(PHOTO: SHIN MIN DAILY NEWS)
SINGAPORE -The recent chatter about Mediacorp actress Rui En has moved on from her allegedly sulky demeanour to her new curves.
Looking rather rotund at a recent press conference, she let on that she has put on 4kg for a new role as an “auntie”.
The new Channel 8 drama (If Only I Could) will see her put on a fat suit, Rui En told reporters last week.
She found that with the fat suit, her face and limbs were too slim, which looked unconvincing, Lianhe Wanbao reported.
(PHOTO: SHIN MIN DAILY NEWS)
Her recent roles have seen her portray Singapore artist Georgette Chen in a docudrama, and an actress who becomes disfigured in The Dream Makers 2.
Gaining, or losing, weight for a role is often seen as a sign of commitment for actors, and can be a boost for their careers.
RBKD: Click the source’s link below to access the complete article.
The Dream Makers 2 志在四方 2 debuts 04 December 2015, 9pm on Channel 8.
If Only I Could… åå¹´â€¦ä½ è¿˜å¥½å—？ debuts 30 May 2016, 9pm on Channel 8.
Source: Straits Times, AsiaOne, Her World
Categorised in asiaone.com, EN, Her World, If Only I Could... åå¹´...ä½ è¿˜å¥½å—？, The Dream Makers 2 志在四方 2, The Straits Times, The Worlds Of Georgette Chen.
By Foong Woei Wan
In Crescendo, the current Channel 8 drama about the music business, Jiang Chufan (Tay Ping Hui) is the musical genius responsible for countless songs in the Singaporean songbook and his friend Yang Yiwei (Christopher Lee) is the businessman.
Yiwei is also the hero here. As the chief executive officer of a struggling record label he started with Chufan and another friend, Luo Dawei (Darren Lim), Yiwei takes real risks, from gulping a mystery drink (possibly urine) to appease a Chinese investor to mortgaging his own home to finance the debut of Alixia (Olivia Ong), a Singaporean singer championed by Chufan.
To be specific, Yiwei is a Singaporean hero – the latest in a long line of mavericks imagined by WaWa Pictures in dramas including Secrets For Sale and Game Plan – who runs the quantifiable risks that Singaporeans understand, but might not take.
Singapore, in founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew’s formulation, is a country that can’t afford poetry and it follows that music is an extravagance too.
In Crescendo, Yiwei, Chufan and Dawei have to face the costs, financial and human, of being in the music business.
In early episodes, Yiwei and Chufan lock horns over the former’s plan to enter a lucrative contract to produce vanity records for a Chinese tycoon’s goddaughter, which will delay the debut of the composer’s talented, disheartened student, Alixia.
And in a strain of melodrama, Chufan is still good friends with Yiwei’s estranged wife Wang Yafang (Cynthia Koh), who sang with the boys back in junior college, during the surge of xinyao, Singaporean folk-pop, in the 1980s.
Later, after the label decides to put Singaporean talent first and promote Alixia in the more significant Taiwanese market, she has second thoughts.
Typecast as a dummy on a Taiwanese variety show, she tires of having to play-act to draw viewers’ attention, when all she wants to do is sing.
She also bumps into Xueli (Ann Kok), a former xinyao singer who is now a walking cautionary tale. Xueli, who is also Dawei’s first love, landed in Taiwan years ago, never made it big and has been reduced to singing at a steakhouse.
But her unhappiness has a way of fading, or being transformed, when she sings Mavis Hee’s I Know And Yet.
And in flashbacks to Yiwei and Chufan’s youth, in the innocent years before the business grew prominent, the music shines: a wealth of xinyao, intimately performed by actors including Bonnie Loo, back when the characters had nothing and yet everything.
Source: Straits Times
Categorised in EN, Reviews, Straits Times, The Straits Times.
Ong Sor Fern
Art lovers are looking forward to the National Gallery’s opening in November as the National Collection, comprising some 8,000 works, will finally come back into the public’s eye.
But some of the Gallery’s most prized pieces are already starring in an online video series titled My Masterpiece. The series will feature 12 works, each accompanied by an eclectic bunch of personalities speaking about their impressions of the works.
Painter Georgette Chen is in the spotlight this year. There was a three-part television biopic starring actress Rui En as the unconventional painter and she will be among the cast of characters highlighted in Nanyang, The Musical, an upcoming production at the Singapore International Festival Of Arts. This 1946 Self Portrait was displayed briefly at the National Gallery’s recent Naked Museum night, and is an alluringly enigmatic work. It was painted just after the war and a few years after the death of her husband Eugene Chen.
Source: The Straits Times
Categorised in EN, National Gallery Singapore, The Straits Times, The Worlds Of Georgette Chen.
The Journey: Our Homeland (Debut)
Channel 8, 9pm
A fight among the villagers results in an accident involving pregnant actress Liu Qing. Nurse Mei Xue (Rui En) sends her to the hospital immediately.
The Journey: Our Homeland is now airing every weekdays, 9pm on Channel 8.
Source: Straits Times
Categorised in EN, The Journey: Our Homeland, The Straits Times.
The Worlds of Georgette Chen
Channel NewsAsia, 102pm
Rui En, portrays Georgette Chen, one of Singapore’s pioneer artists.
Categorised in EN, The Straits Times, The Worlds Of Georgette Chen.
Airing Details
“The Worlds of Georgette Chen” is now airing on Channel NewsAsia on the following dates and time slots:
Episode 1 – 29 April 2015, 8pm, CNA
Episode 2 – 06 May 2015, 8pm, CNA
Episode 3 – 13 May 2015, 8pm, CNA
Videos: Related Trailers & Interviews
Synopsis
The Worlds of Georgette Chen, a three-part docÂuÂdrama will premier on 29 April 2015 on ChanÂnel NewsÂAsia. It spans across three periÂods, giving viewers an insight of the draÂmatic worlds of GeorÂgette Chen. These periods include the French period from 1927 to 1933 where she received her early art education; the Chinese/Hong Kong period from 1934 to 1948; and the Penang/Singapore period from 1950 to 1980.
Being inspired by her surÂroundÂings, GeorÂgette proÂduced porÂtraits and still lifes from each phase. She perÂfecÂted her techÂnique and taught at the NanÂyang Academy of Fine Arts.
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Tonight on CNA! Rui En as SG pioneer artist, Georgette Chen, in the debut of "The Worlds of Georgette Chen" at 8pm, on Channel NewsAsia! (All photo credits to Channelnewsasia.)
Posted by Rui En on Tuesday, 28 April 2015
Remember to catch the 1st episode of "The Worlds of Georgette Chen"!! Tonight on Channel News Asia 8pm.
Posted by Hype Records on Tuesday, 28 April 2015
Rui En in cheongsam!! Catch her in "The Worlds of Georgette Chen" on Channel News Asia starting 29th April Wednesday 8pm.
Posted by Hype Records on Friday, 24 April 2015
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Categorised in Channel 8, Channel 8 News, channelnewsasia.com, Hype Records, L’Oréal Paris, National Gallery Singapore, The Straits Times, The Worlds Of Georgette Chen, Toggle SG, Zaobao.
By Gwendolyn Ng and Yip Wai Yee
The Winners
Top 10 Most Popular Artistes: Rebecca Lim, Rui En, Quan Yi Fong, Belinda Lee, Paige Chua, Joanne Peh, Julie Tan, Carrie Wong, Kym Ng, Felicia Chin.
Hits and Misses
Rui En is determined to light up the show. If not with her smile, then at least with her sparkly gown.
Soundbites
“Lots of people had a lot to say about my behaviour last week. I have never been one to talk very much. (Pretends to laugh) This, I know, is not my forte. If I had inconvenienced anyone this week, I hope that everyone will forgive me for it.”
Rui En, in response to last week’s brou-haha over her apparent “black face” at Star Awards Show 1 on April 19.
Source: The Straits Times
Categorised in EN, Star Awards, Star Awards 2015, The Straits Times.
Star Awards 2015
(Pic Credits: Lianhe Wanbao)
Awww~ @iampierrepng & #Ruien at the Instastop! Do u remember what drama they coupled in before? #2015starawards #mystorysg #tapmeBe sure to catch the repeat telecast if you've missed Star Awards 2015!10th May 2015, Sunday, Channel 81 – 2.30pm: Red Carpet Walk of Fame2.30 – 5.30pm: Star Awards Show 25.30 – 6.30pm: Post-Show Party
Posted by Channel 8 on Sunday, 26 April 2015
Star Awards 2015 – Best Dressed
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By Rebecca Tan Hui Shan
Watching Rui En take her seat on stage and tuck her legs delicately by her side, it feels uncannily like looking at pioneer artist Georgette Chen, whom the actress portrays in an upcoming three-part docudrama.
Beyond the sharp chin, ruler-straight posture and pursed red lips, there seems to be a sophisticated, unapologetic dignity about the 34-year-old MediaCorp actress that similarly emanates from the woman in the self-portrait behind her.
During the filming for the programme, which premieres on Wednesday on Channel Newsasia and MediaCorp Channel 5, Rui En uncovered aspects of Chen that she identified with intimately.
At a press conference last Friday, she says of Chen: “She was feisty, strong-willed and incredibly independent. In these ways, I felt like a mirror of her.”
She adds with a laugh that “both of us also do not smile very much” – alluding to the recent media backlash against her supposedly sulky demeanour at the Star Awards.
Born in 1906 in Zhejiang, China, Chen is best known for her still life paintings and portraits and contributed tremendously to the growth of the Nanyang art movement in Singapore, which fused South-east Asian themes with Western painting techniques.
The docudrama, The Worlds of Georgette Chen, commissioned by the National Gallery Singapore and produced by Channel NewsAsia, recreates the colourful life of the artist, who had a privileged, cosmopolitan upbringing as the daughter of a rich businessmman.
It takes viewers from her childhood in France to her youth in revolutionary China and, finally, her adulthood in Singapore, where she taught at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. She died in 1993 after a long illness.
She was highly regarded for her post-Impressionistic work, with her heavy brushstrokes and emphasis on volume and texture influenced by French Impressionists of the late 19th century.
She was one of the few female Chinese artists featured in the famous Salon d’Automne exhibitions in Paris. In 1982, she was awarded Singapore’s Cultural Medallion. Her works will be on display at the National Gallery when it opens in October.
Yet, for all her professional success, it was her capacity for love that Rui En admires most.
The actress explains: “Even though her husband, Eugene Chen, was a political fugutive and more than twice her age, he was the love of her life. For me, what makes her human is that she dared to love unconventionally.”
One of the most memorable scenes, she accounts, was filmed in an unabandoned school in Braddell Road. She was tasked to play the piano while channelling the grief that Chen had for her husband who had just died, shortly after the end of the Sino-Japanese war in 1944.
While Chen may have been “a woman after my own heart” to Rui En, portraying her did not come without difficulty.
Prior to the project, she knew little about the artist. She was terrified at having to portray a real-life person for the first time, though she says this fear was also what challenged her to take the job.
To prepare herself, she read up as much as she could on the artist, from biographies by art historians to Chen’s personal letters.
At the same time, she was also grateful that there was limited video documentation of the artist as this gave her the space to “breathe life into the character”.
She hopes that by portraying Chen as a woman, rather than just an artist, she can bring her story to a wider audience.
“We do not want the production to be an arty-farty docudrama made for people who already know about her.”
Rui En also had to get used to the lack of dialogue. In most scenes, information is delivered by a narrator and the cast is used only to dramatise a particular moment or encounter. Freed from having to memorise lines, Rui En was able to focus on the production’s other priorities, such as historical accuracy.
Managing director of Channel NewsAsia Debra Soon explains that to achieve an accurate portrayal of the artist, all the periods of her life spent in Paris and Shanghai were shot on location. Sixty-two other sets were created in Singapore and each prop, right down to Chen’s paintbrush, was selected carefully.
Naturally, these efforts required an extensive amount of research, which led to valuable new discoveries. For example, a fifth self-portrait by Chen, which had been given to an old neighbour of hers, was uncovered during the making of the docudrama, along with the unpublished memoirs of Chen’s sister.
Curatorial and collections director at the National Gallery, Mr Low Sze Wee, says that new painting may well be the earliest known self-portrait of Chen, preceding the four that had been discovered before.
The journey had also been personally enlightening for Rui En.
“As you grow older, you want to learn more about the world around you. This project came at a point when I was just starting to become interested in other forms of art beyond acting. From it, I have begun to cultivate real appreciation of other mediums,” she says.
The Worlds of Georgette Chen debuts 29 April 2015 on CNA, 8pm.
Source: The Straits Times, Her World
Categorised in EN, Her World, The Straits Times, The Worlds Of Georgette Chen.
