News Links - 4/20/07

[dleedlee]

"Sun Also Rise" Drops from Cannes Lineup
http://english.cri.cn/3086/2007/04/20/63@218371.htm
Cannes selection is cool on Asian movies
http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/1218/1/

Pirates of the Caribbean III Passes Examination in China
http://english.cri.cn/3086/2007/04/20/63@218419.htm

5th Annual Golden Durian Awards
http://goldendurian.com/index.html

Marco Mak - Dancing Lion, Susie Au - Ming Ming
http://hk.bcmagazine.net/hk.bcmagazine. ... inema.html

"Shanghai Kiss"
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/en ... 663627.php

Long live the Kings!

In 1991, the Hong Kong media crowned local darlings Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau, Leon Lai and Aaron Kwok as the Four Heavenly Kings of Cantopop.

The quartet was so dubbed as they were four of the most popular and top-grossing male artistes in the former British colony. It was then the golden age of Cantopop.

Ten years on, the golden age is coming to an end and our mortal deities find themselves at the crossroads of their illustrious careers.

Lai surprised all when he announced, at the end of 1999, that he would withdraw his participation from all music awards, taking the cue from predecessors Alan Tam and the late Anita Mui. At the height of his singing career, Lai took home in 1996 a personal record of 16 Hong Kong awards.

Soon after, Cheung followed suit.

After close to a decade of being compared and pitted against one another, the foursome have embarked on diverging career paths.

A lot has changed in the seven years since the Heavenly Kings ruled the Cantopop music world. Though still handsome and showing little sign of ageing, the Heavenly Kings have grown older. In fact, on Dec 11 last year, the baby of the group, Lai, celebrated his 40th birthday.

These former heartthrobs have now entered the middle-age bracket. In an industry where fans are fickle-minded and yearn for hunks they fancy as boyfriend material, how and where do our Heavenly Kings fit in? Is this the end of the road for them?

Not likely. Back in November last year, Kwok achieved a career high, picking up his second best actor trophy at the prestigious 43rd Taiwan Golden Horse Awards two years in a row.

Lau lay to rest jibes over his poor investment decisions when Ning Hao’s Crazy Stone did well in China, both critically and commercially.

Ning Hao was one of six filmmakers under Lau’s Focus: First Cuts project that was aimed at nurturing new talents and providing them a platform to showcase their films.

Seven years earllier, the Mandarin-version of the musical, Snow.Wolf.Lake, notched greater success compared to the Cantonese version for Cheung, who doubled up as the male lead and artistic director.

Lai added directing to his list of accomplishments with the musical, A Melody Looking, which he also wrote. The musical was released last November.

StarTwo takes a look at the achievements of the four men in question.

Jacky Cheung
Age: 45
Years in showbiz: 21


Jacky Cheung in 1999.
Widely known as the Heavenly King with the vocal talent, Cheung has been hailed many a time as the “God of Songs”, a term initially reserved for Sam Hui.

He also proved to be an equally adept actor when his portrayal of a hot-headed gangster wannabe in Wong Kar Wai’s As Tears Go By (1988) won him a best supporting actor award at the 8th Hong Kong Film Awards in 1989.

With his singing and acting talent acknowledged, Cheung needed a new challenge, thus his daring idea for a musical. In 1997, the Cantonese musical Snow.Wolf.Lake was staged to a packed house at the Hong Kong Coliseum. All 43 shows were sold out.

Snow.Wolf.Lake enjoyed similar success in Singapore, Malaysia and China. Due to overwhelming response, Cheung re-staged the musical in 2005, this time in Mandarin.

After basking in the limelight for over two decades, Cheung has shifted his focus to his family. Raising two daughters with wife, former actress May Lo, Cheung has settled comfortably into his new role as family man.

Cheung is the perfect husband who would treat Lo to a candlelight dinner on her birthdays. When daughter Yiu Wah celebrated her birthday, the doting dad treated her and her school friends to a trip to Disneyland. And every night, he reads to her bedtime stories.

Cheung has been quoted as saying that his family needed him more than his fans. “I’m not God. I’m an ordinary man. I just want to be a good father and husband.”

But fret not, fans. Cheung, who two years ago was awarded the Chinese Artiste of the World title at the World Music Awards in Monte Carlo, Monaco, recently kicked off his Long Time No See World Tour in Beijing, China. Kuala Lumpur has been confirmed as one of the stops.

Andy Lau
Age: 45
Years in showbiz: 26 years

Where Cheung is gifted with vocal talents, Lau’s strengths lie in acting. Who can forget his portrayal of a terminally-ill criminal out for one last hurrah in Running Out of Time (1999) or a former monk-turned-male stripper in Running on Karma (2003)? The roles won him the best actor trophies at the 2000 and 2004 Hong Kong Film Awards, respectively.


A youthful Andy Lau.
After dedicating 20 years to the entertainment industry, Lau continues to devote his time and energy to his first love.

Four years ago, he started his own media company, Focus Group Holdings Limited. Under Focus Group, he established among others, Focus Films Limited, which deals with film production and distribution.

Disheartened by the lack of platforms for young and promising directors to showcase their work to a wider audience, he conceived the Focus: First Cuts project. It was launched in March 2005.

Six directors from Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and China were picked for the project and they received funds for their films.

One of the films, Feng Kuang De Shi Tou (Crazy Stone), a comedy about a group of bumbling thieves set on stealing a precious stone, has become a runaway success. In less than two weeks of its release in China, it raked in over RMB6mil (RM2.7mil).

Lau’s efforts to promote Asian films and talents have not gone unnoticed. At the 2006 Pusan International Film Festival, he was presented the Filmmaker of the Year award.

Many years ago, Lau admitted to feeling pressured by the Heavenly King tag, but noted that such titles were a passing phase. As such, it was important that those bestowed the title evaluate and decide on their own career paths. Lau has obviously decided on his and is now the most prolific and successful entertainer of the four.

One area that he does not seem interested in is directing. According to an Associated Press report, Lau said there were lots of good directors around and “if people like me perform well in front of the camera, we shouldn’t force ourselves into directing”.

He added that his temper was also a shortcoming. “I scold people. I sometimes have a bad temper. If shooting doesn’t go well and I can’t control my temper, I may offend a lot of people.”

So, what’s next for this workaholic?

Lau has said that he would continue his work in singing and acting. At present, he’s said to be involved in Ning Hao’s next movie Feng Kuang De Sai Che (Crazy Racing Car). But fans can catch him on the silver screen in his latest film, Protégé, where he plays an unscrupulous drug lord.


Aaron Kwok
Age: 41
Years in showbiz: 16

He was the “dancer” of the group. No one had moves like him – he was even dubbed Hong Kong’s Michael Jackson – and for the longest time, he capitalised on it.

But with age catching up, Kwok was astute enough to know that long-term survival in the industry meant he had to come up with a new gimmick. In 2005, director Benny Chan offered him the lifeline he was looking for.

Not known for his acting abilities – previous roles had him playing pretty boy hero-type characters – Kwok was entrusted with portraying a troubled police officer obsessed with his missing wife in Divergence. So moving was his portrayal that he surprised everyone by taking home the best actor trophy at the 2005 Taiwan Golden Horse Awards.

He won it a second time last year playing a hot-tempered cook, who pimps and forces his son to steal after losing his job, his home and his wife in Patrick Tam’s After This Our Exile.

He is said to be the second actor in the history of the awards to win it consecutively, after Jackie Chan back in the 1990s.

Kwok, who shaved his head for the role, is suddenly hot property again. He is currently filming Bai Yin Di Guo (loosely translated as White Silver Empire), a movie funded by Taiwanese tycoon Terry Gou.


At 41, Kwok is still boyishly good-looking and remains the most eligible bachelor of the group. His most recent conquest is allegedly Shanghainese model Xiong Dai Ling.

But the ambitious Kwok, enjoying a revival in his career, is not about to settle down. In fact, he said that he doesn’t want to marry even if he has found Miss Right. He reasoned that the responsibilities of marriage are too great and especially with a schedule as busy as his, he would not be able to shoulder it.

Leon Lai
Age: 40
Years in showbiz: 16

To be brutally honest, Lai’s achievements have been the most lacklustre of the four. In terms of singing, his high-pitched vocals are no match for Cheung’s rich baritone.

While he has won best actor at the 2002 Taiwan Golden Horse Awards for his role as an obsessive husband who tries to bring his dead wife back to life with Chinese medicine in Going Home (2001), one of three short stories compiled in the horror movie Three, his achievement is not as outstanding as Lau’s and Kwok’s.

With little talent to speak of, Lai is often praised for his princely temperament and gentlemanly demeanour. He is widely recognised as the most graceful of the four Kings.

One can understand why of the quartet, he is the one least willing to comment on the Heavenly King title.


Leon Lai.
“It (the title) was given by the people. I’ll always cherish those moments (when he was a Heavenly King) but it’s not a title you can make a great deal of. I’m already 40, so to me it’s of little significance,” Lai was once quoted saying.

Interestingly, it was recently rumoured that Lai wanted to stage a solo concert this month with fellow Heavenly Kings as guests, hence setting the stage for a highly anticipated reunion.

But when Lau, Cheung and Kwok were asked on the matter, they said they knew nothing about it and due to work commitments would not have been able to attend anyway.

Lau said he would be filming in China, Cheung is staging his own world tour while Kwok cheekily replied: “I only knew about it after reading about it in the newspapers.”

A similar reunion was planned at the 25th Jade Solid Gold Music Awards but it didn’t happen.

The last time the four of them took to the stage together was at the 22nd Hong Kong Film Awards in 2003 for a tribute segment to the late Leslie Cheung.

Despite an acting and singing career that has not exactly taken off, Lai is making final attempts at being taken seriously as an artiste.

In 2004, together with Peter Lam, Lai formed Amusic, a record production company.

Late last year, he made his directorial debut with the HK$10mil (RM4.5mil) musical film, A Melody Looking. Shot entirely in New York, it stars Lai and the artistes signed to Amusic, namely Janice Vidal, Jill Vidal and Charles Ying.

The 80-minute film opens with a 16-year-old girl’s search for the singer Janice, who is said to possess the perfect voice.

But Lai has not given up on acting altogether.

This persistent Beijing-native is still trying to prove his acting chops. His latest movie is a sentimental thriller titled Unholy Matrimony.

On the romantic front, Lai seems to be the luckiest of the lot.

Having been linked in the past to Shu Qi and Faye Wong, Lai is now dating model Gaile Lok. They hooked up in 2005.
http://www.star-ecentral.com/news/story ... sec=movies