[Ta Kung Pao 19/12/04]

The "TVB8 Music Awards" ceremony was held at TVB City two nights ago, with the show's emphasis on Mandarin songs, there were singers present from both Hong Kong and Taiwan, including Andy Lau, Joey Yung, Gigi Leung, Hacken Lee, Nic Tse, Twins, Jolin Tsai, S.H.E, Zhang Zhao Han and Alan Law. Andy Lau was the big winner of the evening, taking six awards, inlcuidng the two major male singer awards: "Mainland Audience Most Popular Male Singer" and "Most Popular Male singer". The "Mainland Audience Most Popular Female Singer" award went to Joey Yung, whilst the "Most Popular Female Singer" was won by Jolin Tsai. Originally, the award for "Best Group" was to be presented to FIR, but as they were absent from the event, they were disqualified.

As well as taking the two awards for most popular male singer, Andy also took four other awards, which were "Golden Hit", "Best Lyrics", "Worldwide Most Popular Cantonese Song" and "Best Music Video Performance", leaving him very happy indeed. When the two MC's Derek Li and Tweety Ding presented Andy with the award, they joked about the incident involving Chiling Lin at the Golden Horse Movie Awards where she stripped off to give him a congratulatory hug. Derek laughed and asked Tweety if she would do the same, to which she replied laughingly that she did not need to take her clothes off for it. Andy then joked: "In that case I will take mine off then!" before giving Tweety a hug and causing many laughs.

Out of his six awards, Andy was most pleased to receive the award for best lyrics in his song "Fortune is so far and yet so close" and he laughs that a kind heart is well repayed as this song was especially writeen for visually impaired children. With his great success and a premature congratulatory message from TVB boss Mrs Li Hau Wo, it would seem that Andy is well in line to take this year's "Jade Solid Gold" award, but Andy hopes that everyone will not give him too much pressure as this is all speculation from the media.

Andy has had a lot of good news recently, with his new film "A World Without Thieves" grossing $57 million in its first week making him extremely pleased and breaking all records for director Feng Xiao Gang. Andy says that he will be paying for Feng to go on vacation in Gansu. He also admits that he would like to work with co-star Ge You again in a comedy.

In memory of the late creative genius James Wong, the ceremony invited veteran singers Johnny Yip and Rebecca Pan to sing some of Uncle Jim's creations including "Forget the Love in your Heart" and "Loving You becomes Trapping You".

Joey Yung took awards for "TVB8 Golden Hit" and "Mainland Audience Most Popular Female Singer". Although she missed out on the overall Most Popular Female award that went to Jolin Tsai, she was not disappointed and felt that to take the mainland award already made her very happy because the market there is very big and to break into it is not easy.

With the song "Girl who Spreads her Wings" (Mandarin version of "My Pride"), Joey has managed to make her name in Mainland China and with that has come a string of stage performances and advertisement jobs and she will later also appear on CCTV's Chinese New Year event, who have insisted that she sings this song. Talking of not being able to take the double like Andy, Joey smiles: "I never even thought I would take a Cantonese award, so I am very happy already and even the rice that was in my mouth nearly fell out!"

Twins also took three awards, including a "Golden Hit", "Worldwide Most Popular Cantonese Song" and "Best Group Silver Award". When it was mentioned that the Gold award went to S.H.E, Twins say that this is because they did not release a Mandarin album this year and the market of S.H.E is much larger.

Nic received an award, but he did not perform and when asked why, he explained that he was not well and was not prepared to mime the performance, so he would rather not sing. He says that he knows his own limits and was disappointed he could not perform. He was actually surprised he received an ward because he has only released one album this year and it was not heavily promoted.

Hacken Lee has taken a Cantonese award for the third year running, but he felt rather awkward about it because after all this was a Mandarin Songs awards ceremony and he was only taking awards for Cantonese songs every year. In order to avoid limiting himself to only being a Cantonese singer, then he swears that he will have a Mandarin song up for an award next year.

Hacken has not released a Mandarin album now for six or seven years aand he says: "For the album that will be released at the end of the year, I had originally planned to have half Cantonese and half Mandarin songs on it, but I have been too busy and could not arrange this, so I had to postpone the Mandarin album project until next year."

There are suggestions that Hacken can try for the 'newcomer' award next year with his new Mandarin album and he laughs: "I have already won that and it is my only Mandarin song award. I remember I was in the industry for ten years before I got the chance to record a Mandarin album and at the time I won a newcomers award in Singapore with this and was presented with my award from Faye Wong, who made fun of me." Hacken jokes that when he releases his album next year, he will challenge Andy and work towards the title of "Most Popular Male Singer in Asia".

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[The Sun & Oriental Daily 19/12/04]

The "Spread a Little Warmth and Love Campaign" by The Sun and Oriental Daily's charitable trusts held a special event yesterday where a number of stars headed out to 26 charitable organisations and senior citizen's centres to hand out special care packs containing nutritional foods and winter clothing to the needy. The stars joined with volunteers from seven organisations to take these presents out to the centres all over Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories and spent a happy morning with the 8000 recipients of the packs and sharing a little warmth in the community.

The stars taking part included Gigi Lai, Bowie Lam, Helena Law, Deep Ng, Karena Lam, Cutie Mui, Margie Tsang, Elvina Kong, Kenix Kwok, Ellis Tang, Cheung Wing Hong, 2R, Yan Ng and Irene Wang.

The event was officially started in the morning in the Oriental Publishing Group offices in Kowloon as the Trusts' chairmen presented the stars with souvenirs of the event and they were split into smaller groups to head out to each of the centres. Kenix, Irene and 2R were unable to attend the ceremony in the morning, but still turned up to show their support in the afternoon and had a great time.

Bowie was suffering from serious flu, but eager to do his part for the charity event, he still turned up. However, he was worried that he would transmit his germs to the old folks, so in the end he handed his love to partner Gigi Lai to pass on for him as he left early and Gigi was accompanied by Chief Executive from the Trusts' Tang Kwok Hung.

Since winning his 'Favourite Male Lead' award at the TVB anniversary, Bowie has been very busy, flying out to work in Taiwan, Korea and Singapore. As the weather in Korea is very cold at the moment, with temperatures as low as -4 degrees, then he was unable to adapt quickly enough to the heat in the thirties of Singapore and this caused him to become ill. At the opening ceremony, Bowie kept coughing and many of his colleagues were very concerned for him. In the end, he decided to go and seek medical help to avoid the illness affecting his forthcoming work.

When Gigi arrived, she did not let Bowie down as the senior residents of the centre were delighted to see her and as she helped the grannies to try on their new jackets, one lady was so excited that she hugged Gigi. As Gigi handed out the nutrition packs, the recipients felt that there was still some warmth left for them in the world. Gigi says: "I really like visiting care homes as they are so old, they really need a lot of care and love, so I choose to do visiting work and for me, the elderly take the first priority before the children." As well as taking part in this event, Gigi has in many past years bought some daily items, duvets and fruits to give to local charities, saying that the direct approach is more tangible.

During yesterday's event Helena was welcomed greatly by the residents and many were her fans, praising her acting talent. As for the three younger stars Yan, Deep and Wing Hong, they also brought a lot of laughter to the old folk.

During one of the games, Kenix Kwok made a unique paper chain 'love necklace' that she presented to a lady, making them both very happy.

The funniest event of the day was when Elvina Kong was asked if she had woken up early, she said rather oddly: "I came last week." Her good friend Cutie Mui then revealed: "She forgot the date and thought that it was happening last Saturday, so that is why she said she was here last week."

Popular duo 2R had prepared a lot of items such as rice, toilet paper and washing powder to give to the elderly people who loved alone and when they found out that they were actually visiting low income families, their gifts were even more appreciated by the recipients.

Karena Lam doubled as a 'reporter' for the day, taking photographs for the residents who were performing a folk dance for them.

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[Oriental Daily 19/12/04]

Raymond Lam, Leila Tong and Sharon Chan were representing TVB's "The Last Breakthrough" at a promotional children's charity event yesterday, but Raymond arrived 45 minutes late and when he arrived, he explained: "Wow! I never thought that the roads through the tunnel would be so congested. I have never been in a tailback as far as Wanchai. I left early too - I am very sorry." In response to the rather mediocre ratings for "The Last Breakthrough", Raymond feels a little disappointed and hopes that there will be a rise for the final week.

Also, Raymond indicates that after finishing his current series, he will be going to hospital for a body check to make sure that all his organs are functioning properly. In order to avoid unnecessary speculation by the media, he says with his tongue in his cheek: "When this happens, I will make it perfectly clear so that people will not say that I am going into hospital for cosmetic surgery. (Have you really been for plastic surgery?) What do you think? I am standing in front of you now, you can see for yourself!"

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