Hong Kong TV series (emphasis on TVB) - the role of women

- This comment was first posted on Mobius Home Video Forum - Asia Cinema.  Probably in 2001.  
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IMO I think female roles in HK tv shows (based on observations on TVB tv series) are getting better although there is room for improvement.

We are seeing more and more women in professional roles who can deal with work, life, death and relationships in a sensible manner. Healing Hands 1 (1998) and the File of Justice series has several strong, intelligent and sensible women characters even though FOJ does concentrate more on the male lawyers.

There was a time when females in the typical "revenge & secrets" soaps annoyed me to death with their indecision. They tended to mope endlessly while waiting patiently for the man to return to their side or be easily tricked or tend to be overly emotional or overly self-sacrificial. So I was immensely pleased that several of the female characters in the 1998 soap Secret of the Heart were strong, discerning, decisive and played an active role in the ultimate outcome of the story and yet weren't overly self-sacrificial.

Although since SOH, we've seen a step back of sorts with some of the wishy-washy self-sacrificial female characters making an appearance in At the Threshold of an Era (2000.) Kenix Kwok's and Flora Chan's characters are so giving and forgiving even though Gallen Lo's character treats them so badly. Instead of getting annoyed with Gallen Lo's character, I wanted to shoot Kenix Kwok's & Flora Chan's characters. I was relieved that at least Maggie Siu's character is an intelligent career woman who makes the decision to put her career first and doesn't have to pay for it.

However, even in some of the best drama series there is still a tendency for the characters to spout lines that generalize and reinforce ideas about the differences between men & women.

Also, some of the soaps seem like they are promoting equality among the sexes but that's only on the surface. Burning Flame (1998) see Jade Leung and Esther Kwan play female fire-fighters. But we don't see Jade do any fire-fighting, the only time I remember her in action is the time she stops someone from committing suicide. Subsequently, she hooks up with Louis Koo's character and plays housewife. And while Esther Kwan's character is a more active firefighter, she still misses the biggest fire in the series and the way she deals with some of her relationships is a little wishy-washy.

Most disappointing for me was Armed Reaction which is a show who's Chinese title translates to something like Gun Carrying Women Cops. You'll think that there would be some great women cops, cool, calm, reasonable, strong etc. I found AR 1 & 2 enjoyable (but not great) mostly because of the chemistry among the leads but the major women cops weren't as strong or as actively involved in crime busting as I'd hoped they would be and at times they were a little unreasonably emotional. Although, they do keep growing and maturing so maybe they will be cooler in AR 3.