A Star is Formed

Ascendant pop star Tricia Chen is questioning her choice of a career as she stands in five centimeters of water surrounded by eight professional dancers and a Stonehenge-like grouping of Styrofoam pillars. It is 10 p.m., and she, along with 35 crew members, cameramen, dancers and friends, is in a cavernous Hong Kong studio shooting her second music video of the day. The session soured three hours earlier when her manager introduced her to a local journalist by calling her "fat. I keep telling her to lose weight." Now, with her self-esteem riding lower than her leather pants, everything Chen has...