News Links - 4/19/07

[dleedlee]

Faye Wong May Return in 2008 to Sing at Olympics!
http://english.cri.cn/3086/2007/04/19/63@217944.htm

Tony Leung Returns to "The Battle of Red Cliff" Entourage
http://english.cri.cn/3086/2007/04/19/63@217968.htm
Leung returns to Woo's 'Battle'
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/con ... dceba0384d
Casting woes on John Woo's new epic resemble musical chairs
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/ ... g-Woes.php

Interview: Hong Kong's Legendary Johnnie To!
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=19900

Indonesia: Three Days to Forever - review
http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/1208/1/

Feng Xiaogang joins anti-piracy campaign
http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/1205/1/

Duelling malls
The massive Pacific Mall has a new competitor across the street. Welcome to Splendid China Tower, which ramps up the Asian influence at Steeles and Kennedy in Markham, writes ANDREA LAU
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... t/Ontario/

Let It Be Some Other 'Asian'
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/vi ... b3dbbbe5a3

[dleedlee]

"Crystal" Liu Yifei Signs with William Morris Agency
http://english.cri.cn/3086/2007/04/19/53@218224.htm

New Animated Feature "The Warrior" is a Mongolian Fairytale
http://english.cri.cn/3086/2007/04/19/53@218221.htm

[duriandave]

The latest issue of Jump Cut focuses on Chinese film... and the articles are available online. I haven't read any of them yet. Since Jump Cut is an academic magazine, your mileage may vary. Still, there is bound to be something of interest to somebody.

http://www.ejumpcut.org/currentissue/index.html

[dleedlee]

Thanks, David!

[Brian Thibodeau]

Duelling malls
The massive Pacific Mall has a new competitor across the street. Welcome to Splendid China Tower, which ramps up the Asian influence at Steeles and Kennedy in Markham, writes ANDREA LAU
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... t/Ontario/

Geez, Dennis. You know this city better than I do!

Actually, we went to the Splendid China Tower back in February when it had its Grand Opening. It's amazing what they've done with the place. It used to be a Canadian Tire store (our national Automotive/Housewares chain up here). They took what used to be one big cavernous store, converted it into two storeys and filled them with probably 100 or more individual little glass cubicle shops.

You'll note the passing reference to "pirate DVDs" in that story, which brings up the usual troubling issue in this town. Everyone knows about them, everyone buys them, the police crack down, and they're selling them again a day or two later. The bootlegs have almost come to symbolize the Chinese in this city, sadly, to such an extent that many of these malls would have a bit more trouble finding retailers without them! Case in point: on the day we were there, as we were browsing the sparkly new glass corridors, I counted SIX stores selling bootleg DVDs. ALL of them were open for business because, really, how hard can it be to set up a few racks and a cash register?

Then I started thinking about the "food chain" of complicity behind something like this. A couple of local Realtors had set up offices in the mall, and it was obvious they had leased the store space to these sellers. So there's Century 21 and Re/Max hushing things up. Then there's the owners, the investors and so on. Boggles the mind.

And don't get me started on the astronomical number of optical stores in these places!

While it's tough to avoid seeing boots every time one visits these places—as well as the friggin' annoying non-Asians hollering into their cellphones "have we seen this? have we seen that?" there ARE, thankfully a few legit retailers still slugging it out across the street at Pacific Mall and Market Square, as well as down the road at the various places I get my cheap-o VCDs. Hope they can survive this latest juggernaut!

[bkasten]

Let It Be Some Other 'Asian'
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/vi ... b3dbbbe5a3

Excellent article, and recommended reading for all forum members.

[Brian Thibodeau]

Excellent article, and recommended reading for all forum members.

So true, especially during a week when the mainstream media will actually publish an article like this one under the guise of relevancy:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP ... ation.html

[Mike Thomason]

Let It Be Some Other 'Asian'
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/vi ... b3dbbbe5a3

Excellent article, and recommended reading for all forum members.

Indeed, an outstanding piece that makes one realise that, although there are more Asian people per capita across the world, just how marginalised the Western media, and inturn Western world, makes the Asian populations of the world feel. What DEEPLY saddens me is that, although the Viriginia tech gunman lived in the US since he was eight years of age and spent all of his formative years in the US (thereby effectively being as "American" as anyone else around him), the media have since gone on to play the race card -- lift Cho's life and American citizenship out of the equation -- and once again shift the "blame" onto outside parties further fuelling the xenophobic race-hate that I see developing all around me every day.

I wonder when people are going to start standing up and questioning the media and challenging it over the steady stream of racial vilification it bombards us with and its accountability over the race-hate that it is building in the Western world on a daily basis? Good Lord...most lesser eduacted people out there these days seem to believe that "Muslim" is a race, not a religion! And trust me, as someone who is married to an Asian and travels amidst SE Asia, there is growing concern (as well as mounting animosity) amongst the Asian races over the ever escalating xenophobia and racial injustice that Western culture has started to recommence cultivating against them in recent times. One only needs to watch any contemporary film from one of the Asian regions to see pointed comment on Western culture, intervention, interjection, politics and foreign policy to see that the tide is turning against us...