Crystal Li Becoming More Popular Than Christine Kuo
Crystal Li (李雪瑩) joined TVB after participating in the Miss Hong Kong Pageant in 2010. Making her debut appearance in TVB drama, Ghetto Justice 2 <怒火街頭 II>, Crystal Li has become a fast rising star. When the drama was airing, Crystal’s popularity even surpassed her costar, Christine Kuo (苟芸慧) on TVB.com, putting Christine at the second spot!
While competing in the 2010 Miss Hong Kong Pageant, Crystal was a not a favorite choice for the crown since she was an overseas candidate. Although she did not make it to the top three finalists, Crystal won the Miss Photogenic Award in the pageant. Due to her eloquence, Crystal was assigned to host several variety programs, Dolce Vita <港生活•港享受>, Book of Words Series <正識第一之學貫中西>, Master So Food <食得峰騷> and Big Fun SE Asia <千奇百趣東南亞> after the pageant.
Born in Great Britain, Crystal is well-versed in 5 languages: English, Chinese, Cantonese, French and German. Twenty-six-year-old Crystal loves watching Hong Kong dramas, and has been learning Chinese and Cantonese when she was young. After entering into University College London, Christine specialized in foreign languages and can speak French and German.
Crystal Becoming a Fast Rising Star
Handpicked by Producer Joe Chan (陳維冠), Crystal acted as a junior solicitor, assisting Myolie Wu (胡杏兒) in Ghetto Justice 2. In the drama, Crystal was also entangled in a love triangle with Raymond Cho (曹永廉) and Jazz Lam (林子善).
Unlike her costar, Christine Kuo, who became more prominent after being embroiled in scandals, Crystal, on the hand, gained popularity quickly with her first acting role in Ghetto Justice 2.
After Ghetto Justice 2, Crystal will also work with Myolie again in Triumph in the Skies 2 <衝上雲霄 2>, playing an employee of the aviation authority.
Crystal Hopes to Be a Housewife
Never expecting herself to join the Hong Kong entertainment industry, Crystal initially wished to become a translator. When Crystal was 8 years old, she was fascinated with gymnastics. Seeing that their daughter had an interest in the sport, Crystal’s parents sent her to gymnastics classes. Crystal also represented her school in many gymnastics competitions, and won several medals too.
The athletic Crystal also took an interest in yoga lately. When she does not need to work, she will practice yoga every day. Discussing her favorite activity, Crystal said, “I used to perform regular yoga, but it is not exciting at all. So I switched to hot yoga. I will take a shower after sweating. It feels good! ”
Crystal revealed that she never thought that she would become an actress one day. “Actually, I never thought of becoming an actress. I only wanted to be a normal girl who gets marries and then becomes a housewife after giving birth. However, my mother and friends kept asking me to join the pageant. I was in India at that time, so I just participated. I never expect myself to win an award!”
Source: ihktv.com
This article is written by Stella for JayneStars.com.
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As a new actress, her acting is pretty good in my opinion. I’m impressed by her ability to speak 5 languages! In comparison to Christine Kuo, I prefer her acting over Christine’s. Christine’s acting is not that realistic. I can see that she would be promoted to a certain extent.
Agree. As a brand new actress, Crystal Li’s acting was quite decent. At least she spoke perfect Cantonese as a newbie from overseas. Good for her. Her language skills really help her in mastering Cantonese.
She is pretty and elegant, a bit short though for Miss Hong Kong.
I can see that she has tons of potentials in becoming the next rising star in TVB.
Good luck, Crystal. Keep it going.
Crystal:
Just don’t smile as much in your next drama series. Acting is quite different from hosting a show. You don’t need to smile all the time! I know you can make it …… to be a good actress.
Lol…good advice about the smiling.
Christine just have the beautifuk look but acting is ZERO!
Crystal has looks and substance. Christine has looks without substance!
Christine looks very pretty, but her accented Cantonese will give her a big obstacle in her acting career unless she can improve her Cantonese.
Lets get one thing f**king straight here.
Being able to say “hello”, “goodbye” and “how much is this?” in a language doesn’t mean you are “well-versed” in it.
Secondly, it can be argued Cantonese is a dialect of Chinese, as is Mandarin. Let’s not go crazy here and lap up everything the dirtsheets put out.
Yeah, I was quite impressed by her debut in Ghetto Justice II also…..even though she had a simple role and lines in the script, she had a bit of aura that attracted me to watch her parts much more than Christine……..not to mention she looked extremely subtle sexy in those tight business office suits that showed her well-rounded curves……….very attractive……….!!!!!!
Crystal’s acting and Cantonese is much better than Christine, and I agree with the article. Crystal gets popular because of her acting while Christine only gets popular because of scandals.
Crystal gets popular because of her acting while Christine only gets popular because of scandals.
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Absolutely agree!
Also, Crystal Li’s spoke perfect Cantonese vs. Christine Kuo’s terrible accented Cantonese in Cantonese drama series.
i guess that is what you get after watching hong kong dramas ever since you were a child! lolz
HAHA couldn’t agree more
李雪瑩人氣數字一連11天穩坐榜首！好勁！(Aug. 31, 2012)
Cyrstal Li is still ranked No. in TVB’s Popularity Forum …… it is her 11th day in a row.
Christine Kuo has already stepped down to the 8th position in the last few days.
I meant:
“Cyrstal Li is still ranked No. 1 in TVB’s Popularity Forum …… it is her 11th day in a row.”
She’s has that onscreen charisma. She’s also in Divas, right? Quite likeable in there.
I haven’t watched her in Divas yet. How did she do in her program?
I think it’s someone else in Divas. Her name is Eliza Sam (岑麗香). They do kind of look alike 😛
does anyone find eliza sam annoying in Divas? not to be offensive…but is it just me or does her acting seem to be over exaggerated?
hey sherrie i bet you’re a loser in rl no offense of course so don’t be offended and no eliza is doing great
Amazed that Crystal Li was born in UK and can speak perfect Cantonese. Can she also read and write Chinese? I hope she can. It will make her acting life a lot easier and better if she can read her scripts.
If she’s on that TVB games show “Book of Words”, she should know how to read Chinese and maybe write.
Larry 3
Thanks for letting me know that Crystal Li was on TVB game show “Book of Words”! I did not know Crystal at all except from her character, Grace Ko, in “Ghetto Justice 2”.
I’ve actually seen her on Dolce Vita and Crystal seems to be quite natural and eloquent as a host, definitely far better than Christine in terms of acting.
i like her as a host, but not yet as an actress (although to me, she was way less annoying than christine in gj2). and while i do think she is pretty, there is something off about her eyes…
Crystal still has room for improvement in her acting, but she’s far better than Christine Kuo.
I really like Crystal, she’s beautiful and quite good for her 1st series.
Agree. Compared to Christine Kuo and Eliza Sam, Crystal Li seems to be a better artiste for TVB’s promotion.
Haven’t seen her acting, but is she really that good or is it bc her competition is utterly rubbish?
People seems happy just to see someone who can speak cantonese properly and acting skills becomes secondary, LOL
It’s the truth 😛
It’s basically because her competition is rubbish. lol
Crystal is cute but had an easy role where she just had to smile a lot. Also, compared to a lot of other people on the show, you could understand her cantonese?
Haven’t heard her speak cantonese before, but if it’s cantonese then no problem, hehe.
For me you can speak rubbish cantonese but still be likeable e.g King Kong.
For unknown reasons – to the Cantonese audience – acting does seem to come secondary to speaking Cantonese fluently. While I can understand the criticism directed at Ms Kuo’s who really does speak gibberish, I don’t understand most of the harsh criticism directed at other actresses.
I don’t know. She is articulate definitely, but not much charisma and smiles too much. Maybe it’s the way her character was written without much development. I shall wait and see.
However, I find that she, Eliza and Carat looks kinda alike, especially when they are debuting at the same time. Not that they are twins of each other, but they have a common look, and not really special..
Carat is pretty
which carat u talking about? You mean that plastic gal carat cheung?
Carat, Crystal and Eliza are all pretty, but not special. Their smiles, face shape and eyes are pretty similar.
she is worse than christine. f*** like a fresh out of boat actress.
HK residents want TV stars who can speak cantonese fluently and have a chinese last name, Christine possess neither. The only way Kuo can be #1 is she improves her speaking, or other actress will be flying her by. All Christine needs to do is go to more charity functions and she will be set for life.
how is 苟 not a chinese surname?
It is not a common Chinese name, but is still a Chinese name.
**Crystal is well-versed in 5 languages: English, Chinese, Cantonese, French and German**, that does not make sense as Chinese is not actually a language.
I think the writer meant Mandarin instead of Chinese.
Chinese is a language. Cantonese and Mandarin are not; they are dialects only.
Cantonese and Mandarin are topolects, not dialects. 😛 They sound too different to be dialects.
Which is why I always considered Mandarin and Cantonese to be separate languages, while under a larger language family, Chinese.
>Which is why I always considered Mandarin and Cantonese to be separate languages, while under a larger language family, Chinese.
So in other words, dialects.
Mandarin is the Chinese language, as it also provides Chinese speakers with the writing system.
Cantonese, along with Hokkien, is one of the two major Chinese dialects whose speakers still use the Mandarin based writing system. The origin of Cantonese is actually closer to the “Yue” language family that also include Vietnamese, Laotian, and Thai, all of which are heavily tone-based.
I, for one, do not consider them as dialects. The Beijing dialect, Fuzhou dialect, Shiqi dialect, Taishanese, etc. are dialects. Shiqi and Beijing dialect definitely do not sound the same; Taishanese and Fuzhou do not sound alike either.
The Chinese language has five main smaller languages – Mandarin (official), Yue (which basically IS Cantonese), Min, and Wu. A more correct word for these “languages” would be called topolects.
As for it having a Mandarin-based writing system, it is because it is imposed by the Ming and Qing Chinese imperial government, and they speak the court language, what we know now as Mandarin.
In fact, Mandarin is a fairly new language if you compare it to the history of Cantonese and Hakka. Many believe that Older Chinese sounds more similar to Hakka and Canto, which is why the Tang and Song poems flow so much better if you read them in those languages/topolects.
Cantonese and Hakka also retain a lot of more ancient grammar and vocabulary than Mandarin.
Well, what I am really trying to say is that saying you speak Chinese is just like saying you speak Indian – there really is no such thing. But Chinese people themselves refer to their language as “Chinese” – which is what I find very misleading.
Just because they don’t sound alike doesn’t make them not dialects.
Otherwise French and English are dialects of Latin.
And Spanish and Portuguese same.
I believe the “Cantonese” discussed here refers only to the HK/Guanzhou brand of the dialect also known as Guanfu,or the “prestigious dialect” as it is sometimes presumptiously called. It is just a part of a larger Yue linguistic group.
Cantonese also includes “SiYi” (Taishan), Guan Yao,etc. which are all mutually intelligible with Guanfu or HK Cantonese.
Therefore, should all these Cantonese subsets be alson be considered as separate languages. If so, then there is no one uniform Cantonese language then.
I definitely like Crystal Li more than Christine Kuo. Crystal can act way better for someone who is new at acting. Note that this is Crytal’s first series, Christine has had a few prior to Ghetto Justice.
i dont like both… but i cn understand crystal more…
IMO , for first debut, Crystal Li seems just so so. Not very bad in her speech and expression but she dun have charming look tat attract me.
For Christine Kuo,just ignored her Cantonese , I dun found she irritate me, in fact I find she have some attractiveness during her first debut in Don Juan De Mercado and I quite love her in Super Snoop because she have some cuteness in there. I dun find her acting tat bad in GJ2 as her fierce looked during confrontation with Myolie in one scene I quite enjoyed her performance.
I havent watched her on series (hasn’t started with GJ2) but I watched some of her shows and she did a quite good job as a host.
Yes, Christine is pretty bad, and not just because of her thick accent. Everything else about her acting was not good, including her running in a scene with King Kong!
Crystal had the easier role because she didn’t have any hard scenes and most of what she had to do was just smile while delivering her lines. Although her acting was not really good either, I think it’ll be easier for her to improve because she already has a grasp on cantonese. It’s understandable why people would like her more.
i still like christine kuo more. i find christine charming and pleasant to watch. i dont like crystal at all, nothing appeasing to rave about. why these articles have to trash christine to promote crystal, unnecessary, just give her her own article instead of borrowing someone else’s name.
I would choose Crystal over Christine even tho crystal in knew her acting skills is beta the Christine a whole lot more!!!
I think she looks like Denise Ho
Crystal Li is a lot prettier than Denise Ho. Denise’s eyes are a bit funny.
oh i like crystall li. she’s very cute, pretty and gentle looking. amazed by her intelligence. she is better in acting than christine kuo. that girl looks like michael jackson and a store mannequin. her look scares me. it doesn’t even look naturally. crystal on the other hand looks natural. the aboce picture looks like charlene choi.
Crystal’s acting is okay..just need to give her some time and more practice. She also needs to stop “smiling” all the time, it looks really fake.
I wonder if she ever get tired of smiling, do her cheeks get hurt hmm…She never stop smiling lol. My cheeks get hurts if I smile to much.
Crystal Li smiled a lot because when she was hosting some TVB programs, she needed to be polite and pleasant all the time. As a result, she had to smile a lot. However, she does not have to smile when she acts. She needs to show her proper expressions of the character.
I am sure she will learn in her future drama series. She was just lack of experience. Give her some time and she will excel.
I don’t find Crystal’s performance to be that great. It’s ok for a new actress and her Cantonese is definitely better than Christine. We should give it some more time to really be able to gauge her acting abilities.
in hindsight, crystal’s performance in GJ2 wasn’t spectacular. it was not bad, but not good either but compared to christine’s acting it looked a lot better. she needs to get out of that hosting/pageant mentality when she’s reciting her lines in a drama.
i like her so far and i see potential in her. she still needs a lot of improvement and i look forward to seeing her in future dramas.
I hope she has already got our messages!
DEFINITELY likes Crystal Li better than Christine Kuo. & honestly, I think Crystal has a sweeter look than Christine..
I adored her….she reminds of Flora chan when she first started dramas….
She is much better than Christine kuo. Christine’s accent is just to over-bearing. Her acting is actually pretty good. Although JJ’s acting is much better.
I cannot imagine if Christine needs to do a court scene speaking cantonese! LOL.
Crystal’s debut is commendable in Ghetto Justice and can further improved with better script and more air-time in her next TVB serial.
Ga yau!