My apologies for the long gap between posts. Healthwise, I am doing all right … though I still spend more time than I’d like to in waiting rooms at various medical facilities. Thanks, by the way, to the three people who wrote in this week to ask how I was doing. It’s just that I’ve been struggling with my writing of late. Before, when I used to do news reports, the articles would write themselves. Now, every paragraph is a grind as I debate questions like: Does anybody besides me find this interesting? Is this too mundane to even mention? Should I cut this part out or leave it in?

For the past three weeks, I’ve been working on a post about Hong Kong television serials. It started out as a review of CCTV’s HEAVEN DRAGON: THE EIGHTH EPISODE but the pre-amble on television serials and how they got me sucked into the HK entertainment circle went on and on and on as I indulged heavily in a trip down memory lane. The post approached 10,000 words and I hadn’t even started talking about HEAVEN DRAGON: THE EIGHTH EPISODE!

Consequently, I’ve decided to shelve that post temporarily and put one up on this Sunday’s Hong Kong Film Awards (HKFA). But first, an announcement: I am going to gird up my loins and put up a HKFA report here somtime Sunday afternoon/Sunday evening North American time. It’ll be just like the ones I used to do at Hong Kong Entertainment News In Review … except I won’t be wearing an Armani tux (er, Men’s Wearhouse knockoff) while I’m typing it out.

Sometime in the near future, I will be posting a revised version of that mammoth treatise on HK television serials so stay tuned.

On to the day’s business:

Since I’ve seen only a handful of films from 2006 and am still catching up on the events of the past year, I don’t have any real insight on who I think will win or should win at this year’s awards (go here to see list of nominations). However, I will be offering a fine white lamb or, if I can’t find one, six pigeons to the Entertainment Circle gods if they make the following happen:

• A win for Alive’s “Adam’s Choice” from THE HEAVENLY KINGS in the Best Original Song category. Having seen both THE BANQUET and FEARLESS, the songs from those films don’t play as integral a part in their respective movies as “Adam’s Choice” does in THE HEAVENLY KINGS. Besides, for a song that is essentially a joke, it’s pretty damn catchy.

• My greatest wish (an additional lamb or six pigeons to the Entertainment Circle gods if it comes true): A win for Lau Ching-Wan in the Best Actor category. Lau has done better work in his storied twenty-plus years career than he did in MY NAME IS FAME but I really hope he wins this year. Chow Yun-Fat (three wins in this category) and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (five wins — most ever in the Best Actor category) already have enough awards. Jet Li has his international acclaim and, quite frankly, his Huo Yuanjia is just a slightly different version of other kung fu heroes he’s played in the past while Aaron Kwok Fu-Sing is, well, Aaron Kwok Fu-Sing. Webmaster Kozo of LoveHKFilm says that he hears the race is between the Kwokster for his glamourous role as a deadbeat dad and Lau. Here’s hoping that the HKFA ignores the award-baiting and allows Lau to come out on top. It will be a little bit of a “Martin Scorsese wins Best Director for THE DEPARTED” situation but, without Lau’s sympathetic portrayal keeping it grounded, MY NAME IS FAME could have easily been pretentious and self-serving rather than a delightful love letter to the HK movie industry.

Chinese Lesson of The Day: “Ching Wan” means “high and noble in virtue and ambition”. “Ching Wan Jik Seung” (see graphic above) means “may you soar higher and higher” and is used as a well-wishing expression like: 身體健康 (sun tai gin hong, “may you have good health”) or the familiar Lunar New Year greeting 恭喜發財 (gung hei fat choi, “congratulations and may you be prosperous”).

See you Sunday!