actresses to carry leading roles in recent years, many are either on hiatus or agree to only filming one series per year.

In an online forum, netizens discussed TVB’s current lacking of leading ladies. Current first-line fadans include Kristal Tin (田蕊妮), Nancy Wu (胡定欣), Natalie Tong (唐詩詠), Ali Lee (李佳芯), Mandy Wong (黃智雯), Priscilla Wong (黃翠如), Alice Chan (陳煒), Grace Chan (陳凱琳), Grace Wong (王君馨), Rebecca Zhu (朱晨麗), Sisley Choi (蔡思貝) and Kelly Cheung (張曦雯). However, at least half of them are on a semi-hiatus mode. It seems apparent that TVB is currently struggling in finding new blood to replace them.

Ali had won Best Actress for her performance in Who Wants A Baby? <BB來了> last year. Expected to take advantage of her popularity rise and accept more dramas, the actress instead chose to pause work and rest because of her deteriorating health. The same also applied to Kristal, who expressed her body couldn’t take on filming anymore, and rested for six months. Though she had filmed Girlie Days <她。她。她的少女時代> earlier this year, the actress is focusing on music and hosting now instead.

After getting married and giving birth to her son, Grace Chan hasn’t filmed a drama in months and is only attending events. Priscilla Wong, who got married to Edwin Siu (蕭正楠) last year, is also slowing down her work because of baby plans. It was earlier rumored that she had rejected replacing Jacqueline Wong to re-film Forensic Heroes IV <法證先鋒4 > and Finding her Voice <牛下女高音> because of this reason. Nancy on the other hand, has slowly reduced her work from filming four dramas to one drama per year to explore singing and new endeavors.

The remaining actresses such as Natalie Tong, Mandy Wong, Grace Wong, Rebecca Zhu, Sisley Choi, and Kelly Cheung are expected to support future TVB dramas. This is likely problematic, as half of the promoted actresses still possess raw acting skills. Also, viewers would soon be bored in watching the same actresses cast in circulation.

Source: HK01

This article is written by Minna for JayneStars.com .

Responses

  1. They really are lacking; out of that list I really only see potential in grace w, Rebecca, and Mandy

  2. I hope Grace Chan never films again. She’s horrible and don’t know how she became lead.

  3. In what universe is Grace Chan a leading actress? Ugh she can’t even act. I don’t want to be a cyberbully, but she just cannot

  4. Sorry, but none of the listed actresses were that good to begin with (and many are still either mediocre or cringe-worthy even now). TVB has been lacking in competent leading actresses for at least 2 decades already (though if you ask me, it’s been longer than that). Same goes with leading actors too — it’s across the board pretty much. If they had enough competent leading actors/actresses, they wouldn’t have to keep inviting veterans (ones from the 80s and early 90s) back to lead series for them.

  5. bring back the old batch of the 90′ and 00’s… Jessica Hsuan, Kenix Kwok, Flora, Ada, Esther =)

    1. @vodka Let’s do even better – bring back the actresses 80s and early 90s era, most of whom had beauty as well as acting talent (though sadly, many of them are either retired or no longer with us). But even the lesser talented ones back then could run circles around every actress TVB has currently…that’s how bad things have gotten nowadays…

      1. @llwy12 1000% agree. It hurts but true 🙂 i dont mind seeing 80s and 90s actresses on tv again, they are beautiful and really can act. Ironically, half of them were miss HK lol

  6. For me, I can split them into 4 groups:

    Kristal & Alice are the only two I can put 100% faith in because they are pretty much the veterans.

    Nancy, Ali, Mandy gives good performances and they are quite versatile. Grace Wong is sort of in between this group and the one below. I thought she was being promoted.

    Sisley, Rebecca, Kelly have potential and are slowly climbing up the ranks.

    Natalie, Grace C & Pricilla are the three I have no idea why they’re on the list. Natalie is only good at the “sweet girl” role, Grace is pretty, Pricilla is a good host – other than that they have not shown much for themselves.

    BTW what happened to Kelly Fu? I heard she doesn’t have a great personality but she’s not a bad actress.

    1. @eleven I can’t agree more with this list, although I’d put Nancy slightly higher because I’ve been watching her since Twin of Brothers and she’s come a long way, showing versatility (except maybe humour? I don’t recall watching her in comedy dramas).

      1. @rayneYeah, Nancy is a bit of a veteran too, starting right at the bottom as an extra, working towards supporting actress and TV queen. She’s basically the new Tavia.

        She’s been in comedies but her characters weren’t the funny ones.

  7. TVB’s actresses quality is reflective of their management’s quality. Lousy.

  8. I’m quite happy with Ali Wong, Mandy Wong, Alice Chan and Krystal. Kelly Fu, scandals-aside, is good, too. They’re pretty decent actresses.

    I’m watching Princess Silver right now and wow, I’m seriously impressed by the main actress. She’s basically carrying the whole series and she does it so naturally! The script really doesn’t give her much to work with, but she still manages to be good in her role. I think that’s incredible. In contrast, I think most actresses in TVB past or present have trouble with that kind of natural, effortless acting. But for TVB standards, the few ones I mentioned above are actually pretty decent.

  9. Wow you guys remembered Kelly Fu but nobody remembers Tracy Chu? How sad for her, LOL

    1. @linda That’s because she’s on hiatus. She hasn’t filmed a drama since 2016, and we all expect her to leave once her contact is up so she can become a lawyer.

      1. @eleven that’s what I’m saying, both are missing but only remember Kelly. Anyway, I thought Legal Mavericks was 2017?

      2. @linda Kelly Fu has two upcoming dramas with TVB. Tracy has none that I know of. But yes, Tracy is very good, too. So’s Zoie Tam but she’s 37, tho she don’t look it.

      3. @linda Like I said, it’s not that we’re “forgetting” Tracy, we just don’t bother mentioning her because we assume she’s not coming back.

        What’s the point in mentioning some one who’s not even in the race?

  10. I find Kristal Tin the best among above-listed first-liners. Although I have a bias reserved only for Mandy Wong LOL, she’s not as good as Kristal Tin. On the other hand, it’s not like the male actors’ department is booming. Who have we got over there? Can JayneStars also do an article on them?

  11. I also wanted to mention some names for future leads or those already leading low budgets such as: Samantha Ko, Roxanne Tong, Zoie Tam, Karman Kong, Moon Lau & Jeannie Chan.

  12. i see none except Kristal Nancy and Alice they can handle female lead in dramas

    Priscilla Mandy and Natalie are ok

    The rest lacks performance in acting especially Grace chen pls leave tvb have many BB’s pls dont film again

Comments are closed.