Twin of Brothers" received three complaints

Twin of Brothers" received three complaints
July 20, 2004

TVB's new series "Twin of Brothers" premiered on Monday and immediately afterwards, the Hong Kong Broadcasting Authority received three complaints about Ron Ng and Raymond Lam displaying their bottoms on the screen, saying it was unsuitable for children.

Due to the television broadcasting restrictions, TVB has always been very careful when it comes to handling nudity on the small screen, but the airing of Ron and Raymond's scene that lasted just a few seconds during family viewing time has caused quite an uproar.

The scene tells of Raymond and Ron bathing in a river, when they are spotted by Christine Ng who is chasing after them. The two men suddenly stand up stark naked to try and scare her away. It is this scene of their unclad bottoms that has caused the complaints to the authority on the grounds that it is a bad influence on children.

When TVB's external affairs assistant director Tsang Sing Ming was contacted about this incident, he said: "I have discussed this with the producer and this show was necessary to show the mischievous character of the lead roles and it was a half-second wide shot with no sexual connotations. They were actually wearing flesh coloured T-backs for filming, but it would have been hard to spot as it was such a quick scene. (Are you afraid of being a bad influence to children?) No, in fact it teaches children that they need to be more professional when they grow up and start working."

Ron Ng responded to the news, saying that he and Raymond were wearing underpants to film the show and maybe if you just watched that scene, you would find it a little crude, but if you watched it in the context of the show, you would realise that the story told of the brotherly love between the leads and was not of any rude or disgusting nature.

Producer Chong Wai Kin insists that there is nothing perverted about the scene and it is simply to reflect the playful nature of the two men and he emphasises that the most important thing is that there is no malice or negative undertone in the scene. This is why the scene even passed the rigorous internal censorship of TVB. Although this incident has helped to promote the show even more to a certain extent, Chong insists there is no intention to use this as a promotional tactic because there are many merits to the show such as the location filming in Wuxi that sets it apart from other martial arts series.

However, the Chairman of the Parents Union Ms Chan indicated that although the 9pm watershed is past family viewing time, there are still many children watching television at this time and she hopes that the TV stations will bear this in mind and avoid any unsavoury scenes that could have an effect on children.

Credits: http://tvbspacenews.blogspot.com/

Signed off by Irrationally_adept