News Links - 2/10/07

[dleedlee]

Cast of Protege (Is Andy Lau really that short?)

Fans Hail Protege' s Premiere
http://english.cri.cn/3086/2007/02/10/272@194873.htm

Woo's 'Cliff' splits into two movies
Larger budget allows for additional pic
http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout ... 6&nid=2853

The Geopolitics of Kung Fu Film
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3980

Andy Lau: Enough of ancient Chinese pictures
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/00 ... 100322.htm

Kung Fu star makes serial on Tibetans in India
http://www.teluguportal.net/modules/new ... ryid=31528

Singapore: Interview with Djinn, director of Perth
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/features/a ... oking-out/

Dancing girls get the chop as Bollywood bids for gravitas
Cast includes Alice Patten daughter of the last governor of HK
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 361808.ece


Movie "Blood Brothers" finished shooting
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007- ... 722588.htm

Jackie Chan, Jet Li unite to remake classic characters
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007- ... 722694.htm

Legendary Ri Koran back in spotlight - Yoshiko Yamaguchi (Shirley Yamaguchi)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/ar ... Y21004.htm

Xu Jinglei - The queen of blog" visits YouTube
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/index.html
When last we visited with the popular Chinese actress/director Xu Jinglei, she was blogging about a recent trip to a karaoke bar. At the time her blog was ranked the number one most popular blog in the world by the blog-search service Technorati.

How the mighty have fallen! Today, Ms. Xu, whose most recent post rhapsodizes about a trip to New York city, has slipped all the way to 21st place. She isn't even the top Chinese representative.

Blog popularity is a harsh mistress. Maybe Xu has been too busy co-starring with Jet Li in an upcoming movie and readying a biweekly electronic entertainment newsletter to properly tend her blog. Or maybe she's been watching herself on YouTube.

Cultural anthropologist Lyn Jeffery, writing in the Institute for the Future's Virtual China blog, informs us this morning that a Xu Jinglei fan has melded together an umbrella company television ad starring Xu with a little bit of home brewed bloggy nationalism and uploaded it to YouTube. "Whose blog will win the first 100 million views in the world?"

Answer: "The queen of blog: a Chinese women."

So what should we be impressed with more? Xu Jinglei's ability to cross-merchandise herself, or the prospect of YouTube becoming a platform for Chinese commercial advertisements? Or is it best just to look at all the pretty umbrellas?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7Pptuvv4wJw

Movie pirates hit hard in 12-country blitz
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/ ... 090034.asp
The INQ goes on the trail of Chinese pirates
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37545
'Blame Canada’ approach a lame excuse
http://www.campbellrivermirror.com/port ... 9006&more=

[Fan]

Is Andy Lau really that short?

For your reference:

[Brian Thibodeau]

Is Andy Lau really that short?

He just needs taller hair!

[Brian Thibodeau]

Nice find on those piracy stories, Dennis!

There are many little truths in the Campbell River Mirror piece on bootlegging in Canada, in particular.

It’s actually more difficult to find a legit DVD than it is to find copies in some countries. But the movie industry doesn’t want to raise a stink because then where else would they be able to find factories capable of stamping out their DVDs for pennies apiece? They’d lose their 800 per cent profit margin if they couldn’t rely on sweatshop labour!

and

Because pirates with video cameras in Montreal theatres are filming bilingual releases with camcorders and Canada is a jumping-off point for distributing those bilingual releases in Europe. Seriously, that’s what they claim. But there’s a big problem with that theory. Europe is not bilingual. Europe is multi-lingual. Perhaps some movies are being distributed in France, but I seriously doubt it’s as bad as the movie industry claims. Where are the English-German releases coming from? The English-Finnish releases? Canada, I guess, because it’s bilingual.

Whenever there's a piracy bust here in Toronto, which could be soon if that Korea Herald article is any indication, the police and the media always make reference to the "poor quality" of the bootlegs seized and the fact that they're shot off screens in Montreal where the laws are more lax or something (which has largely been debunked). I suspect their thinking is that they'll throw off potential customers with lines like that, but the truth is, most of the bootlegs over here—and probably abroad— are taken from the original digital source components (transfers, menus, extras, etc.), not people sitting in theatres in Montreal with camcorders (that's only done for the "early shoppers" it seems). And these digital sources, as in original, store-bought DVDs, rarely come from Canada or the United States. The giveaway has always been the inclusion of European subtitles (Swedish, Finnish, German, etc., as quoted above) or Asian subtitles (simplified and traditional Chinese, Thai, Malaysian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean) that rarely if ever show up on North American new releases. And yes, I've seen some of these discs, so I speak from shameful (but very rare) experience, though my dumpster diving for legit $2 VCDs in the past year or so is largely a result of the bootleggers in this town.

It is nice to see some media articles finally acknowledging that much of this material is coming from overseas factories that are already licenced to produce legitimate DVDs, and which thus have ready access to all the components needed to produce copious knockoffs in the off hours, as is suggested in this bit from the Herald article:

They added that the Johor Baru raid also showed just how rampant illegal disc manufacturing is in Malaysia, as the raided factory was actually a licensed disc manufacturer which also produced legitimate DVDs and VCDs.

Which of course brings us back to yet another telling quote from the Campbell River Mirror piece:

It’s actually more difficult to find a legit DVD than it is to find copies in some countries. But the movie industry doesn’t want to raise a stink because then where else would they be able to find factories capable of stamping out their DVDs for pennies apiece? They’d lose their 800 per cent profit margin if they couldn’t rely on sweatshop labour!

If nothing else, perhaps this 12-country sweep might finally make a dent (though I doubt it), but the real shame is that few people will ultimately be aware of just how steep the mark-up is on most North American DVD releases. I used to think CDs were worse, but I'm not so sure anymore! If the studios lowered their prices into the range that most Hong Kong distributors charge for new releases (which seems to be about $10-$15 US, or less), they might actually take a bite out of the bootleg business AND sell more units to boot.

That ING article (http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37545) is just priceless. Must take balls to actually try and get pictures of some of these folks! Those snaps taken in the Shenzhen "DVD" store might as well have been taken here!

[bkasten]

Is Andy Lau really that short?

Ah...

Andy is just under 5'9. Danny Wu is 6'1. Louis Koo is 5'11.

Somethin' ain't right here...

[dleedlee]

Thanks everyone, all these years and I never realized Andy was so short. That's a tribute to the magic of movie making I guess.