[Ta Kung Pao, Oriental Daily & The Sun 13/10/04]

TVB's anniversary celebration will be held on 19th November and the company held a special lighting up ceremony and press conference yesterday to mark the beginning of this year's anniversary celebrations and the Chairman of Directors Sir Run Run Shaw was present to flick the switch, accompanied by Miss Hong Kong Kate Tsui. Adam Cheng was dressed in ancient costume to introduce the new series and singer performances and over a hundred artistes were there to witness the ceremony.

Each year at the anniversary, TVB will award a range of awards to encourage their staff and yesterday, the artistes present cast their votes for their own "Favourite TV Roles" for this year. Of the votes cast on the day, Sheren Tang came top with fourteen votes, followed by Kenix Kwok and Bobby Au Yeung, who received six votes each. 'Eunuch Tsui' Lo Hoi Pang also received a special award, adding to the "War and Beauty" credits.

Among this year's nominations for the awards, Shirley Yeung leads the female stars with four nominations. For the men: Moses Chan, Alex Fong (Chung Shun) and Kevin Cheng each have two nominations and an advantage over hot favourites Bowie Lam, Dayo Wong and Sheren Tang who each only have one nomination. When asked about this, Shirley says: "Maybe I just had more series aired this year. I am confident for the most improved award this year."

Gigi Lai had planned to cast a vote for Charmaine Sheh and Sheren Tang for their performances in "War and Beauty", but the rules were that each person could only vote once, so she voted for Charmaine instead of Sheren. She admits that this is because she is friendlier with Charmaine as they had worked together before on "Heavenly Sword Dragon Sabre 2000". Although she is a little older than Charmaine, they still get on very well. Jessica Hsuan wanted to vote for Sheren and Bobby, but with only one choice, her vote went to Bobby. As for the cast of "War" taking the limelight this year, Jessica indicates that it is more fun each year with more and more people springing out and in truth they have sacrificed a lot compared to her this year because she has taken a lot of time out to rest.

Many male and female stars were present at yesterday's event and the comparison of outfits was inevitable among them. Finally, it was agreed that Bernice Liu wore the sexiest outfit, appearing to be wearing nothing underneath her jacket, but indicating later that she had precautions in place to avoid overexposure. She says: "It's not really that brave. (There's nothing underneath!) Who knows! I am very conservative, so it is very safe. The most important thing is looking good. I usually play some daft characters, but I have changed my image a little now, so I want to reflect that in the way I dress. It doesn't have to be sexy, just more feminine." During the group photo, Bernice and rumoured boyfriend Moses Chan stood close to each other, but kept out of each other's way.

Kenix was decided to be the most stunning as she displayed jewellery worth over $200,000. Sonija Kwok, who is usually twinned with Charmaine seemed rather low profile yesterday, hiding in the back row of the group photo and not taking part in the opening of the champagne. Charmaine was not lonely though, as she is now coupled with Gigi. There were no rehearsals for yesterday's event and the artistes were free to roam around, but the women dominated the front row as usual.

After her popularity gain from "War and Beauty", Sheren Tang was asked to MC at yesterday's ceremony alongside Tang Chi Fung, but Sheren seemed very nervous all night, depending heavily on her cue cards. Afterwards, Sheren indicated that she was worried about forgetting her lines, so she felt better with the cue cards on hand to reduce her errors. As for winning the artiste vote for their favourite characters, Sheren was very happy and laughs that this proves she has good relations with everyone in the company. The best thing for her was that she even received Carol Cheng's vote.

Recently, there have been reports linking Sheren romantically with Kevin Cheng and suggesting that they have been dating since filming "Loving You" (The Threat of Love). Sheren laughs: "I have been asked about this before and filming for 'Loving You' was three years ago. I have not seen Kevin for over six months now. (Did you invite him to go to church with you?) Yes, but I also invited other people. Is it that I haven't had any negative press for a while, so you have to make something up for me. You anger me, then I will have to pass a palatial death sentence! Haha!" At this time, Andy Hui happened to pass by and Sheren immediately grabbed him, saying: "If you have to link me with someone, then try him. At least we have known each other for over ten years!"

http://www.takungpao.com/news/2004-10-13/UL-316691.htm
http://www.takungpao.com/news/2004-10-13/UL-316690.htm
http://the-sun.com.hk/channels/ent/20041013/20041013000244_0003.html
http://orientaldaily.com.hk/ent/ent_a54cnt.html
http://orientaldaily.com.hk/ent/ent_a53cnt.html



[Oriental Daily 13/10/04]

Currently heavily promoted by TVB, Ron Ng was filming alongside Linda Chung in Lan Kwai Fong for the sales presentation clip "Hotel Troubles" in a scene where Ron uses Linda's emotions to seek vengeance on her elder brother Joe Ma and in a scene where Linda is comforting an injured Ron, the two end up kissing each other.

It turns out that this is Linda's first time filming a kissing scene and whilst giving her first screen kiss to Ron, Linda was overly nervous and leaned back during the shoot, leading to numerous NG's (retakes). Afterwards when asked how her first kissing scene went, she laughed: "I never thought we would have so many takes, I thought that it would be over in one or two shots. (Did you feel embarrassed and naturally leaned back?) The first time we shot it I was a little embarrassed, but afterwards I was okay. Moving backwards was just a natural reaction."

Working with Ron for the first time and giving him her first screen kiss, Linda indicates she is happy with her co-star and praises Ron's good looks: "He is very handsome and taught me to relax during filming. I am not too happy with my performance this time, but I hope there will be improvements when I do it again in the future."

As for Ron, he has good impressions of Linda, saying: "She is very pretty, so we go together well! I know this is her first kiss scene, so I did teach her to relax. (With so many people staring at you in the street, did you feel embarrassed?) Although it is my first time filming in the street like this, it's just filming."

http://orientaldaily.com.hk/ent/ent_a56cnt.html



[Oriental Daily 13/10/04]

Once terrified of water, Cutie Mui has finally overcome this fear and after two years of hard training, she has entered the Open Waterskiing Contest and after taking first place in the beginners level last year, she won first place in the intermediate group this year, so no wonder her good friends Margie Tsang and Elvina Kong were so excited that they screamed and jumped up and down at the news.

What fired up Cutie's motivation to learn waterskiing was the fact that she never took any awards whilst her father was still alive. Losing out at the beauty pageant, coming bottom of the class at the TVB artiste class and not even getting into the final of a singing competition were not events that made her father proud. In order to give some comfort back to her late father, she has worked hard and and on the second anniversary of her father's death two days ago, she took her two gold medals along to pay her respects and she knows her father will be very happy to hear of her achievement.

As the competition was quite tough this year, Cutie did not hold much hope for an award and although she went to bed early the night before the competition, she was still so nervous that she couldn't sleep and she had to calm herself down by drinking wine and watching DVD's.

However, the most touching thing for Cutie was that her two friends Margie and Elvina travelled out to support her with their respective 'beloved' - Margie's son and Elvina's husband Jackson, to Sai Kung's Bak Tam Chung to support her.

http://orientaldaily.com.hk/ent/ent_a68cnt.html