POP STOP

VBS News dropped two bombs Wednesday with separate stories showing suggestive photos taken by stars that came to light over the past week. The first case, and locally the most explosive, was pictures of supermodel Lin Chi-ling (林志玲) with F4 singer Jerry Yan (言承旭).

Last year the two had been spotted together at times of the night that suggested that more than simple business meetings were taking place, but suddenly talk of them as an item disappeared. Now, though, newly unearthed cellphone pictures apparently taken by the couple themselves show the two cheek-to-cheek and in one photo wearing skimpy bathrobes and sleepy, distant smiles in what appears to be a fairly private moment. It's still unknown who sold the photos to the media, but Lin's agent was angry enough at their release to vow to sue who ever it was.

The second set of shocking photos are reportedly of Edison Chan (陳冠希), the Hong Kong actor/singer with a naughty streak, who posted some revealing pictures of himself on Friendster.com. The screen shots on TVBS blurred out the controversial elements, but the face certainly resembled Edison's. A search on the community Web site Friendster, however, didn't turn up the pictures, and only revealed that Edison is a popular name in the Philippines.

The saucy photos have taken some of the attention away from the tangled romances of Jay Chou (周杰倫), Patty Hou Pei-tsen (侯佩岑) and Jolin Tsai (蔡依林). Jolin seemed to signal an end to any rumored lingering connection to Jay anyway, when, upon returning Sunday from a brief jaunt to Hong Kong to film an advertisement, she stepped off the plane wearing a cap with the words: "You win" emblazoned on it.

Also cut out of the action over the weekend was Little Pan-pan (小潘潘), once one of the many women in the late billionaire Huang Ren-chung's (黃任中) bevvy of beauties but now relegated to the sidelines by the surviving members of his family. Pan-pan wasn't invited to anniversary memorial services over the weekend, which was to be expected given that the family has openly called her a sponging sycophant, but that didn't stop her from showing up uninvited at the Sheraton and annoying the family, who complained she was trying to draw attention to herself.

Korean transplant Ho Li-hsiu (河利秀), who started life as a man but now makes a decent living as a female model and TV show cameo favorite in Taiwan, was announced this week to be the spokesperson for Swear underwear. Choosing a sex-change recipient as an underwear model might seem risque in a conservative market like Taiwan's, but she pulls it off with aplomb.

Something less likely to work is a box-office rating system in China inaugurated Tuesday. The first of its kind in China, the system is intended to track movie ticket sales -- this in a country where no one goes to the movies but everyone has DVD collections to rival Blockbusters.

On a happy note, actress Lee Chien-rong (李篟蓉), who had her first child last year, is thought to be expecting another child. She revealed to Apple Daily (蘋果日報) that the signs lately were pointing to her being pregnant, but as yet was uncertain.