Charmaine Sheh's acting as retarded girl criticized as a copy of 'Ah Wong'; Premiere gets complaints

Charmaine Sheh's acting as retarded girl criticized as a copy of 'Ah Wong'; Premiere gets complaints

TVB new series My Sister of Eternal Flower premiered on Monday night, lead actor and actress Raymond Lam and Charmaine Sheh are the topic of focus, especially Charmaine's mentally challenged role. Her acting has become the hottest topic on discussion forums.

Charmaine plays 'Sister Fa' in My Sister of Eternal Flower, who just has an IQ of a 10 year old girl. This is a great challenge to Charmaine's acting. After the broadcast of the first episode, Netizens start attacking her disliking her performance because they feel she doesn't look like a mentally challenged person and she's only copying 'Ah Wong' (played by Roger Kwok). However, despite Netizens' scolds, the level of appeal on audience has not been reduced. The series starts off with high ratings, and has been the better results of late. The first episode averaged at 29 points, peaking at 30 points (about 1.9 million viewers), which is higher compared to last week's finale broadcast of Relic of an Emissary with only 28 points.

Yesterday the Broadcasting Authority received 1 complaint on the scene where spoiled rich boy Chiang Yik (Raymond Lam) did a bank robbery practical joke, that the scene was a bad influence on children.

TV ratings starts high, Netizens starts a war of Pros and Cons

On the Hong Kong and tvb.com discussion forums, there is a war on Charmaine's performance in the series, especially on tvb.com. Charmaine's fans are strongly supporting their idol's performance and made Sister Fa's catchphrase "It's really not simple" as the golden phrase. However, there is another group of Netizens who are attacking Charmaine, saying she doesn't look like a mentally challenged person, and that she talks too slowly, on average she spends a minute and a half speaking one line.

Netizens praise Raymond Lam's Chok is naughty

A Netizen calls Charmaine's character as a mentally challenged girl with an IQ of a 10 year old into question. She has an IQ of a 10 year old, but she performs like she's only 2 or 3 years old. There are also a lot of other criticisms. Some people dislike Charmaine's eye expressions that it looks too smart, her hand gestures are too exaggerated and this is a fall back in her acting. As for Raymond, it was also hard for him to escape from the Netizens' attack. Netizens say he's so Chok it makes people want to vomit and some criticized his acting. However, there are also positive comments, that the quality of this comedy series is refined and Raymond is very naughty despite still Choking. There are praises that Charmaine's 'Sister Fa' is a rare retarded pretty girl.

Producer supports: Charmaine did her homework

The Producer of Flower (Kwan Wing Chung) said that when the series first started shooting, the public had already said 'Sister Fa' is the female version of 'Ah Wong'. He also has paid attention to the response online after the premiere, the positive and negative comments are quite average. Producer Kwan said that the criticisms of copying 'Ah Wong' is already set, therefore before shooting began, he and Charmaine did some research and hoped to eliminate the 'Ah Wong' shadow. He said the background of the characters and story in Flower develops differently than Ah Wong. As for Charmaine's role as mentally challenged girl, both the scriptwriter and Charmaine personally went to a mentally challenged school to study the students there and gather information. Producer Kwan said Charmaine speaks slowly in the series because 'Sister Fa' is slow at processing information, she only has a 10 year old IQ, but that does not mean she's currently a 10 year old kid. The new generation of 10 year olds are already like 'aged people'. When speaking of the complaint on Raymond's bank robbery practical joke? Producer Kwan admitted that the scene 'stepped over the line', but the main purpose was to convey Chiang Yik's 'Devil' image and also it is a comedy series.

Source: Mingpao, tvb.com (images)
Translated by: aZnangel @ AsianEU