[Oriental Daily and The Sun]

The annual fundraising telethon event for the Tung Wah Hospitals was held yesterday evening in TKO TVB City, however the date clased with the Golden Horse Film Awards in Taiwan, so the guest appearances were rather thin. With TVB's requirements of safety first, many of the acts were rather tame and even without a dramatic dangerous climax, there were still accidents occurring.

After the opening song and dance event "Performance for the World", came the first errors in the Tomb Raiders piece starring Bernice Liu, Yumiko Cheng and Timmy Hung. With acts such as shooting through a flame wall and a flying through the air and water skiing gun fight, the later part when Bernice and Yumiko were climbing a wall with their backs to a balloon, they fell twice and relied on the wires to keep them from injury. It was only thanks to a quick witted joke cracked by MC Eric Tsang that they were still able to raise the $300,000 pledged for the event. Afterwards, Bernice and Yumiko say that they had tried their best, explaining that their backpacks were too heavy and were putting too much pressure on the balloon leading to their failure. It turns out that the two had rehearsed this many times, with successes and failures and it is possible that their overrehearsal has caused them to wear themselves out and result in failure.

With bruising from wires and a failed performance, the pair were only able to raise $300,000. Conversely, Miriam Yeung and Gigi Leung only had to gently create a sand picture to raise $600,000. Miriam points out that they should not count like that: "You shouldn't look at the value in this way, it is all a team effort and we will all try our best."

As for the "Matrix" event headed by Chin Ka Lok and Chau Siu Lung, this resulted in Chau's face being injured by the glass shards after he jumped through a glass window. Chin Ka Lok offered to wipe the blood as it oozed from the cuts on his face, but he took little notice as he continued to jump on the trampoline to raise another $100,000 - proving his dedication to the charity show. Also, it was arranged for Nic Tse to be hoisted 80 ft into the air to paint the dragon's eyes. The two men raised a total of $700,000. Afterwards, Chau said: "The cuts from the glass were very minor and I had already shielded my face with my hand so there was no injury to my eye area. Just don't tell my wife! [Model Wanda Yung]".

Also, Akina Hong appeared in the circus act, demonstrating the splits in mid air upside down. However the focus seemed more on her rather precarious bra top and afterwards, Akina was relieved at not revealing herself, commenting that she had tried three costumes and this was the safest.

The total amount raised at 11:15 pm [Time of going to press] stood at HK$47,834,262. The show continues onto 3am.

http://the-sun.com.hk/channels/ent/20031214/20031214010828_0003.html
http://orientaldaily.com.hk/ent/ent_a07cnt.html