1. Sunday Times (by The Straits Times) Lifestyle Cover
Breakout Stars
Elvin Ng starred in two of the top 10 Channel 8 dramas lst year while Rui En acted in three. Are they the new King and Queen of Caldecott Hill?
2. hot Pages 6 & 7
Top of the Hill
The recently released llist of Top 10 Channel 8 dramas shows there is a new crop of talent ready to take over Caldecott Hill.
By Rachael Boon
And the Top 10 Channel 8 dramas for 2010 are ….
Have a look at the list featured on these pages and many will wonder: Where are the names of Singapore TV’s enduring dynamic duo, Fann Wong and Zoe Tay?
The Queens of Caldecott Hill are nowhere to be seen in the line-up of those starring in the Top 10 list.
The new queen of the Hill is the versatile Rui En, 30, who acted in three dramas which are among the top five Channel 8 shows. She starred in With You, Happy Family and Unriddle.
As for Fann and Tay, they did not even act in any MediaCorp dramas last year to put them in contention. Fann has been busy filming overseas and Tay was pregnant.
The last blockbuster which both of them starred in, along with the two Ah Ge Li Nanxing and Tay Ping Hui, was 2009’s The Ultimatum, which received a lukewarm response. It was criticised for being too melodramatic.
Indeed, the top 10 list runs the gamut of content, from police dramas to stories about families and light-hearted comedy.
The top 10 shows are all MediaCorp’s productions except Taiwanese drama Love.
Modest productions such as With You a supernatural-themed tearjerker, New Beginnings, which dealt with the wedding and funeral industries, and the heart-warming Happy Family, trumped the blockbuster drama Breakout.
Indeed, with Channel 8’s top 10 dramas featuring a greater variety of actors and a wide range of drama genres, it is a sign that big names and blockbusters are not needed to lure viewers.
Things are certainly different from 10 years ago, says actress Cynthia Koh, who has been in the industry since 1992. She says viewers are constantly changing and looking for something more.
The Ah Ge and Ah Jie labels also no longer matter these days because teamwork is more important in producing good dramas, she says.
Rui En is clearly on a trajectory, with a Best Actress nomination for Star Awards 2011 in her bag for her role as a widow in With You, and having acted in three top-rated drama serials in a year.
She was one of MediaCorp’s Seven Princesses – the rest of whom were Jeanette Aw, Joanne Peh, Jesseca Liu, Felicia Chin, Fiona Xie and Dawn Yeoh.
The Seven Princesses was a term coined by the Chinese press in 2006, where the seven were said to be next in line to succeed Zoe and Fann.
Until last year, Rui En had never been a crowd favourite, but with other contenders such as Xie, Chin, Yeoh and Liu leaving MediaCorp, her name has come.
Life!’s Asian TV reviewer Foong Woei Wan says Rui En is finally getting the attention she deserves.
She says: “She doesn’t do the usual Channel 8 acting. In With You, she shows that you don’t have to shout, you can whisper and still hold viewers’ attention.”
Along with the new queen comes her royal partner, Elvin Ng, with two Best Actor nominates in a row.
Actor Alan Term, who has a decade of experience and appeared in various top shows last year, says he does see Ng and Rui En as the new generation of leads.
He says, “They are already leads now so I see them as the next pillars of MediaCorp as they are doing pretty well.”
What do you think of the new generation of stars at Caldecott Hill? Write to suntimes@sph.com.sg
3. hot Page 7
Ice queen turns nice queen
It has been a long climb to the summit, but Rui En, 30, is finally enjoying the view.
The actress, who has been in show business for more than a decade, looks set to be crowned the new queen of Caldecott Hill.
Recognition has finally come, thanks to her roles in three top-rated Channel 8 dramas – With You, Happy Family and Unriddle – and a Best Actress nomination for her role as a grieving widow in With You.
The fortunate series of events did not happen overnight for her. She is known as one of MediaCorp’s seven “princesses”, yet she says her has seen her career “progress in a backward manner”.
By this she explains that she is hardly on top of the popularity pack like the other “princesses” such as Jeanette Aw and Joanne Peh.
In an interview with LifeStyle, she says: “About what I achieved last year, in terms of ratings or anything else, I feel a lot of irony and a little bit of vindication.”
Explaining why, she says: “When this whole “seven princesses” thing was started by the Chinse press in 2006, the media would get people to compare the seven of us and there would be rankings and lists. The funny thing was that then, I was always No. 5 or No. 6.
“Just a few years ago, that was how the media and the public saw me. It was said that I was a bit too distant, the audience wouldn’t accept me, I was too aloof.”
But now, three of her shows have made it to the list of the top five Channel 8 dramas.
The supposed ice queen has since further melted viewers’ hearts with her role as the simle-minded and optimistic Xiaodong in Happy Family, which aired in January last year, She feels that it was that role which made viewers see that she could be more than an ice queen and credits this to the executive producer of Happy Family, Mr Paul Yuen, who cast her.
“For reasons that I don’t know, he decided to cast me as a girl who was simple minded to the point of being silly,” she says.
“The fact that he gave me the chance really changed viewers’ perception of me and I’m very grateful. It turned out to be one of the most comfortable roles I’ve ever played because Xiaodong was very happy and positive.”
Rui En’s hard work over the past decade has paid off. Loyal fans who have stuck with her are really being affected by her moving portrayals in tragic roles such as a widow in With You.
She says: “One auntie came up to me and said, ‘Watching your show makes me cry’. She paused and continued, ‘Actually thinking about it now, I’m going to cry already’. So I was like, ‘oh no, please don’t cry’.”
She adds: “I’m very grateful that viewers have matured to the point where they recognise you for what you are and what you stand for. The recognition I’ve got has proven that.”
Top 10 Channel 8 Drama Series in 2010
Source: The Sunday Times by The Straits Times
Categorised in 七公主 7 Princesses, EN, Happy Family 过好年, Ratings 节目收视率, Ruivin, Star Awards 2011, The Straits Times, Unriddle 最ç«ææ¡£, With You æˆ‘åœ¨ä½ å·¦å³.
