Kenneth Gets Eliminated From Sunsilk Academy Fantasia

Sunsilk Academy Fantasia - The 7 Boys at Dragonfly — The Seven Boys from Academy Fantasia at Dragonfly

23 July 2012, Singapore – Last Saturday afternoon, the contestants of StarHub’s first foray into reality TV content Sunsilk Academy Fantasia 明星学院, a Chinese singing, training and competition show, were at Dragonfly to perform their songs to an audience. It was the 7 male contestants’ turn to showcase what they have mastered in the past week to keep their spot in the competition. Besides the audience, the three judges were present to critique and rate their performance.

The 7 men and 6 women have been staying in a house together with live tv coverage on StarHub TV Ch 110 from 7am to 1am daily.

The Repertoire

Sunsilk Academy Fantasia - 7 Male Contestants — Sunsilk Academy Fantasia – 7 Male Contestants

Malaysian born 20 year old Jun Yang kicked start the performance after which the boyish Zhang Chi, who is also the youngest of the lot, performed a version of Harlem Yu’s 情非得已. I recognised this song, because it is one of the few songs I enjoy singing at Karaoke. Kenneth rocked the crowd with make up and dressing that somewhat reminded me of Adam Lambert.

Sunsilk Academy Fantasia - Comparing Kenneth to Adam Lambert — Comparing Kenneth to Adam Lambert

The only Englishman in the group, Phil Carmalt performed a cute song 小小虫 by 方大同. Phil’s pronunciation has improved since he first joined and the judges seem to have given Phil some sort of advantage for this as well as the effort he has put in throughout the competition.

Irwin has not been feeling well since the start of the competition yet he picked a very fast pace song with dance moves by 林俊杰, which the judges felt made it difficult for him to cope given his medical condition. Personally, I would have given Irwin A for effort.

Guang Li thrilled the judges with his emotions on stage with yet another 林俊杰 number – 背對背擁抱.

The final performance by ET who is a full-time performer and part-time tutor who has a fan site canyouteckit.com impressed the judges with his performance. One of the judges felt that for such a ballad, ET should not have moved around so much as it distracted the attention away from the song. However, ET garnered the highest points from the judges. ET is in need of more support from the audience as he is also the lowest in terms of audience votes. Yes! ET needs your votes.

Video Highlights of the Performance

Review and Announcement of Who Gets Eliminated

Sunday morning at 10.30am, the seven male participants were called together to announce the first person to be eliminated after Fiona was the first female participant to be eliminated the previous weekend. Before the announcement, there was a quick recap of what needed to be improved with the principal.

Zhang Chi, Kenneth and Guang Li were in the unsafe category. I could sense there was an expectation of 30 year old Englishman to be in the unsafe category as well since the Judges commented about his stage presence and stance required improvement and he was disadvantaged by his inaccurate pronunciation.

Zhang Chi – The judges felt that he was ‘too cool’ on stage that he failed to interact with his audience. He needed to express the feelings of the song which he lacked. He garnered moderate audience votes.

Kenneth – The judges felt that he could not reach the high notes but he got very good support from the audience.

Guang Li – The judges were touched by his sincerity on stage and has one of the highest scores. Unfortunately he was not very popular with the audience and had very few votes.

Sunsilk Academy Fantsia - Judges at Men's First Elimination Concert — Judges from Left to Right Roy Loi Fey Huei, Billy Koh, Pan Ying at Dragonfly during the Men’s first Elimination Concert

Kenneth Booted Out

Kenneth (AFSG 10) was the first male contestant to be booted out. He was described by some of the other female contestants as the big brother who took care of them. Now that he is gone, the rest of the contestants have to get used to the lack of Kenneth’s bubbly and entertaining moments.

In fact, I observed that Kenneth has been the one cleaning up and packing the place to ensure that the house was clean.

RT @academysg: Kenneth cleaning up the dance studio on his own! @Kenneth_AFSG pic.twitter.com/CKyx6skY

— Karen Seah (@keyboardcowgirl) July 20, 2012

Kenneth has been one of the more entertaining characters in the competition. He almost single-handedly added excitement into the show with some disagreements and controversies. There was some animosity between Kenneth and Phil after Phil kinda blamed Kenneth for urging Fiona to change her song in the last minute which probably led to her elimination two weeks ago. Then there was also friction between Kenneth and Zhang Chi. At one point, Kenneth even wanted to give up.

Kenneth felt that he tried his best and he had not let himself down. Upon hearing that he was eliminated, he commented that he actually felt relieved. The group warmly hugged him with tears from some of the female contestants. Kenneth only shook hands with Phil and Zhang Chi when prompted by the principal who mentioned that everyone should leave as friends. Zhang Chi not only got a hand shake, but also a warm hug from Kenneth. Will the show get boring without Kenneth? Guess we will have to watch and see.

Sunsilk Academy Fantasia - Kenneth in his last performance before elimination. — Kenneth in his last performance before elimination.

[22Jul 11am] @Kenneth_AFSG 你就像我大哥！Take care kays. I'll make sure I do as you say! 做一个开心果！ pic.twitter.com/weMoSrUY

— 易薇倪 Vee (@VEE_AFSG) July 23, 2012