News Links - 8/29/06

[dleedlee]

Protestors burn a copy of Easy Finder - REUTERS/PAUL YEUNG


Bitterness and Disgust: Jacky Chan, Tony Leung Kar Fai, Charlene Choi deliver a letter of protest to the HK government. The words on Jackie Chan's shirt read "With bitterness and disgust". The words on Tony Leung's shirt read "To tolerate evil is to encourage evil-doers". - REUTERS/Bobby Yip (HONG KONG)

Leon Lai Directorial Debut
http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/3086/2006/0 ... 132366.htm

Wong Kar-Wai gets key to the city of Memphis
http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/3086/2006/0 ... 132337.htm

Celebrity heavyweights weigh in to Hong Kong snooping row
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060829/en ... 0829105352
HK Stars Condemn Magazine over Pop Star's Nude Pictures
http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/3086/2006/0 ... 132268.htm
Hong Kong star files lawsuit over near-nude magazine shots
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060828/en ... 0828100827
HK ent industry slams privacy violation
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006- ... 020673.htm

Tokyo Trial tells story never to forget
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006- ... 015695.htm
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/art/2006/0 ... forget.htm

Slighting the air-raid victims
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ ... 828kh.html

Rainie Yang to Be Guest Singer for Jolin
http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/3086/2006/0 ... 132325.htm

Photos: Banquet for Hong Kong Films Before Heading for Venice
http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/3086/2006/0 ... 132371.htm

Stephen Chow confident in box office returns of "Yangtze River 7"
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006- ... 006120.htm

Remake of TV classic seeks actors - Dream of Red Mansions
http://www.cctv.com/program/cultureexpr ... 1411.shtml

HK admits pollution is hurting business
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f54b006a-36aa-1 ... 511c8.html

http://photo.xicn.net/MGY3TjB2bWZKNkV3Q ... 2549_1.jpg
Stephen Chow in Beijing prior to start of Yangtze River 7 filming

http://photo.xicn.net/MGY3TjB2bWZKNkV3Q ... 2548_1.jpg
Anita Yuen and Julian Cheung Chi Lam after a recent birthday banquet

[dleedlee]

Hong Kong's Johnnie To won't start filming new movie till mid-Sept: assistant
http://www.680news.com/news/entertainme ... t=e082904A

[Brian Thibodeau]

Good, GOD, is anyone actually reading these Gillian Chung stories?

Come OOOONNNNN!!

Jackie Chan says the photos will encourage peeping behaviour among children?

Hey, look over there, Jackie! Someone's selling pirate VCDs!! Time to go stomp on them for the cameras and put those pirates out of business!

And the now almost perpetually tearful Gillian Chung, at least according to the Xinhua News article, is worried that "her long-established icon image would be badly damaged by this incident"????

HOW?

Does she honestly believe that people are going to view her as some kind of scarlet woman because some sleazy papparazzi for a trash tabloid took a picture that, from all accounts, shows her bare back and shoulders, when she herself shows far more in her "cutesy" Twins videos, three of which I just watched last night as part of a HK music video compilation I picked up? Bikinis galore in those and she's afraid if she tones down the rhetoric or turns off the tears for just one day that somehow HER reputation will be tarnished?

[Harlock]

nm

[Brian Thibodeau]

actually on the twins "affair" im kind of proud of hk peoples,, i hate paparazzis, they should be put in jail imho. if i was a star i hoped that a law permitted bodyguard to knock them off, they are a flea. sometimes i happen to watch "all access" show, showing how paparazzi wait for stars in front of bars in hollywood and so so, its so amazing that there's no law for forbidding this. especially when we know they have no respect for the peoples and sometimes that can be fatal (lady di)

Everything you say is absolutely correct, but the problem here is the Hong Kong people purchased over 100,000 copies of that magazine, enough for TWO print runs. So far, there have been just over 2000 recorded complaints, undoubtedly also from Hong Kong people. The rest of this ridiculous scandal has been largely created by and within the histrionics of a bunch of pampered, overly image-conscious—and often poorly educated— celebrities for whom the only response is to pout and perform for every other media outlet, and by the various "agencies" and "experts" who couldn't wait to grab a slice of the spotlight to condemn an activity that has gone on for decades and will continue to go on long after Gillian Chung's tear ducts have run dry.

Gillian Chung is a good singer and a pretty decent actress. All she needed was ONE carefully orchestrated press conference or television appearance or to rise above this. But now, she comes off as a paranoid crybaby who's desperately afraid she's going to come off looking like some kind of common whore because everyone saw her fiddling with her bra, as though her fans were too dumb to assume she's regularly semi-naked between costume changes backstage.

Yes, the photog was in the wrong, and the paper should never have published the photos any more than they should have published all the other unflattering or candidly sexy shots they publish of famous faces on a regular basis, but the fact remains that they do, they will, and no amount of lawsuits or remarkably silly pronouncements from Jackie Chan is going to change that...

I wonder if the furor would have been half this big if the photo had been of some lesser light than everyone's favourite cutesy-bunny Gillian. Of course, shots of those actresses and singers seem to turn up in just about every one of the Hong Kong tabloids and the media circus doesn't even bother to pitch a tent...so to speak.

As I found myself once again wishing Bob could institute a puking smiley here the HKMDB, I decided to find one myself:

[JohnR]

Too bad it didn't happen to Charlene instead, she doesn't know how to cry. (I'm sure that tear in A Chinese Tall Story was CGI.)

[Brian Thibodeau]