News Links - 6/19/08

[dleedlee]

Kelly Chen to Get Married

http://english.cri.cn/3086/2008/06/19/1461@370487.htm
Kelly Chen Announces Marriage at Last Concert
http://asianfanatics.net/forum/Kelly-Ch ... 52405.html
Hacken Plays The Prawn At Kelly Chen Concert
http://www.batgwa.com/story.php?id=962

More photos
http://ent.sina.com.cn/y/p/2008-06-19/08142066500.shtml
Video clip including Leon Lai
http://video.sina.com.cn/ent/y/2008-06- ... 7990.shtml

Faye Wong Asia's Sexiest Vegetarian: Poll
http://english.cri.cn/3086/2008/06/19/1261@370645.htm

I Come With The Rain Photos and Promo Reel
http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/06/19/i-c ... romo-reel/


Jackie Chan booed in Taiwan

http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/ ... 49312.html
http://asianfanatics.net/forum/Jackie-C ... 52629.html
http://ent.sina.com.cn/s/h/p/2008-06-19 ... 6507.shtml

TVB's On The Road series
Patrick Tse accuses TVB of being cheap

http://www.batgwa.com/story.php?id=963
http://ent.sina.com.hk/cgi-bin/news/sho ... 078&ct=pic

The Mummy 3
Michelle Yeoh

Jet Li

http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/f/2008-06-19/16032067310.shtml

The Red Race - Olympic documentary (Germany-China)
http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/6305/1/

I'm a sexy little girl - Kitty Zhang Yuqi
http://justwoman.asiaone.com/Just%2BWom ... 71644.html

The Mikado Project Goes from Stage to Film
http://pr-canada.net/index.php?option=c ... &Itemid=65

Shoppers can't resist cheap DVDs
http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/442679
New rules for iPod Nation
http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/442676

China OKs 247 firms for online video business
http://uk.reuters.com/article/mediaNews ... 0920080619

Sohu wins Olympic webcasts rights
http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/6308/1/

50 guests ejected as Mongkok hotel closes
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_deta ... con_type=1

[Brian Thibodeau]

Shoppers can't resist cheap DVDs
http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/442679

Was just about to post this one myself! How nice of the Toronto Star to give more free advertising (prices, even!) to the wrong aspects of the wonderful Pacific Mall. As if the cops weren't already doing enough PR work for the place!

This draconian new bill our Big-Business®-friendly conservative minority government passed to kiss the ass of the American entertainment lobby probably won't change a thing, despite having "serious" consequences for downloaders, uploaders, front-end loaders and everyone else (including creators, to some degree. Go figure!). But it still goes too far in robbing Canadians of their rights. Thankfully, opposition parties (liberal and labour) are already prepping amendments for the next session. Should be interesting to see what, if anything, happens through all of this.

Pacific Mall and it's kin will keep on keepin' on, especially as long as owners, management, and realtors and real estate lawyers continue to turn a blind eye ("Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown. ). Can't say I support what they're doing at places like Pacific Mall, but putting usurious restrictions on casual format-shifters who pay legitimately for their media AND pirates who profit from same probably isn't the solution.

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3037/159/

Troubling details in new downloading law:
Despite what Tories say, change is not all that friendly to Canadian consumer
http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/442677

While this sounds technical, circumvention is not uncommon. Under the Prentice bill, transferring music from a copy-protected CD to an iPod could violate the law. So, too, could efforts to play a region-coded DVD from a non-Canadian region or attempts by students to copy-and-paste content from some electronic books.

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[dleedlee]

A poster from another forum recounts a recent raid at Pacific Mall that s/he witnessed:
http://www.kfccinema.com/xtemplex/index ... opic=19128

[Brian Thibodeau]

A poster from another forum recounts a recent raid at Pacific Mall that s/he witnessed:
http://www.kfccinema.com/xtemplex/index ... opic=19128

Good stuff, but it sounds like the writer was not only a regular buyer, but actually believed the raid permanently shut the place down. Now that's funny! If they nuked Canada, Pacific Mall would still be a popular destination!

I actually witnessed a raid at First Markham Place, another big Chinese mall here, about a year-and-a-half ago. We were in some fashion store (me somewhat grudgingly! ) when I heard a woman up the hall shouting in Cantonese. Wasn't sure if she was just arguing if somebody, but then I noticed a couple of "unmarked" cops whizz by, far too fast to be on casual patrol. And just like on TV, they had the little velcro flaps covering their uniform markings, but they were sooooo obvious. So I said to my girlfriend "this should be interesting!" We walked over to a different aisle and, man, you never saw so many stores closing up shop so quickly the owners scurrying to 'blend in' with the shoppers so they could get out of the building! In retrospect, I now see where many of these stores are "built" for quick disassembly. When they're open, they spill out into the hallways with illicit goodies, but when need be, everything sort of falls back in on itself in record time. Kinda like Transformers.

I was kinda worried that the police would start hassling anyone who had bags that looked like they contained DVDs, because I actually did! Even though I bought mine from a place called Broadcast Book and Gift, which is now the only legitimate music/movie retailer left in the place, the shape of the bag just screamed "DVDs! Look in here officer!" Luckily they didn't bother the shoppers, but as we walked around the mall, we counted about four places that got busted and had shopkeepers inside defending themselves to the cops. Meanwhile, the other dozen or so stores were locked up tight. I guess for them, it was a good day.

I went back two days later expressly out of curiosity, and all but one of the stores was back in business.


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