THE first picture that rocked Hong Kong and launched thousands of online postings popped up on the Internet last Sunday evening.

In it, a man who looks like Chen, 27, is in bed and beside a woman who looks like Chung, 27. The woman is wearing a bikini top and not much else. Her legs are wide open.

Four to five more alleged photos of the two (accounts vary) were posted on Tuesday afternoon by a surfer nicknamed Edison Chen with the message: “You people want to see more of me and Gillian in action? Enjoy.”

All the photos appear to have been shot in the same bedroom.

Stars’ take: Chung’s record company is adamant that the photos are fake. She has stayed out of sight in the past week, apparently because she has a fever. Her company has denied talk that she has killed herself.

Chen has condemned the release of the pictures as an “irresponsible practical joke” but has not said if they are real or not.

Netizens’ take: A surfer has compared the bedroom in the photos to a room that Chen was once photographed in.

Rotate an alleged picture of Chen and Chung by 180 degrees and you will find that objects such as the bed post and table in both bedrooms are in the same position, the netizen said.

“In this world, there can’t be so many coincidences,” the surfer wrote.

But Chung’s fans disagreed. They said the image of her face, with eyes closed, could have been copied from her 2004 film, Beyond Our Ken.

Expert’s take: “If you look at one photo, it might look fake because Gillian doesn’t have a neck. But if you look at all the photos, the lighting is very consistent. They look real,” said photographer Alan Lim.

He added: “If all the faces were taken from movies and photos and stripped onto the bodies, what kind of movies and photos would require them to have such facial expressions?”