Ballad of a small player: Behind late HK actor Benz Hui’s work lies a profound message for viewers

HONG KONG – A public outpouring of grief over veteran Hong Kong actor Benz Hui’s death has shone a spotlight on how even perennial supporting characters like him can leave an indelible mark in the hearts of the audience.

Hui’s death at age 76 on Oct 28 from multiple organ failure caused by cancer

triggered a wave of emotion online and in entertainment circles across the region’s Chinese-speaking cities.

Celebrities, politicians and regular TV viewers –

including Singapore’s former MP Lee Bee Wah

, singer JJ Lin and actors Ben Yeo and Collin Chee – took to social media to post their condolences and recount their interactions with him.

In Hong Kong, his celebrity co-workers including Tavia Yeung, Miriam Yeung, Carlos Chan and Chau Pak Ho – all of whom had acted alongside him in broadcaster TVB’s productions over the years – expressed their grief over his demise and gratitude for his informal mentoring in the early stages of their working life in show business.

Hui, dubbed the King of Supporting Actors, had

a career that spanned more than five decades,

including during the golden age of Hong Kong television when the territory was among the top producers of popular culture across the region.

His illustrious career and well-earned moniker embodied a learning point for his audiences: We don’t have to be the star, and we can still find success and fulfilment as side characters in the subplots of life.

Hui might never have made his way onto the TV screen had it not been for his “hideous” looks when he tried his luck signing up for TVB’s inaugural Artist Training Class in 1971.

“I was really ugly back then. I looked like a thief, not at all as kindly and amiable as I appear now,” he said, looking back on his life and career in a video interview with Hong Kong news outlet HK01, months before his death.

“To qualify as an actor back in the day, you had to be extremely good-looking, so I never thought I’d be selected for the course. But who knew, I got in.”

He added: “Only later did I realise that it was most likely because TVB had no one ugly enough to cast as criminals in its productions, as even its supporting cast members were all too handsome for such roles.”

Hui went on to be typecast as the comedic baddie or sidekick in hundreds of movies and TV drama serials in the following years. And he managed to carve a niche for himself doing precisely that.

While others might have aspired to make it onto the A-list and hankered after more visible and lucrative protagonist parts as their career progressed, Hui focused instead on honing his acting skills and perfecting his supporting roles.

In his candid interview with HK01, he explained that this suited his “lazy” nature and that his roles as supporting cast meant he could win credit if the productions did well and escape the brickbats if they flopped, as the attention typically falls on the lead actors.

Hui’s dedication to developing his art eventually paid off as his side characters – although not immediately headline-grabbing – started adding considerable depth to the plots of the productions he starred in, so much so that his parts came to achieve near-protagonist status in the eyes of viewers.

Among his most well-known works, he was lauded for his role as former undercover cop-turned-retired crime boss Foon Hei Gor, or Brother Happy in Cantonese, in the crime thriller drama series Line Walker that debuted in the 2010s and was so popular that it spawned three sequels and a film.

His stellar performance in that supporting role – for which he developed a creepy unreadable smile – won him TVB’s Most Popular Male Character award in 2014.

The acclaim for that role led to advertisement deals and and even some acting roles in co-productions with mainland Chinese studios, such as 2019’s The Defected, which became TVB’s first drama to be shown internationally on Netflix.

“I’m actually really lucky,” Hui said.

“I’m never the main character whether in film or TV. I’m always just a secondary character and yet I’ve played so many very memorable roles. Others may have been the protagonists of many shows but people do not always remember them for those roles. So I count myself really lucky indeed.”

Until his death, Hui was one of the few supporting Hong Kong actors who was a household name not just in his home city or Singapore, where he was a permanent resident, but also among Chinese speakers in cities and countries across the region.

In recent years, he had scaled back on his acting commitments and spent considerable time in Singapore,

where his family owns a $4 million bungalow in Yishun

.

Hui’s popularity underscores the indispensable role of film and TV’s often-overlooked supporting cast members.

His work lives on as a reminder to his viewers and the world not to overlook the seemingly minor or inconsequential roles that we or others can sometimes play in the journey of life.

In his interview, the veteran actor shared a philosophical piece of advice from a mentor who had guided his career all those years: “Don’t worry, you don’t have to fear losing out. You can stand to gain eventually if you’re willing to take a little hit sometimes.”

To make our lives count, we don’t necessarily have to be the most outstanding, brilliant or accomplished person in our circles or to take on the most important or visible jobs.

Fulfilment can also be found on the sidelines, in focusing on doing whatever we are doing well.

Whether playing the part of a minion at the workplace, an angsty teen’s hapless and ignored parent, or a listening ear to a high-flying friend – we can all, like Hui, learn to improvise, contribute to the best of our abilities, and laugh at ourselves while doing so.