From May 1989, Lin Baixin officially joined ATV, and in May 1998, Lin sold 51% of the equity of ATV, which was a decade of ATV's peak.
Lin Baixin
Under the leadership of Lin Baixin, Asia Television implemented a series of reforms and breakthroughs in program production, bringing a relaxed creative space for ATV, under the continuous efforts of ATV people, wonderful programs continued to emerge, the operation situation continued to improve, and finally turned a loss into a profit in 1996, fighting for a net profit of 12 million yuan. During the 1990s, ATV also cooperated with mainland TELEVISION stations many times.
Of course, the decade of the 1990s was also the peak decade of TVB TV dramas, because in the past decade, more Hong Kong dramas have been introduced to the mainland for broadcast, and the post-80s and post-90s generations in the mainland are most familiar with the classic Hong Kong dramas of this period and the handsome and beautiful Hong Kong stars.
Huang Rihua, the "pro-son" of TVB, created an extremely high rating of more than 60 points in 1989 starring in "Duty-Bound" and won the "World's Most Chinese-Watched TV Drama Episode Award" for TVB's 28th anniversary. However, Hua Ge, a hard worker, still did not get the promotion of TVB treatment, so in 1990 Huang Rihua jumped ship and joined Asia Television. (Hua Ge said that he joined ATV purely for a living.)
In June 1990, shortly after joining ATV, Huang Rihua starred in the fashion drama "Still Watching this Dynasty" (also known as "Skynet"), and his partner was ATV boss Hua Dan Wu Yongwei, Miss Asia champion Weng Hong and others, which shows that ATV attaches great importance to Huang Rihua, and Huang Rihua also lives up to expectations, and the rating of the drama when it is broadcast in Hong Kong is as high as 27 points, which exceeds the TVB program in the same period. Later, the drama was selected as one of the Top 100 Chinese TV Series of the 20th Century by the Malaysian Media Community and one of the 100 Classic Chinese TV Series of the 20th Century by the Singapore Television Media.
ONE OF ATV is stronger than wireless is innovation, TVB's drama type, whether it is a costume martial arts drama or a modern fashion drama, has changed mostly in the framework of the story routine and character settings, while ATV dares to eat crabs, expands the unseen field many times, and likes to try themes that have never been involved in Hong Kong dramas before.
In 1991, ATV launched the gambling film "Winner is King", which can be called the originator of casino-themed TV series, which is Chen Tingwei's famous work, as well as atvesta's focus on creating Xiaosheng Huadan Lu Songxian and Wan Qiwen, as well as the joining of Qin Pei and Kaohsiung, which makes this drama very ornamental, and the ratings after broadcasting are also all the way up.
In the following two years, ATV produced sequels "Winner for King 2 Invincible" and "Winner for King 3 Battle of Kings". The second "Invincible In the World" became the first episode of ATV that year with an average of 21 points because of zeng Huaqian's joining.
This year, TVB wanted to suppress the "Winner is King" series in the limelight and ratings, and in 1991, "No Regrets in This Life" starring Dawn won the annual ratings championship of Hong Kong dramas. With the reputation of dramas such as "Man on the Edge" and "No Regrets in This Life", Li Ming quickly became popular in the Chinese-speaking area, gained a huge number of fans, and also laid a solid foundation for his future singing and acting career.
Since 1992, the Hong Kong region has officially used the personal ratings record system to calculate the average ratings of TV programs. This year, wan Ziliang starred in the TVB drama "Giant" with an average rating of 36 points to defeat the TVB 25th anniversary Taiwan celebration drama "Big Time", which is also a fashion business war drama, and the latter ranked second with a difference of 3 points, but in the eyes of many mainland audiences, "Big Time" is a classic. At this time, Ouyang Yaoquan changed his name to Ouyang Zhenhua, who ended his decade-long dragon set career and starred for the first time in "The First Royal Court" and entered the top three of the annual ratings with a rating of 30 points. The costume martial arts drama "Knife of the Wind" starring Aaron Kwok won the fourth place in the annual ratings with 29 points.
In March 1993, ATV broadcast the Taiwan Celebration drama "Silver Fox", and at the same time, the TVB Taiwan Celebration Drama "Yuan Zhenxia" starring Li Ming and Li Jiaxin caused heated discussion among the audience. "Silver Fox" almost mobilized the most popular characters of ATV at that time, including Huang Rihua, Zeng Huaqian, Wu Yongwei, Zhang Jiahui, Lu Songxian, Liu Jinling, Jiang Hua, Bao Qijing, etc., so that many viewers compared it with TVB's "Big Time".
In addition to the collection of many A-list stars, the classic of "Silver Fox" is that it breaks the convention, breaks the usual way of creating a happy reunion of TV series, and takes another path and takes risks, before the plot is finished, no one can know who will be the final winner. The plot is very compact, the storyline is full, the fate of the characters is ups and downs, one link after another, very exciting.
This period has to mention a vicious competition, after the 1993 Taiwan version of the "Bao Qingtian" fire, two Hong Kong TV stations saw a huge business opportunity, TVB took the lead in the introduction, ATV is not willing to show weakness, the introduction of the same model, which led to the two TV stations in the same time period broadcast the same unit story or even the same episode of the situation, so that no matter which station the audience changes, they see the black face of Lord Bao.
"Bao Qingtian" was so popular at the time that after the 236-episode Version of Taiwan's HuaSHI was broadcast, both TV stations moved their hearts to make their own "Bao Qingtian". At this time, ATV preemptively started filming "Blue Blood and Blue Sky Yang Family General", and invited Jin Chaoqun to play Bao Zheng again. This drama also created the Yang family to be in the same frame as the gods of Kaifeng Province.
On the TVB side, it was Shaw who personally ordered that a full set of Huashi's team should be gathered to start filming a "New Bag Qingtian", with Zheng Yijian, Chen Songling and other leaders such as Xiaosheng Huadan with Jin Chaoqun, He Jiajin, and Fan Hongxuan, the "iron triangle". However, after filming more than a dozen episodes, Jin Chaoqun accused TVB of non-payment of wages, and Run Run Shaw felt humiliated and angry, and the series ended without a problem.
Wireless and Jin Chaoqun had a conflict, and ATV naturally became the biggest winner. Jin Chaoqun took "Gongsun Ce" Fan Hongxuan to the ATV version of "Bao Qingtian", and Zhan Zhao changed from He Jiajin to Lu Liangwei. This version of ATV also achieved good ratings.
TVB, on the other hand, was unwilling to produce its own version of "New Bao Qingtian" in 1995, and the actors also used all their own people, with Dillon playing Bao Zheng, Huang Rihua playing Zhan Zhao, and Liao Qizhi playing Gongsun Ce. However, the audience saw the same theme drama on TV for three consecutive years, and there was serious aesthetic fatigue, resulting in a small splash after the TVB95 version of "New Bag Qingtian" was broadcast.
The vicious competition between ATV and TVB lasted a total of three years, and "Bao Qingtian" also dominated the screen for three years, which was jokingly called the "double package case" at the time.
Starting from the "Legend of the Eagle Shooter" starring Zhang Zhilin and Zhu Yin in 1994, TVB set off another round of remakes of Jin Yong dramas in the 1990s, "The Divine Eagle Hero" starring Gu Tianle and Li Ruotong in 1995, "Smiling Proud of the Jianghu" starring Lu Songxian and Liang Peiling in 1996, "Tianlong Eight Parts" starring Huang Rihua, Chen Haomin and Fan Shaohuang in 1997, "Deer DingJi" starring Chen Xiaochun and Ma Junwei in 1998, "Snow Mountain Flying Fox" starring Chen Jinhong and She Shiman in 1999, etc. This remake is different from the fact that each Jin Yong drama in the 1980s was directed by a different supervising director, and TVB handed over the responsibility of remaking Jin Yong dramas in the 1990s to one person, who is the gold medal producer - Li Tiansheng. Tim Ge was not quick in his picture, a Jin Yong drama a year, the protagonist of each one was chosen just right, and the martial arts drama of each Jin Yong drama was greatly improved because of the blessing of special effects, and comprehensively surpassed the routine moves of the Jin Yong drama in the 1980s. In the 1990s, TVB remade a series of Jin Yong dramas, none of which could win the annual ratings championship, and even some dramas could not even enter the top ten of the annual ratings, which shows that hong Kong audiences in the 90s were not so buying jin yong dramas, but after these Jin Yong dramas were introduced to the mainland for broadcast, they triggered a boom in mainland viewing, and one after another became the collective memory of the post-90s generations in the mainland.
In terms of martial arts dramas, because TVB holds the copyright to adapt Jin Yong's novels, ATV can only find another way to adapt other famous martial arts novels, in 1992, it broadcast the martial arts drama "Xianhe Shen Needle" based on Wolongsheng's novel, and in 1993, it remade "Heavenly Silkworm Change and Heaven Is Higher than Heaven", and the role of Yunfeiyang is still played by "Big Hero" Xu Shaoqiang, which is the first work he returned to ATV in the 1990s. "Heavenly Silkworm Change and Heaven Is Higher" is a huge production of tens of millions of yuan concocted by executive producer Xiao Sheng, leading the elite in front of and behind the ATV curtain. The exterior scene was filmed in Yangchun, Guangdong, where the strange mountains and strange cliff caves are famous, the scene is very spectacular and grand, and this drama is also a classic memory of many post-80s and 90s!
It is worth mentioning that in the two years from 1994 to 1995, Zhen Zidan filmed two martial arts kung fu dramas for ATV, namely "Hong Xiguan" and "Jingwumen", both of which exceeded the tvbed programs of the same period in terms of ratings. As a well-known action star in Hong Kong, Zhen Zidan has presented us with wonderful martial arts action scenes in these two dramas, especially "Jingwumen", following the "Jingwu Trilogy" of ATV in the 1980s, which once again ignited the surging blood in the hearts of the Chinese people. The phrase "Chinese is not a sick man of East Asia" is still in our ears, and the innocent love of Chen Zhen, played by Zhen Zidan, and Yumi Takeda, played by Wan Qiwen, has not ended well and has become a regret in our childhood.
In 1996, ATV's representative martial arts drama was "Sword And Whistle", and I privately thought that this drama was not inferior to TVB Lu Songxian's version of "Smiling Proud of jianghu" in the same year. "Sword Howling Jianghu" is a martial arts giant adapted from the plot of gulong novels "Meteor Butterfly Sword" and "Huanhua Washing Sword", which is quite the artistic conception of Gulong novels, and the actors, martial arts, scenes, and soundtracks are all first-class. But it is such a classic two Jin Yong Gulong dramas that lost to a monkey in terms of ratings, that is, the mythological drama "Journey to the West" broadcast by TVB in the same year starring Zhang Weijian, Jiang Hua, Li Yaoxiang and Mai Changqing.
This is another masterpiece of hong Kong TVB's remake of the classic. In addition to the plot based on the classic "Journey to the West", a large number of funny elements are added, which makes this work restore the original work at the same time, but also create another flavor different from the original. The whole plot is tense and tortuous, and the character image is positive and healthy. The theme idea of evil does not suppress righteousness runs through the whole play from beginning to end. Compared with the six-year-old children's version of Sun Wukong, Zhang Weijian's Hong Kong version of Sun Wukong, which was interpreted in a very personal way, was also once popular on the screen. This version of "Journey to the West" finally won the Hong Kong annual ratings championship with 36 points.
In 1997, ATV's "Snowflake Excalibur" was benchmarked against TVB's "Tianlong Eight Parts", and the two dramas were released on the same day, and the result is needless to say, in terms of ratings, it is natural that "Tianlong Eight Parts" won a big victory. However, "Snowflake Excalibur", as the highlight of ATV that year, is also a gathering of big-name stars, and four Asian sisters play the supporting role of the female protagonist. It is a pity to meet Huang Rihua's "Tianlong Babu", only to lament bad luck. "Snowflake Excalibur" vividly interprets the bridge section of "scumbag meets infatuated woman", which can be called the originator of master-apprentice love, like what "Flowers and Bones" and other master-apprentice sadistic dramas filmed in the mainland later, can find shadows in "Snowflake Excalibur".
Contrary to the costume dramas of the 1980s and supplemented by fashion dramas, TVB's 1990s became the main fashion drama and the costume drama supplemented. Many of the fashion dramas of the TVB 90s were series of dramas, as few as two series, more than four or five series, Ouyang Zhenhua starred in "No. 1 Imperial Court" from 1992 to 1997, has been filmed five series; Tao Dayu, Guo Keying starring in the "Criminal Investigation Files" series, from 1995 to 1999, four consecutive films, the first one also won the 1995 annual ratings champion, Gu Tianle, Xuan Xuan starring in the fourth film was respectively TVB Emperor, Tv Queen. The two "Forensic Records" broadcast from 1997 to 1999 are classic masterpieces in criminal investigation dramas, with suspenseful and compact, and at a glance, it is known that it is the hand of Pan Jiade, the gold medal producer of criminal investigation dramas. Since 1998, "Top Gun Sister" and "Magic Hand Benevolent Heart" have also been filmed three times in a row, becoming classics of fashion police and medical themes.
In addition to these series of fashion dramas, TVB also has some individual fashion dramas that are also very classic, such as "Laughing at the Storm" in 1994, "Heaven and Earth Boy" in 1996, "Heaven and Earth Pride" in 1998, and "Genesis" in 1999, which is known as the "aircraft carrier" production in Hong Kong dramas. These classic fashion dramas are all played by TVB heavyweight actors, such as Zheng Shaoqiu, Huang Rihua, Luo Jialiang, Gu Tianle and so on.
The classic fashion dramas of the 90s of ATV were mainly "I Have a Date with Spring" and "Goodbye Sunny Days" broadcast in 1996.
"I have a date with spring" is a classic in the ATV classic, the four golden flowers in the play have very different personalities, and the fate fluctuates, which makes the audience shine and break the convention of the previous TV series being dominated by men. Coupled with the large number of songs and dances interspersed in the play, the series is impeccable in both the sense of form and the story, and once it is broadcast, it causes a sensation. The Douban rating of the drama is as high as 9.0, and even if you look at the entire TVB, few episodes can surpass it.
Starring Ma Jingtao, Chen Xiuwen and Deng Cuiwen, "Goodbye Sunny Days" runs through the chaos of China from the 20s to the 40s with the encounters of two women with different personalities, interspersed with different characters and different stories from the perspective of two women, telling the contradictions and struggles of several young people with different personalities in the face of fate, feelings and ideals. This is Ma Jingtao's first appearance in a Hong Kong drama, less roaring, and since then he has started a partnership with Chen Xiuwen, and Chen Xiuwen's virtuous image in this drama is also memorable.
In the nineties, there was another theme that TVB lagged far behind ATV, that is, zombie dramas.
In 1995, Asia Television hired Lin Zhengying to star in the TV series "Zombie Road Chief" for a high salary of HK$1 million, which began Lin Zhengying's television career. This TV series not only won high ratings for ATV, but also was regarded as a comeback work of Lin Zhengying's film journey.
In 1996, Lin Zhengying took over the sequel "Zombie Road Chief II", which consisted of six units and revolved around gods, demons, people, ghosts, and immortals. "Zombie Road Chief II" is also the last zombie theme classic of Master Lin Zhengying's life.
The two "Zombie Governors" excited ATV, and in 1997, they prepared to shoot "Zombie Road Chiefs III". However, at this time, Lin Zhengying had suffered from liver cancer and was so ill that on November 8, 1997, he left the human world, and "Zombie Road Chief III" finally came to naught and became a permanent regret for the audience.
In 1998, in honor of Lin Zhengying, ATV filmed "I Have a Date with Zombies". The drama's unprecedented theme attempts, new "zombie" interpretation and "brain opening" plot setting have opened up the unparalleled field of Hong Kong drama, setting off a wave of "zombies" in Hong Kong for a while, becoming a "classic divine drama" in the hearts of a generation, and this strange and strange style of strange love cannot be filmed wirelessly.
In the play, not only is the relationship between Guan Tianyou and Ma Xiaoling impressive, but the play's insight into human nature and thinking about society have also made it an enduring classic. "Zombie Covenant" is more advanced in both the theme setting and the plot expression, and 20 years ago, it covered many popular elements such as "immortal body", "through science fiction", "mythological rewriting" and so on.
The first part of "I Have a Date with a Zombie" was broadcast very popularly, and ATV began filming the second part in 1999, and the lineup expanded, inviting Ren Dahua, Zhang Huiyi, Liang Rongzhong, Xie Junhao, etc. to help create a classic. The second finale averaged 20 points of viewership and the highest rating of 22 points, achieving nearly 60% of the ratings, which can compete with the ratings of wireless at that time.
Throughout the 1990s, the two TV stations had their own strengths, although ATV was always in a weak position in terms of ratings, but the salaries of employees were generally higher, and ATV was not as big as TVB's internal competition, artists were more likely to be praised, and Wan Qiwen was named three times. TVB artists will occasionally jump to ATV, and ATV artists are often poached by TVB, this flow of talent is very normal, but TVB poached Jiang Hua, Lu Songxian, Wu Yongwei, Liu Jinling, Zhang Jiahui, etc., during this time, hurts atvection vitality, after all, these are ATV hard-earned newcomers, ATV formed in the early nineties twins (Lu Songxian, Jiang Hua, Wan Qiwen, Wu Yongwei) is also left with wan Qiwen alone for ATV to support hard.
However, ATV in the 90s still walked in front of TVB in terms of theme innovation, "Winner is King", "Zombie Road Chief", "I Have a Date with Spring", "Snowflake Excalibur", "I Have a Date with Zombies", etc., and now still occupy a place in the hearts of Hong Kong drama fans, and some Douban scores can even enter the top ten of Hong Kong dramas.
As for professional dramas, TVB is better at it, such as "Criminal Investigation Files", "Forensic Records", "Gun Master Sister", "Magic Hand Benevolent Heart" and so on. Business war dramas, ATV and TVB have filmed some of the more classic, and overall the peak period is comparable.
THE TONE OF ATV's episodes is not as gorgeous as TVB's, even some gray, the theme is more bold, and it is more daring to face human nature, such a style is naturally rare in the hearts of fans, but unfortunately in the eyes of ordinary audiences, it may be too heavy.