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lindalung · 8 months

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The Queen of News - Review

The Queen of News recently swept the TVB awards (well-deserved), namely Charmaine Sheh's 3-time best actress in 3 different areas for this role. Her acting is subtle at times but chillingly good, conveying something with the smallest eye twitch. I went back to really rewatch it in depth and wow I'm just obsessed and blown away at how good it is. I forgot how damn good dramas can be when they're serious about the production and having a thoughtful creative process. There are a number of things that I want to talk about, so where do I start?

The Women

This drama is women-centric, with its 5 main women as some of the most 3-dimensional, complex, morally-grey characters that I've seen in a while. It's easy to make a shallow drama with women fighting (usually over men), with some typical "women are catty" misogynistic tropes. Though this show doesn't have a female director I'm glad it still handled the women's storylines well in my opinion. They're women doing some awful, questionable, morally grey things in the name of news, in the name of the truth, or in the name of gaining power. You end up gaining sympathy for them nonetheless.

You have the queen herself, Man Wai Sum "Man Tse" (Charmaine Sheh), who's at the top now and she's a tough girlboss, using everyone around her as chess pieces, but you come to find out that she too has weak spots and vulnerabilities. She also has regrets, she wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She had to lose a part of her soul in exchange for her spot, in a very Faustian way actually.

Cheung Ka Yin (Selena Lee) is a very very interesting character. In the beginning she's the only one with morals, a heart, and real news in her best interest. She's stubborn but resilient in her beliefs, but you watch as her hope in Man Tse and humanity in general, dwindles over time, until it reaches a breaking point. When she snaps, she becomes a different person and she's had enough. I was fully rooting for her up until the incident with Slash (Mark Ma), but that’s the whole point. None of these characters are fully good or evil, and that’s what keeps them interesting.

I didn't find the character of Cathy Hui very compelling personally, but that’s just me. She’s also devious, starting out in George (Kenneth Ma)’s side, before switching over to Man Tse’s team. The audience is pretty much made to hate her until we gain a little sympathy when we find out that she does all these things to be Prime Time host, not for fame but so her dad with worsening dementia can remember her again. She’s a woman who is portrayed to feel comfortable with her sexuality and uses it to her advantage, and that’s liberating for her. Good for her.

I ended up having the most sympathy for Tsui Hiu Mei (Regina Ho), not just because of her mental illness but come on that girl went through so much trauma on the show. Loyalty is supposed to be her forté, but she's also the most treacherous, playing both sides. At the end of the day she just wanted to feel useful, as that gave her purpose in life. She grew up poor and wanted a better way of life, but the system is rigged so she had to cheat the system, and can anyone blame her?

The only character who might actually be “good”, is Lau Yim (Venus Wong). She’s the fresh faced newbie who Ka Yin takes under her wing, and she may be “Stupid” but she has a fierce passion, she’s headstrong, and remains just despite how bad it gets around her.

Of course, there’s also other supporting female characters like the ever mighty Mrs. Fong (Mimi Kung) who is the real queen of the game, the only woman who can make Man Tse tremble. Then, there’s Wa Tse (Stephanie Che), a has-been, a woman who once was in a high position but gave it up for the sake of family and children, and now struggles to keep up with the times.

There’s compelling though maybe shallow surface-level explorations into questions of women balancing their careers with motherhood, and the role of being a wife whilst being a working woman.

The Women’s Relationships with Women

Watching this from a sapphic perspective, it’s really hard not to put a yuri spin onto these female relationships. Just look at the supertopics of the top 3 f/f ships on this show - Man/Yin , Man/Hiu Mei, Ka Yin/Lau Yim. Man Tse and Ka Yin are my favourite pairing, two very headstrong women and Ka Yin is probably the only one who could get near to Man’s level. When they collaborate, they work really well together, and have some great moments, like the volleyball case for example. Yet, they’re always in some argument because Ka Yin doesn’t agree with the way Man Tse works.

On the other hand, Hiu Mei is essentially Man Tse’s maid, she does everything she says even though she’s also kinda secretly dating George. Man Tse will tear her down and be the cause of her breakdown, and then also be the first one to comfort her. The toxic yuri potential is there. It’s even wilder to think that when Hiu Mei was attempting to end her life, she hallucinated Man Tse, who she took out her rage at and then eventually gave her a pep talk to continue to live strongly. Man Tse obviously cast a huge shadow over her life, and she’s sick of being her chess piece, but you can tell deep down Man cares about her.

Finally there’s Ka Yin and her mentee Lau Yim, who she’s slightly annoyed by at first but slowly grows to care about. They’re endearing to watch, and she gives her tough love. It’s a little like Man/Hiu Mei but not as toxic. She also does care about Lau Yim, but Lau Yim’s morals are in check, and she chooses not to blindly follow Ka Yin down an unethical path towards the end.

The Women’s Relationships with Men

It’s clear that this show centres the women’s relationship with other women, since the men in their life are very much background noise. She’s everything, he’s just… well. George is supposed to be Man Tse’s greatest opposition, but he’s not really all that threatening. Fei Ye (Eric Tang) is supposed to be an exec in a high position but is honestly pretty useless and has a non-threatening aura.

It’s interesting that Man, Ka Yin, and Cathy all have younger love interests. Man Tse has her situationship Ivan (Matthew Ho), a man who is much younger and her subordinate at work, plus she makes him leave her house by 11pm. It’s clear who’s in charge in the relationship. Her ex Kit (Shaun Tam) is a bit closer to her age, and honestly they were a really cute couple until that incident changed their lives forever, but in present day he’s still the only one that she can be herself around. He is the only one who Man is vulnerable, chill, and funny around, which I think is important to show that she also has a weaker side. Ka Yin’s romantic storyline is evidently about how she won’t succumb to patriarchal ideals of marriage, and throughout the series showed zero interest in her boyfriend-turned-fiancé-turned-ex Lawyer Siu played by Matthew Ko. She refused to quit her job and settle as a housewife, and she’s a modern feminist through and through. One line I remember is when she said “Women aren’t war trophies” ( 戰利品), it made me love her so much. Cathy also dates a much younger man, Wong Wai (Niklas Lam), who she also seems to be kind of playing with this feelings sometimes. He also has a super boyish and dorky look to him that really highlights their difference. I feel like these relationships are to show that the women are the ones in control for once.

The Themes

CW: Sexual assault

I was nervous to watch sexual assault storylines cause I didn’t know how the show would handle them. The first case with #MeToo called out for George was kind of iffy for me with how they handled Debbie (Judy Kwong)’s storyline. The incident kind of becoming a tool for Man Tse to do some manipulation made me worry it’d be bad for victims if they highlighted the false accusations too much, but I suppose they tried to show every side. It was a good segway into the volleyball team SA storyline, which I think was handled really well (surprisingly). Nicole Wu’s character voices the struggles of victims, about how no one believes them, not even their friends sometimes, the isolation, and why they’re afraid to speak up. Roxanne Ho’s character also shows that unfortunately sometimes even women aren’t stepping up for other women, until they become victims themself. The way Man Tse handled it despite being an old friend of the assailant also shows how sometimes people may know someone for many years, and swear “they’d never do something like that!” or “they never did anything to me, so that can’t be true” but still be wrong.

The rest of the themes and symbolism is quite self-explanatory and even on-the-nose sometimes. The constant Chess pieces, the Queen piece (I don’t play Chess but I suppose the point is that they’re the Queen), Hiu Mei referring to herself as Man’s chess piece, etc. Yes, they’re all making sneaky moves at each other, also shown in the many Mahjong scenes.

I feel like overall, this is a very excellent series. Of course, I went in with low expectations as I always do, and I understand that there are certain things they can’t really touch on. Nonetheless, a very well made series that I will be thinking about for a long time.

#the queen of news #新聞女王 #TVB #hkdrama

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