Straight up, miss is bang on target

Cruelly teased by people about her looks - she was likened to the Buddha and elderly actor Albert Law Ho-kai - 23-year-old Kirsten Ashley dropped out of this year's Miss Hong Kong pageant.

Then TVB Entertainment News brought in a highly accomplished makeup artist to change Kirsten's hairstyle (simply, it was straightened) and her cosmetics.

And she emerged from the process ready to make good - and to look it - with a role in the popular sit-com Come Home Love: Lo and Behold.

The result has been people going online to say they are pleasantly shocked by Kirsten's new look, while the straight hair worked wonders. And with makeup that suited her, they said, it was hard to recognize her.

TVB actor Derek Wong Kin-tung, who had met her before the transformation, took to Instagram to praise Kirsten's new look. He was also taken by the newly straightened hair and remarked that "the Buddha smell" was blown away.

If Albert Law, 72 - who was out of contract with TVB in 2017 - has anything to say, we've yet to hear it.