河國榮, An Aussie in Hong Kong

My wife and I went to Leo Koo's (古巨基) concert tonight at the Hong Kong Colosseum. We were given the tickets by a friend of mine, and were very surprised to find ourselves sitting in the second row. My wife commented that she probably wouldn't need to wear her glasses. That's how close we were.

Leo's a music man. He's loved singing for a long time, so much so that even after becoming quite successful as an actor for China-produced television serials, he chose to give up the television work and resume his singing. Tonight simply proved that he made the right choice.

There's an interview with me in the April 2005 edition of HMC magazine (Chinese language, Hong Kong publisher). The interview and photographs were taken a couple of weeks ago. I'll be getting a copy myself today to see how it was written up.

Update: The interview was laid out on a four-page spread with one large photograph and several others. Much of the text was based on research that the reporter had done from other older interviews. Even though some of it was inaccurate, the interview overall was pretty good. I'm happy with it. I had hoped that the reporter would list the URL of this blog in the interview but that didn't happen. Maybe next time…

It was a busy week. I have been filming a television series 「隨時候命」 about the Hong Kong Government Flying Service (GFS) 政府飛行服務隊 and we actually get to sit in real helicopters like the one shown here. Even though I'm a senior pilot in the series, I don't actually get to fly. We filmed the flying scenes inside the GFS hangar using green backdrops for what we in the industry call chroma-key where they'll later replace the green background with actual sky. GFS's helicopters are incredibly nice pieces of engineering. The technology and materials used to build those copters is awe-inspiring.

The stage production "Perfume" that I am working on will be showing very soon, at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. If you can read Chinese, there is more information over at Spring Time Productions and at the "Perfume" site.

This will indeed be an interesting experience. It only occurred to me last week that this will be the first time in my eighteen years of acting that I've had a main cast role so this will be an important mile stone for me.

I've just returned from another rehearsal for "Perfume" 香水(which by the way is now being advertised with huge posters in many of the Hong Kong MTR stations). Five days away from the premier performance and we continue to improve our performances and the play as a whole.

That's the interesting thing about plays. Because you're working on the same thing every day, the dialog gets out of the way very early on and you become familiar with the 'life' within the dialog. The life can be intepreted in many ways and it's not uncommon for the intepretation to change with every rehearsal, or even while the play is actually running.

I took quite a few photographs during rehearsals of "Perfume". While I was on stage, Gary would take control of the camera. One of his photographs was extremely impressive and I used it to create this poster. People attending the play might have seen the full A3 version just outside the theatre entrance. It looks great, especially at A3 size on photographic paper.

I recorded an interview with RTHK's Teen Power yesterday for their Virtual City 「虛擬城市」 program. We would normally conduct interviews live but it's impossible to know whether I'll have to work at TVB at the intended time so it's safer to record the interview ahead of time.

The interview will be broadcast on RTHK Radio 2 and over the internet next Friday, May 20, 2005 from 8 to 9pm Hong Kong time; ie, 12 to 1pm UTC time.

I'm currently sitting in studio 15 at TVB City. We've just had dinner and we're ready to continue filming tonight's scenes of 阿旺新傅.

Tonight's filming typifies some of the most difficult moments for an actor. The set is a fashion show involving six or seven primary actors, several supporting actors and more than thirty extras. To complicate things further, the fashion show involves twenty different sets of clothes. We've been filming for three hours and we've only filmed six sets of clothes with fourteen sets to go. It's going to be a long night.

I was interviewed yesterday for the Jessica fashion magazine, even though I know absolutely nothing about fashion. Ask my wife.

They're doing a special set of articles about people living in Hong Kong and are interviewing fifty people for it. The articles will be published in the July issue.

It's been three weeks since "Perfume" 「香水」 finished, enough time to feel the after-show depression and get over it again. I always enjoy the stage performances. They are the rare opportunity for me to share time with the same group of people over an extended period of time, an opportunity to discover new friends.

"Perfume" was no exception.

This is a photo of Thomas Lui and myself. Thomas is the chief pastry chef at the Marriot Hotel. He's a great guy and incredibly talented when it comes to pastry and chocolate. Every cake and chocolate creation you see in the show was made by Thomas, with great attention to detail. He loves his work and he never settles for less than perfect.

On Wednesday, I did an interview with the folks over at moShow where they specialise in podcasts and mocasts (I'm not sure if they're the same. Podcasts are supposed to be audio-only because current iPods; where the podcast name comes from; cannot play video whereas mocasts; ie, Mobile-casts; can be played on mobile cameras where video is possible.).

Anyway, I talked my head off and they had enough material for three episodes. The first episode is already available so if you're interested, head on over to moShow and listen in. The other episodes will become available on the coming two Thursdays.

Note. The interviews are in Cantonese.

I apologise for being tardy but I neglected to say that there's an interview with me in this week's HK Magazine (Issue No. 590, Friday September 2, 2005, titled — Singa"bore"? — ).

The magazine is free and can be found in many hair saloons and restaurants around Hong Kong including Starbucks. A pdf list of the places where the magazine is available can be downloaded from their web site; click on the "pick up a copy" link. The "First Person" interview; or rather selected bits and pieces of it; can be found on the last page.

Some readers saw my performance on tonight's episode of Healing Hands III (strangely enough almost exactly the same time in both Australia and Hong Kong) and requested that I open a discussion 'forum', so here it is. Feel free to chat away.

Please remember that I'll be away from Hong Kong for several days beginning Sunday. Consequently, there may be fewer updates to the blog until I get back.

Say goodbye to television as you know it.

Just as PodCasts are allowing absolutely everybody to make and distribute their own radio shows, VideoCasts are also allowing the ordinary people to make and distribute videos. No longer will what we can see on TV be controlled by the rich television companies. No longer will we be forced to watch the Olympic Games because every single available channel is showing them.

Most actors dream of being in the movies. For years, television was considered inferior to movies and actors were classed accordingly. Of course, with soap operas such as Days of our Lives and Daily Hospital, this classification was understandable. These however were not the kind of television productions that we're seeing today, at least from the good ol' USA.

The television episodics now coming out of Hollywood and Canada are superb. The acting, scripts, directing, camera, special affects; it's all amazing and easily challenges anything you'll in the cinema. In fact, I believe that some of the current television series would beat today's movies in a face-off.

With reference to the TVB soaps, there are a few things I feel I should say, especially after reading the comments to my previous article Hail Hollywood TV.

First. Most of the main actors and actresses are really very good at what they do. Working for TVB is not easy, especially for them. While filming any one series, the average main actor works 18 hours a day and sometimes more, averaging perhaps just 2 or 3 hours of sleep a night. Between scenes or between showers, they have to read their scripts, understand what's going on and work out how they're going to act the scenes. They carry their own scripts around with them (these days usually in an aircraft hand-luggage suitcase on wheels), remember what clothes they wore for each scene and do lots of other stuff that the actors in Hollywood never have to worry about. It is also not unusual to get the scripts only hours before the scene. That makes it very hard for the actor and there's nothing they can do to change the situation.

My next am730 article is just about finished. Part 1 was published a week ago and Part 2 should be published next week. I'll post the full article here after am730 has published it.

This am730 article mentions a teacher I had the fortune to meet while studying at The Strasberg Institute in Los Angeles last year. Her name was Elizabeth and we had a wonderful time together. One of the songs I sang during class that she particularly liked was "The Nearness of You", a wonderful song published way back in 1937. I'm going to record some of my songs and post them here on the blog and I thought this song would be a good start.

I've a peeve with the actors/actresses in Hollywood TV.

If you take note, you'll see lots of coffee in the Hollywood series. The NCIS actors have coffee in their hands every episode. Most of the police in other Hollywood series also drink coffee throughout the series. I drink coffee too; more than my fair share; so what's my peeve?

The other night, I heard a professional singer recording for a music show. He was really good but I couldn't help but wonder if he was singing a song or singing a vocal exercise. The vocal range of the song was extreme with rapid movement between real voice and falsetto notes.

Popular music in Hong Kong has lost any sense of feel. In an effort to differentiate themselves, singers have moved to songs making heavy use of falsetto. First there was one singer, then another and then another. Even Jacky Cheung was persuaded to follow suit. The apparent opinion is that if you can't sing falsetto, then you're not a professional singer.

iTunes changed the music landscape around the world, even in places where people were unable to purchase music from the iTunes store because their address was not within an authorised country. Before iTunes, people only had two choices for music; buy it at a music store, or download it from an unauthorised source on the internet. Once iTunes proved to the world that people would legally buy digitised (and medium rip quality at that) music if given the chance, other companies began working out how they could join the bandwagon and divert some of that new money into their own bank accounts.

iTunes allowed people to buy music from a corporately condoned online source. It allowed people to easily search for and sample music before buying it, and in the process allowed consumers to expand their music horizons, discovering new musicians and new genres of music, including those not affiliated with the big record labels. Most significantly perhaps, iTunes has also had a permanent affect on the music business itself.

I've been watching episodes from a TV show I watched as a kid, a show called Bewitched with Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York. I didn't get to see every show when I was a kid but I enjoyed it anyway, and love it even more now because it's part of my past. That's also part of the reason I enjoyed the Bewitched movie last year with Nicole Kidman who is probably one of the most exceptional actresses I can think of.

I apologise. I completely forgot to let you people know ahead of time about a radio interview I'm doing tomorrow although I didn't actually know the exact time myself until today.

The interview will be with RTHK2 between 5.30pm and 6.30pm. The show's name is 萬王之王. This is the link to their online streaming program. Be sure to check back before the show just to make sure that I haven't made a mistake and changed the link ;-)

I've been filming 刑事情報科 at TVB over the last four weeks or so. Before we began filming the series, there was much enthusiasm and a meeting with the head script writer to ensure that we all knew what direction the series was taking and how we were to act our parts. The idea for the series was relatively new and we were pretty excited about it.

Unfortunately, one of TVB's annoyances popped up for this series; late scripts. For almost every shooting so far, we've received our scripts via fax on the day before shooting. For me personally, this is just enough time to get familiar with the dialog and be able to play the part reasonably ok. It is not enough time to fully understand what might be going on within the scene and within the dialog, and then being able to make decisions about alternate methods of acting the scene.

I'm beginning to understand how people with MP3 players that cannot play Apple's FairPlay-protected music files feel, but from a different angle.

In my previous article Hope for a better Asian film/television industry, I stated that we need online stores from which to buy and download Asian-made television and movie content, all without virtual geographic boundaries and all without prejudice or bias to the producers of that content. Only then would the real market emerge, enabling countless talented people in Hong Kong and Asia to do their stuff and create excellent content for the world to enjoy. Two other conditions though were protection of the content to prevent casual piracy and iPod compatibility. The answer to these two conditions was obviously Apple's FairPlay.

TVB's 潮爆大狀 is on. From memory, it was filmed late last year. My part is very limited but if you'd like to leave a comment about the series, you can do so here ;-)

I've just finished filming 刑事情報科 at TVB. My role was a police inspector in a special branch of the police force which specialises in getting information about suspects. There were several groups in our department. My group was responsible for tracking people and getting photographs of their activities. Overall, the story was pretty good.

There's an online text-format interview focussing on my experience with Cantonese over at Adam Sheik's Chinese (Cantonese) Help Sheets. Some of you learning Cantonese might find it interesting.

Two days ago, I turned 41. I'm now officially what I consider to be over the half-way mark. It's not a bad thing and it's not a good thing. On average, I may still have forty years left with which to accomplish more goals, learn more languages and learn to enjoy my life and my family more.

Growing up in the countryside of Gympie Australia, I was always aware of the cicadas clicking away in the trees, leaving shells behind clinging to the trees when they morph, but I never actually saw a live cicada. A few weeks ago when the cicadas in our neighbourhood became active, buzzing all day long, I decided to see if I could actually find one. Finally, after being on this earth for 41 years, I saw my first live cicada. Once I knew what they looked like, I was then able to quite easily see them in the trees within a few minutes of hearing their buzz.

A few months ago, I did an interview with people from Apple Daily for their online education site. Little did I know that it would become quite an extensive interview and writeup, even getting some banner time in the main Apple Daily site.

Overall, the interview is pretty good. The one thing I am disappointed with is the sound recording. Some of the interview was recorded indoors at my friend's coffee shop Prestigio (she also serves fair dinkum home made Malaysian, Singaporean, Western, etc food) in Sai Kung. Some of it was recorded outside the restaurant. Because of the noise from passing traffic, I voluntarily increased the volume of my voice with the intent of guaranteeing a recording that the reporters could take home and hear without difficulty.

There's an interview with me in this week's HiTech Weekly (Vol. 397, 25 May 2006).

It's a nice interview (I don't know why but most of the reporters who I've interviewed with have been kind to me ;-). One of the things I like about this interview is that it doesn't focus on our 'kids'. Perhaps because it's a tech magazine, the interview instead focuses on my blog, photography and computer interests. They even photographed my 1 million candle power torch!

Yet another publication will be releasing an interview with me about my blog and camera in the near future. I'll let you all know when that happens.

Coming Monday (June 12, 2006) is going to be a busy day for me. I have three separate appointments, all of them relatively important, but the one that I want to point out to all of you; at least for now; is the one that begins in Central at 8pm.

I frequently get email messages and comments from readers who themselves dream of becoming famous actors or simply would like to be in the business, whether famous or not. I'm working at TVB simply because I'm lucky. There's nothing else to it. So what about other budding actors out there?

I would recommend two things.

I apologise. The interview was published before I became aware of it and had no time to tell everyone. Yet again, the interview was more about my blog and camera life than about our family of dogs and rabbits which is good, because variety is a good thing.

Luckily, the interview is available online. It's in two parts at: 河國榮為 Blog 瘋狂 and 河國榮部落格有歌聽.

I was interviewed yesterday at RTHK for 李志剛's Made in Hong Kong program. It was a fun interview. Originally purposed to discuss anti-discrimination matters, we didn't talk a lot about anti-discrimination because I haven't personally experienced very much discrimination in Hong Kong at all, more than likely because I've given a lot of effort to learning the local language. Communication is the key to a harmonic society.

It's been a while since I've posted any articles here, but you can be sure that I'm still here, and you can be absolutely sure that I've read every one of your comments, even if I haven't responded. And I appreciate the comments. Even if it's not obvious, your comments are important to me and provide an important source of support.

In the time I've 'been away', I've filmed a new series at TVB. The name of the series is 寫意人生 and I'll talk more about that in a later article. It was a pretty busy part, including two sessions of five nights of continuous studio filming involving nine to eleven hours of filming each night.

I came to L.A. to study singing, nothing else, and the studies are coming along wonderfully. I have one-on-one lessons with my teacher once a day from Monday to Friday. Additionally, I attend one Cabaret workshop with other students on Tuesday nights and another singing workshop on Saturdays in a totally different place.

My teacher is simply amazing. Her knowledge of singing is so broad and extensive that I would never be able to learn everything from her even if I stayed here a whole year. For the workshops, she has a friend and partner who acts as the musical director. He is also incredible and I feel incredibly lucky to have met both of these people. Sometimes, you get lucky!

Other than my lessons, I have very little to do, so my days are relatively relaxed in spite of the small hiccups I've encountered along the way (which I'll describe in a later article).

I'm back in Hong Kong, back home with my wife and our kids. It's great to be back although the trip back was a little sudden and rushed.

Before going to L.A., I was filming 寫意人生 at TVB. Because filming took longer than previously hoped, I had to delay my trip to L.A. until September 16. Furthermore, TVB had another series planned for which I would need to be back in Hong Kong by October 16 or earlier if possible. This placed strict limits on the time I could spend in L.A., but the trip was important to me; improving my singing technique is always on my mind; so I worked around the limitations as well as I could and left for L.A.

My time in L.A. with my teacher was fabulous. My teacher and I clicked immediately, as if we'd known each other for a lifetime and my learning was significant.

It was Peisha's idea. Almost from the beginning of our time together, Peisha strongly recommended that I have a 'product' to take home with me. She meant that I should record a couple of songs, if only to show the folks at home just how much I had improved.

I wasn't totally sold on the idea at first. It was the potential financial cost of doing the recordings that kept me from committing to the idea, but as time went on, as my voice continued to improve, and as I discovered more and more songs that I loved, I grew more attracted to the idea. After three weeks of being with Peisha, I made the decision to record the songs. It's a decision that I'll never regret, and I'll forever be grateful to Peisha for her encouragement and insistence that I do the recordings.

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from one of my blog's readers by the name of Lenny Wu. He wrote:

I'm just wondering, can you contact this friend? She's a radio DJ for RTHK Radio 3. Her name is Alyson Hau. Here's her website. I dunno if you got anything to say for Teen Time. :) Teen Time is from 9-10pm. It would be nice to hear you speak English. :D

Well, I wrote to Alyson and she liked the idea, so we recorded the interview last week. It's in ENGLISH so you can all hear my Aussie accent ;-) The interview is light but also serious near the end because I explain an idea of mine that might help many of the struggling actors and production people in the entertainment industry.

Last week was busy; well not quite, but still interesting anyway. In addition to the interview with Alyson at RTHK Radio 3, I also talked with Shirley 曾淑儀 and Lu from the 「萬王之王」 King of Kings show on RTHK Radio 2.

When Shirley heard about my singing studies in L.A., she liked the idea of interviewing me but wanted to make it special. What she came up with was really fun. 「洋人中文歌」 is a three-part series; approximately fifteen minutes per part; with yours truly teaching (we're truly stretching the meaning of this word) listeners to sing ;-)  Shirley and Lu were wonderful and lots of fun. I think you'll enjoy the series.

I received a call today from a reporter at Hong Kong's 蘋果日報 Apple Daily newspaper. She had heard my songs and read about my broken toe.

She then told me that there will be article about these various things in tomorrow's the Nov 20 (Monday) edition of the newspaper. So if you are able to buy the newspaper, take a look, or you can check it out online at 蘋果日報 Apple Daily's web site.

I'll be with other people from TVB just outside Esprit in Whampoa Hung Hom selling cookies for the 「愛心曲奇暖萬家」 charity from 3:00 to 4:00pm.

Esprit is at:
黃埔新天地的「時尚坊」G24-26號
Shop G24-26 at Fashion World in the Wonderful Worlds of Whampoa.

So if any of you have time today (Saturday) and would like to chat and hopefully buy some cookies ;-)  please come along.

Back in July of last year, I was pondering whether to go to L.A. and study singing with Miss Peisha McPhee. During this time, I received a phone call from a local director who explained that he wanted to produce a pet project that he had dreamed of for many years. It was an English language stage musical and he wanted me to star in it! I was surprised, slightly stunned and ecstatic. At the time though, that phone call was confirmation to me that I should go to L.A. and work with Peisha which is exactly what I did.

The name of the play is They're Playing Our Song, written by Neil Simon in 1979. The music was written by Marvin Hamlisch and the lyrics were written by Carole Bayer Sager.

We've been working on "They're Playing Our Song" for more than two weeks now. It's a lot of hard work because there are only two actors; Sompor (蘇芯寶) and myself; which means the two of us have to know the whole play from start to finish with no breaks, and we have to sing and dance as well. Yes, I said dance! If you come to the play, you'll actually get to see me dance. That by itself will justify the cost of the ticket ;-)

Dreams don't come cheap. They require sacrifices. It's up to you whether your dream justifies the sacrifices.

"They're Playing Our Song" is definitely a big part of my evolving dream. Stage musicals, although a very small part of my early school life where I was invariably a chorus member, were never part of my goal in life. Singing was first, and acting came second, although more accidentally than intentionally; TVB was an accident, a happy lucky one.

Through the years, my preferences for acting and music have changed, and now I find myself yearning for the satisfaction that can come from a well crafted stage musical, such as "They're Playing Our Song". In recent years, I've participated in three stage productions. I danced in 「上海之夜」 (Magic is the Moonlight) and sang in 「鄧麗君，但願人長久」 (Teresa Tang Forever), but except for 「香水」 (Perfume), I was always a rather large extra in the story. Perfume was my first role as a co-star, working with three other respected professionals, none of whom thought of themselves as better than any other. In fact, in this respect, I have again been fortunate. In none of the stage productions that I have worked with have there been any actors or actresses who thought they were above everyone else, including Cass 彭羚, a world class singer who because of the Teresa Tang musical became a personal friend of mine.

And now I get a starring role. It only took 20 years to get here.

It will be a busy week with "They're Playing Our Song" rehearsals every day, TVB dubbing tonight, TVB filming on Tuesday night and Wednesday night, and a special appearance at the Mongrel Adogtion function at the City University on Friday.

But the weekend was a break and a welcome one.

Sunday morning, noting the wonderful weather and hearing the sounds of the local white wagtails (just one pair) which I have not yet been able to photograph, I grabbed my camera and went outside. As I left our gate, I noticed the flicker of a bird on a nearby flowering bush. As I walked over, the bird saw me and left but the sunlight was perfect and the bird or other birds were sure to return if I sat still. So for the next hour and a half, I knelt as steadily as I could in front of the flowering bush. Nothing came!

The benefits of this play are many.

After completing part two of an interview with 大公報 at lunch time, and filming 奸人堅 today at TVB in the afternoon, and having 'dinner' at Starbucks this evening, I returned home with a goal in mind, one which I wasn't really sure I would actually complete. I often have goals in mind, and more often than not, they evaporate. This one actually happened: weight-lifting!

It has been years since I weight-lifted, but my dance routines in the play will look better if my tummy is flatter and stronger, and certain steps involving lifting Sompor 蘇芯寶 will be better performed if my muscles are tuned. I don't need nor desire big muscles. I simply need muscles adapted to and ready for rapid and strong movement.

Tickets go on sale today!

You can buy tickets at any Urbtix outlet. (direct link to show listing)

Remember. The McAulay Studio is a small theatre. It only seats 90 people and we're only doing 10 shows, so if you want to see the show, don't wait too long to buy your tickets.

Note. The play is in English with Chinese subtitles.

Show times:
March 16-23 nightly at 8.00pm
March 17,18 extra matinée shows at 3.00pm

It was just after the new year, early in January.

I was taking five of our kids for a walk up our favourite hill. We turned around the corner at the round-about near our home and began walking toward the bus stop where the trail up the hill begins. Half way to the bus stop, one of the kids needed to relieve himself. I bent down, wrapped his bi-product in newspaper and stood back up ready to continue down the road.

I was suddenly aware of someone standing on the sidewalk just before the bus stop. He stood motionless, dressed in dark sport clothes, both hands in pants pockets, a pastel blue flat soft hat on his head, standing with one leg vertical and the other slightly leaning outward. He was motionless, and he was watching me, intensely.

Seven days to go!

After rehearsing almost every day for nine weeks, we are finally approaching the finish line. We're still rehearsing. We're still making adjustments to our blocking and our behaviour. We're still making adjustments to our dance routines. We're still working hard, actually harder than we've worked for most of the nine weeks. We're now averaging nine hours a day. If you thought this was just a hobby for us, think again. It's been the equivalent of going to a nine-to-five job except without wages.

We've had a few interviews.

I'm tired, very tired.

I've suddenly found myself with much more responsibility than I'd foreseen.

A few weeks ago, we realised that tickets were not selling as well as we'd like. Our marketing was not working. In some areas, it was simply non-existent. At least one good friend of mine didn't know about the play until I called them.

We had done a few interviews with newspapers and magazines but the affect on ticket sales was not ideal. We had to do more, and I decided to fund the design and publishing of our ads, the ones I showed you in my previous article. Those ads worked but we're still not doing well enough to sit back and relax.

Part of the challenge we face is that the play is in English. There have been many inquiries about tickets but as soon as many of those inquirers realise that the play is in English, they hang up. We have Chinese subtitles but people are still scared of English. Even three of my wife's relatives declined our complementary invitation to see the show because it's in English.

To help get the word out about our play, our marketing person arranged for me to have an interview with the 叱咤 903 radio station, but the interview is part of a program called 「有耳喱民」 in which they talk about weird behaviour and ghost stories. I was a little hesitant about it but the producers and hosts (亞喱, 詹志民 and 有耳非文) made me feel at home as soon as I arrived. Knowing 有耳非文 from way back in 1997 when we performed 「上海之夜」 together helped a lot too because I suddenly had a 'friend' with me, and so the interview turned out to be a very fun one.

The interview will be broadcast tonight at 12 midnight. If you don't have Hong Kong radio access, you can listen to it via their web link. I think you'll enjoy it ;-)

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Just in case some of you don't know or have forgotten, "They're Playing Our Song" is now performing at the McAulay Studio theatre in the Hong Kong Arts Centre in Wanchai every night at 8pm until Friday night.

My first leading role with singing, dancing and acting. Even my parents are flying in tomorrow to see the show, the first time they will have seen me work since I arrived here in Hong Kong in 1987!

Don't miss out ;-)

Tonight's is the last show. I'm trying not to think about it. I have to control my emotions until after the play. It's not easy to do but I must do it. It has been an incredible ten weeks. I feel like Goku in Dragon Ball coming out of one of his training sessions. The lessons I've learned, the obstacles I've encountered, the victories we've produced, the friends I've made; it has been the greatest adventure of my life and it's almost over.

I've never considered myself lucky but I've never been so fortunate in all my life as I have been recently. Henry and Sompor are amazing people. Henry's an intelligent, forgiving, understanding and patient director. Sompor is an intelligent natural actress with unlimited potential and a personality to match. We encountered many obstacles during the last ten weeks, some of them extreme, but we came through and we produced a wonderful play.

"Sleep! I can't sleep". That opening line from Act 2 Scene 1 of "They're Playing Our Song" applies perfectly to my situation at this exact moment.

My brain has been working non-stop for the last ten weeks and even now that the show is over, it refuses to slow down. The melodies from the show are still in my head as are occasional excerpts from the scenes, but more and more, my brain is trying to plan my future direction.

"They're Playing Our Song" was the greatest thing I've done in my life.

During "They're Playing Our Song" rehearsals, Henry spent a lot of time talking to Sompor, explaining the character to her, extracting the acting talent from inside her and helping her to be the best she could be. It was worth the effort. Sompor was great on stage.

I'm eager to share a similar experience. If you're a director who sees potential in my acting abilities and would be willing to spend time working with me to help me be the best I can be for the production, please send me an email; <gregory at hokwokwing dot hk>. I'm interested as an actor and possibly co-investor in two areas: quality movies, and Broadway musical stage productions; English, Cantonese and Mandarin.

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In January of this year, I was incredibly fortunate to encounter 周潤發先生 Mr Chow Yun Fat near our home. I wrote about it in my "A Surprise Encounter" article.

發哥 called me twice after that encounter to arrange delivery of the photograph he had taken while with me at the time. The first time he called, I was watching a movie at APM and my phone was turned off. I was very disappointed. The second time he called, I was in rehearsals for "They're Playing Our Song" and again, my phone was turned off. I was irritated and frustrated that I had once again missed his call. This time, 發哥 left a message to say that he had dropped the photograph off at a store in our village. I picked the photograph up the next day.

This article will serve as the conclusion to what has been the adventure of my life, "They're Playing Our Song". For ten weeks, we rehearsed and performed the play and it'll always be a highlight in my life.

"They're Playing Our Song" has changed me. It has changed my life. I'm more confident now. I've taken one of the lead roles in a two-actor musical and successfully performed a two-hour show with singing, dancing and acting. I set out to prove to others that I could do it and I ended up proving to myself that I could do it. I think that result was more important than anything else I might have gained.

I loved the experience. I loved the play. I loved the music. I loved the singing and acting. I will be more proactive from here on. I will be sorting out more opportunities to work again in musical theatre and in movies. I will also be studying again (if the institutions will have me) because I want to be the best I can be. I have a few ideas. The future will show whether those ideas come to fruition or not. If you want to know what they are; sorry, you'll have to wait and see ;-)

I'm back ;-)

I apologise for being away so long. A lot has happened in the last two months (not London though; more on that later) and it can take me a while to 'recover' after a period of serious mind work (such as writing the new Blog Comment code).

My gift to you today is the 娛樂直播 interview that TVB graciously gave me on 19 March 2007. I hope you like the interview as much as I do. For one short time, I truly felt like a star. Thank you TVB.

娛樂直播 Interview Part 1   娛樂直播 Interview Part 2

I might be going overseas for three months. I'm waiting for confirmation. I hope it happens but it's out of my control. The departure date though, if confirmed, is January 1 which doesn't give me much time to prepare. It's not the packing that I'm concerned with. It's making sure that everything at home is in working order, that our pet supplies are sufficient and that we have enough medicine for them, that our computers and my MacBook Pro are running well, that I have all the computer programs that I might need while away, that my camera and lenses are in great condition, that I have everything that I might need, that… You get the idea.

Twenty years ago, I was working as an English tutor in the 育成 tutorial centre in Causeway Bay when one day, one of the teachers working with me told me of a poster at her school searching for a Cantonese-speaking Caucasian to act for a TVB series. I called the number she gave me and a Pakistani agent answered the phone. I was very unsure of my chances because at the time, I had absolutely no acting training or experience of any kind save for a few extra roles in high school plays. The agent however was reassuring, and encouraged me to go to the interview. He was reassuring because he could find no one else. I was his only chance.

A little over a year ago, I ran into 發哥 and was subsequently given a photograph of myself taken by this amazing man. It was in fact a chance encounter. 發哥 had not planned it, nor had I, but the encounter happened, and just as he was about to leave, it suddenly occurred to 發哥 to ask me if I'd teach English. If it was anyone else, I'd have immediately replied no, but this was 發哥 and I instead answered yes.

Perhaps it was pre-destined that 發哥 would not be able to contact me multiple times in his earnest attempt to deliver the photo to me. Perhaps this repeated failure to locate me kept me on his mind, so much so that when he needed an English coach to help him with his dubbing work on the new The Children of Huang Shi movie, he thought of me and tried to contact me yet once again. For the first time in 4 months, I was able to answer the phone and we spoke.

For those of you interested, there is an article in today's 蘋果日報 Apple Daily about my decision to leave TVB. The interview is called 「係一個唔開心嘅甘草」 河國榮把掹發哥闖荷李活, written by Kitty Tai who interviewed me over the phone last night. It is a very good write up.

Just over a week ago, Ken Leung, an editor from Eastweek 東周刊, along with three other associates, came to my home and interviewed me for the magazine. That interview was published today in this week's issue. Unfortunately, Eastweek is not available online so you'll only be able to see the interview if you can buy the magazine.

In January, having just left TVB, I found myself working with Mr Chow Yun Fat 發哥 as his personal dialect coach, flying business class to a small city called Durango located in Mexico where we lived and worked for just over two months working on the Fox production Dragonball. It was quite an experience but not much fun (acceptable, taken that this was a working trip rather than a pleasure trip).

Most people, at least here in Hong Kong, have the impression that working for a Hollywood film production company is fun, or at least much more pleasurable than working for a Hong Kong film production company. The perception is that the work is not hectic or rushed, the working hours are shorter (and that hotel standard food will be provided). The perception is wrong.

Available now for your listening is Part 1 of a two-part radio interview, one in the 集體回憶 series over at UonLIVE.com. Part 2 will become available on Friday evening, May 2.

The interview is in Cantonese and UonLIVE's web page is in Chinese. If you can understand Cantonese but not read Chinese and wish to listen to the interview, boogie over to their web page and look for 2008-04-28 TVB外國人河國榮 in the listing. Failing that, here is the direct download link for Part 1 as provided on their web page.

With Dragonball being my first Hollywood production, I was not entirely prepared for the calibre of the crew. They were quite extraordinary.

The director

James Wong was the director. I watched him carefully. I wanted to see how Hollywood directors interacted with their cast. At TVB, our directors had (past tense because I'm no longer there ;-) very little time to discuss our scenes in detail with us. There was virtually no sharing or exchange of ideas. We simply arrived on set whereupon the director would glance at the set, decide where and how we would move during the scene (what we refer to as "blocking") and then run us through the scene. At TVB, most scenes were 'rehearsed' in mere minutes.

Part 2 of my UonLIVE.com 集體回憶 interview was posted on 2 May 2008. Again, it's in Cantonese ;-) Here is the direct download link.

I have also just done a telephone interview for Radio Centre-Ville FM102.3 in Montréal, Quebec, and an interview for the U Magazine. I'll let you know as these become available.

It has been a very busy past week or so, and I haven't had time to update the blog. I apologise for that.

The big news is that I'm now in L.A.. I'll be studying singing with Peisha (she has a new technique to teach me), and scoping around for an agency to represent me too.

I'm blown away by the Apple iTunes system.

I'm getting myself organised for a musical future, and part of that involved converting and importing into iTunes all of the Karaoke VCDs and DVDs we have in the house. When the tracks become part of the system, they're easily accessible, and they'll get listened to. The process of converting and importing the Karaoke tracks took three days of AppleScript scripting to automate and process, along with lots of Chinese typing, but I now have more than 700 karaoke tracks; both audio and video; in my iTunes library. Being a perfectionist, I then proceeded to correct the data for the tracks in my library, and create playlists (unrated, not played within the last month, ≤xGB) that I could use on our Apple TV and iPhones.

I have been caffeine free for almost five days; no coffee, tea or caffeine-spiked softdrinks. The reason? I have a special performance tonight, a short one, but special nonetheless. It involves singing and Cantonese but it's definitely not what you would expect ;-)

If you want to catch my performance, watch tonight's China National Day show before the fireworks display.

Just before we left for Macau for the International Series of Mahjong competition, I received a telephone call from ATV. They wanted me to perform in the National Day Cultural Night production 「香港同胞慶祝中華人民共和國成立五十九週年文藝晚會」, which was cool, but what was even cooler was that they wanted me to perform Cantonese Opera!

Question of the day.

If you had the opportunity to see me perform, which songs would you hope to hear me sing? If you're reading this on my personal blog or on the AliveNotDead site, leave a comment. Otherwise, you can email your wish list to me at hokwokwing dot hk or me at gregory dot hk. Please include the song's name and the artist's name where applicable.

English, Mandarin and Cantonese songs are obviously fine. If you have a favourite Italian, Spanish or Japanese song, you could send those to me as well. No promises though ;-)

Last week, RTHK 2 broadcast a multi-part (Cantonese) interview in the 「細味歷練」 segment of their morning program 「晨光第一線」.

The original recording was around 40 minutes long. Alyson 侯嘉明 did an excellent job of editing and splicing to produce the five segments.

Here it is for those of you who missed it.

晨光第一線 細味歷練 2009年01月05日
晨光第一線 細味歷練 2009年01月06日
晨光第一線 細味歷練 2009年01月07日
晨光第一線 細味歷練 2009年01月08日
晨光第一線 細味歷練 2009年01月09日

After nine months of research, selection, editing and education in Final Cut, my first showreel is finally ready. I hope you enjoy it.

Note. It's entirely in Cantonese except for two scenes in English, and one scene in Mandarin.

My Showreel

I was watching a television program and they mentioned micro-expressions. Since watching that program, I've come to realise that micro-expressions could very well be one of the significant distinguishing qualities of a great actor, especially a screen actor where everything is up close and personal. Micro-expressions are extremely small expressions, perhaps lasting one fifth of a second or even less. Consciously, we don't notice them. Unconsciously, we do and we're very much affected by them.

I'm off for L.A. in a couple of hours, but before I go…

We're going to see Gary's show in September. We have our tickets.

Are you going?

譚偉權史上首個個人音樂會

I'm the spokesman for a wedding theme holiday resort in Dong Guan 東莞婚紗城. They had a special 100-couple wedding event on the weekend and I of course as spokesman performed. My wife videoed the performance. Here is part of it. I hope you like it.

If you can't see the embedded video, then click here instead: Gregory 河國榮 唱「為你鍾情」

Less than two weeks to go.

We, the family at the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, have been working hard on the new bilingual play 中國皇后號 for almost five weeks. During this time, my wife and I personally suffered a loss in the family with the passing of Beethoven; another actress in the group spent several days visiting her grandfather in the hospital; and yet another actress sadly lost her father just this morning.

Despite the losses and emotional hits, we have all continued to work hard on the play, which has presented us with multiple challenges due to its unique structure, something I think audiences will find very interesting.

Friendly reminder. Tickets are available now from all Urbtix outlets.

The weather is cooler now. I don't know if it's the sudden weather change or if it's the air conditioning on the MTR (which for anyone over 6' tall can be a big problem) but I picked up a serious flu bug several days ago. By Tuesday afternoon, I could feel the flu hallmarks of nasal swelling, exhaustion and muscle pain all over. With so little time left until we perform for the public, I didn't want to risk not recovering quickly and dashed off to see my favourite doctor.

I was a little surprised to discover that I was feverish! I shouldn't have been surprised because I had been experiencing hot and cold all day long; i.e., my body's thermostat was out of wack. My doctor prescribed the best medicine he could (not all medicines are created equal) and suggested that I take one or two days off rehearsals to recover. I shook my head in response to indicate that taking time off would not be an option. There was still so much to work on in the play and so little time left to do it in.

We spent our last day rehearsing for The Empress of China in Sheung Wan today. After a break, we'll begin technical rehearsals in City Hall on Wednesday.

After two full run-throughs today while still recovering from the flu, I'm feeling extremely tired, but nothing can prevent me from checking the flood status in my home town of Gympie in Queensland where my parents still live.

Gympie is rather unique. The Mary River is the source of flooding there, and the river bank separating the larger Eastern side of Gympie is quite high, so the Mary River needs to rise significantly to flood to the East. Unfortunately, once it gets that high, it's like watching water run out of a full bathtub with the taps turned on, and the flooding can be severe. Main Street is definitely in trouble, again!

With rain predicted to continue for several days yet, and the ground already completely soaked, deeper flooding is almost guaranteed.

Fortunately, my parents live in a very high area of Gympie, and they're still reachable by phone and internet.

The HKREP was kind enough to give me permission to post this photo from our final dress rehearsal. I hope you like it. The handsome man on the right is one of our guest actors from New York, Andrei Drooz.

Just over one year ago, I was approached by a very nice gentleman at the HKREP to meet for a cup of coffee. They were planning a new stage play which involved Caucasian actors, one of which would need to speak significant amounts of Cantonese dialog. With 20 years of Cantonese television and five Cantonese stage productions behind me, I was perhaps their best hope. It was in the coffee shop at the Sheraton Hotel that I met with this gentleman and the script writer/director Sister Joanna.

Very little happened in that short meeting. It was a quick conversation and I was treated to a great plate of Fish & Chips. There were implied promises but nothing more. A short while later, I helped the HKREP to take publicity photos for "The Empress of China" and then heard nothing from them until October of 2010 when my part in the play was finally confirmed.