General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Who's the Winner (1992 TV series)

Who's the Winner (II) (胜者为王II天下无敌; 胜者为王II天下无敌) is a 30-episode Hong Kong television drama produced by Asia Television (ATV) in 1992, the second installment of the Who's the Winner gambling-drama trilogy. It aired on ATV's Home Channel from 5 October to 13 November 1992, head-to-head against TVB's anniversary drama The Greed of Man (大时代)¹^•².

Key fact	Detail
Network and run	Asia Television (ATV), Hong Kong; 30 episodes, 5 October to 13 November 1992¹
Main cast	Chan Ting-wai, Margie Tsang, Ng Yi-jeung (吴毅将), Jackie Lui, Christine Ng, with Chun Puay (秦沛) and Yang Chuen (杨群)¹
Crew	Producer Yuen Yan-hong; directors Benny Chan (陈木胜) and Tang Yin-chor (邓衍成), among others¹
Ratings	First week averaged 12 rating points, the next two weeks 14 points, with a peak of 21 points³
Audience score	8.3/10 on Douban from 2,217 users as of 13 March 2025¹
Series position	Second of three ATV gambling dramas broadcast 1991 to 1993, totaling 82 episodes⁴

Spoilers

Plot

The story continues from the first series. After losing to Shek Chi-hong (石志康, played by Chan Ting-wai), the gambling king Nim Man-lung (聂万龙, Chun Puay) has gone insane, and Shek has retired from gambling with his wife Cheung Ka-wai (张嘉慧, Joey Man). Cheung Tin-ting (张天鼎, Yang Chuen), the American gambling king, dominates the gambling world, and his daughter Cheung Chik-yu (张适茹, Margie Tsang) helps run his American casinos. Years earlier, Cheung had betrayed the father and son of the Hung family for personal gain, sending Hung Fung (洪峰, Ng Yi-jeung) to prison on false charges. After Hung Fung is freed, he returns to Hong Kong, abducts Nim Man-lung, and vows to ruin Cheung Tin-ting's reputation. Cheung tricks Shek Chi-hong into fighting on his behalf, while secretly laying a trap and sending his operative Dic Shun (狄信, Jackie Lui) to eliminate Shek and Hung, leading to a showdown⁵.

Production

ATV made the series in 1992 as a follow-up to the well-received first Who's the Winner (1991). Benny Chan (陈木胜), later known for directing the films A Moment of Romance and New Police Story, was one of the series' directors, and his name appears in the end credits of the first episode². Production was troubled: ATV suffered large layoffs and management changes that year, pushing filming from the planned April start to July, and each episode cost about HK$100,000 less than The Greed of Man, yet the series still had to go on air in early October².

Joey Man (万绮雯), who played Cheung Ka-wai in the first series, made a guest appearance as Chan Ting-wai's wife and her character was shot dead in the fourth episode². The role of Hung Fung was originally intended for Fong Kong (方刚), who instead guest-starred as the villain Tu Tin-lung (屠天龙) in the final five episodes⁴.

The ratings war with TVB

The series' broadcast triggered one of the most closely watched ratings battles of early 1990s Hong Kong television. TVB learned ATV would air Who's the Winner II and moved its 25th-anniversary gala drama The Greed of Man, produced by Wai Ka-fai (韦家辉) and originally scheduled for November, up to premiere on the same day, 5 October 1992². TVB also spent three months preparing its counter-programming, first airing two other gambling-themed dramas, 拳王赌至尊 and 赌霸, hoping to tire audiences of the genre and dilute the new series' impact².

In the first three weeks, Who's the Winner II drew 12 to 14 rating points while The Greed of Man drew 30 to 32 points². A Next Magazine cover story of 30 October 1992 nonetheless framed the contest as 天下无敌 shaking TVB's composure, because The Greed of Man, with its per-episode budget of HK$220,000 to 230,000 and ten months of preparation, had been expected to win easily; its unconventional plot and character design put off viewers accustomed to TVB's mainstream style, and its ratings of around 30 points were considered a weak result by the standards of the day². ATV's series reached a peak of 21 points³. Critics noted that the win did not change ATV's structural weakness: after each major drama ended, the channel's ratings fell back to their usual level¹.

Reception and legacy

The series holds a Douban score of 8.3/10 from 2,217 users as of March 2025¹. Critics credited its success to vivid characterization, describing its protagonists as having the Dionysian frenzy of Greek drama, driven to stake everything on a single path, which gave the gambling drama the momentum of a martial-arts ensemble story¹. The TV producer Wai Ka-fai observed that its largest audience was children of about fourteen or fifteen, and that the series' comic-book style made it a kind of modern martial-arts drama that young viewers readily accepted¹.

Place in the series. The Who's the Winner trilogy opened the local gambling-drama genre on Hong Kong television². The first part (1991, 22 episodes) made Chan Ting-wai's name and became ATV's ratings champion of 1991⁴^•⁶; the first two parts were both rated among "ATV's most classic series of the 1990s"⁴. The third part, Who's the Winner III (胜者为王III王者之战, 30 episodes), premiered 15 November 1993 with a new cast led by Simon Yam (任达华), cost HK$30 million with location filming in France and Monaco, and was regarded as the weakest of the three⁴^•⁷. ATV produced a new version of Who's the Winner in 2010 starring Julian Cheung and Ada Choi⁷, and the original trilogy was made available on the Disney+ streaming platform⁸.

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026