ATV Dramas Back in Production, to Remake 1979’s “Reincarnated”
With the popular TVB station holding onto the monopoly of Hong Kong’s television media market, the struggling ATV faces a challenging future. The channel has not produced a drama since 2010’s sitcom GO GO GO Hong Kong <香港GoGoGo>, which starred Ivan Ho (何守信) and Paw Hee Ching (鮑起靜).
Now facing another new competitor, the up and coming HKTV, ATV has decided to finally invest in a wuxia television drama that is to be co-produced with mainland China. The wuxia drama, Reincarnated <天蠶變>, will be a remake of the popular 1979 television drama of the same name, which starred Norman Chui (徐少強).
Reincarnated was produced by Rediffusion Television, the former ATV, and starred Norman Chui, Lawrence Ng Wai Kwok (伍衛國), Nora Miao (苗可秀), Ma Man Yee (馬敏兒), and Candice Yu (余安安). It was the first drama in Hong Kong television history to be adapted from a wuxia novel.
The 60-episode Reincarnated was a big hit in Hong Kong and other Asian communities during its broadcast in the late 1970s, successfully boosting the popularity of the then relatively unknown cast.
Halfway through filming, Norman’s management pressured the actor to drop himself from the cast, and Koo Koon Chung (顧冠忠) was hired to replace his role. The sudden change in cast created a huge stir in the Hong Kong entertainment industry. The role, Wan Fei Yeung, also had to be re-written as a result.
ATV’s vice president, Yip Ka Bo (葉家寶), confirmed that the station has plans to adapt Reincarnated. “At the entertainment expo this year a mainland Chinese production company noticed a lot of older classic ATV dramas and wanted to adapt Reincarnated. It’s going to be a co-production. It will be filmed entirely in the mainland, and the script will follow the original very closely, with a few minor changes. Artists from both industries will partake.”
In the upcoming 2014 remake, Wan Fei Yeung will be portrayed by Norman’s real-life son, Edward Chui (徐偉棟), who was last seen in the Hong Kong film Triad <紮職>, starring opposite William Chan (陳偉霆) and Derek Tsang (曾國祥).
Kristy Yang (楊恭如) is also in talks to star in the drama.
Source: Apple Daily via ihktv.com
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
Support ATV mainly because of an interview i saw from Eric Wan from My Date with a Vampire. He gave a real touching interview on how he truly felt ATV was his home and really wish he saw the day where ATV and TVB were close competitors.
I always like rooting for the underdogs. I truly hope there’s a turnaround for ATV. As we can see, ATV developed a lot of great talent, their only problem was – artist could never get “famous” via ATV, with the few exceptions.
Best of luck ATV!
true. I really hope that Eric Wan can acting in HK again :”> I really love him and Joey Meng
What happened to Eric Wan now? I remember he had a very very negative rumour.
He’s doing some behind the scene works and have desire to become a director …
Negative rumor? What was the rumor? I never watched My Date with a Vampire until the 3rd installment so I was super behind .. but once I watched it I fell in love with the entire cast!
I sort of saw him in that one mainland series with Jordan Chan so he is still acting.
I vaguely remember that some woman or was it an actress?? I don’t remember, but she claimed that he touched her inappropriately or something like that. However, Joey Man who is a good friend of his was shocked to hear that and had nothing but praises for Eric.
I just dont know. ATV has change alot in the last 3 to 5 years. I really dont think they could do wuxia series even though they are co-produce by mainland tv stations.
I do hope they keep the epic classic theme song the same for Reincarnated, remake.
I hope they succeed, but Co-productions with mainland, I find always feel slow paced and boring.
That is NOT true and there are many good China series that are made by China. You just have to see the right ones.
mainland series are too long = boring.
Just because a series is long does not mean or equate to being boring. Those long sitcoms from TVB are hundreds of episodes but yet people do not complain about them being boring or long and still want them to go on and on….
I saw San Guo from mainland and it was 95 eps but was not boring at all….
ATV dramas that I watched since childhood was always far inferior than TVB dramas. Hope it changes for the better.
milktea,
Actually RTV in the 1970s had better action choreography than TVB. RTV was more famous for their wuxia productions such as “Reincarnated” until TVB made some very popular Jin Yong adaptations such as “Legend of the Condor Heroes”.
I watched Tiger Hill Trail (再向虎山行), Dynasty (大內群英) and Tai Chi Master (太極張三豐) recently, and both series had more realistic hand-to-hand combat fights compared to TVB series released during the same time.
Jayne,
Did you watch Tiger Hill Trail and Dynasty in Canto or Mandarin? If you watched it in Canto, would you mind linking me :D?I’ve wanted to watch both for ages but hav only been able to find the Mandarin versions in full. Tudou’s region restrictions don’t help either.
I’m not sure where I sit with ATV producing dramas again. I did enjoy some of their dramas (Tai Chi Master being one of them), but it’s been so long since they’ve produced series that its unlikely that they can still compete with TVB, even with the latter’s lowered ratings.
Also, has anybody actually watched Triad and seen if Edward Chui is any good? If he’s leading this remake, he’s going to have to live up to being the son of two actors (Norman Chui and Shirley (or Sidney? I’m not sure) Yim) and having connections through his aunt Michelle. He used to host a show here in Canada and I think the last I heard of him, he said that Eric Tsang had asked if he wanted to act in HK. I don’t know, using someone almost unknown (except through his family) and relatively untested to lead is very risky on ATV’s part.
Karen,
I watched the DVD and VHS versions of Dynasty and Tiger Hill Trail in Cantonese. I haven’t seen Edward Chui’s acting, but perhaps he will handle the action scenes well if he takes after his father Norman Chui. Norman and Shirley were pretty big stars in their prime, and casting Edward seems to generate some media interest. This production may be aimed at the mainland audience more than the HK audience since martial arts dramas are very popular in China.
I would not say so.. In fact, I felt many were better than TVB series but of course it would depend on the series.
I disagree. When ATV is good, it is great. When they’re terrible, they stopped making series. You have watched the wrong era.
ATV’s wuxia series were pretty on par with TVB’s back in the days. Maybe ATV can come up with other wuxia series since TVB are better at modern series nowadays.
I will be waiting for this remake and I hope that they will make a remake of the series Mythical crane and Magic needle.
I’m not against atv and there where many dramas I really liked back then … but how many remakes from “reincarnated” do they want to make again -.-‘ ? AND with norman chui again?
Everytime I say ATV is dying dying dying they’re still here. So TVB, you shall live long and prosper.
LOL…yup, I thought they were dying too. But I guess now with James Shing stepping down (which hopefully means that Wong Ching will be out of the picture as well), perhaps there is finally some hope for ATV to get back on its feet again. Though it might be too little too late now (I personally don’t have much confidence in them anymore and to be honest, could really care less what happens to them — that’s how bad ATV got under James Shing and Wong Ching’s ‘rule’)….but the fact that they are at least attempting to produce series again is a good first step for them…we’ll have to see how this ends up panning out…
though i support atv finally making a series, i think remaking a modern classic might be easier financially than an ancient wuxia series. atv had great modern/period dramas to choose from. I personally would not mind a remake of “crocodile tears”, “the chameleon (70’s version)”, “The legendary fok” and “the fatherland trilogy”.
making a wuxia can be risky. too traditional clothes can be criticised as being corny. too much cgi, additional plot twists or modern dialogue will get them criticised for not respecting the original.
Plus, I really liked the original “Reincarnated” and it had the best ever Duk Gu Mo Dik so if ATV stuffs up the casting, I would rather not watch it.
omg, why 天蠶變? they remade it in the 90s with eric wan. 天蠶變 reminds me of 徐少強…who i do not have a good image of….
” It was the first drama in Hong Kong television history to be adapted from a wuxia novel.”
This is wrong info, both on being the first wuxia novel adaptation and on being adapted from a novel.
‘Reincarnated’ was a original wuxia series from an original script that was later adapted to novel version by Huang Ying. The series came first.
The already has been wuxia series adapted from books before 1979.
I was wondering about that statement as well… But hey, that shows that in many cases a lot of info posted in these articles are not accurate. Why should any of us be shocked??
My date with the vampire 1 and 2 was my all time favourite series. Don’t know why other ATV series are crap though.