The hosts for this year were Eric Tsang, Lawrence Cheng, and Bobby Au Yeung. The year that it started to deteriorate. Trust me, the hairstyles the contestants were wearing at the beginning were enough to turn everyone off. The stylists should be fired. Even if the contestants weren’t that pretty, the make-up artists and the stylists made it even worse. It was hard to swallow and took a lot of energy to continue watching. Jacky was one of the judges so it was something to look forward to. NOT to mention we would get to see him perform later. (Gallen Lo was also among the judges.) Must agree with the result that #6 was the best among the first group since her answer was the strongest. I swear I don’t know what half of them were saying. Worth millions of yawns. I was waiting for the questioning parts to be over so I could listen to some of the songs, lol. Eric was the hardest, Lawrence was minimal, and Bobby was the easiest. The short version? If one couldn’t pass Bobby, one doesn’t deserve to be there. Eric’s comment regarding the quality of beauty that year! LOL! I must agree though. #13 – I don’t like her but must admit she was the smoothest among all the second group who answered. #14 was WAY off-topic. She was so stuck up that I didn’t pity her at all when Lawrence was picking on her. #17 was standing at the wrong place! LOL! #20 got killed by Lawrence! My gosh! Eric was so funny! He said if he was #20, he would’ve slapped Lawrence already! LOL! #19 won for that group with the best answer. Agreed since Anne got creamed major time!
They moved on, but Eric and Lawrence were trapping Bobby with questions! LOL! Okay, entertainment part. Sort of since this year, they had to use some of their artists. The girls were divided into four groups. Michael Tse performed with the first group and then the contestants had to talk about different strengths of Hong Kong. The first group talked about the economy of Hong Kong and their experiences. The second group performed with Halina Tam. (I didn’t recognize her. Strange…) The second group of contestants talked about toys and their personal experiences. Eason Chan was leading the third group. This group talked about electronics. Hawick Lau wrapped up the performances with the fourth group. The last group talked about jewelry. This was definitely a sign of TVB using artists internally and not being able to invite outside guests as much anymore. (OR at least they were trying to cut back on inviting mega-stars, LOL.)
Anne Heung won over the contestants with the last performance. Not a surprise since she seemed to shine out the most among all the contestants–regardless of the horrendous make-up and styling. Anyway, it was funny that Lawrence said Jacky was the best ’cause he didn’t wait for Lawrence to open the envelope. (LOL!) Jacky was the most courteous all right.
The contestants were then changed into different outfits designed by four famous designers and was led by four different gentlemen. Ben Wong led the first group! (I almost forgot that one!) Marco Ngai led the third group. Anne won again for this round.
Okay, moving onto pre-recorded performances that showed they’d traveled to different places. Who performed during these scenes? Edmond Leung, Mariam Yeung, and Nicholas Tse. The girls looked better in these scenes. Probably because the horrendous hairstyle was gone already. And then the performers were brought on stage.
Eric was trying to sneak into the judges’ panel and pry the answers out of their mouths! LOL! Nancy Sit was telling Jacky to keep quiet! Hilarious! At least there was something to look forward to.
By this time, I wasn’t surprised that Anne kept winning. New method to know who got in. I guess they needed something to create some hype for the show. Each of the hosts led a contestant one at a time and had them placed their ticket into the machine. They either got a ‘Welcome’ or a ‘Sorry’. Eric = sure win, Lawrence = NO WAY, Bobby = mixed. (Well, only 1 slipped with Eric’s guidance, LOL. Good enough! Lawrence got one in, lol. Poor Lawrence. YET #14 got in. Darn! Why didn’t Lawrence jinx her too? She was seriously stuck up!) Eric was so smart, he led Anne since she had been winning so it was easy to say, “If you lose, I won’t host the pageant anymore.”
The second part’s theme was International. The best part was having Jacky opened the performance. What could go wrong, right? Something else that was encouraging–they got rid of that weird hairstyle at the beginning. That was horrendous all right. After the contestants told us about their supposedly ‘goal/wish’, Jacky came out to wrap up the performance once again.
Natalis Chan replaced Bobby Au Yeung and Philip replaced Lawrence in this part. Great to have Philip back! (Eric even welcomed Philip back personally.) After the brief talk, Jacky was back with his hit song “頭髮亂了“.
They ended up doing the theme with different continents. And Africa was first. Ekin Cheng performed first. The contestants looked slightly better in these types of costumes but still…some couldn’t even change my opinion regardless. I liked the next part more. Eric was trying to talk and then he spotted Natalis and Philip filling out the forms, saying stuff about him, LOL. They said it was only a sample! (LOL!)
Asia was the next stop after the random talk. Pretty cool since the contestants were in various oriental outfits. Definitely TVB’s attempt to recruit new artists since they were tested with the voice among other things. Andy Hui was the main singer for this one. He had to change into several outfits, considering it was relevant for different regions of Asia.
They moved onto the swimsuit part and like usual, they would squeeze in the questioning part. #1 seriously got straight to the point. She was definitely jealous of Anne, wanting Anne to disappear. Eric got her big time all right, exposing her intention and all. #6 got guts. Man, I can’t believe she would resort to those methods. Okay, it was getting worse and worse. One of the contestants didn’t even get what Eric was saying. They need to filter out these people. Not understanding the language fully and participating? Seriously? (I know I can’t have a say but probably any country would want someone who is fluent in their language.) Man, I loved Eric’s mocking and Philip’s constant stabs. Philip hasn’t lost it at all. In fact, he was entertaining the audience more than the contestants could ever impress with the answers. By the time it got to #17, though her answer should be considered minimal, I thought she was the best thus far, not stepping past the lines. Yay! Agree that #17 should get the prize since she had the best answer. Anne was all right but #17 had to think more to word it correctly and/or appropriately.
Of course, it wouldn’t be the same without a skit from Eric and Natalis. Almost forgot that Jordan Chan was also in this one. Cool! Once again, the girls looked better during the shoot for the scenes outside. Not sure what happened. (Some of them still look so-so but most of them somehow look less unattractive.) Funny that he was dreaming! LOL!
Another highlight of the show (though most of the performances from the guests were great) was the part where Andy was portraying the prince who was in love with his servant. (The servant was of course portrayed by the previous Miss Hong Kong since it was like a tradition to have the previous Miss Hong Kong participate in some scene and/or story.) A nice and cute story. (It would’ve been perfect if #14 wasn’t hugging the camera so much! Gosh, get a grip girl!)
Eric, Philip, and Natalis were back at backstabbing each other. They were a riot. Moving on (again…), the contestants got to show their talents in different sports. (Sort of like Olympics theme.)
Seriously? #14 is Miss Goodwill? Honestly? Seriously? She looked like she wanted to challenge half of the world. But I guess it passed already and nothing happened so never mind. Doesn’t matter anymore. At least she wasn’t in the top 5.
I so forget that Aaron and Sammi were also in here! Seriously? How could I forget? But I guess it was kind of long… Another cool performance.
Umm…before they announced the top #5, Anne managed to snatch another award! AND of course, #1 must be even more jealous and feeling beyond threatened by now.
Top 5 (as announced): #9, #20, #19, #6, #17
The funniest part and probably tough–since they had to answer to the criticisms written on the forms.
#6 – Darn…she dived right out of that one…
#9 – She managed fine BUT I must agree regarding how it was a pageant after all.
#17 – Cute! LOL!
#19 – She managed all right. So funny! Eric was so funny. At least she didn’t insult anyone.
#20 – Smart!
Yay! It wouldn’t be the same without Jacky closing the show up.
The results were too obvious. Though I prefer #17 to have one of the spots, I guess it wasn’t too bad.
hey, do you know where we can watch mhk1998 again? haha i want to watch it
@Jing-Mui – I don’t know exactly since I was watching on the old tape that I recorded when it was on TV back then. But it might still be around. Sorry couldn’t help much.
@llwy12 – No probs. Was re-watching anyway. So thought I cover it all the same. Jacky was a hit but too bad Gallen didn’t sing though. (Strange that Ekin sang but he didn’t, right? I would’ve prefer since I like Gallen’s voice.) And 2nd place went to #19 while #6 got 3rd place. I don’t like #6 as much since she was using some of those tactics with shoving beauty in people’s face to lure people versus others would use wit, if you know what I mean. BUT oh well. Regarding Eric and Natalis, I don’t know, it was still all right back then. AND sometimes I think IF Eric wasn’t around, it would be more obvious with the show being rigged since his questions are hard.
Thanks once again for the informative recap! I think that was around the year I stopped watching the MHK pageants because seriously, I don’t remember any of it…and you know I would have remembered if I had seen Jacky perform. I guess I will have to go dig up that version somewhere and watch it — if not for the pageant itself, then for the performances (especially for Jacky — LOL!!!).
The other reason I want to watch is because of the hosting — I’m not really a fan of Eric and Natalis because to be honest, they’re a bit to raunchy for me…BUT when you stick Lawrence and Philip in there, then it’s perfect because they balance it out — they give the hosting a more refined, high class feel, yet still funny at the same time. And I would be interested to see how Bobby does as host, since it’s rare for him (though I’ve seen him co-host other stuff before)…
Oh, of course I would have liked to see Gallen’s performance as well — I’m pretty sure he sang the songs from “Secret of the Heart” for his performance, since that’s the series he was doing that year (plus it was such a hit).
The part about Eric trying to pry information from Jacky is sooo cute!! I can totally why too, since they’re such good friends in real life — Eric was probably thinking he could ‘use’ his friendship with Jacky to get information — they’re both good actors as well, so I’m pretty sure they put on a good show for the audience during that part!
Since I didn’t watch that year, who came in 2nd and 3rd?
Oh, Gallen didn’t perform? Bummer…sort of surprised though with how hit the series was back then. Hmmm…I wonder why…
Well, it’s true that Eric does have alot of hosting talent and I prefer him to alot of the current hosts out there — but I guess I was a bit nostalgic for the other hosts who were so popular in the 80s/90s (Lawrence, Philip, Ivan Ho, etc.)…