BEIJING, August 16 --Pulse-quickening elimination contest ¡°Super Girl¡± was broadcast live Aug. 12, with millions of Chinese people glued to their screens avidly voting for their favorite singers.

    Five candidates ¡ª Zhou Bichang, He Jie, Zhang Liangying, Li Yuchun and Ji Minjia ¡ª landed places in the semifinals which will be held Aug. 19, after which only three contenders will be left to scrap it out at the nationwide final. Who might be there?

    Li and Zhou are the most popular girls with the largest fan bases among the girls, but the chance of the two standing side by side at the final is remote, given their very similar singing styles.

    While Li might have got the edge on Zhou in the number of her audience votes, as far as singing skills were concerned, she lagged behind Zhou who has proved her versatility, by being able to interpret almost any genre with her unique piercing voice. As a mezzo-soprano, Li was criticized in Friday¡¯s elimination contest for lacking power in her delivery.

    Popularity isn¡¯t the only clincher for the ¡°Super Girl¡± judges, whose other, probably more important task, is to find the singers with the most commercial potential for the entertainment company behind ¡°Super Girl.¡±

    Li and Zhou are similar in their neutral images, performance skills, and singing styles. They are also both very popular with audiences ¡ª but the judges are bound to strike a balance and only pick one for the final showdown.

    Zhou has shown her singularly strong singing skills in almost every previous round; as one of the three judges, Hei Nan, said, she could label almost every song with her own trademark; Zhou has injected so much individual feeling into her singing that she has proven she is capable of easily stricking a responsive chord among audiences; all these factors combined suggest Zhou would seem to be well ahead of Li in making the final cut.

    Another likely finalist is He Jie, who has earned herself a following for her unparalleled stage performances in which she has moved her body in such bold and hilarious ways that viewers have been marveling at how such reserves of energy can exist in such a slender body. But her performance has been a feast to both ears and eyes. Having been more than once slammed in previous stages for over-relying on dancing to attract audiences, she made a perfect singing delivery Friday night and became the only candidate to get an entry ticket to the semifinal in the first-round. Again, the judges are not just thinking purely in terms of performance skills ¡ª they can¡¯t afford to lose He Jie, who has been said to have already made a market value for herself of 1 million yuan (US$123,000).

    Zhang Liangying will almost certainly be the third finalist. Acclaimed for ¡°singing with her soul,¡± she switched over from placid ballads to the high tempo ¡°Nothing¡¯s Gonna Stop Us¡± Friday night to unanimous admiration.

    A major in English, she has also showed Friday night she can perfectly interpret Chinese songs, even if she is even better delivering in English. Undoubtedly a huge plus in Zhang¡¯s favor is her beautiful face, sexy figure and feminine personality ¡ª assets her younger and naiver rivals don¡¯t really have in equal doses.

    Ji Minjia won the fewest audience votes among the five, despite having the greatest vocal range which enables her to easily jump from high to low notes. Her weakness has been her stage performance ¡ª which fails to arouse any interest ¡ª and her almost complete lack of stage charisma, which all the others have some of at least; she is almost certain to get the boot in the coming semifinal stage.

    (Source: Shenzhen Daily)