http://english.cri.cn/6066/2008/08/09/1821s391437.htm
Official Poster for the 65th Venice Film Festival Unveiled
http://english.cri.cn/3086/2008/08/09/902s391611.htm
China Film plans Confucius biopic
http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/6681/1/
Charlene Choi and Yumiko Cheng attend Olympic event at Victoria Park
http://ent.sina.com.hk/cgi-bin/news/sho ... 946&ct=pic
Sammi Cheng always wanted to have her own family
http://asianfanatics.net/forum/Sammi-Ch ... 69112.html
Miriam Yeung Would Like Breast Implants
http://www.batgwa.com/story.php?id=1130
Charlie Yeung bags it
http://ent.sina.com.cn/s/h/p/2008-08-09 ... 2305.shtml
I spy: Lau Ching-Wan and wife in Crocs
http://ent.sina.com.cn/s/h/2008-08-09/11282132267.shtml
(7/30/2008) The 65th Annual Venice Film Festival announced its line up.
Sundream Pictures' PLASTIC CITY (DONG KAU) qualified for the Gold Lion
competition. Sundream Pictures chief Tsui Siu Ming was very happy to hear
the news.
Tsui Siu Ming pointed out, he has always appreciated Jia Zhangke
and Yu Lik Wai's work. Although Yu Lik Wai has only directed LOVE WILL
TEAR US APART (TIN SEUNG YUN GAN) he has qualified for the Cannes Film
Festival. His latest PLASTIC CITY would have even more anticipation. Jia
Zhangkei's work has garnered numerous overseas awards, he as PLASTIC
CITY's producer is almost confidence guarantee. He would attend the event
with PLASTIC CITY's director and cast.
Director Yu Lik Wai was just as happy as PLASTIC CITY's selection.
"This is an international film festival. I am very happy about the
chance for more people to get to know this film, which absolutely helps
film promotions." He was very cautious about award hopes. "The film's
qualification is already a recognition for the production team."
Mob boss in the film Anthony Wong Chau Sun was at ease about the
film's selection. He said, "Actually this won't be my first time at the
Venice Film Festival, but I still will try to take time to attend.
Working with Yu Lik Wai has been very pleasant. Of course I am happy for
him about this selection." No stranger to film festivals, Chau Sun was
asked about the secret of film festival selection. He said that he did
not have any secret. He played every character from his heart and would
not be too deliberate.
(7/29/2008) Dior Cheng Yi Kin at the Puchon International Film Festival
won Best Actor with RULE NUMBER ONE (DAI YUT GAI). Ekin was happy and
excited as he did not expect it at all. This time was his first step. He
used to think that people say growing his hair long would be good luck.
This time he gained weight for the film and it was good luck. As for how
he would celebrate, he paraphrased Chow Yun Fat and said that fame and
fortune are like floating clouds, so he cannot be too satisfied with
himself. He said that this film later will be released in Hong Kong. He
will invite his friends and perhaps then will dine to celebrate.
TA KUNG PAO, JULY 27 2008
JOHN WOO'S THREE KINGDOMS DREAM
RED CLIFF (CHET BIK)'s Mainland box office has already broken 200
million and over 20 million in Hong Kong. Unfortunately its word of
mouth varied. Earlier some said that the drama was much better than the
action, and some said the opposite; the only agreement was that aside
from the white dove, John Woo (Ng Yu Sum)'s director style was not
demonstrated.
Anyone who went to see RED CLIFF from the ROMANCE OF THE THREE
KINGDOMS or RECORDS OF THREE KINGDOMS versions would definitely be
disappointed because the film medium had a lot of restrictions and less
space for imagination. The adaptation determines whether an adapted film
is good. The subject of RED CLIFF is too large with too many characters.
Any difference from the original is inevitable. Individually characters
do not stand out and cannot demonstrate the director's strong suit of
describing character relationships.
RED CLIFF's character appearance and battle scenes are all under
production condition restrictions. For example Guan Yu did not appear on
his Red Hare horse and appeared on foot like Zhang Fei (who was even
blurrier). Guan Yu's halberd was only used as a javelin and a sweeping
move. The obvious reason was horseback battle was hard to shoot, halberd
was hard to yield. Otherwise the film would require even more people and
material. Zhao Zilong who hid A Dou among a million soldiers did not
have too many horseback heroics. Each famed warrior displayed their
heroics "one on one" and drastically reduced the group heroics.
Sometimes any flaw with the major scenes would make the smaller
scenes even worse. RED CLIFF's Eight Diagram Formation was an example.
Not only its layer was unclear, but it also showed that the Cao army and
the screenwriter both lacked intelligence (automatically entering and
being trapped in the Eight Diagram Formation before striking back). THE
WARLORDS (TAU MING JONG) had a simple formation (or battle strategy would
be more suitable). Archers and foot soldiers advanced in order, which was
very orderly, simple and easy to understand. The result was even better.
The biggest flaw for the people was the character design, which
was this film's specialty. The film seemingly had no one that was the
same with our familiar Three Kingdoms stories. The most faithful to the
original character was Zhao Zilong, but the actor Hu Jun was more than
brave but less than handsome. Reportedly the director rejected foreign
producers' request to turn Liu, Guan and Zhang into one person. Yet in
this film none of the trio was outstanding. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were
only major extras. As for Liu Bei, the director might have used India's
Ghandi as the blueprint and stress that he did not forget to labor. He
made straw shoes like Ghandi weaved cloth. The leads Zhou Yu and Zhuge
Liang were Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Takeshi Kaneshiro (Gum Sing Mo)
played. Leung's "stiffness" and Gum's "nonsense" played off each other
and indeed led to a lot of "comedy" effects.
The best looking character was Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi). Although
it was not the traditional costume he truly had both courage and wit, full
of energy and high emotional quotient. The director has successfully
created the effect of Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang at a disadvantage. The
hardest to understand was the brightest Sun Quan becoming a problem youth
without any courage or intelligence. The director in order to support
Zhuge Liang's wit sacrificed Sun Quan, which truly made the director's
claim of making THREE KINGDOMS his wish difficult to understand. - TIN LIK
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/2038/080724.txt
Beijing Disperses Rain to Dry Olympic Night
http://english.cri.cn/6066/2008/08/09/1781s391483.htm
Olympics Leave Hong Kongers Cold
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43506
Was the world impressed with China's coming out party?
http://shanghaiist.com/2008/08/09/the_b ... _world.php
Pro-democracy activist ''Long hair'' Leung ejected from HK Games venue
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_ ... r=20080808
Li Ning lights China's Olympic flame
The man and his company gets a lift
http://www.danwei.org/2008_beijing_olym ... lympic.php
http://ent.sina.com.cn/s/m/p/2008-08-09 ... 2189.shtml
Relative of US Olympic coach killed in Beijing
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080809/ap_ ... kB.DJvaA8F