1.
Supper Moment
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Supper Moment is a four-member Cantopop band from Hong Kong. They were formed in 2006 and officially debuted in 2010 under Redline Music and they consist of lead vocalist and guitarist Sunny, lead guitarist Martin, bass guitarist CK and drummer Hugh. The name originated from the attitude towards supper. 等等. 過後 was their first song to achieve number 1, 無盡 repeated the feat in week 38 of 2013, and 世界變了樣 topped the RTHK chart in week 52 of 2013
2.
Chinese name
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Chinese personal names are names used by those from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora overseas. Prior to the 20th century, educated Chinese also utilized a courtesy name or style name called zi by which they were known among those outside of their family and closest friends. From at least the time of the Shang dynasty, the Han Chinese observed a number of naming taboos regulating who may or may not use a given name. In general, using the given name connoted the speakers authority, peers and younger relatives were barred from speaking it. Owing to this, many historical Chinese figures – particularly emperors – used a half-dozen or more different names in different contexts and those possessing names identical to the emperors were frequently forced to change them. Although some terms in the ancient Chinese naming system, such as xìng and míng, are used today, they were used in different. Commoners possessed only a name, and the modern concept of a surname or family name did not yet exist at any level of society.3 billion citizens. In fact, just the top three – Wang, Li, and Zhang – cover more than 20% of the population. This homogeneity results from the majority of Han family names having only one character. Chinese surnames arose from two separate traditions, the xìng and the shì. The original xìng were clans of royalty at the Shang court, the shì did not originate from families, but denoted fiefs, states, and titles granted or recognized by the Shang court. Apart from the Jiang and Yao families, the original xìng have nearly disappeared, xìng is now used to describe the shì surnames which replaced them, while shì is used to refer to maiden names. The enormous modern clans sometimes share ancestral halls with one another, nonetheless, however tenuous these bonds sometimes are, it remains a minor taboo to marry someone with the same family name. In modern mainland China, it is the norm that a woman keeps her name unchanged. A child usually inherits his/her fathers surname, though the law explicitly states that a child may use either parents or the grandparents. It is also possible, though far less common, for a child to both parents surnames. In the older generations, it was common for a married woman to prepend her husbands surname to her own. This practice is now almost extinct in mainland China, though there are a few such as the name change of Gu Kailai, but survives in some Hong Kong, Macau
3.
Chinese surname
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Chinese surnames are used by Han Chinese and Sinicized ethnic groups in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Vietnam and among overseas Chinese communities. In ancient times two types of surnames existed, namely xing or lineage names, and shi or clan names, Chinese family names are patrilineal, passed from father to children. Women do not normally change their surnames upon marriage, except in places with more Western influences such as Hong Kong, traditionally Chinese surnames have been exogamous. The colloquial expressions laobaixing and bǎixìng are used in Chinese to mean ordinary folks, prior to the Warring States period, only the ruling families and the aristocratic elite had surnames. Historically there was also a difference between clan names or xing and lineages names or shi, Xing were surnames held by the noble clans. They generally are composed of a nü radical which has taken by some as evidence they originated from matriarchal societies based on maternal lineages. Another hypothesis has been proposed by sinologist Léon Vandermeersch upon observation of the evolution of characters in oracular scripture from the Shang dynasty through the Zhou, the female radical seems to appear at the Zhou period next to Shang sinograms indicating an ethnic group or a tribe. This combination seems to designate specifically a female and could mean lady of such or such clan, prior to the Qin Dynasty China was largely a fengjian society. In this way, a nobleman would hold a shi and a xing, after the states of China were unified by Qin Shi Huang in 221 BC, surnames gradually spread to the lower classes and the difference between xing and shi blurred. Many shi surnames survive to the present day, according to Kiang Kang-Hu, there are 18 sources from which Chinese surnames may be derived, while others suggested at least 24. The following are some of the sources, Xing, These were usually reserved for the central lineage of the royal family. Of these xings, only Jiang and Yao have survived in their form to modern days as frequently occurring surnames. Royal decree by the Emperor, such as Kuang, state name, Many nobles and commoners took the name of their state, either to show their continuing allegiance or as a matter of national and ethnic identity. These are some of the most common Chinese surnames, name of a fief or place of origin, Fiefdoms were often granted to collateral branches of the aristocracy and it was natural as part of the process of sub-surnaming for their names to be used. An example is Di, Marquis of Ouyangting, whose descendants took the surname Ouyang, there are some two hundred examples of this identified, often of two-character surnames, but few have survived to the present. Names of an ancestor, Like the previous example, this was also a common origin with close to 500 or 600 examples,200 of which are two-character surnames, often an ancestors courtesy name would be used. For example, Yuan Taotu took the character of his grandfathers courtesy name Boyuan as his surname. Sometimes titles granted to ancestors could also be taken as surnames, seniority within the family, In ancient usage, the characters of meng, zhong, shu and ji were used to denote the first, second, third and fourth eldest sons in a family
4.
Chen (surname)
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Chen is one of the most common East Asian surnames of Chinese origin. It ranks as the 5th most common surname in China as of 2007, Chen is also the most common family name in Guangdong, Zhejiang, Fujian, Hong Kong. It is the most common surname in Xiamen, the hometown of many overseas Hoklo. Besides 陳/陈, an uncommon Chinese surname 諶/谌 is also romanized as Chen and it is usually romanised as Chan in Cantonese, most widely used by those from Hong Kong, and sometimes as Chun. The spelling, Chan, is used in Macao and Malaysia. In Min, the name is pronounced Tan, in Hakka and Taishanese, the name is spelled Gin. Some other Romanisations include Zen, Ding and Chern, Chen can be variously spelt as Tan, Chan or Chin in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries. Chen is commonly spelled Chang in Peru, the Korean surname 진 is the Korean pronunciation of the same character. In Japanese, the surname is transliterated Chin, in Vietnam, this surname is written in Quốc Ngữ as Trần and it is the second most common surname. Chen was derived from Gui, the surname of the descendants of the sage king Emperor Shun. When King Wu of Zhou established the Zhou dynasty in 1046/45 BC, Gui Man was said to be a descendant of Emperor Shun, at the State of Chen, in modern Huaiyang County, Henan Province. Chen was conquered by Chu in 479 BC, and the people of Chen adopted the name of their state as their surname. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties period, Chen Baxian established the Chen Dynasty, the fourth and the last of the Southern dynasties, which was eventually destroyed by the Sui Dynasty
5.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
6.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
7.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
8.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
9.
Jyutping
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Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanisation Scheme, the LSHK promotes the use of this romanisation system. The name Jyutping is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms Jyut6jyu5, only the finals m and ng can be used as standalone nasal syllables. ^ ^ ^ Referring to the pronunciation of these words. There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese, however, as three of the nine are entering tones, which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping. Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they differ in the following, The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping, the initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping whereas y is used instead in Yale. The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping whereas j is used instead in Yale, the initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping whereas ch is used instead in Yale. In Jyutping, if no consonant precedes the vowel yu, then the initial j is appended before the vowel, in Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances. Jyutping defines three finals not in Yale, eu /ɛːu/, em /ɛːm/, and ep /ɛːp/ and these three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6, lem2, and gep6. To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping whereas Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter h. Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they have differences, The vowel oe represents both /ɵ/ and /œː/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping. The vowel y represents /y/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both yu and i are used in Jyutping, the initial dz represents /ts/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas z is used instead in Jyutping. The initial ts represents /tsʰ/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas c is used instead in Jyutping. To represent tones, the numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, however, only the numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping
10.
Cantonese
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Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of Chinese spoken in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China. It is the prestige variety of Yue, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and some neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. In Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese serves as one of their official languages and it is also spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and throughout the Western World. When Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified together, Cantonese is viewed as vital part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swathes of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares some vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon, sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar, in English, the term Cantonese is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton and this narrow sense may be specified as Canton language or Guangzhou language in English. However, Cantonese may also refer to the branch of Cantonese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang. In this article, Cantonese is used for Cantonese proper, historically, speakers called this variety Canton speech or Guangzhou speech, although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong province, people call it provincial capital speech or plain speech. In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, in mainland China, the term Guangdong speech is also increasingly being used among both native and non-native speakers. Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Cantonese or Yue branch of Chinese varieties, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and it is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English. A similar situation exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language along with Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The variant spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is known as Hong Kong Cantonese, Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China
11.
Hong Kong
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Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the Pearl River Delta of East Asia. Macau lies across the delta to the west, and the Chinese province of Guangdong borders the territory to the north. With a total area of 1,106 square kilometres. Hong Kong was later occupied by Japan during World War II until British control resumed in 1945, under the principle of one country, two systems, Hong Kong maintains a separate political and economic system from China. Except in military defence and foreign affairs, Hong Kong maintains its independent executive, legislative, in addition, Hong Kong develops relations directly with foreign states and international organisations in a broad range of appropriate fields. Hong Kong is one of the worlds most significant financial centres, with the highest Financial Development Index score and consistently ranks as the worlds most competitive and freest economic entity. As the worlds 8th largest trading entity, its legal tender, Hong Kongs tertiary sector dominated economy is characterised by simple taxation with a competitive level of corporate tax and supported by its independent judiciary system. However, while Hong Kong has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world and it has a very high Human Development Index ranking and the worlds longest life expectancy. Over 90% of the population use of well-developed public transportation. Seasonal air pollution with origins from neighbouring areas of Mainland China. Hong Kong was officially recorded in the 1842 Treaty of Nanking to encompass the entirety of the island, before 1842, the name referred to a small inlet—now Aberdeen Harbour, literally means Little Hong Kong)—between Aberdeen Island and the southern coast of Hong Kong Island. Aberdeen was a point of contact between British sailors and local fishermen. Detailed and accurate romanisation systems for Cantonese were available and in use at the time, fragrance may refer to the sweet taste of the harbours fresh water estuarine influx of the Pearl River or to the incense from factories lining the coast of northern Kowloon. The incense was stored near Aberdeen Harbour for export before Hong Kong developed Victoria Harbour, the name had often been written as the single word Hongkong until the government adopted the current form in 1926. Nevertheless, a number of century-old institutions still retain the form, such as the Hongkong Post, Hongkong Electric. As of 1997, its name is the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China. This is the title as mentioned in the Hong Kong Basic Law. Hong Kong has carried many nicknames, the most famous among those is the Pearl of the Orient, which reflected the impressive nightscape of the citys light decorations on the skyscrapers along both sides of the Victoria Harbour
12.
Cameo appearance
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A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance or voice part of a known person in a work of the performing arts, typically unnamed or appearing as themselves. Short appearances by celebrities, film directors, politicians, athletes or musicians are common, a crew member of the show or movie playing a minor role can be referred to as a cameo as well, such as Alfred Hitchcocks frequently performed cameos. Originally cameo role meant a character part that stands out from the other minor parts. The Oxford English Dictionary connects this with the meaning a short literary sketch or portrait, which is based on the meaning of cameo. More recently, cameo has come to refer to any short appearances, whether as a character or as oneself, such as the examples below. Cameos are generally not credited because of their brevity, or a mismatch between the celebritys stature and the film or TV show in which he or she is appearing. Others are acknowledgments of a contribution to an earlier work, as in the case of many film adaptations of TV series. Others honour artists or celebrities known for work in a particular field, possibly the best-known series of cameos was by the director Alfred Hitchcock, who made very brief appearances in most of his films. Cameos also occur in novels and other literary works, “Literary cameos” usually involve an established character from another work who makes a brief appearance to establish a shared universe setting, to make a point, or to offer homage. Balzac often employed this practice, as in his Comédie humaine, a cameo appearance can be made by the author of a work to put a sort of personal signature on a story. Vladimir Nabokov often put himself in his novels, for instance, quentin Tarantino provides cameos or small roles in at least 10 of his movies. Likewise, Peter Jackson has made cameos in all of his movies, except for his first feature-length movie Bad Taste in which he plays a main character. For example, he plays a peasant eating a carrot in The Fellowship of the Ring and The Desolation of Smaug, a Rohan warrior in The Two Towers, director Martin Scorsese appears in the background of his films as a bystander or an unseen character. In Whos That Knocking at My Door, he appears as one of the gangsters, he is a crew man in After Hours. He opens up his 1986 film The Color of Money with a monologue on the art of playing pool. In addition, he appears with his wife and daughter as wealthy New Yorkers in Gangs of New York, in a same way, Roman Polanski appears as a hired hoodlum in his film Chinatown, slitting Jack Nicholsons nose with the blade of his clasp knife. Directors sometimes cast well-known lead actors with whom they have worked in the past in other films, mike Todds film Around the World in 80 Days was filled with cameo roles, and others. The stars in cameo roles were pictured in oval insets in posters for the film, among the many cameos featured in the film Maverick, actor Danny Glover appears as the lead bank robber
13.
Troublesome Night
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Troublesome Night is a 1997 Hong Kong horror comedy film produced by Nam Yin and directed by Steve Cheng, Victor Tam and Herman Yau. It is the first of 19 films in the Troublesome Night film series, the film is set in the haunted streets of Hong Kong, with four loosely connected stories put together in one film. A group of youngsters go on a trip in the countryside. His life is changed since then as he becomes a victim of ghost-meddling, as his friends return to Hong Kong without him, another sinister story begins. Mrs To has a date with her husband to celebrate their wedding anniversary, the outcome of the second story leads to another story about Kens friend Jojo having a romantic affair with a ghost. The fourth story is about Peter Butt visiting a theatre with some of Kens friends
14.
Love Insurance
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Love Insurance is a lost 1919 American silent comedy film directed by Donald Crisp, produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It is based on the novel of the name by Earl Derr Biggers. Love Insurance was later remade in 1924 as The Reckless Age, as described in a film magazine, Lord Allan Harrowby, upon arriving in America to wed an heiress, goes to the New York office of Lloyds of London and insures against the lady changing her mind. Dick Minot, assistant manager of the office, is assigned to the task of preventing that occurrence and he meets Cynthia Meyrick, the lady in question, but not knowing her identity falls in love with her. However, business is his first thought and when she decides that she not love her fiance and is about to break her engagement. After all this is effected and the wedding about to proceed, Cynthia again changes her mind, by the terms of the policy, this releases the company, so Dick presents his own case to Cynthia, which she accepts and they elope
15.
Bao Zheng
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Bao Zheng, commonly known as Bao Gong, was a government officer during the reign of Emperor Renzong in Chinas Song Dynasty. His appointment from 1057 to 1058 as the prefect of Songs capital Kaifeng, during his years in office, he gained the honorific title Justice Bao due to his ability to help peasants overcome corruption. Bao Zheng today is honored as the symbol of justice in Greater China. His largely fictionalized gongan and wuxia stories have appeared in a variety of different literary and dramatic mediums, in mainstream Chinese mythology, he is often portrayed wearing a judge miter hat and a crescent moon on his forehead. Some Chinese provinces later deified Judge Bao, equating him to the benevolent war god Guan Gong, Bao Zheng was born into a scholar family in Luzhou. Baos family was in the middle class, though Baos parents could afford to send him to school, his mother had to climb up mountains to collect firewood just before she gave birth to him. As Bao grew up among low working class, he well understood peoples hardships, hated corruption, at the age of 29, Bao passed the highest-level imperial examination and became qualified as a Jinshi. During the time Bao looked after his parents at home, Liu Yun, Magistrate of Luzhou who was renowned as an excellent poetic and fair-minded officer, because the two got along well, Bao obtained great influence from Liu Yun in respect of the love for people. After his parents demise, Bao Zheng, then 39, was appointed magistrate of Tianchang County not far from his hometown and it was here that Bao first established his reputation as an astute judge. According to an anecdote, a man reported that his oxs tongue had been sliced out. Bao told him to return and slaughter the ox for sale, soon another man arrived in court and accused the first man of privately slaughtering a beast of burden, an offense punishable by a year of penal servitude. Bao bellowed, Why did you cut his oxs tongue and then accuse him, in shock, the culprit had to confess. In 1040, Bao Zheng was promoted to the prefect of Duanzhou in the south, a famous for its high-quality inkstones. Bao abolished the practice by telling manufacturers to fill only the required quota, when his tenure was up in 1043, Bao left without a single inkstone in his possession. It was in Duanzhou that he wrote poem, Bao Zheng returned to the capital and was named an investigating censor in 1044. For the next 2 years in this position, Bao submitted at least 13 memoranda to Emperor Renzong of Song on military, taxation, the examination system, in 1045, Bao was sent to the Liao dynasty as a messenger. Bao retorted, Why is a side door required for intelligence, the Liao subject could not respond. Nevertheless, the concubines uncle Zhang Yaozuo was quickly promoted within a few years from local posts to high office
16.
A Kindred Spirit
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A Kindred Spirit was a television drama series that was broadcast on TVB Jade in Hong Kong from 15 May 1995 to 13 November 1999. It is one of the longest running shows in Hong Kong television history. Its exceptional longevity still amazes people in a city where scripted TV drama programs typically only last around 20 episodes, the total number of episodes is 1,128. Each episode airs a few days in each week, the show centres on a family who operates a barbecue pork restaurant in Happy Valley, Hong Kong, and their life. As the show progressed, more and more new characters were added into the show, the show finally ended on 13 November 1999 with a lavish farewell that included all the actors who participated in the show from past to present. The shows impact on Hong Kong culture is immense, although its influence is fading away as new series are being aired, everyone can remember the approximate arc of the story and most can sing the theme song. The impact of the show on its cast is enormous, some actors have suffered a form of curse from the series, a good example is the actor who played Ji Ho in the series. His performance on the series was so convincing and memorable that it has prevented him from playing heroes or protagonists since his run on the show ended, Kindred Spirit is shown in Hong Kong on TVBs Grand Theatre Channel, which belongs to TVBs new pay television services. The show aired in Canada via Fairchild TV, the show was previously on rerun on Thursday,13 September 2007 from Monday to Friday at 2, 15pm on TVB Jade in Hong Kong. List of longest films by running time
17.
Sitcom
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A situation comedy, or sitcom, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use new characters in each sketch, and stand-up comedy, Sitcoms originated in radio, but today are found mostly on television as one of its dominant narrative forms. This form can also include mockumentaries, a situation comedy television program may be recorded in front of a studio audience, depending on the programs production format. The effect of a studio audience can be imitated or enhanced by the use of a laugh track. The terms situational comedy or sitcom werent commonly used until the 1950s, there were prior examples on radio, but the first television sitcom is said to be Pinwrights Progress, ten episodes being broadcast on the BBC in the United Kingdom between 1946 and 1947. There have been few long-running Australian-made sitcoms, but many U. S. UK sitcoms are a staple of government broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Corporation, in the 1970s and 1980s many UK sitcoms also screened on the Seven Network. By 1986, UK comedies Bless This House and Are You Being Served, had been repeated by ABC Television several times, and were then acquired and screened by the Seven Network, in prime time. In 1981, Daily at Dawn was the first Australian comedy series to feature a gay character. In 1987, Mother and Son was winner of the Television Drama Award presented by the Australian Human Rights Commission, in 2013, Please Like Me was praised by the critics, receiving an invitation to screen at the Series Mania Television Festival in Paris. And has garnered three awards and numerous nominations, nominated to the 2012 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards for Best Television Comedy Series. Conversely, however, Canadian television has had greater success with sketch comedy and dramedy series. The popular show King of Kensington, aired from 1975 to 1980, corner Gas, which ran for six seasons from 2004 to 2009, became an instant hit, averaging a million viewers per episode. It has been the recipient of six Gemini Awards, and has been nominated almost 70 times for various awards, other noteworthy recent sitcoms have included Call Me Fitz and Schitts Creek, Letterkenny and Kims Convenience. Sitcoms started appearing on Indian television in the 1980s, with serials like Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi, since it ceased production in 1992, the show has earned an estimated billion in syndication fees alone for Televisa. Gliding On, a popular sit-com in New Zealand in the early 1980s, won awards over the course of its run, including Best Comedy, Best Drama. The first Russian sitcom series was Strawberry, which was aired in 1996-1997 on the RTR channel, however, the boom of Russian sitcoms began only in the 2000s - when in 2004 the STS started very successful sitcom My Fair Nanny. Since that time sitcoms in Russia were produced by the two largest entertainment channels of the country - STS and TNT, in 2007 the STS released the first original domestic sitcom - Daddys Daughters, and in 2010 TNT released Interns - the first sitcom, filmed as a comedy. Most American sitcoms generally include episodes of 20 to 30 minutes in length, some popular British shows have been successfully adapted for the U. S
18.
A Recipe for the Heart
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A Recipe for the Heart is a 1997 TVB comedy drama with a food theme. Produced by Tommy Leung, it stars Bobby Au-yeung, Esther Kwan, Lydia Shum, Paul Chun, Louis Koo, Maggie Cheung Ho-Yee, the drama is TVBs 30th anniversary drama. Multiple TVBs lead actors and actresses also have cameos in the drama, original broadcast began on November 10 till December 20,1997 on TVB Jade channel airing weekdays during the 7,30 to 8,30 pm timeslot. In 2005, the series aired repeated episodes throughout Monday to Friday at 10,45 to 11,45 am, Kam Yat-san is in a heated cooking competition with master chef Chun Man-sek. Right before the competition is judged Yat-san accidentally sneezes peppers on to Man-sek dish, Man-sek goes insane after losing the competition, disappears and is never heard of again. Three years later Yat-san arrives under the alias Tin Mei-gut at Man-seks restaurant Delicious Garden to atone for his guilt of what happened, Man-seks restaurant is currently run by his daughter Chun So-so, who is also the current head chef. It is failing restaurant because So-so is a terrible cook, Yat-san now as Mei-gut offers to buy 51% stake of the restaurant and teach So-so how to cook. So-so and her mother Tong Yuen-yuen thinks Mei-gut has ulterior motives but takes his offer anyway since it such a deal for them. Bobby Au-yeung as Kam Yat-san, Tin Mei-gut, Tin Mei-chang A master chef who won the title unfairly against Chun Man-sek, uses the alias of Tin Mei-gut to mentor Chun So-so and becomes 51% owner of Delicious Garden restaurant. Esther Kwan as Chun So-so Chun Man-sek and Tong Yuen-yuens daughter, a terrible cook who is trying her best to save her fathers Delicious Garden restaurant from going out of business. Paul Chun as Chun Man-sek Former master chef and owner of Delicious Garden restaurant and he goes insane and loses his memory after losing a unfairly judged cooking competition to Kam Yat-san. Lydia Shum as Tong Yuen-yuen Chun Man-seks wife and Chun So-sos mother and she manages the dining area of the Delicious Garden restaurant. She blames Tin Mei-gut for what happened to her husband, Louis Koo as Kiu Pak-ko A up and coming master chef at Delicious Garden rivaled restaurant. Ha Jut-jut had initially thought he was Kam Yat-san because he is able to cook a dish like Yat-san, Maggie Cheung Ho-Yee as Ha Jut-jut A food critic who is a foodie. She gave Delicious Garden a bad review because of So-sos terrible cooking, john Tang as Lam Siu-ding Kam Yat-sans pupil and assistant cook. Jessica Hsuan as Leung Song-song Tin Mei-guts former cooking classmate who has a crush on him Cheung Tat-ming as Ho B-jai Tin Mei-guts. Jerry Lamb as Ho Siu-king Kiu Pak-ko assistant cook, chor Yuen as Yu Yau-bo Owner of Delicious Garden rivaled restaurant and Kiu Pak-ko boss. Fung So Bor as Wong Kuen-kuen Yu Yau-bos wife, angel Sung as Kei Lim-lim A waitress at Delicious Garden
19.
Secret of the Heart
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Secret of the Heart is a 1998 Hong Kong television drama produced by TVB that was first aired from 16 February to 10 May 1998. The drama had a powerful roster cast that is made up of Felix Wong, Gallen Lo, Sunny Chan, Nick Cheung, Amy Kwok, Kathy Chow, Jessica Hsuan and Ada Choi. It won three TVB Anniversary Awards, including Best Actor for Gallen Lo, Best Actress for Ada Choi, the drama also received a late night hour rerun during 2003 and 2010. It was digitally remastered for the 2010 rerun, Winson Cheuk is a compulsive gambler who just returned to Hong Kong after a bout of bad luck and extreme debts in Toronto, Canada. He was reunited with his friend and neighbor, Abby Ching who is disgusted with his gambling habits. The Ching family had a secret that no one knows about. More than 20 years ago, Koo Yuk-mei, was raped by Kam Shu-pui and this resulted in the birth of Johnny Ching whom Mei despise greatly. Growing up with his two sisters Abby and Mandy, Johnny never knew why his mother treated him badly ever since he was a child, as fate would have it, Abby ended up working with Michael Kam who is the younger brother of Kam Shu-pui. In an effort to make Kam Shu-pui pay for what he did to her and her family, she decided to switch Kelvin with Johnny when Yip Cho-chi, the fact that Kelvin and Johnnys identities were switched was accidentally made known to Kelvin. Because he is used to the life, Kelvin schemed to eliminate Johnny so that Johnny will not have the chance inherit the Kam familys properties. Bowie Wu as Cheuk Yat-fu, father of Winson and Cheuk Seung-mo who is a neighbor of the Ching family and secretly admires Koo Yuk-mei. Gallen Lo as Winson Cheuk, a compulsive gambler returning from Toronto whom had lost all his earnings from gambling, after returning to Hong Kong, Winson eventually strives to make an effort to be successful. He is the ex-boyfriend of Apple Ko and Joe Kam and has an on, jerry Lamb as Cheuk Seung-mo, nicknamed Table Dance, Winsons younger brother who works as Kelly Tungs subordinate in the advertising department of Century Airlines. Paul Chun as Kam Shu-pui, the chairman of Yee Hoi Corporation. During his youth, he raped Koo Yuk-mei, resulting in the birth of Johnny Ching, Shu-pui was later framed by Frankie Tung and was imprisoned as a result. After his release from prison, he suffered from a stroke and was diagnosed with Parkinsons disease, losing his ability to communicate, pak Yan as Yip Cho-chi, Kam Shu-puis wife, mother of Maggie and Jo Kam, and adopted mother of Kelvin Kam. Felix Wong as Michael Kam, the current chairman of Yee Hoi Corporation and Shu-puis younger brother, Michael marries with Abby, but their marriage ends in a divorce when he has an affair with Abbys younger sister, Mandy, and impregnating her. Still deeply in love with Abby, Michael injures Winson when he thought Winson was pursuing her and left him unconscious, later during a sneak attack staged by Kelvin, Michael loses 70% of his eyesight
20.
Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain
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Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, also known as Flying Fox of Snowy Mountain, is a wuxia novel by Jin Yong. It was first serialised in Hong Kong between 9 February and 18 June 1959 in the newspaper Ming Pao, the novel has a prequel, The Young Flying Fox, which was released in 1960. Flying Fox of Snowy Mountain is one of Jin Yongs shortest novels, the chapters are labelled in numerical order, instead of Jin Yongs typical style of using a short phrase or duilian as a chapters heading. The actual time frame of the novel lasts only a day, in the revised afterword to the novel, Jin Yong states that his inspiration did not derive from Akira Kurosawas 1950 film Rashomon as many people had falsely assumed. The literary devices used in the novel have been used often in literature, such as in One Thousand and One Nights. The story begins in the Changbai mountains in northeastern China during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor in the Qing dynasty. It follows the classical unity of time, taking place on a single day, a group of martial artists unearth a treasure chest and begin fighting for it. The reason for doing so is deliberately kept from the reader at this point of time. They start telling stories concerning the origin of a saber in the chest. In doing so, they gradually reveal each others personal secrets, the sabers story dates back over a century ago to the feuds of the four bodyguards under the warlord Li Zicheng, who led a rebellion that overthrew the Ming dynasty. The four guards family names were Hu, Miao, Tian and Fan, owing to a massive misunderstanding, which lasted several generations, their descendants have been slaying each other in a vendetta that prevented any of them from uncovering the truth. The Hu clan was opposed to those from the Miao, Tian and Fan families, the people gathered at the manor are either descendants of the four bodyguards or are otherwise embroiled in the feud. Hu Feis father, Hu Yidao, met Miao Renfeng, a descendant of the Miao family, both were masterful martial artists without peer. Miao Renfeng, Hu Yidao and his wife developed a friendship and grew to admire each other. Under the schemes of the villain Tian Guinong, Hu Yidao was unintentionally slain by Miao Renfeng when Tian secretly smeared his sword with poison, Hu Yidaos infant son, Hu Fei, was rescued and raised by a waiter, Ping Asi, whose life Hu Yidao once saved. Hu Fei grew up and became a martial artist nicknamed Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain. The various scheming martial artists are eventually punished by their greed, Hu Fei makes an appearance midway in the story. The conflict reaches a climax when Miao Renfeng challenges Hu Fei to a duel thinking mistakenly that Hu has intentionally molested his daughter and they fight for several rounds but neither emerges the victor
21.
Detective Investigation Files IV
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Detective Investigation Files IV is the 4th and final installment of the Detective Investigation Files TV franchised by TVB in Hong Kong. It won two TVB Anniversary Awards, including Best Actor for Louis Koo and Best Actress for Jessica Hsuan, the series focuses on the lives of two detectives, Tsui Fei and Kong Chi Shan, and the murder cases they deal with. He has been unstable since the disappearance of his girlfriend Leung Chin Chin three years earlier. At first, his attitude is not welcomed by the officers, especially Hon Kwok Yan. Fei and Tze Shan eventually become best friends, while investigating his first murder case, Fei meets psychologist Quin Mo Chiu Kwan and the two fell in love. Because Fei still misses his ex-girlfriend, the two frequently quarrel, Tze Shan has a beautiful girlfriend, Man Yuen Lan, but Yuen Lans best friend Tong Sum Yu is also in love with him. Sum Yu tries hard to stop loving Tze Shan, until Yuen Lans father Man Kwok Tai kills Leung Kim Hung - Tze Shans fellow officer, Kwok Tai forces his daughter to assist his crime, but in the end they are both captured and sent to prison. Yuen Lan gives Tze Shan up because of this, without Yuen Lan in the way, Sum Yu and Tze Shan quickly developed a relationship and even decided to marry. Yuen Lan has already released from prison. Yuen Lan asked if they can have a chance to get back to together, Tze Shan said he already hurt Yuen Lan, and Yuen Lan will always be in his heart. Tze Shan still chooses Sum Yu and Yuen Lan also accepts the truth, meanwhile, Tze Shans sister Kong Tze Ching re-encounters her long-lost twin sister Tze Yiu, but Tze Yiu turns out to be a lunatic and is involved with a murder case. Tze Ching tries to hide her but she cannot stop her from attending Tze Shans wedding, Tze Yius emotions were stable at first but she suddenly has hallucinations of the man she murdered and tries to kill him with a knife. Unfortunately, her hallucinations appear right in front of Sum Yu who is stabbed to death as a result, Tze Shan is devastated and tries to rekindle his relationship with Yuen Lan, but Yuen Lan has decided to leave for Yunnan. Deep down, Tze Shan likes Yuen Lan more, but he felt bad because of what his sister did, meanwhile, Chin Chin suddenly reappears, and Fei discovers that Chin Chin had been held captive by gangster Cheng Tung Shing for all these years. Tung Shing was friends with Fei, when Fei was an undercover in the triads, Tung Shing managed to escape and swore revenge against Fei. He kidnapped Chin Chin for future use, finally, Tung Shing is defeated and sent to jail. Fei reluctantly breaks up with Quin as he felt he had owed Chin Chin way too much, the last seconds of the shows finale hint that Quin has developed a relationship with Tze Shan. Detective Investigation Files IV was shot with a new cast since the main stars of the original three installments, Michael Tao and Joey Leung, had left TVB
22.
At the Threshold of an Era
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The series composed of two parts, with a gap in between the airing. The drama documents the rise and fall of three entrepreneurs, who founded Lik Tin Century Corporation together to achieve the goal of developing a pollution-free town in Hong Kong. Vendetta and love serves as strong throughout the series, with the vendetta between two families being the most prominent. It was speculated that the show was not originally meant to become a cross-millennium event, in Hong Kong, TVB is the predominant TV station in terms of ratings, often receiving 90% viewing shares. Supporters of this point to the splitting of the series into two parts, with a gap in between the broadcast to allow for production time. However, this still does not provide an explanation to the gap between two series, Tim Yip Wing-tim, The main character in the series, and an ambitious entrepreneur, he is the leader of his circle of three friends that established the Lik Tin Century construction corporation. Throughout the series, Tim has sometimes resorted to rather unsavory tactics to get things done due to his poor upbringing and his lust for revenge. He cares most of his family and friends yet at the beginning of the story, he was too bent on revenge, but through the long course of the story, he realizes his mistakes and evolved into an honorable person. Michael Hui Man-piu, An urban planner and the most educated person in his family, after a stressful event, he finally succumbs to the glories of dirty tactics and the crisis turned him into the villain of the first series. His evolution was so big that he would turn on everyone he loved just for fame. He was probably Tims greatest friend and greatest challenge, over the course of the first series, Tim first tries to get him to see the benefits of walking outside the straight line and will later try to make him repent his sins. He eventually dies at the end of the first series due to a medical allergy, Ma Chi-keung, He is the most unimpressive of the group of three due to his naivete but he is very nice towards his parents and friends. He started off as an investment counsellor and joined Lik Tin after he was fired from the bank, after his parents death, he left the company when he realizes that their deaths were part of a defamation plot hatched by Michael and Tim. Though sometimes considered the one, he is a good-natured innocent boy stuck between Tim and Michael. He is the one who always stops the arguing of the three friends. Yip Hau-kan, Brother of Howard Yip, and established Ming Dai Group and he went to prison for his brother over poorly constructed houses that violated safety regulations years before the time of the series, and is currently in retirement. Lee Pik-chun, Mother of Tim, and has a housewife mentality and she was once diagnosed with cancer during Kens time in prison and is now constantly worried about her children. Yip Wing-chak, An athlete whose dream was to compete professionally and he is usually supportive of his brother
23.
Battlefield Network
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Battlefield Network is a 2000 Hong Kong television drama produced by ATV and starring Sunny Chan, Wayne Lai, Astrid Chan and Berg Ng. The series is a depiction of Hong Kongs television and movie industries from 1970s to roughly the late 1990s. The main character, Fong Siu Long wanted to work with his brother Fong Siu Keung in a station called Red Strings Television. From there, the two brothers, along with the family, will experience the ups and downs of life, Sunny Chan as Fong Siu Long, reportedly a depiction of a former ATV worker who eventually became one of the stations Vice Presidents. He wound up working for MTV, after trying, without success and he worked his way up from his starting job as a Production Assistant, and eventually became a high-level executive at the station he has worked for all his life. Wayne Lai as Fong Siu Keung, reportedly a depiction of film director Wong Jing and he worked at RSTV, and later became a movie director. Lai Ka-ka as Fong Sze-man, Siu Long and Siu Keungs sister and she later developed a career as an actress specializing in action movies. Wong Shu-tong as Fong Yuen, Siu Long and Siu Keungs father, paw Hee-ching as Chow Ping, Siu Long and Siu Keungs mother. Berg Ng as Fok Wai Lhung, reportedly a composite consisting of several former ATV producers. He was a producer at Media Television. He later became a director, wound up in jail. Simon Chui as Lee Pak-tin, Worked at MTV as an executive and he was later recruited to Goodwill Television, and later returned to Media Television. Emotion Cheung as Cheung Kan-ming, an assistant at MTV. He later had a career as a director, but was killed by triad members. Karen Chan as Ann Wan, A production assistant that later married Siu Long, died in a car accident in Australia. Kwan Kin as Chiu Tai Chung, reportedly a depiction of businessman Deacon Chiu, he bought Media Television, like the real life counterpart, Tai Cheung is known for being a miserly person. David Lau as Lee Fu, A businessman who, after meeting Siu Long in Australia and hearing about the thrills of working in television and she and Siu Long had a relationship, which was quashed by her mother. She had an affair with Lee Fu, the stations owner and she suffered from a mental breakdown after that
24.
Li Shangyin
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Li Shangyin, courtesy name Yishan, was a Chinese poet of the late Tang Dynasty, born in Henei. Along with Li He, he was admired and rediscovered in the 20th century by young Chinese writers for the imagist quality of his poems. He is particularly famous for his tantalizing no title poems, Li Shangyins career was rough, and he never obtained a high position, either because of factional disputes, or because of his association with Liu Fen, a prominent opponent of the eunuchs. Li Shangyin lived at a time when the Tang Dynasty, after two hundred years of glorious reign, was fast declining. Culturally, politically and economically the Tang was one of the periods of Chinese history. The cosmopolitan capital of Changan was filled with traders from the Middle East, the empire covered a vast territory, the largest yet in the history of China. The nation, under the reign of Emperor Gaozuyi] through Taizong, Empress Wu to the time of Xuanzong, after the An Lushan Rebellion, however, the political and economic structure of the country began to disintegrate and the Dynasty went rapidly into decline. Peace and stability over the area of Hebei was heavily bought by a compromise settlement. These provincial governors paid only lip service to the central government, the court, now weak and impotent, tolerated their growing independence, wary also of the aggression of the Tibetans to the north-west who posed a constant threat to the capital. During the subsequent years, military governors repeatedly challenged imperial authority with attempts to claim hereditary succession, resulting in revolts and bloodshed. The eunuchs first gained influence as a group when Gao Lishi helped Emperor Xuanzong in his rise in power.3 Later. By gaining royal patronage eunuchs gradually controlled personal access to the emperors and they also involved themselves with provincial appointments, at times, even intervening with armed forces in disputes over imperial successions. By the time of Li Shangyin, the emperors had allowed the eunuchs to become fully entrenched both militarily and politically, after Xianzong, all Tang emperors (except Jingzong were put on the throne by the eunuchs. In 835, the infamous Sweet Dew Incident occurred during the reign of Emperor Wenzong, a palace coup designed by Li Xun and Zheng Zhu support of Wenzongs effort to overthrow the eunuchs failed. Eunuchs, led by Qiu Shiliang slaughtered the clans of many high officials, a great many other innocent people were killed in connection with this event. The eunuchs whose power had been growing out of control now completely dominated the Emperor, apart from the eunuchs, the Niu-Li factional strife was another destructive internal force haunting the Tang court. The Niu and Li factions were not organized political parties, the head of the Niu faction was represented by Niu Sengru and Li Zongmin and the Li faction by Li Deyu. In the 830s, the two contending factions created much turmoil in court through the reigns of Muzong, Jingzong, Wenzong, Wuzong and Xuanzong, in any case, many intellectuals and high officials were involved in this struggle
25.
Just Love
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Just Love is a TVB modern drama series broadcast in May 2005. The drama was broadcast in Singapores MediaCorp TV Channel 8 in 2007, play of family background, surrounded mainly scratching between husband and wife relationship, trust and support. Diverse work and affairs, and need to be difficult to care for their children because their parents have to face the family encountered feelings and confused. A direct sequel, Just Love II was produced and is released in 2009 continued with Jessica Hsuan, Sunny Chan, Natalie Tong, Patrick Tang, lawful Woman, Blind-folded so that she cannot see who she is condemning, representing equality. A scale in her hand to represent fairness. A sword in her hand to represent righteousness and justice. Ko Hei Man is a judge that takes her work very seriously. She believes everyone is equal before the law and judges each, Kot Kwok Kwong is Mans supportive husband who obediently takes care of the household duties and their son. The couple first met in England, and after a one-night stand, Kwong takes full responsibility for the baby, but the couple is left wondering if marriage was the right decision. Kwongs sexist and old-fashioned father objects to his sons ways of listening to his wife. He believes Kwong needs to focus on work, while Man should learn to be a house-wife and these old fashioned ways is what drove his daughter, Kot Bo-Yee, to leave home. Bo-Yee suddenly returns to Hong Kong after studying in America and Kwong soon finds out that Bo-Yee was expelled from America for charges of violence, trying to hide from her father, Man sends Bo-Yee to go live with Dai Ji-Hung, Mans ex-boyfriend. Dai Ji-Hung still has feelings for Man that he cant put down, Man and Kwong face many obstacles in their marriage, mainly due to Mans stubbornness and Kwongs foolishness. Man turns to Leung Sin-Sin, prosecuting lawyer, and yoga instructor Lo Wing-See for advice, Sin believes that in a marriage, there is no right and wrong and that Man and Kwong need to learn to compromise. See, however, believes all men in the world are jerks. Meanwhile, Kwong seeks advice from So Ah-Gei, defense lawyer, both of them tell Kwong that he needs to man up and show his wife whos in charge. How will the couples of Man and Kwong, Sin and Gei, See and Wan, TVB. com Just Love - Official Website
26.
Placebo Cure
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Placebo Cure is a Hong Kong modern serial drama produced by TVB and starring Sunny Chan, Joyce Tang and Kevin Cheng. The drama was filmed from November 2003 to early 2004 and was first released overseas in May 2005 and it was then aired in Hong Kong on Super Suns TVB Drama channel from 30 May to 24 June 2005. It was then aired on TVB Jade from 19 October to 16 November 2006
27.
The Slicing of the Demon
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The Slicing of the Demon is a Hong Kong television series produced by TVB. It was released overseas in March 2007, during the Ming Dynasty, executioner To Sei-hoi and his god-brother, Shui Yu-chan, a doctor, accidentally enter the town of Cheung Lung. Cheung Lung appears to be a happy and peaceful place, however, underneath the facade, its hiding a very big secret. The brothers meet the towns wealthiest man Fok Tin-ming, as well as his stubborn and unreasonable daughter, by mistake, Hoi and Yiu get married and become husband and wife. Suddenly, a number of murders happen in the town, while investigating, Hoi discovers that he and Chan are being caught in a trap. It turns out that theres someone behind the scenes pulling the strings, the unknown causes immense fear in people. To Sei-hoi is the son of an executioner. After his foster fathers death, he carries his golden executioner blade with him wherever he goes to remind himself of his identity and he befriends Shui Yu-chan, a doctor, and the two become sworn brothers. Shui Yu-chan keeps his identity a secret in order to avenge for his late father Kong Yuk-shu and he falls in love with Sin-yiu, but later finds out that Sin-yiu is actually his enemys daughter. Fok Sin-yiu is the daughter of Fok Tin-ming, Cheung Lung towns priest and she falls in love with Yu-chan and the two plan to elope, but she returns to Sei-hoi. Poon Jai-yuet is one of Fok Tin-mings most trusted subordinates and she falls in love with Yu-chan, often finding herself stuck between friendship and love. Fok Tin-ming is Cheung Lung towns priest, kei Hok-yu Fok Sin-kei Poon Sing-yeung Wong Bik-yuk Lau Hoi-fuk SPCNET. tv The Slicing of the Demon - Reviews
28.
War and Destiny
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War and Destiny is a TVB period drama series released overseas in July 2006 and broadcast on TVB Jade Channel in March 2007. The background of the plot is set in the Nanjing during World War II, the Chinese title for this series shares the same Chinese name with the 1939 film Gone with the Wind. To fit the general ratings on TVB, the toned down much of the violence. The Ku family are living in the Republic of China era as a household in a wealthy part of Nanjing. Soon, words spread that the city is being taken over by Imperial Japanese forces, the Ku family, which had all daughters and a father and mother of weakening health, are soon forced to pack their belongings to leave the war torn area. One of their servants recommends they move to the rural areas, to their dismay, life is incredibly difficult and they live in poverty. The family is in pieces as each daughter struggles with numerous difficulties in the countryside, however, all members of the family eventually grow closer together as they work in the rural area. One of the daughters, Ping-On, was shocked to find out that Hao-Yee and she also discovers that Hao-Yee, whom she considers to be her fiancé, is actually in love with Cheng Yuet-Fung, the 4th wife of her father. Meanwhile, he is treated as a spy and traitor by all the Chinese villagers he grew up with. The killing was portrayed in a manner that was often quick, especially during the grave scene where the hundreds of innocent citizens were buried, the bodies were all intact. In the story Ku Man-Chai had 4 wives, each trying to give birth to a male son, up until the 1930s Republic of China era, this was common practice in the culture. And was a problem in China up until it was fixed by the more extreme One Child Policy. The earlier Ku family owned a truck, while Poon Sai-Cheung owned a Rolls Royce. Both attempted to escape war-torn Nanking by car, while the other 99% of the population escaped on foot and this demonstrates the huge wealth gap between the rich and poor
29.
The Green Grass of Home
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The Green Grass of Home is a TVB modern drama series broadcast in June 2007. Stella Yip Moon-Chi is a designer who works as the head of her business team, but is demanding, high-strung. When her secretary tells Stellas boss about Stellas stress related health problems and she ends up meeting Choi Ka-Sing, her dream man, a mellow and easy-going man working as a utility man, and learning to relax. At the same time, Stellas family struggles with problems of their own, Stellas father, finally tired of trying mediate his unstable family, is befriended by Choi Ka-Sing and moves back to the countryside, where he becomes friends with Choi Ka-Sings family
30.
ICAC Investigators 2007
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ICAC Investigators 2007 is the 2007 installment of the ICAC Investigator series, produced by Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption and RTHK. It is broadcast on TVB Jade channel, each criminal case is based on actual cases investigated by the ICAC. Prisoner Cheung Chun Hung employs Yu Fais services in meeting up with his girlfriend Ho Mei Yen outside of prison for her to pass to Yu Fai personal items he wants, Yu Fai who is perverted sees it as an opportunity to make money and hopefully bed Mei Yen. The prison warden Chu Sir informs ICAC Investigator Sunny Leung of finding prohibited items in prisoners cell, he one of his staff is passing items to prisoners. ICAC eventually finds the connection between Yu Fai and Mei Yen, the prison warden has Yu Fai searched and finds a bag of illegal substance on him. With solid evidence on him Yu Fai is arrested by ICAC, the problem is brought to the attention of the heads of the construction corporation. ICAC is asked to investigate, they tail the workers of the construction company, ICAC finds out that the building supervisor Leung Dik Wai is never at the construction site but his signature on documents claimed he was. Lai Chi Kit is another building supervisors, unlike Dik Wai and their boss Chan Lik Tou tells Dik Wai he will promote him to head building supervisor but a loyal worker tells Lik Tou that he is making a mistake and Lik Tou promotes Chi Kit instead. Chi Kit has a hard time handling his new responsibility since he is dealt with a limited budget, Dik Wai who resents Chi Kit uses this as an opportunity for Chi Kit downfall by suggesting to their boss on using a not compliance material to complete the building. Lik Tou who only cares about the budget agrees to Dik Wais plan, Chi Kit guilt eventually gets the better of him and he quits his job, but ICAC arrest all of them. Actual case, The episode is based on the 1999 Short piling at Yuen Chau Kok case, certain pilings within the foundation of the buildings were found to be shorter than others. The buildings were ordered to be demolish, through hard work he makes his fortune in real-estate. He tells his business partner So Lai Man about his situation and he questions why and she tells him her identity was stolen by a friend who has applied for bankruptcy under her name. Lei Wah brings Lan Man to ICAC offices to report what happened. When ICAC further questions Lan Man about her case she tells ICAC that Lei Wah told her to lie to them in order to save himself from the banks, with what Lai Man told ICAC, they decide to investigate Lei Wah. ICAC brings in Lei Wahs secretary for questioning, being pressured by ICAC she gives them another employee name, ICAC Investigator Rachel Kong convinces one of Lei Wahs employees Lee Sui Yen to be a truthful witness and Lei Wah is finally convicted. He is suspected of taking bribes and gains from former colleague Wu Jen Wah and his wife Choi Yut Ngo in exchange for protection of their night club and hostess bar businesses. The ICAC spends two years trailing him to gather evidence to make a arrest, but with not enough evidence they are forced to release Ho Dong on bail
31.
Phoenix Rising (TV series)
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Phoenix Rising is a TVB period drama series released overseas in July 2007 and aired on TVB Pay Vision Channel in March 2008. The drama was received from the viewer in international broadcast. The show has been compared to 1989s hit drama, Looking Back In Anger, the Series was subsequently released on 2 January 2009 on Cambodia cable TV, PPCTV as the last country in showing it. Crystal, Louisa, and Leila are sisters and their parents died at birth, so the three of them were sent to orphanages and were later adopted into three different homes with different backgrounds. Louisa was sent to prison for killing her stepmother, but Crystal, wanting to save her sister, told officials that she was the one who committed the crime and went to prison instead. Leila is a kind person and forges evidence to save Crystal but gets caught and gets sent to jail. The three sisters and the owner have some hostilities, thus, the jail owner wants revenge. This series uses women in jail as its storyline, describing the dark side of women in prison, TVB. com Phoenix Rising - Official Website K for TVB. net Phoenix Rising - Episodic Synopsis and Screen Captures
32.
Best Selling Secrets
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Best Selling Secrets is a TVB modern sitcom series broadcast from March 2007 to August 2008. The sitcom is about politics in an advertisement company, as well as family. Wong Ka-Nam disappeared to the United States, leaving behind her son, when her husband dies in an airplane accident looking for her, Wong Ka-Nams son, Luk Chit is taken into the custody of her mother-in-law, Ng Hang. After eighteen long years, Wong Ka-Nam wishes to see her son again, however, she is met with adamant resistance from her mother-in-law, who views Ka-Nam as bad luck, blaming her for the death of her son. Highly protective of her grandson and fearing that Wong Ka-Nam will attempt to take him away, Ka Nams mother-in-law does everything in her power to keep mother and son apart. However Wong Ka-Nam is ironically assisted by her own son, who befriends her, best Selling Secrets was one of the first TVB series that featured placement of products, namely Sony Ericsson mobile phones, which were written into the plot for a few episodes
33.
Legend of the Demigods
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Legend of the Demigods is a TVB fantasy-adventure TV series starring Sunny Chan, Linda Chung, Benny Chan, Halina Tam, Stephen Au, Nancy Wu and Charmaine Li. The ending theme song Fat Sai is performed by Linda Chung and it was produced in 2007 and first broadcast in August 2008. Gai Choi-Chi is no different from a girl, except that Lady Luck seems to smile upon her. She is thus nicknamed Ho-Choi Mui, however, she does not know that her stepmother, called Ho-Choi Ma, is actually a plant spirit. Choi-Chi helps some deities defeat an evil spirit once and her stepmother turns her into a demigod to save her life, as a child, Shek Kam-Dong was constantly bullied and looked down upon, but he still remains filial to his mother and shows great respect for the gods. Wong Tai Sin, a god, takes pity on Shek. However, Shek starts to abuse his new power and uses it to bully others, an Hei has narcolepsy, as he is always tired and falls asleep at random timings. Wong Tai-Sin tries to help An Hei by presenting him a sword that is possessed by the spirit of a warrior. Whenever An Hei runs into trouble, the spirit will possess him. One day, an evil wizard disturbs the quiet town and captures Ho-Choi Ma, gai Choi-Chi, Shek Kam-Dong and An Hei joins hands to confront the wizard and defeat her to save Ho-Choi Ma. They travel across the continent on their heroic quest, encountering strange and mystical events along the journey
