Edison Chen with not healthy image

Hong Kong celebrities Edison Chen (陈冠希), Bobo Chan (陈文媛), Gillian Chung (钟欣桐) and Cecilia Cheung (张柏芝) are currently embroiled in an embarrassing sex photo scandal that has whipped up a storm in the territory and the rest of the Chinese-speaking world. It all started on 27 January when various photographs of people resembling the above-named celebrities were all posted one after the other including the Hong Kong Discussion Forum and free.photo.girls.hk.

The photos in question included:

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  A girl resembling Gillian Chung (from the squeaky-clean group Twins) with breasts peeking out from her bikini and her legs spread apart. In another picture, a man resembling Edison Chen performs cunnilingus on her.
  

• A girl resembling Bobo Chan (Edison Chen's ex girlfriend) performing fellatio on him, with his love lollipop in full glory.
  

• A dazed-looking Cecilia Cheung posing in uniform in one picture, and nude in a bathroom in another.

As ESWN points out, the pictures were released in a phased rollout, leaving eager netizens "waiting all night and all day at the various bulletin board systems in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China". Chung's company, Emperor Entertainment, soon declared the pictures to be photoshopped fakes and Ming Pao Daily News, Apple Daily, Oriental Daily News and The Sun took that position in their front page stories subsequently. But as more and more photos were released into public domain, the newspapers soon changed their tune.

Netizens say the bathroom the Cecilia Cheung lookalike was photographed in looks like that of Edison Chen's as seen in his blog. She also sports the same belly ring, earring and tattoos as the real Cecilia Cheung. Various photography experts have also told the media that the pictures do not seem modified. Even the Hong Kong cops soon conceded that the pictures appear real.

Obviously, Shanghaiist is a respectable blog, and there is NO WAY we're telling you how to get a hold of those pics. (We've been told if you Google or Baidu hard enough, you will get what you want. Be careful of the viruses lurking out there when downloading stuff though!) Let's just say that after getting hold of the whole set of pics (including some high resolution ones), we found it hard to believe that the pics were doctored.