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With her acclaimed performance in the film “A Simple Life” [in which she stars with her ‘son’ Andy Lau], Deanie Ip has so far won 4 Best Actress awards, both in HK as well as on an international level. Due to this, TVB has decided to re-broadcast one of its 30 year old ‘classic’ series starring this popular ‘mother/son’ pair – 1982’s “The Emissary” 《獵鷹》. The series will broadcast in the midnight timeslot starting on January 26th and will air 5 days a week.

This time around, in a move that is unprecedented for series re-broadcasting in the midnight timeslot, TVB has decided to ‘repackage’ the series by including a special 20 ‘episode’ interview segment called ‘An Affinity Starting with “The Emissary”’ 《緣自獵鷹》. Each ‘episode’ will be 1 minute 30 seconds long and will feature interview clips with Andy and Deanie in which they recount their experiences filming the series while reminiscing about their favorite ‘classic’ scenes from the series – the segments will air immediately prior to each original episode of the “The Emissary” to serve as a ‘guide’ of sorts for audiences who tune in to watch this 30 year old classic.

Produced by Lee Tim Sing, “The Emissary” originally aired on TVB back in 1982 – not only was it the first series where Andy Lau starred as the male lead, the series has also been credited with creating the ‘mother/son’ relationship between Deanie and Andy that extended into real life and has remained strong throughout the past 3 decades. The close relationship between Deanie’s ‘Ma Ma’ and Andy’s ‘Jai Jai’ characters in the series moved many audiences back in the days and later on, this relationship extended into the movie realm with Deanie and Andy’s collaborations in films such as “The Unwritten Law” (1985), “The Truth” (1988), etc. Both on and off the screen, Deanie and Andy’s relationship was akin to that of real mother and son – last year, the pair got the chance to collaborate again when Andy invested and starred in the film “A Simple Life” with Deanie, which earned the two of them Best Actor and Best Actress awards at the 2011 Golden Horse Film Awards in Taiwan.

In the first 5 ‘episodes’ of the interview special, Andy recounts how the series helped to establish his position as a first-line lead actor at TVB back in the 80s, which eventually extended to his film career. In the series, Andy plays ‘every mother’s ideal son’ who enters into 2 love relationships with female leads Barbara Chan (陳敏兒) and Regina Tsang (曾慶瑜). Also, Deanie reveals that the ‘Ma Ma’ and ‘Jai Jai’ references were actually not part of the original script – she had actually heard a friend and her son address each other in this manner and felt that it was very sweet, so she ‘borrowed’ it to use in the series.

In the interview clips, Deanie also talks about her view of what being a good mother is all about. She says that it is important for a good mother to understand why she decided to become a mother in the first place, as there are some women who may be good wives, but may not necessarily be able to share their lives with a child. As for Andy, he expresses that his idea of a good mother isn’t necessarily one who raises her child to be a successful contributor to society – rather, it’s more important for the mother to spend time with her child whenever it is within her means to do so. Soon to become a father himself, Andy has special feelings toward the role of ‘ideal father’ – he shares how grateful he is growing up in a great family environment where his father spent a lot of time talking with him every day and also set a good example for him by not smoking, drinking, or going out to ‘play’ all the time – in fact, he has never seen his father go out without taking his mother with him.

The series’ producer Lee Tim Sing (Tim Gor) revealed in an earlier interview [with Mingpao] that the reason why he cast Andy as the lead in “The Emissary” was because of his focus and dedication. Back in 1981, Andy had a bit part in Tim Gor’s series “The Lonely Hunter” 《過客》 as part of a group of young students performing a patriotic song – despite his small and insignificant role, Andy took the opportunity seriously and put 100% effort as well as enthusiasm into his performance, which left a deep impression on Tim Gor. When it came time to film “The Emissary”, Tim Gor wanted to utilize a newcomer in the lead role of a youngster from the police academy – the first person that came to mind for the role was Andy. Tim Gor expressed that he was not worried about utilizing a newcomer for the role, since Andy would be supported by strong veteran artists in the series such as Deanie Ip, Lau Kong, Paul Chun, etc.

As soon as TVB announced that the series would be re-broadcast, netizens immediately started discussing it on the Internet – most netizens supported the move, however a few voiced their criticism of the series being too ‘old’ and since the series was from 30 years ago, most of them had not even been born yet.

Source: Mingpao
Translated by: llwy12 @ AsianFanatics