The Tang dynasty musical legendary TV drama
The Purple Hairpin
starring Michelle Ye and Raymond Lam will be broadcasting on Guangdong
TV with the leads' original Cantonese voices dubbed beginning on January
21st. Yesterday the promotional event was held in Guangzhou. The two
talked about continuing their fate ten years later. Former TVB FaDan
Michelle Ye and current TVB Siu Sang Raymond Lam collaborated in two
series in the past
Eternal Happiness and
Lofty Waters Verdant Bow,
but even before Michelle warmed up her TVB FaDan seat, she firmly left
the company to develop her movie career and then in Mainland. Ten years
later, Michelle and Raymond meet again. Michelle laughed: "Raymond is
even more handsome and charming now! Our chemistry remains and our
breathing is identical!" Raymond sighed: "Will I go down Michelle's path
(work behind-the-scenes) in the future? Its too tiring! I don't think I
can do it, I'll just stick to on-screen work."
In 2003 after
Triumph in the Skies,
Michelle was a young FaDan promoted by TVB, but she left the company
and switched to the movie scene. Ultimately she won herself the Best
Supporting Actress award at the HK Film Awards, then she moved up north
to start developing her work studio and her own productions. From then
on, she turned into a chairwoman and have worked as a producer in
several Mainland dramas. Michelle told the media: "I debuted at TVB when
I was 19, I didn't initially plan to leave TVB, but Wong Jing said to
me: 'There are 9 levels in the entertainment circle. If you stay with
TVB, your influential level and success as an artist could only get you
up to level 6 at most. If you go out and work elsewhere, you could be
like Carina Lau or Maggie Cheung, reach level 9.' At the time I was
still young, but Wong Jing said I had hidden potential to develop
outside of TVB. He has never been wrong! I listened to Wong Jing, he is
definitely my talent scout."
So in Mainland, Michelle wasn't just an actress, she was also a producer from
Looking for You to the End of the World to
The Purple Hairpin.
Michelle participated from the pre-production, finding an investor,
casting, costume design and creating the script to post-production, the
editing and promotion. She said: "I'm not that type of celebrity that
just holds a 'producer' title, I do everything myself. One of the
reasons is because to really produce great work, the actor is just the
painter's brush, the actual painting is painted by the producer. You
just have to ask yourself, do you want to be the painter's brush or the
actual painter?
The Purple Hairpin, I branded every part of it, it is my child!"
In the drama, Michelle and Raymond portray the ancient version of
Endless Love,
their romance is always a brief encounter with a lot of tears. Raymond
said to the media: "Its just so heart-tormenting. I don't understand why
I'm always the one being tormented?! But out of all the FaDans I have
collaborated with, Michelle gives me the feeling that even if I haven't
seen her in 10 years, we are still very familiar. We have so much
chemistry in our crying scenes, there is no need to rehearse beforehand,
we can just do it in one take. Her passion and perseverance for the
drama, there is no doubt or surprise to me that she's the producer!"
It
was rumored Raymond intends to retire from the industry in the coming
year? He said: "For now, I will keep working hard on my career, but my
schedule won't be as tight as before. You have to grasp life yourself,
there must be a balance in life. My Mainland dramas in the coming year,
TVB arranged those for me. (Concentrate more on love life?) Love is a
part of life, if you can enjoy life, then you can be a better actor."