teeveebee's highly successful The Diary of a Miss Hong Kong Finalist has finally ended with rave reviews and high ratings. The six figure sum that we paid Ms. Kelly Lam surely has paid off! But the audience's fascination with the series hasn't ended, so to everyone's delight, tonight teeveebee is holding a "Production Special" for this popular series that shows exactly how and why this series was made! Without ado, we present to everyone, the writer that made this series possible.......
First and foremost, I want to thank everyone for supporting Diary. I'm really happy that the series had so many readers!
The Idea
Diary sparked up from me being tired of seeing so much news on Miss Hong Kong each and every year when the pageant starts up again. Haha so then I was thinking it would be hilarious if Virtues of Harmony II did a spoof on the MHK as a storyline in which they add a new character or whatever that experiences the whole MHK scenario and story. So I tell Em about it and after awhile, the idea turned into a teeveebee idea. Then after further discussion with her and Bernie, I decided I would be the one to write it. Hence The Diary of a Miss Hong Kong Finalist was born! From the start it was suppose to be a satire on MHK and everything about it and I was hoping our main character (Kelly) could experience everything this year's contestants was undergoing and of course being a VOH fan I wanted to include elements of VOH in it. Hahaha.
Several readers were perplexed with the ending and felt it was illogical. Thus in this next portion of the special is a detailed overview of the entire storyline and all of the adventures that Kelly undergoes!
The Story
Kelly Lam Lo Yuk fell in love with Kam Yuet at first sight when she entered Ka Yan fashion company. Unknowing of Sek Mei's affection for him, she decides to pursue him and succeeds in becoming 'sisters' with Ah Mei and girlfriend of Ah Yuet. Kelly was very happy with Ah Yuet but she was very controlling of him and one day he was fed up with her actions and broke up with her. Kelly was furious and decided to ignore him. After the break-up, Ah Yuet was very down because although Kelly was very controlling, he missed her company. Ah Mei, seeing her long-time crush so depressed, goes to comfort him and one night while they are both drunk she confesses her love for him, thinking he's asleep. However, Ah Yuet is fully aware of Ah Mei's confession and begins to realize how much she loves him. Thus, he starts a relationship with her. When Kelly finds out, she's so mad that she slaps both Ah Yuet and Ah Mei before resigning from Ka Yan and moving to New York City.
Kelly was hoping to remake her life in the US, but after years of trying, she failed and was so desperate for fortune. When she was in Hong Kong she lived a good life, but in New York, she was a nobody and fate was against her in everything she did. It was at this point of desperation that Kelly decided to join Miss Hong Kong. She wanted to flee away from her poverty and achieve some fortune. Luckily for her, she was accepted and although she was no longer Ah Yuet's girlfriend, she had a good relationship with his auntie, Kam Sa Sa and this allowed her to stay with Kam Yat, Yuet's sister, when she went back to Hong Kong.
Kelly returned to Hong Kong full of confidence and wanting to renew her life. However, she's naiive and quickly becomes the laughingstock of the MHK pageant and gets many rumors daily. At this time, TVB was having difficulties with its long-running Virtues of Harmony because the cast was getting too popular and demanded too many breaks to do other projects that it was a hassle to keep the series going. But the ratings and profits made were too much for TVB to end it, even though the series had reached well over 2000 episodes. Ah Yat, who happens to be one of the extras on the show, tells the producer than she has friends who look identical to the current casts. And so, after much planning, TVB replaced all of the old casts ranging from Nancy Sit to Louis Yuen with the real Kam, Seks, Wongs, Lams, etc of Hong Kong. TVB was surprised at how remarkably similar Ah Yat's friends and family were to the old cast. And so the transition was made very quietly and the news wasn't leaked out to the press.
At this point, Kelly was extremely depressed because she felt immense embarassment. After much thought, she decided to end her life to get away from it all. Ironically, that day TVB was filming for VOH at the same building where Kelly decided to jump. The storyline in VOH told of Ah Lo (Kelly Lam Yuk Lo... the VOH character/replacement actress for Bondy Chiu) coming back to Hong Kong and meeting up with Ah Yuet because she was depressed. That night, she got him drugged, drunk, and raped him. The next morning Ah Lo was crying that he had raped her, but she promised not to tell Ah Mei. By fate, she got pregnant and at this point she went to Yuet's mother, Nim Chi, and told her, even though she didn't want to. She was outraged and demanded that Ah Yuet marry Ah Lo as to not bring shame to their family. Ah Mei discovers this news and is too heartbroken to carry on and she can't bare to live with the sight of Ah Yuet marrying Ah Lo, so she decides to commit suicide.
Kelly (Lo Yuk... the MHK contestant) is mistaken for Kelly (Yuk Lo... the VOH character/replacement actress) because the two look remarkably alike. Kelly sees Ah Mei up on the rooftop but doesn't know that she has become an actress and thinks that she is planning on dying as well. Ironically, all of Kelly's dialogues and actions are exactly as how the script for that day's episode was. The episode, though dramatic in story and concept, was a spoof on TVB's Hard Fate sequence. After Kelly "kills" Ah Mei, she decides to jump, but Ah Yuet catches her feet before she falls. However, he's weak in health and almost falls until Ah Nin grabs hold of his feet, but the fall is already too steep so he loses balance. Thus a long chain of people is hanging at the side of the building as each try to prevent the other from falling. The director calls "CUT" and is very satisfied. A big trampoline is at the bottom and Ah Yuet lets go of Kelly. She lands safely and is brought to the hospital because apparantely she had fainted from the rush of the scene. The rest of the jumps off one by one and everyone is safe and happy.
At the hospital, Kelly (Lo Yuk... MHK) realizes she is mistaken from Kelly (Yuk Lo... VOH) and so she decides to play along with it. When she reads the newspaper, she realizes that the real Kelly (Yuk Lo... VOH had been hit by a cream van and was mistake for her (Lo Yuk... MHK). It turns out that that day Ah Lo (Kelly... VOH) was so nervous and in a rush to get to the filming that she was hit by the van! Thus the two were fatefully switched lives. Kelly (MHK) lies and says she doesn't remember anything to avoid going back to her life of rags and begins to live in the life of Ah Lo (Kelly... VOH)......
The Character
Kelly pretty much is like the characterization of Bondy Chiu's Lam Yuk Lo in VOH. I tried to make her the worst MHK contestant ever and point out her selfish reasons for joining the pageant. The reason why she's named Lam Lo Yuk is because Em had pointed out to me that "lo yuk" sounds like "revealing flesh" hence I thought that was unique and decided to go along with it. That's why several readers pondered why she's not Lam Yuk Lo but is Lam Lo Yuk!
The Change
Entries #1-6 was very funny and related 100% to MHK. But starting with Entry #7, the story turned a 360° and started to become a different story and MHK had less and less to do with it. Why? At first I was very driven to writing MHK Diary and had lots of ideas. But I kept pushing it aside because there's just too many MHK news each day that I couldn't keep up. Plus I got lazy and had other agendas. Hence I decided to end the story and turn it into something else. Because I wasn't pleased that the Cutie Mui/Michael Tse/Bondy Chiu love triangle was not carried out in VOH II I decided that I would continue it in this story. And thus I did.
The Logic
Several people find the "twist" of the ending too outrageous and stretching it too much. Why didn't the press notice the two looked so similar? In the story, there are actually 3 people who look alike: Bondy Chiu, Lam Yuk Lo, and of course our main character Kelly. I was going to put that our main character looked like Bondy at the beginning, but I decided not to. I'll admit that it's not very logical that the press didn't realize who Kelly looked like, but hey, it's a spoof on TVB and we all know their series lack logic most of the time hahahaha. So just go along with the story and enjoy the "twist." Testing the "twist" with entries #1-6, it's logical. Kelly was so depressed after being teased and ridiculed so much that she wanted to die and entries #1-6 did include the Ah Mei/Ah Yuet storyline. Hence it's logical in that aspect.
The Quality
From my point of view, Diary was pretty satisfactory. But it failed to achieve what it was set out to do, which was to have a character follow the MHK dream and adventure. However, I'm happy with the way the storyline developed and ended. My favorite entry is #6 because it's so funny and I had a lot of fun writing that one. My least favorite is #7 because it's very boring and draggy. I personally liked the bonus transcript and #8 because I find the storyline and writing in those chapters good. They're funny, but in a dark way and the drama aspect is pretty good.
The Interaction
I would really appreciate it if all the readers could post a comment on their overall thoughts of Diary (rating, fave/worst entries, thoughts, etc) or email all thoughts at MetalAZNWarrior@hotmail.com! I would really be happy to hear what everyone thinks.
The Comedy
Most of the humor is spoofs/teases at other series, news, people, etc. If you're not very up-to-date on TVB/series or follow Em's news then you might miss most of the jokes.
I hope everyone enjoyed reading this "Production Special"! Again, Diary is my first and last series for teeveebee, hahaha, so I hope you guys enjoyed my writing! I'm apologize that the series didn't go as I had planned, but I still think it's good. So hopefully you guys liked reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Again, any thoughts/comments are welcomed!
