Source: The Straits Times
Categorised in A Tale of 2 Cities ä¹åœ¨åŒåŸŽ, EN, The Straits Times.
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.
A TALE OF TWO CITIES (DEBUT)
Channel 8, 9pm
Rui En plays a rich girl who is cheated of her wealth when she entrusts her parents’ business to her assistant and boyfriend.
Source: The Straits Times
Categorised in A Tale of 2 Cities ä¹åœ¨åŒåŸŽ, EN, The Straits Times.
I would like to congratulate Rui En for her Best Actress Nomination at the Star Awards this year.
Her performance in With You touched my heart and moved me to tears on several occasions.
She has been in the business for 10 years yet this is the first time that she has been nominated. At least her performance did not go unnoticed this time.
Peh Xinyi
Categorised in EN, Star Awards 2011, The Straits Times, With You æˆ‘åœ¨ä½ å·¦å³.
In the Best Actress category, Rui En scored a breakthrough with her first-ever acting nomination after about a decade in show business. She was nominated, but did not win, for Best Newcomer in 2004.
Four years ago, she was widely tipped for a nomination for her work as a police officer in Metamorphosis (2007). When that did not happen, fans protested and started an online petition.
The 29-year-old said she was “very happy and surprised and grateful” for the nomination. She added: “I didn’t expect it at all and I’ve lost a bet with my friend but it’s a good way to lose a bet.”
Nevertheless, she says validation for her comes from audience feedback and she does not want to make awards “the focus of what I do”.
Despite being in running for her role as a widow in With You, she is betting that Chen Liping will win for Unriddle.
While Breakout swept the nominations, it was ranked only No. 9 in terms of television ratings for 2010, with an average of 866,000 viewers an episode. With You, which starred Adrian Pang, Chen Hanwei and Rui En, was in first place with an audience size of 969,000.
Source: Straits Times Life!
Categorised in EN, The Straits Times, Unriddle 最ç«ææ¡£, With You æˆ‘åœ¨ä½ å·¦å³.
By Teo Wan Gek
PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong ushered in the new year amid dazzling fireworks together with more than 20,000 residents in Serangoon last Friday night.
He was at a countdown party organised by the Serangoon Citizens Consultative Committee.
Dubbed ‘Serangoon Swing 2011’, it got off to a rousing start at 6pm with line dancing, bouncing castles and a foam party booth.
The Serangoon Gardens Circus was filled to full capacity as thousands thronged the specially built stage to watch local media artists such as Rui En and Jeanette Aw perform.
As midnight drew close, Mr Lee joined the artists and celebrities on stage to ring in the new year, adding his own well wishes for Singapore.
‘We have had a very good 2010,’ he said. ‘Let’s work together, climb new heights and break new ground, and make Singapore even better in 2011.’
Source: The Straits Times
Categorised in EN, Serangoon Swing 2011, The Straits Times.
SERANGOON grassroots leaders are pulling out all the stops to make sure that their New Year countdown party is the one event not to be missed on the last night of this year.
On Friday, popular local artists such as Rui En, Jeanette Aw, Mark Lee and Henry Thia, and Singapore Idol Hady Mirza, will lend their star power to Serangoon Swing 2011.
Along with host celebrities Michelle Chong, Moses Lim and Justin Mission, they will kick off seven hours of song, dance and celebration from 6pm at the Serangoon Garden Circus, where a stage is being erected. To top it off, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will join the star-studded event and ring in the New Year with residents.
Source: Straits Times
Categorised in EN, Serangoon Swing 2011, The Straits Times.
Foong Woei Wan
Veteran Chen Liping puts on a taut performance despite the loose script.
Chen Liping plays a police mole in the Channel 8 thriller Unriddle.
As mad as it sounds to toss an auntie into an Infernal Affairs-ish scenario, it makes sense when you watch her in the show and find yourself worrying about her.
What if a maniacal human trafficker hacks off her hand? What if a mental murder suspect shoots her in the head? What if she does not make it past the commercial break? In a drama with a flabby, sometimes logic-defying screenplay, several taut, nerve-racking scenes are drawn just from placing her in some sort of peril.
Not so much tension from Rui En, who plays a hard-as-nails policewoman and looks like she is on top of things.
You cannot help caring because it is Chen, the cuddliest of Singapore’s television stars.
Her line readings are so lived-in, she feels real: She is just being Chen Liping – or a more heroic version of herself – whereas some of the other actors, straining and sweating, are just actors.
They are not flesh-and-blood characters you can hang a commercial break on.
UNRIDDLE Channel 8, Weekdays, 9pm. ★★★☆☆
Source: Straits Time Life!
Categorised in EN, The Straits Times, Unriddle 最ç«ææ¡£.
Life!Buzz Page C10
Cheryl Tan
MediaCorp actor Zheng Geping has posted lurid photographs of blood-soaked cotton pads on his Facebook page.
The 46-year-old suffered blows to the head near his right ear during the filming of a fight scene with actress Rui En last month for his new drama, currently titled Unriddle. But he chose to seek treatment for it only recently.
Speaking in Mandarin to Life! over the telephone yesterday, he said he was able to withstand the elbow strikes by Rui En but it was the blow to the head by a male stuntman during the filming of a close-up that left him seeing stars.
In the show, he plays a triad boss and Rui En, a policewoman.
“I felt that I nearly had a concussion. A normal person would have fallen over,” said Zheng, who was injured on the eve of his birthday and chose to finish up the scene instead of heading off to the doctor for a check-up.
MediaCorp did not respond by press time to queries about the incident.
Source: Straits Times Life!
Categorised in EN, The Straits Times, Unriddle 最ç«ææ¡£.
