SEOUL –
South Korean prosecutors on Monday asked the court to arrest a huge group of Samsung’s successor on suspicion of political scandal bribery, this is the President’s President Park. .
In a statement, the prosecutors investigated the scandal that they asked Seoul court to issue an arrest warrant for Li San-yong, the son of Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee.
ONE Championship launched their 2017 event cycle in spectacular form on Saturday Night, 14 January, as the organization returned to the Jakarta Convention Center in Indonesia with ONE: QUEST FOR POWER.
Whether it was ONE Middleweight World Champion Vitaly Bigdash’s successful first title defense or the statement made by Martin Nguyen with his TKO of Kazunori Yokota, this card was loaded with highlights.
Here are the top five from the night.
Highlight #1: Vitaly Bigdash Reigned Supreme
Up until recently, there was not too much known about Vitaly Bigdash. The unbeaten Russian was known as a finisher, who won four of his previous bouts via submission and another four via TKO.
We knew he was tough. After all, he was dropped by Igor Svirid multiple times during their title bout at ONE: TIGERS OF ASIA back in October 2015, but he survived the early onslaught and knocked out the Kazakhstani on his way to claiming the belt.
But 15 months after defeating Svirid for the ONE Middleweight World Championship, Bigdash finally showed the type of mixed martial artist he is: a well-rounded juggernaut who can go the distance and become even more dominant as the fight wears on.
The Rostov-on-Don native took his time deciphering his opponent Aung La N Sang, but midway through the second round, he controlled the fight. He outmuscled the “Burmese Python” in the clinch, manhandled him on the ground, and dropped some of the hardest elbows and body shots seen in quite some time. In fact, he became stronger as the match continued.
Bigdash looked phenomenal, and intrigue now surrounds a future bout with his original challenger, Marcin Prachnio. All the credit in the world to the Myanmar hero for taking the bout on two weeks’ notice. Even without anything close to a full-fight camp, he was able to hang for a full five rounds taking Bigdash further than ever before in his career. That speaks volumes, too.
Highlight #2: Nguyen’s Knockout of Yokota
Ever since his loss to ONE Featherweight World Champion Marat Gafurov as a late replacement, Martin Nguyen has continued to tighten up his game in an effort to gain a title rematch. “The Situ-Asian” delivered a pair of TKOs to Edward Kelly and Li Kai Wen, and then stopped the meteoric rise of then-unbeaten prospect Christian Lee.
However, his most inspiring victory happened on this particular night when he faced former DEEP Featherweight and Lightweight Champion Kazunori Yokota. Early in the bout, Nguyen connected with a couple of rights flush on his Japanese opponent’s chin, setting the tone for what was to come.
Three minutes into the bout, he dodged Yokota’s jab and dropped him with another perfectly-timed overhand right, before finishing him off with ground and pound strikes.
The calls for a title rematch between Nguyen and Gafurov will only get louder, as they should. The Situ-Asian looked absolutely flawless.
Highlight #3: Anthony Engelen’s Crisp Multi-Punch Knockout
Anthony Engelen gave his adopted hometown crowd something they will not soon forget. “The Archangel” knew the Indonesia-Malaysia rivalry was in full swing on the night, so he made sure not to let his countrymen down.
Engelen, a tea taster turned mixed martial artist, waited patiently as he went toe-to-toe with ONE Featherweight Malaysia Tournament Champion AJ “Pyro” Lias Mansor. Just a minute and a half into the contest, the Dutch-Indonesian saw an opening and ran forward with a barrage of left hooks and right crosses, which sent Pyro falling like a tree in the forest.
The Archangel was never in any danger and the knockout gave Indonesia a leg up in the friendly rivalry. Now on a two-fight win streak, Engelen will look for a step-up in competition the next time he enters the cage.
Highlight #4: Vaughn Donayre & Vincent Latoel Put On A Show
Both Vaughn Donayre and Vincent Latoel are heavy-hitting lightweights who needed a victory on their records. Simply put, the two had to give it their all. Needless to say, they did.
There were many moments during the bout where the pair mixed it up. The man known as “Magnivincent” punished Vaughn “The Spawn” with leg kick upon leg kick, whereas the Filipino marched forward with a mix of punches, kicks, and knees. The difference maker in the contest was Latoel’s ability to score takedowns. Though the Dutchman maintained top position, Donayre constantly worked submission attempts and stayed active with strikes from the bottom.
The judges wound up giving the victory to Latoel. But, even in defeat, Donayre put forth a worthwhile effort and constantly remained busy. It will be a pleasure to see these two back in the cage once again.
Highlight #5: Sunoto’s Ground and Pound
“The Terminator” Sunoto kicked off the main card in style. After suffering an agonizing loss six weeks ago to Edward Kelly, the Jakarta, Indonesia, resident was determined to turn the momentum around in a hurry, and did the pendulum swing back in a big way.
After ducking a punch from Chan Heng, Sunoto went for a single leg takedown and never let his Cambodian nemesis up.The Indonesian was patient when transitioning from position to position, eventually securing full mount. More impressively, The Terminator pinned down Heng’s left arm with his right knee, rendering him completely defenseless. It was checkmate.
Sunoto returns to the win column and, although his desired rematch with Kelly may not happen for quite some time, he can at least take some solace that he made his countrymen proud.
Beijing – Chinese actor Wang Deshun swims, skates and works out in the gym just like any fitness buff. Last year, he acted in more than 10 movies and television dramas, mostly in supporting roles.
But the charismatic octogenarian shows no signs of slowing down. If he is not working on a film set, he is doing a fashion shoot or exercising.
In 2015, a bare-chested Mr Wang, with flowing silver hair and beard, strode down the catwalk, showing off his well-toned body.
Those 60 seconds on the fashion runway turned him into an overnight sensation, earning him the moniker “China’s hottest grandpa”.
His schedule these days is packed with work commitments and he has no plans to retire despite being well over the statutory retirement age. In China, men retire at 60 and women, at 50.
This year, the government is due to unveil plans to raise the retirement age for the first time since the 1950s. The retirement age will possibly be raised to 65 for men and 55 for women over the next five years.
“I have never thought of retiring. I will retire only if I can’t work anymore,” Mr Wang told The Straits Times on a film set in the outskirts of Beijing recently.
“But there’s always someone asking me to do this and that,” said the grandfather of a two-year-old girl.
Born in 1936 in north-eastern Shenyang, Mr Wang started out as a streetcar conductor, then a worker in a military factory, and eventually became a stage actor in 1960, when he was 24. In 1985, he uprooted his family to move to Beijing where he became a mime artist. He and his wife, now 74, have a daughter, 48, and a son, 42.
A decade later, he moved on to another form of performance arts known as “living sculpture”.
In 2000, after his peers retired, he began working in film and TV.
And at the ripe old age of 79, he became a runway model.
Photo Gallery
And if anyone is curious about how he manages to keep in such tip-top condition, Mr Wang firmly declares that it is his work.
To him, keeping fit is what he does for his work as a TV and film actor, and it has been a habit born out of necessity over the decades.
A lot of physical training is required to be a mime artist; and a living sculpture, who usually goes on stage with an almost naked body sprayed with bronze paint, cannot afford to show any flab.
“I don’t work out for health, neither is it for longevity. It’s entirely for my work,” he said.
To stay in shape, Mr Wang spends two hours daily in the pool and gym. No dieting, he said.
“I eat anything and I love meat,” he said. “Some people use a scientific formula to eat; To me, that’s like feeding animals, not living (a life). Eating is a form of enjoyment and I want to enjoy life.”
Reminded about his runway walk, Mr Wang said it was a one-off affair. He has declined invitations that followed, including those for fashion shows overseas.
Mr Wang’s son explained that his father did it as a favour for a former student who was working with Chinese designer Hu Sheguang.
“They had a male model whose body was not well toned and my father was asked if he could stand in,” said the younger Mr Wang.
That completely unplanned modelling stint at Beijing’s 798 Art Zone propelled Mr Wang to instant fame and attracted tens of thousands of new followers on his Weibo, the microblogging platform.
“People found it refreshing. They didn’t know an old man at age 79 can still walk with that kind of vigour,” he said.”The walk that didn’t last more than a minute was actually an accumulation of 30 years of training and hard work.”
Mr Wang is no stranger to modelling, having taught catwalking some 30 years ago in one of the first modelling schools in China.
Being a stage actor, he explained, his style of modelling is to get his students to express their emotions, unlike in Europe where models remain expressionless to bring attention to the clothes they are wearing.
“(In 2015) on the runway, I was bare-chested. What I wanted to express was a mental state. Not a particular piece of clothing,” he recalled.
Asked if he has any advice for young people who are in awe of his physique and his active lifestyle, he refrained from giving any.
“My motto is, you have to live your own lives. You live your life according to what’s most comfortable to you,” he said.
“There’s no such thing as being too early or too late to do something. When you feel like it, just do it. It’s possible you will succeed.”
kohping@sph.com.sg
This article was first published on Jan 16, 2017.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.
K-pop sensations Exo and Twice scooped up the grand prizes for the best album and best song of the year at the 31st annual Golden Disc Awards.
The annual award show has been decorating the most prominent artists in Korea since 1986.
Since 2006, it has been holding separate ceremonies for best album and best song categories.
Exo’s third studio album “Ex’Act” landed the boy band its fourth consecutive grand prize in the album category.
The accolade wrapped up another impressive year for the K-pop juggernaut, after winning artist of the year at November’s Melon Music Awards and album of the year at the 2016 Mnet Asian Music Awards last month.
“Just being here is an honour, yet we received such a great prize,” said Exo’s leader Suho at the award ceremony, held Saturday at Kintex in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province.
Exo is the first group or artist to win a grand prize four years in a row, the previous record holder being singer Kim Gun-mo with three consecutive wins.
Twice shrugged off any notion of a sophomore jinx by winning the grand prize for best song with its smash hit “Cheer Up.”
It marked another successful year for the group, as it had already won song of the year at the Melon Music Awards and MAMA 2016.
Twice offered its gratitude for receiving the award when “practically still rookies,” having debuted in October 2015.
The multinational group’s Japanese and Taiwanese members also delivered acceptance speech in their respective languages.
It became the first girl group since Girls’ Generation in 2011 to receive top honors.
In the best album category, NCT 127 and I.O.I won the best new artist awards, while SHINee won the popularity award.
CeCi asia icon awards went to Exo and Red Velvet, and Bang Shi Hyuk was named the best music producer of the year.
Boyband BTS got the global K-pop artist award.
The main prizes, which are given to the most influential groups in K-pop scene each year, went to EXO, BTS, SHINee, VIXX, Infinite, GOT7, Taemin, Seventeen and Monsta X.
For the best song category, Kim Jae-joong received the Asia popularity award, while CN Blue was named the best K-Pop band.
The honour of best OST went to Gummy, the best R&B/Soul artist was Crush, and the best male and female performances went to Sechskies and Sistar, respectively.
The best new artist went to Black Pink and Bolbbalgan4.
The main prizes went to Twice, GFriend, Lee Hi, Urban Zakapa, Mamamoo, Zico, Suzy x Baekhyun, Taeyeon, Lim Chang-jung.
SINGAPORE: Sales of private homes last month fell 57.3 per cent from the previous month in the traditionally quiet year-end period, even as 2016 saw a continued uptick in sales, according to data released by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) on Monday (Jan 16).
Excluding executive condominiums (ECs), developers sold 367 new units in December, down from the 860 units sold in November. Year-on-year, the number of new units excluding ECs sold last month was 4.4 per cent lower than the 384 units sold in December 2015.
Including ECs, 580 new units were sold last month, down from 1,110 units the previous month. However, this was 14.2 per cent higher than the 508 units sold the same month a year before.
The month-on-month decline in sales comes as developers scaled back new launches during the traditionally quiet year-end period. Excluding ECs, only 90 units were launched in December, compared to the 1,363 units launched in November.
2016 SALES HIGHEST IN 3 YEARS
However, yearly sales continued to climb steadily, with the total number of new homes sold in 2016 reaching its highest in three years.
12,408 new private homes – including executive condominiums (ECs) – were sold last year, a 21.7 per cent increase from the 10,199 units sold the previous year. In 2014, 9,026 units were sold.
(Chart: PropNex)
Executive condominiums were the driving force behind sales in 2016, real estate company PropNex said. Excluding ECs, there were 8,364 new units sold last year – slightly higher than the 7,625 units sold in 2015 and 7,437 units sold in 2014.
Sales in the core central region also saw a spike of 67.2 per cent, from 431 units in 2015 to 721 last year. PropNex chief executive officer Ismail Gafoor said current price points of units in the region were 20 to 25 per cent cheaper compared to previous peaks for some developments.
He added that this was due to aggressive marketing by developers to avoid paying the extension fee if they fail to sell all their units within two years of obtaining a temporary occupation permit after completing a project.
Mr Ismail predicted that new private home sales would remain similar this year. “Unfortunately due to the global uncertainty, political situation as well as the impending interest rate hikes, I think 2017 will witness a similar volume of transactions in the tune of 12,000 to 13,000. Therefore, I’m not expecting a repeat of another 20 per cent increment come 2017.”
CBRE Singapore gave a similar outlook, but added that favourable prices and good quality projects would continue to drive demand in 2017, as they have over the past two years.
Additional reporting by Loke Kok Fai.
DAVAO CITY – President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday urged the United States, China, Russia and other dialogue-partners of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) not to meddle in its affairs as the Philippines formally assumed the chairmanship of the regional bloc.
Mr. Duterte was uncharacteristically staid when he delivered his 12-minute prepared speech. It was a departure from his usually impromptu and profanity-laden talk.
“I also call on ASEAN dialogue-partners to renew their dedication to the valued purposes and principles stated in the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, including noninterference, in promoting regional peace and stability through abiding respect for the rule of law,” he said.
He slightly raised his voice to emphasise the word “noninterference.”
“Now, more than ever,” Mr. Duterte said, “it is a time for real change through constructive engagements. We are in this journey together.”
Strong and resilient
He continued: “I say to you today in full humility: The Philippines, as ASEAN chair, will remain steadfast in upholding the ideals and values we hold dear and in working for the realisation of our shared aspirations. We are committed to the building of a strong and resilient ASEAN community.”
Just seven months into his six-year term, the President has caused ripples in the international arena with his tirades against the United States, the United Nations and the European Union for criticising his war on drugs.
He also raised not a few eyebrows when he announced during his visit in Beijing the country’s “separation” from the United States and his decision to cosy up with China and Russia.
He said the annual meeting of ASEAN, which would mark its 50th foundation year, was a “golden opportunity” for the 10 member-states to come together in working for a regional organisation “that has its own significant role in effecting positive change for our world.”
Mr. Duterte said the meeting would centre on putting “our peoples at the core,” fostering regional peace and ensuring maritime security and co-operation
More cabbies are throwing in the towel and exiting the taxi trade, underscoring the stiff competition they are facing from private-hire services like Uber and Grab.
Land Transport Authority data revealed that in the first 11 months of last year, the average rate of taxis that were unhired was 5.9 per cent, up from 4.2 per cent in 2015.
More than 1,620 taxis are now sitting idle in the yards of taxi companies, up from 1,190. This, even as the total fleet of taxis in Singapore has shrunk, from 28,300 at the end of 2015 to 27,500 currently.
The rise in the number of unhired taxis has prompted a second operator to slash rentals. Premier, with over 1,900 cabs, has cut its net rentals to mostly below $100 a day, a spokesman told The Straits Times.
In doing so, it follows in the footsteps of Trans-Cab, the second biggest operator here with 4,500 taxis, which has cut rental fees by between 22 per cent and 34 per cent for drivers hiring without a relief.
A Premier taxi driver, who did not want to be named, said he signed an incentive scheme starting last week that will allow him to earn incentives of $300 a month, as well as a $1,000 bonus if he completes a six-month-long contract.
Premier said it is offering such schemes to “support our drivers whose incomes have been affected by the sudden surge in the supply of taxis in the form of private-hire vehicles”. Its rate of unhired taxis was “consistent” with the competition. Trans-Cab said last month that 11 per cent of its cabs were not hired out.
ComfortDelGro, Singapore’s largest operator with over 16,700 taxis, did not respond when asked if it would be adjusting its rental rates.
The job of a taxi driver has become increasingly unattractive since Uber and Grab entered the market in 2013, say observers and drivers.
With no cap on private-hire vehicles allowed to roam the roads, the number of “taxi-like services” has boomed, said Dr Park Byung Joon, a transport expert at SIM University. “This has created a negative impact on the income potential, and becoming a taxi driver is less attractive.”
There are about 25,000 Uber and Grab cars here. While private-hire operators also have unhired cars – nearly 1,000 as The Sunday Times reported yesterday – this is a matter of the market needing to reach equilibrium point, said Dr Park.
The challenge for taxi companies is more fundamental, he noted, adding that the authorities need to rethink what a “taxi” is. In its traditional form, taxis cannot compete with Uber-type businesses permitted to operate in Singapore, he said.
Meanwhile, taxi drivers said they are thinking of switching firms. Comfort cabby K.Y. Yuen, 40, who pays a daily rent of $110, said: “I’m hoping Comfort will cut the rental in time. If nothing happens after one or two months, I will jump to another firm.”
He said his earnings are down by 20 per cent, especially at night when passengers want to avoid taxis’ midnight surcharge.
Read also: Rental cars, unhired taxis sitting idle
This article was first published on Jan 16, 2017.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.
SEOUL – The signing of a contract which would determine the location of a US missile defence system in South Korea could be delayed, Seoul’s defence ministry said on Monday, according to the Yonhap News Agency.
South Korea and the US say the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system is designed to protect against North Korea’s growing nuclear and ballistic capabilities.
But Beijing objects strongly to the use of THAAD in South Korea, where it says its powerful radar could penetrate Chinese territory, leading to calls from some South Korea opposition leaders to delay or cancel its deployment.
Former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is expected to run for president of South Korea, said on Sunday it is appropriate for THAAD to be deployed in the country.
President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered government troops to bomb Moro extremists who flee with their captives in a bid to stop a wave of kidnappings at sea, calling the loss of civilian lives in such an attack “collateral damage.”
Mr. Duterte previously stated he had told his Indonesian and Malaysian counterparts that their forces could blast away as they pursued extremists who abducted sailors in waters where the three countries converged and brought their kidnap victims to southern Philippines.
In a speech to businessmen in Davao City on Saturday, the President said he had instructed the Navy and the Coast Guard that “if there are kidnappers and they’re trying to escape, bomb them all.”
“They say ‘hostages.’ Sorry, collateral damage,” he said.
Mr. Duterte said such an approach would enable the government to get even with the ransom-seeking Moro extremists.
“You can’t gain mileage for your wrongdoing, I will really have you blasted,” he said.
His advice to potential victims? “So, really, don’t allow yourselves to be kidnapped.”
Mr. Duterte’s remarks reflect the alarm and desperation of the Philippines, along with Malaysia and Indonesia, in halting a series of kidnappings primarily by Abu Sayyaf bandits and their allies along a busy waterway for regional trade.
On Saturday, ransom-seeking Abu Sayyaf gunmen freed a South Korean captain and his Filipino crewman who were abducted three months ago from their cargo ship.
The gunmen handed skipper Park Chul-hong and Glenn Alindajao over to Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) rebels, who turned them over to Philippine officials in the Jolo island capital.
The MNLF rebels, who signed a 1996 peace deal with the government, have helped negotiate the release of several hostages of the smaller but more violent Abu Sayyaf, which is blacklisted by the United States as a terrorist organisation for kidnappings, beheadings and bombings.
Mr. Duterte’s adviser dealing with insurgents, Jesus Dureza, said he was not aware of any ransom being paid in exchange for the freedom of the sailors.
At least 27 hostages, many of them foreign crewmen, remain in the hands of different Abu Sayyaf factions, Dureza said.
Speculation, however, has persisted that most of the freed hostages had been ransomed off.
Without a known foreign source of funds, the Abu Sayyaf has survived mostly on kidnappings, extortion and other acts of banditry.
A confidential government threat assessment report seen by The Associated Press (AP) last year said the Abu Sayyaf bandits pocketed at least P353 million ($7.3 million) from kidnappings in the first six months of 2016.
The bandits have mostly targeted slow-moving tugboats in the busy sea bordering Mindanao, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Veteran actor Chen Hanwei is a natural storyteller even when he is not telling the stories on television that others have written for him.
In this two-hour interview with The Straits Times, he is brimming with colourful anecdotes about his life and career – told in a mix of Mandarin and English with animated flailing arms and long dramatic pauses.
It is no wonder the 47-year-old Malaysian-born star is considered by many to be one of the best actors in the local TV industry.
In fact, he is the best among those still in the business, if one looked at statistics.
To date, he has four Best Actor wins at the Star Awards – local broadcaster Mediacorp’s annual celebration of Mandarin television programmes – a record bested only by former actor Xie Shaoguang, who had five wins before quitting to be a monk.
Chen, who also won Best Supporting Actor at the same awards ceremony in 2015, is not shy to admit that he is forever “itching” to get another award.
“You care less about awards as you get older, but it doesn’t mean that you don’t care about them at all.
“The problem with getting an award is that once you get one, you really want to get another. Because when you win one, you feel pretty pleased about yourself for a few days,” he says with a chuckle.
There is a high chance he could tie Xie’s Best Actor record – if not at the upcoming Star Awards ceremony in April, then at a future edition in the next few years.
The odds are in his favour, not just because of his widely recognised acting talent, but also by his sheer volume of work every year.
He is often in a lead role in TV dramas back to back.
One of his shows, Hero, ended its run last week, but he is still a fixture on TV screens every weeknight in the popular long-form sitcom 118 II.
He is concurrently filming 118 II, in which he plays a dumpling hawker who studied fashion design in France, and The Lead, in which he stars as a stuntman from Hong Kong.
Fielding this interview on his rare day off from work, he muses: “I get so many roles because there aren’t that many actors in my age group. How many of us are there? You can count them on one hand.”
Some of the other local A-list actors in his age bracket are Tay Ping Hui, 46; Chew Chor Meng, 48; and Christopher Lee, 45.
The Johor Baru native had enjoyed singing and acting in school productions while growing up, but he always assumed he would follow in his father’s footsteps and be a school teacher.
The closest he got to being a teacher was to be one on screen: His role of Fang “laoshi” – or teacher Fang in Chinese – in the series Morning Express (1995) and its sequel Morning Express II (1996) instantly shot him to the A-list seven years after he joined show business.
“I guess you can say that that role was my big break. Everyone on the streets started calling me Fang laoshi, even though I looked nothing like a real teacher with my long hair. But audiences seemed to like the look,” he says with a laugh.
When he was 18, one of his friends got hold of some application forms for the local broadcaster’s inaugural Star Search TV talent contest in 1988 and encouraged him to sign up together for fun.
He recalls fondly: “We went to a small photo studio to take one of those horribly amateur head shots to send in with our applications. We looked like ghosts in our make-up. I couldn’t believe it when I got a call back.”
He made it to the finals, but his rival-turned-best friend, Zoe Tay, took the title.
She says: “We didn’t like each other at first – is it time that led me to see the real Chen Hanwei for who he is? He is kind, sincere and gives me a sense of security, like the roots of a tree. I’ve always said that he is like an angel to me.”
He was offered an acting contract nonetheless.
However, it took him another three years before he was finally offered a lead role, as a prison warden in the drama series Behind Bars (1991).
“I did so many tiny, uncredited roles before that – it was exhausting work for very little pay-off. I was still living in Johor Baru at the time, so I would travel to Singapore and back every single day after long hours on set. I felt like quitting all the time.
“But after I did Behind Bars, I started getting bigger parts. Maybe the producers finally saw that I had some sort of X-factor,” he says.
“I was just so tired. Producers are nicer now. Back then, there was one who used to slap me awake using the script. He didn’t let me sleep even though I had been filming for three nights in a row,” he says.
Another time, he had to film a scene under the hot sun for an entire day – shirtless and slathered in honey to attract ants for a torture scene.
“People think it’s very glamorous to be an actor, but it’s not,” he says.
He persevered as he was determined to find satisfaction in his job.
“You just want to keep trying and trying. I believed that if I kept at it, I would eventually embrace it and that it would be worth it.”
He was right: In the year Morning Express aired, he was not only named one of the station’s Top 5 Most Popular Male Artistes, but he was also the surprise winner of the Most Popular Male Artiste award – the No. 1 spot in the list.
The next year, he emerged once more as a Top 10 Most Popular Artiste.
The kind of media coverage he received also confirmed that he had arrived. A check in the local newspaper archives turned up dozens of articles on just his hairstyle alone.
The glossy shoulder-length locks he donned at the time became his signature look.
“I felt pretty cool. Long hair was quite trendy among idols, although not so much in Singapore. Remember Ekin Cheng?” he says, referring to the floppy-haired Hong Kong star of Young And Dangerous (1995) fame.
“Well, the hair made me feel like an idol too.”
In 1997, at the height of his popularity, he shocked the public and industry alike when he suddenly announced that he was quitting acting.
Taking a pay cut of about 50 per cent, he went behind the scenes at the TV station to work as a stylist.
“I was too stressed. When you suddenly get to the top of the game like that, you realise that the people whom you thought were your friends may not be your friends anymore.
“I could feel that some people got jealous of my success and I couldn’t take that kind of pressure,” he says.
What he did not expect was more pressure in his new role.
In the beginning, the stylist gig was fun.
“People working in the fashion industry still saw me as Fang laoshi and they happily worked with me just because of that.”
Within a year, things got competitive. “When they realised that I was going to be doing this for a while, they started asking me all sorts of questions.
“If I wanted to borrow clothes, I had to justify who and what they were for. It got harder and harder for me to get the clothes I needed.”
Two years into his struggling stint as a stylist, TV producers badgered him to return to act.
After mulling over it for a long time, he decided to do so, taking it one TV drama series at a time.
That comeback eventually became full-time and it was a huge success.
Besides a number of roles in hit series such as Don’t Worry, Be Happy (2000), his role as a geeky guy who has trouble finding a girlfriend in Love Me, Love Me Not (2001) won him his first Best Actor award.
“I chopped off my hair after I won the award. It took me a long time, but I finally realised something really important – actors shouldn’t care so much about their own image.
“To be a good actor, you always have to put the character first. When I learnt this, acting became fun to me. I stopped seeing it as work and I felt much less pressure.”
Mr Chong Liung Man, 52, a veteran producer and director who has worked with Chen for more than a decade, can attest to his change in attitude.
He says: “Hanwei has always been diligent, but he used to worry a lot about himself – how he would appear, how others would see him.
“But he is now the type of actor who sees the bigger picture. He has become extremely collaborative and will always go to his co-stars before filming to get to know them better and to discuss the roles. He makes everyone else feel at ease and I can see that he is happy too.”
Perhaps, Chen’s ease with himself is what helped him earn his next three Best Actor awards, for playing a man in a vegetative state in A Life Of Hope (2005); an Aids patient in By My Side (2009); and a house husband in Daddy At Home (2010).
In 2014, he also nabbed the All-Time Favourite Artiste Award, given to those who have already racked up 10 Most Popular Artiste awards.
While his career was relatively smooth-sailing, his personal life was to receive a jolt.
While on set for the series The Village Hero in 1990, he received a mysterious telephone call from an unnamed woman, who told him that the couple who raised him were not his biological parents.
After hanging up on her, he was greatly troubled.
“I went home and asked my parents, separately, where I was born. My father said at a hospital, but my mother said at home. That’s when I realised something was amiss,” he says.
Still, he never confronted them. “I decided that no matter what, they were my parents. I didn’t care,” he says.
His father is now 78 and retired, while his housewife mother is 77.
The truth finally surfaced two decades later, when he started talking about his family life on the talk show CelebriTea Break in 2009. He recounted the story of the mystery telephone call – a segment which his mother ended up watching on TV.
He says: “She finally admitted then that I was indeed adopted. She was crying. She had been scared to tell me the truth all this while because she was afraid I might leave her. But why would I ever do that? I love my parents so much.”
He has no plans to connect with his biological parents, although he suspects that the mysterious caller all those years ago was his birth mother.
“I already have a family and we’ll always be very close,” he says. His elder sister, a pharmacy manager who is three years older, is also adopted, but from a different birth mum.
His family still live in Johor Baru, but they go on holidays together whenever they can.
His mother also comes to stay with him in his Singapore home for weeks at a time.
Chen, who is in a five-year relationship, says: “This is the best arrangement because I’m too busy with work lah. But I can’t complain. Life is good.”
yipwy@sph.com.sg
This article was first published on Jan 16, 2017.
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