Actor Michael Tse Tin-wah, 42, has had something of an average career - at least until recently.
He started out as a dancer at TVB and enjoyed an unspectacular stint as a singer after he joined Jordan Chan Siu-chun and Jason Chu Wing-tong to form boy band Wind Fire Sea in the early 1990s.
He then starred with his bandmates in Andrew Lau Wai-keung's Young and Dangerous gangster movie series between 1996 and 1998 but his turn hardly made a lasting impression on the audience.
In 1998, Tse re-joined the station where it all began to play mostly minor or 'bad guy' roles in a string of TV series.
One of his latest roles was as an undercover policeman who infiltrates a gang in the drama series E.U. His character, named Laughing, might have met a tragic end, but the undercover role shot the underdog actor to stardom.
Many critics thought Tse portrayed the character convincingly and showed a great sense of honour and justice. On the night Tse's character died on screen, more than 100,000 bloggers were said to have mourned his death online, making Laughing the hottest Web topic. The character's exploits have now been made into a film with Tse in the lead role.