Speaking of the names from Mr. Hong Kong, you can use your 5 fingers to count them all? Matthew Ko, Stephan Wong, Francois Wong, Benjamin Yuen … … maybe if you think harder, still can’t come up with the 5th name. Well nothing can be done because Miss Hong Kong, Mr. Hong Kong news and exposure has not been a lot. In the many Mr. Hong Kong’s, just turned 24 years old Matthew Ko won ‘beautiful male’ in 2005, making him the first Mr. Hong Kong. In these 3 years, he started off as a supporting actor and now already been in more than 9 series, recently he was promoted to second lead actor. His acting career seems to be going smoothly.
Don’t look at Matthew as a tall and good looking guy and think he’s only got the looks. Actually he has the expectations that people want, first he is a 10 star pianist, he plays basketball, ice skating and hockey. He seriously is different. At 8 years old, his family immigrated to Canada, year 2004 he let go of his college career and returned to Hong Kong. Accompanied by his parents in entering the modeling company for auditions, he whole hearty wanted to enter the entertainment circle. “When I was young, I really enjoyed performing on stage. At 15 years old, I started to participate in various local singing competitions. I won the “Sunshine Boyz” competition organized by Tornoto’s television station. I even tried the Stars Competition, imitating Nicholas Tse and won the competition. But after all the opportunity to develop my showbiz career is limited in Canada, so I discussed with his family members and considered in going to Hong Kong to see if I have any luck there.”
Returning to Hong Kong, A nightmare
After returning to Hong Kong, Matthew joined Starz People as their model, too bad his nightmare official started there. “At first after arriving in Hong Kong, I had my mom with me, the days passed by so fast, unfortunately later my mom had to go back to Canada. Afterwards, there were 3 or 4 months were I had no jobs to accept. I only had $3000 in my account which was my income for the 3 months. I worked as a computer sales on the weekends (Saturday/Sundays), each month only got $2500 income. I live in Tin Shui Wai, in the end I couldn’t survive, I asked my mom to send me some money.” Fans do not misunderstand, the money that Ko Mommy sent was only enough for Matthew to buy a car.
In Hong Kong, Matthew wholeheartly waited for an opportunity to enter the entertainment circle. Once he saw the newspaper, he was able to read Chinese after living in HK for some time, his opportunity finally arrived. That is TVB’s first Mr. Hong Kong pageant, Matthew applied to enter on the last day before registration closed. “I remember on May 20, 2005, I spent my birthday on the airplane, the moment when the plane took off, I made a birthday wish. That was “to become one successful artiste”, after arriving in Hong Kong, my cell phone immediately rang, turns out that the modeling company called me. They told me that TVB was having their first Mr. Hong Kong, told me to hurry and sign up. At first I was “heart big, heart small”, I was afraid that others will laugh at me, my colleagues at my company told me ‘the first Mr. Hong Kong will gain the most attention’, I thought about it and thought it was true too. It was an opportunity, so I just registered.”
His Message to all Mr. HK Participants
Now a Famous and Big Brother (Dai See Hing) what tips does he have for this year’s Mr. Hong Kong Participants? “On stage, must remain calm do not get nervous or scared. Do your best, show the best side of yourself.” Do your best, easier said than done. “Earlier when I first returned to Hong Kong, I thought that people of HK liked gentlemen, those deliberately speaking politely and softly. Afterwards, I showed my Sporty look, everyone praised that I had a sunshine look, when I heard it I was very happy, so I feel that being and showing your natural self is the best way to go.”
Greatly praises Charmaine Sheh & Bobby Au Yeung for their professionalism; Matthew works hard on improving his Chinese for Ancient Series
Chinese people has a saying: “Men’s most fear is entering wrong career”, entered the entertainment business for 3 years, how does Matthrew feel now? “Happy, at first I was afraid that TVB would reject the contract. At first when I entered, I started off hosting for the children programme 《DeDe DaDa識多搵》, from hosting the show to singing the show’s theme song. Disciplined my patiences and entered the drama group, the experience was really ‘couching tiger hidden dragon’. It’s not like if you want to do this, then you can. Just like for “Forensic Heroes II”, in order to match with the character, I went to get myself a tan and cut my hair short. Hoping audience could see a new side of me. This time there are also many scenes were I’m chasing criminals and fighting camera angles, the outcome was very handsome [Ying], I am also very happy! After filming, I saw that Charmaine Sheh, Bobby Au Yeung, etc. were quite awesome, especially Charmaine, she was filming 5 days straight and was still okay, memorizing her lines so fast and she takes very good care of her juniors. There are many times when I NG, she would tell me: ‘You just take it slowly, relax a bit, don’t force yourself!’ her words felt warm.” One series after another, Matthew has a lot of expectations for his new series “Speech of Silence”. “Because this is my first ancient series and also my first series where I am second male lead, my screen time is the most here. Although during filming of this series, I felt a lot of frustration because I am not good with the Chinese language, I did not understand the ancient words, so I NG a lot. But in the end I was able to overcome this problem, I am very satisfied!”[by: aZnangel@asianeu.net]
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