By Charlene Chua and Kwok Kar Peng
It wasn’t the usual suspects who revealed their, er, talents last night.
Constance Song, Ng Hui, Chen Liping and Xiang Yun turned up the heat at the Star Awards 2012 Show 2 held at Marina Bay Sands.
Song’s sheer, peekaboo Jiki outfit titillated, while Ng revealed plenty of cleavage and legs in her sexy black dress.
In comparison, the usual bevy of babes such as Michelle Chia, Rebecca Lim and Rui En were rather modestly decked out from head-to-toe.
Said Rui En: “I’m not into showing cleavage as I’m conservative and I don’t feel the need to.
“The limit is showing off my shoulders. I won’t reveal my legs too.”
Results of Star Awards 2012 (Show 2)
Best Drama Serial: On The Fringe
Top 10 Most Popular Female Artistes:
1. Rebecca Lim
2. Yvonne Lim
3. Rui En
4. Kym Ng
5. Vivian Lai
6. Paige Chua
7. Jeanette Aw
8. Cynthia Koh
9. Joanne Peh
10. Ann Kok
Source: The New Paper, Asiaone
Categorised in asiaone.com, EN, Star Awards 2012, The New Paper.
By Kwok Kar Peng
THE hilarious skit at Star Awards Show 1 on Sunday night was meant to be a comic relief for all, but two of the actors being made fun of did not seem impressed.
Last night’s Star Awards Show 1, telecast live over Channel 8, featured a skit spoofing the cast of local dramas Devotion, A Song to Remember and Code of Honour.
Not even the biggest and most popular names on Caldecott Hill were spared.
Zoe Tay, Chen Hanwei, Joanne Peh, Elvin Ng, Qi Yuwu and Eelyn Kok were all made fun of.
But Rui En and Zhang Yaodong did not appear amused.
Rui En looked moody for the rest of the night, despite winning Favourite Female Character and Favourite Onscreen Couple with Ng.
In her acceptance speech, she said cryptically: “We are here to film (dramas), not create news.”
In the skit, TV host Quan Yifeng – in an impressive career comeback since her scuffle with a taxi driver – pretended to be Rui En and objected to filming a rape scene.
It was an obvious throwback to the controversy between Rui En and Zhang Yaodong last August.
Back then, Zhang had talked to the media about a rape scene he did with Rui En in the drama On the Fringe.
Rui En, who was working in Malaysia then, immediately wrote a heated blog post, stressing the fact that she is against doing kissing and rape scenes.
That particular scene was in fact a failed rape attempt, she clarified.
She also hinted that Zhang had twisted the truth to try to make headlines and stay in the limelight.
Zhang subsequently told the media he had used the wrong words, adding that he is not a Chinese teacher who is precise about words.
Last night, when reporters asked Rui En if she was offended, she replied with a curt “No”.
Funny skit?
“The skit provided entertainment value. I was prepared that (the controversy with Zhang) would be mentioned either in Star Awards Show 1 or Show 2,” she said.
When The New Paper spoke to Zhang, he too was curt.
“I don’t think the skit went overboard. It was very funny. I’m okay with it because I don’t think too much into it,” he said.
Ironically, the two of them are filming the period drama Joys of Life and have many scenes together.
How are relations between the two of them now?
Zhang replied in Mandarin: “We are not familiar with each other (before the controversy). Now we are even less familiar. We are still colleagues.”
When asked the same question, Rui En said: “Things are professional (between us). We are just doing our jobs.
“There’s nothing different and it’s just the way I behave with everyone else.
“To me, (the incident) is over. I think I’ll work with him again (in the future), and why make things difficult for everyone?”
Star Awards Show 1 winners
Favourite Female Character: Zhang Yale in A Tale of Two Cities, played by Rui En
Favourite On-screen Couple: Rui En and Elvin Ng in Code of Honour
Best Screenplay: Ang Eng Tee for On the Fringe and Chen Sew Khoon/Lau Chin Poon for The In-Laws
Best Drama Editing: Teo Pit Hong Joyce for On the Fringe
Source: The New Paper, Asiaone
Categorised in A Tale of 2 Cities 乐在双城, asiaone.com, Code of Honour 正义武馆, EN, On The Fringe 边缘父子, Star Awards 2012, The In-Laws 麻婆斗妇, The New Paper.
By Kwok Kar Peng
After almost a decade, Mediacorp has returned to Tuas TV World to shoot the new Channel 8 drama Joys Of Life.
Once the jewel in our local dramas, TV World, about the size of four football fields, was the backdrop for memorable shows like Tofu Street, The Price Of Peace and Wok Of Life.
It was created to look like a bustling town of the 1950s and has three main streets that lead to a three-storey cinema, a railway station, a fire station, a city hall, a church, several mansions and rows of Chinese shophouses.
About 10 years ago, the company gave up the area, which is next to the Tuas checkpoint.
Then last month, MediaCorp returned to TV World to film Channel 8′s 30th anniversary period drama, Joys of Life. The series, which stars Chen Liping, Zheng Geping, Rui En, Huang Wenyong, Chew Chor Meng and Taiwanese artistes Alien Huang and Cynthia Wang, will start airing in June.
Costly
So it became financially unwise and costly to maintain TV World.
Since then, some scenes in period dramas were also filmed in MediaCorp’s own backyard in Caldecott, where busy streets were recreated.
Younger artistes like Rui En, 31, have never filmed in TV World before, but her friends remember the place and told her about it.
“My first impression of the place is that it’s very, very cute. I didn’t know it existed until I was told we were to film here,” she told The New Paper.
“I didn’t grow up in this era (1950s), and it’s very foreign (to me). It’s very nice to have a location to help you with the acting.”
Her friends have also shared stories of how the place is haunted, but Rui En said she has never felt uneasy there, even at night.
She plays a tragic character who is forced to marry a stranger to pay off her adoptive father’s debt.
Joys of Life 花样人间 debuts 26 June 2012 9pm on Channel 8.
Source: The New Paper, Asiaone
Categorised in asiaone.com, EN, Joys of Life 花样人间, The New Paper.
Unriddle 2
Channel 8, 9pm
In the second season of the local police drama, the fearless duo of female cop Xiaoman and her snitch Zhengyi take on a mysterious criminal linked to the yakuza. Starring Rui En, Chen Liping.
Source: The New Paper
Categorised in EN, The New Paper, Unriddle 2 最火搭档 2.
Reports: Tan kee Yun and Kwok Kar Peng
Exposed and vulnerable.
These aren’t words that you’d usually hear from MediaCorp artiste Rui En.
She has often projected an unflappable and icy-cool demeanour, both on- and off-camera.
But filming high-octane cop drama Unriddle II left the 31-year-old emotionally wrought – even till today, two months after the show wrapped its shoot.
“I’ve been acting for a while, but this is the first time I have no idea how my scenes will actually turn out on television,” she told The New Paper at the press conference for the show on Tuesday.
“Just thinking about it, it’s nerve-racking. It’s like being in a relationship where you give a lot, and vulnerability is all you can feel.”
The 20-episode series, a sequel to 2010′s popular Unriddle, premieres on Channel 8 at 9pm next Monday.
It reunites original cast members like Rui En, Chen Liping and Tay Ping Hui as elite members of the Criminal Investigation Department.
New additions like Elvin Ng as Rui En’s competitive teammate and Rebecca Lim as a mysterious psychiatrist.
Replete with twists and turns, Unriddle II sees the tanned, lean Rui En delving into darker and more hard-hitting territory.
Viewers who have caught the trailer on YouTube would have noticed the changes in her character, Xiaoman.
In one scene, she stumbles around, dazed and bleary-eyed, while in another, she points a gun at herself.
“We had several scenes that were really sad and emotionally draining,” Rui En recalled, declining to provide more details as it might give the plot away.
“When it comes to acting, I’ve always been very particular about timing and control; I tend to hold back so that I don’t overact…
But for this one, I felt I just had to let loose. It got to the extent that I started cursing a lot on set (like dropping the F-bomb), which shocked my co-stars and the crew. They certainly didn’t see that coming.”
Aside from sprouting profanities, Rui En revealed during the initial stages of filming, the sheer intensity of the scenes made her feel so “low and depressed” that she felt “suicidal” at one point.
“The thought did cross my mind,” she said. “If I hadn’t snapped out of it, I figure I would have gone crazy.”
Thanks to co-star Chen, she eventually managed to purge the negativity.
“I had a chat with her and she told me, ‘You just have to let it go.’ I’m very thankful for that,” said Rui En.
“Of course, her laughter also helped…Liping tends to burst into laughter after every serious, emotional scene – I have no idea why, but it’s infectious and makes me laugh along.”
The 46-year-old veteran actress and mother of one told The New Paper in a seperate interview she became concerned that Rui En was not stepping out of her character even after the directors had shouted “cut”.
‘I was worried for her’
“Those two nights that we filmed the finale, I was worried for her…She told me she felt very negative, which was something I could understand as I felt that same way too at one point during filming.
I told her she had to let the character go for a while.”
Chen recounted the day she, Rui En and Tay filmed from 8am to midnight.
The scenes involved Tay’s character, Zhang Yuze, becoming wheelchair-bound and later falling to his death – which Tay readily revealed at the press conference.
Rui En and Chen had tedious crying scenes from day to night.
“We were already feeling emotional from reading the script. In order to wrap up filming faster, we held on to these emotions so we could feel the sadness on set,” said Chen.
Catch #Unriddle 2 最火搭档 II from 5 March 2012 9pm on Channel 8.
Source: The New Paper
Categorised in EN, The New Paper, Unriddle 2 最火搭档 2.
By Charlene Chua
No dates as Valentine’s Day comes up?
These star-struck fans got one in a lucky draw.
Miss Tan Fang Rong not only got to meet her idol, TV star Ian Fang, he even bought her a gift.
Miss Tan was curious about how filming worked, so Fang related what went on behind the camera.
The cheeky Fang also asked Miss Tan who her favourite local celebrity was, angling for his name.
He burst out laughing when the guileless Miss Tan replied it was local actress Rui En.
Source: The New Paper, Asiaone
Categorised in asiaone.com, The New Paper.
Reports: Tan Kee Yun
A massive hit in East Asia, but not so much on our shores?
If initial numbers are an indicator, Chinese palace drama Scarlet Heart, which has garnered buzz for reviving the career of former pop idol Nick Wu and making stars out of unknowns such as Cecilia Liu Shishi, isn’t really local audiences’ cup of tea.
Figures from international market research firm Taylor Nelson Sofres show that the first nine episodes of the show attracted an average of just 349,000 viewers.
That figure is substantially lower than what the two MediaCorp series, Code of Honour and Kampong Ties – that preceded Scarlet Heart in the same timeslot – attracted in their respective first nine episodes.
Kampong Ties attracted an average of 566,000 viewers and Code of Honour snagged 469,000 viewers.
Source: The New Paper
Categorised in Code of Honour 正义武馆, EN, Ratings 节目收视率, The New Paper.
Report: Slyvia Toh Paik Choo
Bette Midler did not recognise celeb couple US designer Michael Kors and his long-time partner Lance Lepere. So good were their Halloween costumes.
The duo were in Singapore for the launch of the Michael Kors label – brought in by Valiram the high-end retail group – at Scotts Square on Tuesday night.
Shoppers and socialites invited to the cocktail accosted Kors at every step for a snap, and the lovely guy obliged, flashing his pearlies like a real-life Smiley.
Kors later traipsed to the after party at Reflections at Keppel, where he was surrounded by local female stars like Joanne Peh, Michelle Chia and Rui En.
Source: The New Paper
Categorised in EN, The New Paper.
Source: The New Paper
Categorised in EN, On The Fringe 边缘父子, The New Paper.
