Michelle Kwan in a class of her own
Four-time world champ: Other skaters 'not even close,' former coach says
SALT LAKE, Utah -
Michelle
Kwan says this is the time of her life and when you consider she's already won
four world championships in women's figure skating and made millions along the
way, that statement takes in a lot of territory.
Still, there's something about the Olympic
experience which has touched a very deep and profound place in the American
skater's soul. She marched proudly in the opening ceremonies. She opted to
reside in the athletes' village and practise at the Olympic training sites
when teammates Sasha Cohen and Sarah Hughes headed to Lake Arrowhead, Cal.,
and Colorado Springs respectively.
Kwan, the 21-year-old from Torrance, Cal., enters
the women's competition and tonight's short program as the odds-on to capture
the gold which teen queen Tara Lipinski snatched from her in Nagano four years
ago. This time around her challengers include a new generation of pixies, the
16-year-old Hughes and the 17-year-old Cohen, along with a trio of Russian
women led by jumping machine Irina Slutskaya. But this time around there also
seems something almost predestined about Kwan and the women's competition.
"Michelle is the best in the world by
far," said Frank Carroll who, until recently, was Kwan's longtime coach.
"You can point out little things other people do better. But when you
look at the overall picture, I'm sorry, it's not even close."
This opinion, we might add, comes from a man who
Kwan dumped as her coach this year. Her father Danny is now in Salt Lake with
a coaching credential but Kwan says little has changed since she fired
Carroll.
"I don't even think about it," said.
Kwan,
who also split with Canadian choreographer Lori Nichol this year. "The
preparation is the same and I feel the same way on the ice." - The
Province 19 February 2002
KOREA
World figure skating champion Kim Yu-Na wins Olypmic gold
Four years ago, Ziyi Zhang, who had
literally soared to the attention of Hollywood as a nobleman's beautiful
daughter in ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,'' arranged to meet Steven
Spielberg. She knew he was interested in directing the best-seller ''Memoirs
of a Geisha,'' and though Zhang is Chinese and geishas are Japanese, she
recognized the scarcity of great parts for Asian actresses and wanted him to
consider her for the title role. It was a peculiar meeting. Aside from the
question of nationality, Zhang did not speak English. Ang Lee, the director of
''Crouching Tiger,'' had suggested that she learn the language, but she
ignored him. Although she's ambitious, at the time she was not concentrating
on the West. ''In China, they don't care about American films,'' Zhang
reasoned. ''And no one thought 'Crouching Tiger' would be so successful.''
So when Zhang met Spielberg, she understood
only three sentences (''Quiet, please,'' ''Action'' and ''Cut!''), and she
knew how to speak just three words: ''Hire. Me. Please.'' Spielberg laughed
when she repeated her hire-me-please mantra, but did not hire her. Eventually,
Spielberg ceded the direction of ''Geisha'' to Rob Marshall, who was nominated
for an Oscar for ''Chicago.'' And Marshall conducted his own global search for
the lead, eventually choosing Zhang. ''The word 'geisha' means 'person of the
arts' in Japanese,'' Marshall explained. ''And that means everything from the
art of conversation to dance to escorting men. Geishas were the supermodels of
their day, and Ziyi has that unusual combination of strength and grace. She
has a great spirit, but outwardly she can seem fragile. And,'' Marshall said,
laughing, ''her English had improved.''
Although Zhang is physically tiny, there is
an overwhelming sense of quiet confidence about her. ''I'm not scared
easily,'' she said, as she ate breakfast at the Regent Beverly Wilshire in Los
Angeles last December. Zhang -- her full name is pronounced Zee-YEE Zhong --
looked like an alert teenager, wearing jeans, a pale green sweater and a
newsboy cap pulled low on her forehead. She moved with great delicacy, pouring
my tea when the cup ran low, tearing apart a small corner of her croissant
without producing a single crumb. Zhang was accompanied by her manager, Ling
Lucas, who translated. When speaking to Lucas, her voice would become
animated, and she would suddenly seem less serene, but her composure would
return immediately. ''I learned to be disciplined and organized at an early
age,'' Zhang said. ''I can take a lot of hard work, perhaps more than most.
And as a result, I am not surprised when things go well.''
Zhang is the youngest of a generation of
Chinese actresses (Maggie Cheung, with whom she starred in ''Hero,'' and Gong
Li, who is also in ''Geisha'') to become known outside of China. She recently
starred in ''House of Flying Daggers'' as the blind dancer Mei and will soon
be seen in ''2046,'' Wong Kar-wai's stunning new film. Chinese actresses, like
the Chinese movies that feature them, tend to be reminiscent of old Hollywood:
gorgeous faces in a sumptuous setting. Zhang is the most childlike of the
group, but she has a toughness in her gaze, a look of complication that is
striking. As Ang Lee told The Los Angeles Times, Zhang, after all, was ''the
hidden dragon -- the untamed nature in all of us.''
When Zhang was only 19, that expressive
combination of interest, intensity and, of course, sexuality caught the
attention of the famed Chinese director Zhang Yimou as she was auditioning for
a shampoo commercial. For years, she had been preparing for that moment --
Zhang had begun studying Chinese folk dance at the age of 11. ''I decided not
to continue with dance,'' she said, eating a single raspberry. ''I challenged
my teachers, which is a dangerous thing to do in China. One day, when I was
13, I disappeared for just a few hours. I went and lay down in a field. When
they found out I was missing, they called the police, and my mother and I went
back.'' Zhang sighed. ''Later I realized that dancing had no future, so I
decided to go to drama school at China's Central Drama Academy. That required
one week's worth of tests. Dancing, writing stories, singing and
improvisation. I was scared: thousands of students try to get in, and there
were only eight slots for eight girls.'' And here Zhang smiled and confided
her secret advantage. ''I got along with the teachers,'' she said.
Although they never made the shampoo
commercial, Zhang began a professional liaison with Yimou. Their first movie
together, ''The Road Home,'' the story of a girl's first romance set against
the Cultural Revolution, was applauded in the West. They went on to
collaborate on ''Hero'' and ''House of Flying Daggers,'' both of which were
hits in the United States. ''But I never really thought about America,'' Zhang
said. ''I never considered, how do you enter into this culture?''
Marshall, who comes from the musical
theater, was particularly impressed with Zhang's background in dance. ''It
gives you a discipline and a way to walk and move,'' he explained. ''We
rehearsed for six weeks -- I had six rooms working at all times.'' Even during
filming, the rehearsals were particularly rigorous. Said Zhang: ''On a typical
day, we shoot from 9 to 6 and then have training for everything we need to do
in the movie. I usually start at 6 a.m. and, with all the classes, work to
midnight. The language scenes are the hardest for me. You can practice the
rest.''
Zhang touched her eye, which was a little
pink. ''I wear blue contacts in the movie,'' she said. ''And they are not
easy.'' It is difficult to imagine most young American actresses adhering to
this kind of training, especially in another language. But according to
Marshall, ''Ziyi's focus is only on trying to perfect the role.'' He is also
aware that ''Geisha'' was easy compared to filming in China. ''There, they
shoot from 7 a.m. to midnight, six days a week,'' he said. ''And they consider
themselves very lucky.''
Taking a sip of orange juice, Zhang
politely explained her sense of purpose. ''I remember when I dreamed of having
this time,'' she said, looking steely but sweet. ''Not just this time, but
still more like it. And more, and more. I think I now understand America.
Hopefully, they will understand me.'' -
by Lynn Hirschberg NEW
YORK TIMES 20 Feb 2004
How China is changing Hollywood Hollywood films are increasingly showing the influences of Chinese
cinema, says director Zhang Yimou
House Of Flying Daggers received widespread acclaim
Thanks to his two international hits, Hero and House
Of Flying Daggers, Zhang is one of China's most high-profile directors.
The particular style of martial art in these pictures,
termed wushu, has cropped up in a number of US movies - most notably in Quentin
Tarantino's Kill Bill films, he says.
"Because of the influence of Chinese martial arts
films, Hollywood movies are changing," Zhang told the BBC's The Culture
Show.
"The actions in the films are more beautiful,
more rhythmic, and use some enhanced special effects. I think it's a great
thing."
'Refreshing'
Martial arts epic Hero tells the story of Emperor Qin
Shihuang's campaign to unify China more than 2,000 years ago.
The film went to the top of the US box office chart
and has so far taken more than $50m (£26m) - a relatively large amount for a
foreign film in the US.
House Of Flying Daggers has done less well, managing
around $10m (£5m).
Zhang says he had already noticed aspects of Asian
films in Western cinema, particularly since the success of Crouching Tiger
Hidden Dragon in 2000.
"To Western audiences, Crouching Tiger Hidden
Dragon, for example, is seen as something very refreshing - to see man-powered
flight.
"But now there are more and more of these kinds
of films, American movies have also begun to adopt these kinds of scenes with
people flying.
"So after watching lots of these films, people
will get used to seeing this exaggerated artistic style, and it won't be so
strange any more."
Zhang says he believes appreciation for a film can be
"universal", pointing out that people who had "no idea"
about Emperor Qin had enjoyed Hero.
"What attracts them, I believe, is the movie's
form, the use of colour, its music," he says. "They are attracted by
the mood of the movie."
Universal appeal
Zhang says film-goers can also gain "cultural and
historical information" from his work.
"Western audiences can gain an impression of
China from my films. This is an excellent channel for promoting China's
culture," he says.
But he adds: "Many things, feelings especially,
are common to all human beings.
"As long as the film appeals to universal human
feelings, all audiences will enjoy it."
Before Hero and House Of Flying Daggers, Zhang did not
have the budget to make large-scale, epic pictures.
His previous films included the low-budget, though
critically-acclaimed, Red Sorghum and Raise the Red Lantern.
However, he says Hero's success does not mean he will
now become solely interested in major productions.
"When I look back at the times I shot artistic
movies, I found I learnt quite a lot from them.
"So in the future, I hope to do both - make more
personal films which I prefer; and in certain circumstances, I will shoot some
other commercial movies like these two." - BBC
NEWS10 March, 2005
Classic Asian Talent
As TaiTai 太太
Rebecca says, who looks better in a cheong sam than
Maggie Cheung?!
One on One with Maggie Cheung Asian CineVision / Eugene Kuo
Asia Society presents video highlights and
text excerpts from this interview. Watch and meet the artist and woman behind
these incredible works.
Celebrating the special artistry of Maggie Cheung as
part of the Cinevisionary Tribute at the 28th Asian American International
Film festival, Asian CineVision and The Film Society of Lincoln
Center sponsored a special evening with the renowned actress. Awarded
Best Actress for her work in Olivier Assayas's Clean at the 2004
Cannes Film Festival, Maggie Cheung has appeared in over 80 films and has
worked with directors such as Jackie Chan, Wong Kar Wai, Johnny To, Ann Hui,
Stanley Kwan, and Olivier Assayas. Clips of some of her most memorable
performances were screened during this discussion with Film Society's Kent
Jones.
Text Excerpts
KJ: Now, you said that you weren’t trained
as an actress. I am sure almost everyone in the audience probably knows a lot
of details about your career, but how did you start and how did you get
interested in acting?
MC: How I got started and how I got interested in
acting are two different things and many years apart. Actually I started
modeling in ‘82 and I was “the new kid in town” because I just came back
from England and suddenly was quite popular in that world. I was a new face at
the young tender age of 17. So I was getting a lot of commercials to do and by
the end of the year I had done too many. I was overly exposed on TV. I would
have three commercials on the TV coming back to back, doing different
products, and I could see that my career as a model was ending already after
one year. So it was either I go back to England to carry on my studies or do
something else like find a job.
At that time my modeling agency gave me forms for
the next Miss Hong Kong beauty pageant and they said that I had a great chance
and they could sponsor me. So I spoke to my mom and it was a one shot thing.
Either it is going to work or I am going to go back because I wasn’t going
to hang around in Hong Kong to model. I just felt it was time to move on. So I
entered the pageant and was first runner up and right after that a film
director called me, Wong Jing, to be in his film. And I said, “Yeah sure.”
Then I did three or four years working like that, not really caring what I was
doing. It was a lot of fun - a good excuse not go to University yet and a good
excuse to hang out. I was earning money all of sudden. I just carried on and
made more and more films and I didn’t know how to say “no” to people and
didn’t know what I wanted as an actress. I didn’t see myself as an
actress, so I just did it. It went up to As Tears Go By, Wong Kar
Wai’s first film, and that is where I thought “acting is kind of fun.”
Wong Kar Wai was asking something from me that I didn’t think I could do and
I didn’t think anyone would ask that of me.
KJ: What was that?
MC: I remember there was an emotional scene where I
was saying good-bye to Andy Lau at a bus stop. We had to retake that scene the
next day because I was not very good. I thought I had been good because I had
been crying and crying, but Wong Kar Wai said, “It is not about that. It is
not about how many tears drop out of your eyes or how emotional you are.” I
said, “No? But you ask me to cry and I am crying, why am I doing it
wrong?” He said, “But when you cry you should try to hold back. Nobody
cries just like that. The minute you feel the sting in your eyes your first
reaction should be ‘I don’t want to cry,’ and to hold it back.” These
are layers of acting and at that point I was beginning to be in touch with it.
Because acting is acting, but when you are playing a part that is human, we
have many dimensions and layers that are not that straightforward.
KJ: It is not just about reviewing emotions moving
in a straight line.
MC: Yes, whereas at that time I thought it was. When
I was playing in Jackie Chan films, he said, “Be in pain because I just kick
you down the stairs.” So I would be literally in pain. It’s not just that.
You are sad, you are in pain, and you’re frustrated. There are many things
when someone kicks you down the stairs. You are not just in pain.
KJ: Except with Jackie Chan, right? How many
movies did you make with Jackie Chan?
MC: Five. Three Police Stories and there is
one called Double Dragon and Project A2.
KJ: You had a lot of fun.
MC: We did. Fun, yes because also I was not
demanding anything of myself so I was much more relaxed and more ready to have
fun. It was what it was all about for me.
KJ: You were not trained in stunts and martial arts.
You have said you haven’t enjoyed it very much, is that right?
MC: I am scared of dying all the time. No, I
didn’t use to be scared of it, but then I had this big serious accident on Police
Story Part 2 and they had to cut my head open. I had 17 stitches on top
of my head. Since that accident I have always been scared of doing action
films. It was such a stupid accident and it shouldn’t have happened. But
when I was lying in the hospital for a month, because it was so sensitive the
doctor didn’t want any chance of any germs on to there, they had to shave
all my head in the front. So they said if I ever got an allergy, my hair
wouldn’t grow back. So I said, “I am not leaving the hospital. I am
staying until it grows!” During that time lying there doing nothing I
thought, “God no one can really help when you are hurt.” When you are on
set there are hundreds of people helping you, but once an accident happens and
you are there, you are really alone. So since then I haven’t been fond of
action.
KJ: And yet you still do it.
MC: When I have to, yes.
KJ: Is it something you are physically not
comfortable doing?
MC: I don’t think I am that talented with it in
the first place. I am not like Michelle [Kwon]. She really has the rhythm and
the dance background. She is very light and quick in her reaction. I am kind
of slow, when I see a sword coming I think, “Which hand should I use to
defend!” I don’t have the instincts to do it. For Michelle, it is really
like a dance sequence. The more it is not right, the more I get scared. You
have to be very relaxed and trust your instincts.
KJ: But do you find yourself trusting the
director because it usually turns out looking good?
MC: Because the stunts are really good. As long as
you can do a few things on your own, they can cheat the whole thing really
well. You have to do at least the beginning, the end, and the middle.
[Audience laughs] Otherwise I don’t even need to go to set.
KJ: I wonder if that kind of work that you
did actually contributed somehow to what you learned as an actress?
MC: You mean the action side? Yes, I think it helps
also with your physical appearance, even if it is not an action film. Even
with walking, you are a bit more aware of your body. For me actually when I
get into a part, I very often use the physical side first. I work on the body
language before anything else. It is a strange way, but once I have that it
takes me there. Once I walk or move in her way then it takes me into the
character.
KJ: When you say you work on the body
language, it is also a way of gesturing and a way of comporting yourself in
general?
MC: It’s a bit of designing, but without a huge
effort. It is the idea. For instance, I imagine a character would be moving
very smooth, and once you have a start, the rest just comes.
KJ: In terms of something different like the
clip that we saw before from Actress, did you find that for yourself
through the movies that you watched or did you have to find it your own way?
MC: Actually this is where it started for me, the
physical thing. I remember Stanley said to me, “Watch her, watch her. I
wouldn’t say she is the most beautiful woman or the best actress, but watch
her body language. She is amazing.” So I started watching and I didn’t
even know what body language was, and then I watched her and yes she does have
a presence, which is more than her beauty. I found myself hypnotized by the
way she moved more than what was on her face because also these were silent
films and you are really looking for every sign of the body of what it is
trying to tell. When it comes from there, I’ve learned and developed my own
thing and realized how important that is in a film.
KJ: I would imagine it is especially
important in Wong Kar Wai films. It seems to be the way he works with the
actress.
MC: It is something that he especially likes. He
likes [pause] beautiful women. He particularly likes to see how they move.
KJ: He seems to build mosaics out of movement and
that is something that is very important to him.
MC: For In the Mood for Love (2000), we
shot for six months. We didn’t even know what we were shooting. He didn’t
either. It is the scene where I am walking to get take away - that walk they
did in slow motion. That was the first slow motion we did. When we saw the
dailies he just said, “This is it, this is it.” So he made me watch it 50
times and then I said, “Okay, I know this is it, but what more? This can’t
just be it!” [laughs] But that is how it developed. We found the first thing
in common to go for.
KJ: Do you like doing comedy?
MC: Yes, but then I haven’t done them in so long
that I am really dying to do one. I don’t think I have done one since having
this “improved mind” of acting. When I did my last comedy, more than 10
years ago, I had a different way of acting, a different understanding. I think
I was trying to be funny all the time and I was not funny. So now I would love
to do another one without trying to be funny. Hopefully I will be funny. I
want to give it one more shot before I say I am not funny.
KJ: I have always thought you were pretty
funny. Would not Irma Vep (1996) be a comedy?
MC: Yes, but it is more a black comedy. It is not
the same kind of comedy. Comedy for me is like Steven Chow. They are funny. I
don’t know if they are popular here.
KJ: Yes, they are now, but probably not as much as
they should be. But Kung Fu Hustle is very popular.
MC: People are going to watch his older works. They
are really funny, really seriously!
KJ: Do you feel you have a nice rapport with
Leon Lai? It seems like it when you watch this film.
MC: Yes, we got on really well.
KJ: You had mentioned before that Irma
Vep was another transition movie for you. I was wondering what you meant.
MC: It was almost a restart, a stage two. During the
two years break that I had, I wasn’t sure if I was going to act again, or
whether I would go on to do something else, move somewhere, get married, or
have kids. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I just knew that I did
too much and I was repeating my work and I was fed up. I didn’t look forward
to going to set. I felt it is time to maybe stop. So I just did my own stuff
for two years. I found a life and found more friends. And then Olivier came
along, and then Soong Sisters and this one.
KJ: To speak about Irma Vep, what
was it like playing someone who is suppose to be you but isn’t you in a way
too? I would imagine that would be a really interesting process to go through.
MC: It was, and also it was kind of a relief because
I thought I didn’t have to do anything. Not in a lazy way this time, but
more that I don’t have to pretend or design anything. I was quite happy to
think that someone will take me as I am. I also liked the idea of being
anonymous in France. Yes, it is great to be on set in Hong Kong when you have
20 people serving you, dressing you. They can all be working on you at the
same time. One could be fixing your hair, one’s on make up, one’s doing
your buttons, one’s fixing your shoes, one’s handing you tea and wiping
your face. I just felt isolated from the crew. People respected you a bit too
much and I was kind of lonely on set. I was not hanging out with the crew
anymore, but that’s how it became. So that is why I liked going on the set
for Irma Vep when the French didn’t have any idea who I was and
they chatted with me all the time and let me sit on the floor and eat my lunch
without offering me a chair. But all that was a breath of fresh air. I liked
it. I enjoyed being part of the crew more than the actress and that
made me enjoy being on a film set again. I think also from then on I knew how
I would handle myself on a film set. I would make the distance less even if
they were setting it. I think some people will feel intimidated when they are
with someone famous so they try to keep their distance because of shyness. I
know I have to be the one to break the ice, to go and speak to them; otherwise
they would never come to me.
KJ: And that film is what did that for you.
You said you didn’t have to design anything for it and yet it is not you, it
is a character Maggie Cheung. There must have been a certain design involved?
MC: No, Olivier really told me do whatever I wanted.
So I didn’t have any pressure to deliver anything. It was really up to me.
So I really didn’t think about what I was going to do. Actually that film
caught one magic moment and it is still one of the biggest magic moments of my
experience in films. It is that I managed to blush on screen, and I think that
is so hard to come by unless it is real. It is one thing I still don’t think
a very good actor can do easily. You can act shy and do all that it is to be
shy in a role, but to really see the red coming up is not easy. I think in Irma
Vep I had that one magic moment and I still remember it.
KJ: In the party scene?
MC: Yes, when Bulle says Nathalie is in love with
me. I was just laughing and then blushing. It was because Olivier said to do
what you want and I didn’t have to think about what am I doing in the next
shot. This is why I got this magic moment. I think they’re precious.
KJ: The experience of shooting [2046] must
have been a great adventure. To be finding the movie and character and the
story with the director as you’re going must have been a really wonderful
adventure in your life and your career.
MC: It is now that it is over. It was 15 months and
it was difficult at the time and I had just got married and I was taken away
from my home for 15 months. Whereas when I packed to go it was suppose to be
three months, and then became five months, and then seven months. It just
added up all this time that I was away from Olivier. I also had to deal with
the part. The hair and makeup were a pain. It was five hours everyday. I
wouldn’t say it was enjoyable, but now looking back it was an amazing
experience.
KJ: How different is it to be finding a
character in this way, in an organic experience like that? Aside from the time
difference, how does it compare to an experience like Actress or even
Comrades where you are approaching a character and in your words
“designing it.” It must be vastly different mentally.
MC: Yes, and it also took so long. It is partially
my fault as well. After 6 months I didn’t know what I was doing. Kar Wai
just kept shooting and he wanted to see what we could give him, and I was
holding back because I thought, “Well if you aren’t going to give me
anything to do than I am not going to do anything,” until he wore me out
that I didn’t care about it anymore. I went on set and just did it. That is
when it all came, so in a way I should thank him for giving me all that time.
It took me six months to open up to him. I was a little shy to just give when
there is nothing on the paper. You have to be quite confident to do that and I
don’t think I am that confident on set. I am quite vulnerable sometimes and
like to be led. Once I found that direction then I can go on my own
imagination but in the beginning I didn’t want to make the first move. I
didn’t feel like I knew what I wanted to be. I wanted him to give me
something and I would build it with him. In the end, I couldn’t wait anymore
and so I just did it. Otherwise it would have lasted forever - him
waiting for him and I waiting for him.
KJ: You would still be shooting.
MC: I would still be shooting, and 2046
would not have happened yet.
KJ: Did you feel prepared for that kind of
experience from your previous experiences with him [Wong Kar Wai]. I know As
Tears Go By was a different kind of movie, but with Days of Being
Wild or Ashes of Time?
MC: I think he just got more and more like that with
every single film. For As Tears Go By we finished on time. We were
just a few days over. For Days of Being Wild we were three months
over, and for Ashes of Time we were six months over. And then he did
an incredible thing. He did Chung King Express (1994) in it about 3
weeks, without me though! Fallen Angels (1995) was
quite quick. It took thee months, without me. Happy Together (1997)
he took a while. And then for In the Mood for Love we broke all the
records - 15 months. 2046 from start to end was a long period, but he
was not constantly on that project. We did In the Mood for Love in
between. 2046 started before In the Mood for Love. Then In
the Mood for Love started and stopped and then he went to 2046
and then he finished In the Mood for Love. The two films were kind of
together. That is why 2046 ended up lasting for four years.
KJ: At the end of the process of In the
Mood for Love, was it a satisfying experience?
MC: You mean at the wrap? Yes, it was satisfying. It
was also sad. But we were also going to Cannes the next week. So it was a very
contradictory feeling. So you are sad for one minute and the next you are
thinking, “What am I going to wear?” We were dubbing and then I was taking
the flight that night to go to Cannes. And Kar Wai was saying, “I am coming
tomorrow,” and he ended up taken a few more days to come because he had to
reedit, but it was a crazy moment. Really crazy… fun.
KJ: You were saying that the makeup and hair
were really involved, and the dresses too. I would imagine this really
helped to find that woman.
MC: Physically yes. But then it was hard because it
was mostly night shoots, from 6am to 6pm. We would all go home and it would
take me about 2 hours to wash out the hairspray and knots. I would go to bed
by 10pm and then get up by 1am to start for hair and makeup to be ready by
6am. It was like that constantly and it was not enjoyable at the time, but
then once I was in it all, I just had to look at it and say, “Okay I
know what to do now.”
KJ: I know you have a great working
relationship with Tony Leung, but there must have been an incredible level of
trust based on what you see on the screen.
MC: Funnily enough everyone thinks we have worked
together so many times but I worked with him when I was 19 years old for a TV
drama. We were both working for television at the time, but since then I had
not worked with him again. We have been in the same films together but not the
same scene. So actually In the Mood for Love was our first movie.
KJ: But am I correct is saying that there is
a level of trust between the two of you and there is a really interesting
chemistry?
MC: Sure, I think because we were kids when we met
and we were acting on a very different level and then we separately and went
our ways. We both developed our own skills and learned our own things a long
the way and to get together again after all these years was wonderful because
he was just how I imagined him to be. In a way we haven’t changed since all
those years, but we have just gotten better at what we are doing, at least I
hope. At least a little bit better.
KJ: Before we go to the next clip, I wanted
to go back to what you were saying before about how you feel now at this
moment that you have arrived at a new level of understanding about acting.
What is that for you?
MC: To completely let go and not to be nervous
anymore when you hear, “Roll the camera!” It is very natural to have this
feeling when you hear that because you know that thing, what ever that may be,
will last forever. I never imagined we would be watching these clips. Now we
know film will last forever. It’s going digital and it is going to last. But
10 or 15 years ago the idea that film is going to last forever was new and
then at some point you realize that it is going to last forever now with video
tapes and everything. People are going to watch these films after 50 years. I
think I have always had this nervous thing about when they roll the camera,
but now I am quite relaxed. I am completely the same before you roll and after
you roll. Before I was like, “Okay, let’s do it.” There was a lot
more going on in getting ready. But now I just know, “Okay, just go into it
and just get into it.” Now I don’t even think about when am I going take a
sip of water, when am I going to look that way, I just know if I react
properly and if I focus, it will come. I don’t need to plan it.
KJ: Did you feel that way while making Clean
(2004)?
MC: Yes, definitely. It was the first try-out of
this method for me. This was a method that I wanted to try but I didn’t know
if I could do it. Clean was the first chance because it was the right
opponent. Olivier can do that with me. Whereas with Zhang Yimou of Hero
(2002), maybe I was already trying but it didn’t work with that film. It is
not what he is looking for and you can’t force it. And In the Mood for
Love was not about that either. I haven’t done so many contemporary
films.
KJ: So when you were making Clean
you were feeling this new technique of working? How did it feel in relation to
this movie and this character? You have never really played a character like
this before.
MC: When I read the script that was the first feeling I
had. It was the only way to do it. We have all seen a thousand times people
playing a junkie and it is so hard not to go into that way to play a junkie,
of all that physical stuff. I think that is all we think of when we think of a
junkie. But in real life Olivier and I have a couple of friends who have been
through this experience and they are nothing like that. WhenI read the script
I knew I couldn’t not do it the normal way. So I said, “Okay, I am going
to try this new way that I have always wanted to do and haven’t had the
chance.” So I just put the script away and did not look at it again until I
was on the set. That was one year’s time in between. That is quite unusual
because you know this project is coming up and you are going play your part
soon and maybe it is time to learn your lines, but I tried not to learn
anything about her. I wanted to react to Nick and Béatrice and to other
actors. I wanted to see what they were going to give me and I was going to
react as Emily and that’s it and not think about what Emily should be.
KJ: Did it feel right away that it was
happening for you the way you wanted?
MC: Yes, because we did the film in sequence so it
started out in Canada and I was “the bitch,” that hysterical woman. And
then she calmed down and tried to get clean. So it helped a lot that we were
doing it in sequence and to feel the whole thing building up and what she has
been going through and where it has taking her. It really helps the character.
KJ: It is interesting because what you say about
junkies in movies is true. You keep seeing the same story of people lifting
themselves up and taking pride in themselves and that is part of her character
and yet at the same time at the end she is a different human being but it is
not because she has redeemed herself it is just that changes happened.
MC: It is for real. In real life we can change in a
year. Something major happens to you and that can suddenly make you a
different person. Not differently completely but the way to see things or
react to things.
KJ: Yes, it as if she is different in the end but
almost not knowing quite how she got there.
KJ: Is there a project that is coming up?
MC: Yes or no, I don’t know. I am interested in
something but I don’t know if is happening so I am kind of waiting for
something to happen.
KJ: We are hoping it is a comedy.
MC: I hope it is a comedy. I am sure that will come
if I say it enough in front of journalists and if it is written enough then
maybe people well say, “Oh let’s give her a comedy.”
KJ: Spread the word folks. Maggie Cheung wants to do
a comedy. -- AsiaSource
Photo: Louie Palu/Globe
and Mail
Hong Kong film star in Toronto during the International Film
Festival.
7 questions for Maggie Cheung
Actor, beauty, Asian film icon. Seventy-nine movies
so far. Born Sept. 20, 1964, in Hong Kong; raised from age 8 in England. In
1983, began a modelling career after winning first runner-up in the Miss Hong
Kong pageant.
Chances are, Maggie Cheung could have passed you on
the sidewalk and you wouldn't have rubbernecked. Given to wearing simple black
attire and pulled-back hair, Cheung doesn't even immediately trigger visions
of her graceful warrior turn in the international box-office blockbuster Hero
or any of the dozens of kung-fu films she has starred in since taking on the
role of Jackie Chan's girlfriend in 1985's Police Story. Her stark,
everyday style is more akin to the look of Emily, her character in the new
film Clean, for which she won the best-actress prize at Cannes.
Written and directed by Cheung's now-ex-husband,
Olivier Assayas, Clean is a British/Canadian/French co-production that
opens with the heroin overdose of Emily's rock-star-has-been husband in a
seedy motel room in Hamilton. With Nick Nolte playing her well-meaning
father-in-law, we follow Cheung's punky drug addict as she struggles with a
tenuous relationship with her son, in London and Paris, and speaking English,
French and Cantonese. (In person, her faint British accent mingles with a dash
of Hong Kong diction.) Clean is a quiet, poignant turn for Cheung, the
kind of work that recently inspired The New York Times to ask, "Why Isn't
Maggie Cheung a Hollywood star?"
There are details in Clean, such as Emily's first
meal after emerging from a prison term for drug possession, in which she
voraciously devours a diner meal. It rang true as the action of a recovering
addict. How did you find the mannerisms that would make Emily believable?
Olivier and I have friends who have had this
problem. They are what they are. They're not the junkies you see in films. One
day one of them will be spaced out and smelling slightly bad. Then a few days
later, you see him shaved and smelling better and you know he hasn't taken it
for a few days. I didn't do any more research for the part. I've seen it and
the data is in there. I just had to find the file and open it.
Nick Nolte has been very open about his own history
with addiction. Did he offer you any insight about drugs?
He did it in a very subtle way. He didn't say,
"Oh I know what this is, let me tell you." It was never like that.
But during a scene, he would suddenly say, "I know that. That's happened
to me." And I would listen. It all helped. And he'd give me confidence.
He'd tell me, "Maggie, that's good."
The audience has to wait until near the end of the
film for what is perhaps Emily's biggest emotional outburst, which happens
when her life seems to be back on track. Why the wait?
For me, it was, "At last, whoever is up there
is finally giving me something good." It's her first realization that she
can do it. All along she is trying and she thinks she can, but she never
confirms it. She's never had any achievements in her life up to this point.
It's almost like the end of Kill Bill when Uma Thurman was holding her
teddy bear and crying "thank you, thank you."
Throughout the film, we're just not convinced she'll
succeed. Was it emotionally intense for you to keep her on the edge like that?
Yes and that's the way it is for all junkies. Each
day is a new day, a new struggle. And there's Emily's son, too. He gives her a
reason to be strong. In the film, there is a shot of a letter she writes
asking for help from [the musician and actor] Tricky. They wrote a dummy for
the shoot. I said, "This is all fake. This isn't what Emily would
say." I [wrote another] myself and Olivier was happy with it. There were
little mistakes, and a "p.s. I found a job." It was a quick moment
in the film. We don't really see it, but I wrote, "this child is
important to me because it's my only link to sanity. Without this link I don't
think I can go on."
How does a film like Clean fit into your career thus
far?
Since Hero, the next movie was Clean.
I used to do a lot, up to nine or 10 films a year. In 1994, I stopped for two
years. Then I made three films back to back. Since then, I do one every two
years. Because I do so little, they become more. People will remember them
more because it's not every month that you see a film with the same actor --
it gets very boring. Nicole Kidman is so great as an actress, but I think
she's doing too much. I'm bored with her [movie] posters. Up to Moulin
Rouge, her choices were brilliant. Then there was Cold Mountain and
they've all become one for me. I want to avoid that.
The Chinese people see you as one of their own.
There was a pointed question at a press conference about Emily not being
particularly Chinese. Olivier Assayas has said that he wanted to write a film
for you in which you were not an archetypal Chinese woman in a Western film.
Still, do you feel people look to you to represent them?
Cannes was a good example. When I went back to Hong
Kong, you could feel everybody was proud that this Hong Kong local has done
that. But I also felt their regret that Clean is not a Hong Kong film.
And that struck me: "Wow, it makes a difference for you guys." For
me it doesn't, because I'm just doing my job. Whether it's Hero or In
the Mood for Love. I have no personal problem with doing a nude scene in a
film; however I can't do it because it would go to my country, and the people
are not going to accept that. I have to respect that. Even though we can say
the European or North American market is bigger, no, for me, I want Hong Kong
to be my main market. They want to own me and I want to own them. It's out of
willingness.
Was it surreal for you to have Hero open in Canada
right around the same time as Clean was appearing at the Toronto International
Film Festival?
Since Cannes in May, I didn't control any of it. It
just fell into place. It's my 15 minutes, as Andy Warhol would say. Also
without these last few months [up to her birthday in September], turning 40
might have made me think I'm going toward the end of my career. But it's a
great end to my 30s. It gives me nice hope for the future. I can go further in
my 40s. Once you have that in mind you make different decisions. It gives me a
lot of confidence to explore more of what I want to do. I need a break. Clean
is perfect for the self-cleansing technique. Throw it all away and start
again. And it worked. This kind of film is a risk. A lot of audiences will
feel there's no story. In Asia, they'd find it boring. But we're not looking
at the story; it's the approach of this person. These kinds of films don't
work everywhere. I just have to choose. And once in a while, put a Hero
in there. - by Tralee Pearce TORONTO
GLOBE & MAIL 4 Mar 2005
Crouching
Tiger Hidden Dragonwon rave reviews from mainstream and Asians
alike. ANG LEE's movies which swept the Oscars is testament to
the fact that the West is ready to receive more Asian talent. He
is one of Asia's best 'cross-over' talent in the west. His craft is
appreciated world-wide. He is part of a breed of 'Citizens of the
World' whose vocabulary and tastes are global -
太太
Ang Lee goes to Woodstock
The filmmaker was a teen in Taiwan when hippies
descended on Yasgur's farm. Forty years later, he's made his way back
In the summer of
1969, as Americans were getting high and muddy at the Woodstock Music &
Art Fair, some 12,700 kilometres away, Ang Lee, a ninth grader at Tainan's
Yen-Ping Junior High School in Taiwan, was cramming for the standardized
high-school entrance exam. He was studying harder than most: His father was a
high-school principal. Not placing well would bring ignominy to the family.
“Taiwan was extremely conservative back then,”
Lee said earlier this month, settling into a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria
which a publicist has rearranged to make more intimate, at his gentle request.
“You wouldn't dream of travelling abroad,” he continues, speaking in his
first language of Mandarin after finding out I'm also from Taiwan. “If you
were going overseas, it would be to study – which was a big deal. You
couldn't leave the country before completing your compulsory military service.
And during that time, if your hair was a little longer [than the standard
military cut], cops would put you in a mobile barbershop on patrol. They would
also snip off any loose threads from fraying jeans.”
From a flickering black-and-white television
newscast, the 14-year-old Lee – who would eventually go on to direct
American classics such as The Ice Storm and win an Oscar for the
trailblazing gay western, Brokeback Mountain – caught glimpses of
Woodstock. He didn't know how to pronounce any of the performers' names and
knew nothing about the mud, drugs or free love. But he yearned to be there. It
was everything his regimented world of books and exams was not. Forty years
later, he has finally made it – recreating the event and the pull it exerted
around the world in his new film Taking Woodstock .
The movie, which opens on Friday, adapts the
eponymous memoir by Elliot Tiber, who furnished a permit and his parents'
ramshackle motel to the festival's organizers, and then led them to Max
Yasgur's farm when no one else in the area would have them. Lee spins the tale
into a coming-of-age story about a young man, played by comedian Demetri
Martin, inundated with familial obligations, who finds himself at the
universe's very centre in the summer of ‘69.
Lee said that 40 years ago, the festival elicited
mixed emotions from the Taiwanese. By the late ‘60s, the United States was
established as the free-world leader and had assisted the island nation in
fending off communist China. Taiwan also was receiving American aid for its
efforts in the Vietnam War. “America was a source of security,” Lee said
softly, as if speaking to a guest in his living room.
“In that sense, the Taiwanese weren't too thrilled
with the hippie movement in America at the time because it was unstable and
anti-war. From another perspective, every aspect of American pop culture was
thought of as way cool, and the Taiwanese worshipped it.”
When he moved to the United States in 1978 to attend
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he studied theatre, Lee
finally got a taste of Woodstock through Michael Wadleigh's groundbreaking
concert film. He gradually familiarized himself with the bluesy rock vocals of
Janis Joplin and the guitar pyrotechnics of Jimi Hendrix. Most important, he
says he learned that if you remember Woodstock, you probably weren't there.
Still, Lee said he never became the sort of
aficionado who can instantly recall the festival's entire roster. With Taking
Woodstock , he preferred to focus on the atmosphere, not wanting to get
caught up in the music for fear of losing sight of the bigger picture. When
the film premiered at Cannes in May, some critics complained about its lack of
music and stage performances, either re-created or archival. But Lee was
always more interested in the attendees. Besides, he thought, iconic,
instantly recognizable songs would only distract moviegoers.
“The vast majority couldn't even see the stage,”
he said. “The only sounds they heard were faint reverberations from afar. So
the spirit of being there was what mattered. People didn't go just for the
music. It was a social movement. And also, most people there were probably
stoned, high on acid trips or free-loving – all parts of being a hippie. So
if you were really just there for the music, you probably didn't belong if you
were sober and could recall exactly what happened.”
Still, it was years before he had the idea to do a
Woodstock movie. Lee came across Tiber's memoir after meeting the author by
chance at a San Francisco radio station in 2007, and was immediately taken
with it. He had made a series of tragic films, starting with The Ice Storm
and ending with Lust, Caution , and was suffering from a bout of
depression for having immersed himself so fully in his characters' miseries. Taking
Woodstock felt to him like a throwback to the feel-good “Father Knows
Best” trilogy – Pushing Hands , The Wedding Banquet and Eat
Drink Man Woman – that had launched his career. Something about Taking
Woodstock so resonated with him that he put on hold an invitation to
direct the big-screen treatment of Canadian novelist Yann Martel's Life of
Pi . (He says he still hasn't committed fully to the film, and is waiting
for a final script.)
“I started out making these heartwarming family
dramas and comedies,” Lee said. “I really wanted to go back and revisit
that age of innocence. Woodstock embodied that for me. I had previously made The
Ice Storm and thought it represented the hangover from Woodstock. So in
contrast, this story made me warm and happy. It spoke of the age of innocence
and served as a karmic prequel to The Ice Storm .”
Lee's 1997 adaptation of Rick Moody's novel about
soulless suburbanites swapping spouses, boozing and shoplifting in the 1970s
established the director's affinity for the American spiritual malaise.
Tiber's tale about a young man's self-discovery through peace, love and rock
‘n' roll has brought Lee full circle, and to the America he idealized in his
youth.
“Innocence is not only something I try to
regain,” he said, “but also re-examine.” -
2009 August 21 GLOBE
& MAIL
Michelle Yeoh | Role Model She was married to the owner of Harvey Nichols in London
Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh poses during the 2003 MTV Style Awards
Saturday at the Shanghai Grand Theatre in Shanghai, China.
Credit: AP/Eugene Hoshiko
Michelle Yeoh, co-star of the 2001 film Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon, took home actress of the year honours at the MTV Style
Awards in Shanghai.
Awards were given out in 37 categories Saturday,
ranging from fashion design to best female rocker, and nominees included
entertainers and artists from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South
Korea.
Yeoh wowed Saturday's audience with her hair dyed
violet and glittering jewelry.
"I know it's pretty funny, but I think it looks
nice," said Yeoh, dressed in a pink fur coat and metallic miniskirt.
Yeoh promised "a breakthrough" in the
coming year, but gave no details. She made a name for herself in Hong Kong
kung fu action films, then gained attention elsewhere when she appeared with
Pierce Brosnan in Tomorrow Never Dies.
Other winners included Coco Lee for breakthrough
international artist, Edison Chan for breakthrough actor of the year and
director He Ping's kung fu epic Warriors of Heaven and Earth for Chinese film
of the year. - Associated
Press 30 Nov 2003
More NEWS STORIES
Filming on location in Tibet brought plenty of
hassles, including monster headaches from altitude sickness, says
Malaysian-born actress Michelle Yeoh, but dealing with the censors was a
breeze.
Yeoh, whose credits include Tomorrow Never Dies
in the James Bond series, has debuted as a producer in her new release The
Touch. It was shot on location in Tibet, in western China's Dunhuang and
in the eastern coastal city of Qingdao.
To ensure quick distribution of the film in China as
well as elsewhere, Yeoh and co-producer Thomas Chung teamed up with the
mainland-based Tianjin Film Studio - an arrangement that required some changes
to their script, Yeoh told the Foreign Correspondents' Club here.
In one scene of The Touch, for example, a
character originally was supposed to shoot a gun.
When the Chinese partners warned that shooting the
gun would have immediately brought out the police - not in the script - that
plan was scrapped. Instead, the character pulls the gun and then is warned not
to shoot it, "Because this is China," said the 39-year-old actress.
"China is always seen to be a difficult place
to work. But everyone has their own regulations and limits. Out of respect, we
worked with them," said Yeoh, who also stars in the film. "It's
working with them. It's not impossible."
Given the sensitivities of working in the restive
region of Tibet, the filmmakers "stuck to the script," Yeoh said.
"We didn't pull out a different script and make
a different movie, so when we got to the censors, it was easy going," she
said.
The Touch, which has premiered in Hong Kong,
mixes action, martial arts, romance and thriller genres in a tale about a
family of acrobats and their search for a mystical Buddhist artefact. It is
directed by Peter Pau.
Co-producer Chung said he found filming in China
easier than in crowded Hong Kong, where takes have to be done quickly to
minimise disruptions.
"Once it has been approved, the Chinese side
will do everything they can to assist our production," Chung said.
But there were plenty of headaches - literally. Some
members of the cast and crew, including Yeoh, were afflicted by altitude
sickness while filming at Namtso Lake, also known as Heaven's Lake, which is
4,718 metres above sea level and a four or five-hour drive from the Tibetan
capital, Lhasa.
"It was like a vice squeezing your head. No
matter what you did, nothing helped," said Yeoh, who said she still found
the beauty of the place well worth the discomfort.
Yeoh, who also filmed on location in China for Ang
Lee's Oscar-winning film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, said that as
co-producer she shared the task of versing her co-stars Ben Chaplin and
Richard Roxburgh about the ardours of filming in China.
"The first thing we told them was, 'we're going
to be filming in China. Do not, do not expect any of the frills of
Hollywood,"' she said. "It was very important for us to impart that
to them, so they would not have illusions about all that fancy stuff, because
it's cost-efficient, as well."
"Now, as a producer, I can say that. As the
actress before, I would have pooh-poohed at this idea," Yeoh said.
She also found herself handling some mundane tasks,
as when Roxburgh broke a tooth when biting the head of a roast pigeon.
"Things for a producer to do: quickly find him
a dentist," she said.
Yeoh said that she enjoyed the control that
co-producing a movie can bring, but that the meticulous attention to detail
required of directors doesn't appeal to her.
"Directing is not on my list of things to
do," Yeoh said. - Associated
Press31 July 2002
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -
Malaysian-born actress Michelle Yeoh said Wednesday she has no regrets about
rejecting a major role in the Matrix sequels to film her new movie, which she
hopes will thrill audiences as much as her last hit, Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon.
Filmed in Tibet and China, The Touch cost $20
million US to produce - $5 million more than the Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger
- and opens Thursday throughout Asia, where the action star's massive fan base
ensures rousing box-office returns.
But the movie, which enjoyed a sold-out premiere
Tuesday in Malaysia, is no retread of director Ang Lee's Chinese-language
epic. Yeoh, known for her Asian martial arts prowess, transforms herself into
a contemporary heroine reminiscent of Indiana Jones and Lara Croft of Tomb
Raider.
"There is no comparison between The Touch and
Crouching Tiger, which was a period piece," Yeoh told a news conference
in Kuala Lumpur. "The film language, the action is very modern. There's
no flying around."
But Yeoh, who co-produced the English-language
movie, believes it will not disappoint viewers in Europe - or in the United
States, where Crouching Tiger became the country's highest-grossing
foreign-language movie ever, with a box-office haul of $128 million.
"We made this movie for an international
audience," said Yeoh, who grew up in the mining town of Ipoh, 270
kilometres north of Kuala Lumpur, and began her rise to stardom after winning
the Miss Malaysia beauty pageant in 1983.
"The essence of this film looks at how East
meets West. We have all these different elements, which I'm very, very
confident will transcend whatever language, whatever culture, wherever the
place," Yeoh said.
The movie, directed by Peter Pau, who won an Oscar
for his cinematography in Crouching Tiger, features Yeoh as a trapeze acrobat
who gets tangled in a quest for a mystical Buddhist artifact.
The script is a hackneyed blend of romance, humour
and swashbuckling, but the movie soars during Yeoh's limb-twisting action
sequences and panoramic views of Tibet's Namtso Lake.
Miramax Films has bought the U.S. distribution
rights for The Touch, which is the first movie from Yeoh's new production
firm, Mythical Films. It is expected to be released in the United States later
this year.
To complete The Touch, Yeoh surprised fans early
last year when she turned down an offer by the Wachowski brothers, who courted
her to star in their sequels to the science-fiction blockbuster, The Matrix.
But Yeoh, whose biggest role so far was in Tomorrow
Never Dies in the James Bond franchise, says she doesn't mind not appearing
with Keanu Reeves when The Matrix Reloaded - the first of two planned sequels
- hits screens in May 2003.
"I don't have any regrets," Yeoh said.
"Not doing The Matrix wasn't a difficult choice, to be honest. The Touch
was the easy No. 1 choice."
Yeoh, who turns 40 next week, says she has no plans
to retire from the adrenaline-pumping movies that have been her staple for 15
years, which have seen her kickfighting alongside Asia's top male action
stars, including Jackie Chan and Jet Li.
"I'm blessed with the fact that I have physical
abilities, so while I can, why do I have to turn around and say I only want to
do movies where I'm only sitting down, walking and standing still," she
said.
Yeoh, who divorced Hong Kong tycoon Dickson
Poon after three years of marriage in 1991, declined to talk about her
love life, which has generated intense speculation. Her last known romance was
with American Alan Heldman, a Baltimore-based cardiologist who was engaged to
Yeoh in 2000.
"Just put it this way - I thank all of you for
being concerned about my well-being," Yeoh said. "Just know that I
am very happy, and I will continue to be happy."
- Canadian Press 31 July 2002
Asia's kung-fu queen tries her hand at
production
CANNES, France (Reuters) -
Asian martial arts star Michelle Yeoh, heroine of "Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon", dispatches assailants with kung-fu kicks in her films and
says she can handle any punches thrown by dissenting viewers.
The Malaysian-born actress is judging at the Cannes
film festival this year, often a thankless honour, with jury members slammed
in the past for their selection of the coveted Palme d'Or winner, a prize
which can make or break a movie.
"That is always how it is and that is part of
the magic of film-making," Yeoh, who also played James Bond's girl in
"The World is Not Enough", told the BBC in an interview hours ahead
of the official opening of the festival on Wednesday.
"Everybody has a different opinion, everybody
wants to see more of this or less of that, everybody has a favourite, and that
is what makes it special... I love a little bit of controversy, it makes life
a bit more interesting."
As well as sitting on the jury at this year's Cannes
festival, Yeoh has recently set up her own production company and is producing
and starring in "The Touch", an action adventure set in China in
which she plays a trapeze artist.
Role Model and heroine
Yeoh, 39, started out as a ballet dancer before
winning the Miss Malaysia beauty contest in 1983 and then getting a start in
film, acting in a commercial with action hero Jackie Chan.
After appearing in a slew of largely forgettable
kung-fu flicks, she doubled up with Chan again in 1992 to make "Police
Story 3: Supercop", which became an unexpected hit in the United States
and won her a name.
Performing her own stunts and working in the gym up
to nine hours a day to learn her amazing martial arts manoeuvres, she has
become Asia's highest-paid actress. She has also been chosen by People
magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world.
The role of Wai-Lin, the motorbike racing,
stunt-performing love interest in "The World is Not Enough" and a
more dense acting performance in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"
secured her international reputation.
With "Crouching Tiger" the winner of four
Academy Awards in 2001 and Asian films evidently in vogue, Yeoh turned her
hand to other endeavours, setting up Mythical Films, a production company
designed to nurture Chinese film talent.
Asian film is a growing market, not just among
audiences in the region but internationally, and Yeoh is hoping her company
can catch a similar wave to that which helped India's Bollywood industry go
global.
"'The Touch' has spectacular, incredible
locations and English dialogue and so it should have global appeal," Yeoh
said. "We're talking (to distributors) at Cannes and we're hopeful that
it's going to have a big impact." - by Luke Baker
Reuters
15 May, 2002
Gong Li's [former] hubby wins libel case
against HK rag
Chinese film star Gong Li's husband has been awarded
HK$200,000 (S$42,000) by a court after suing a magazine over claims he lived
off his wife's income, newspapers reported on Wednesday.
Businessman Ooi Hoe Seong challenged a December 2002 Sudden Weekly
report that he forced his wife to take on more movies and commercial shoots
when he was struggling with his own career, the South China Morning Post
reported.
Mr Ooi also attacked the magazine's claims that he
had links to Lai Changxing, one of China's most notorious smugglers, the Apple
Daily newspaper reported.
A High Court jury convicted Sudden Weekly of libel
on Tuesday and ordered it to pay Mr Ooi HK$200,000 in damages, the paper said.
Gong rose to stardom more than a decade ago with art
house hits like Red Sorghum and Raise the Red Lantern. She recently appeared
in Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai's 2046. -- AP
2 Feb 2005
Lonely Gong Li unhappy in Hong Kong
Actress Gong Li is unhappy living in Hong Kong because of the weather and
because she has few friends here.
She only stays because of her husband's work, she
told Britain's Sunday Telegraph.
She also told the paper she was angry at censorship
on the mainland, which made it difficult to produce films. She said censorship
in China was getting worse.
"Being banned is a very uncomfortable feeling.
No explanation is offered. The films have won prizes, people like them. Why
can't they be shown?"
She said the restrictions made it difficult for
directors to depict what was happening on the mainland. "When a director
wants to make a film, he has to submit the script to the censors before he
starts shooting. If they approve, you cannot make any changes or add anything.
When the film is finished, you submit it again and they make cuts."
She criticised mainland authorities for insisting on
changes to the 1993 film Farewell My Concubine, which referred to the Cultural
Revolution.
The film, in which she starred, won international
acclaim but the last scene had to be cut before it could be shown on the
mainland.
"No one's going to rebel or protest in front of
the People's Congress after seeing this film. It's history. We should draw a
lesson from it and not let it happen again. It's unreasonable to ban it."
Despite allowing more foreign films to be shown in
China, the mainland had not relaxed official censorship, she said.
The Film Bureau in China sometimes seemed to order
changes purely to justify its existence, she said.
"If they don't make changes, the Film Bureau
will have nothing to do. It's a bureaucratic problem."
She admitted directors were prone to self-censorship
and were not willing to reveal the extent of poverty and other social problems
in China. Many chose instead to film historical dramas to reflect modern
problems.
Li, who lives in a penthouse on the Peak, says she
only stays in Hong Kong because of her husband, Ooi Wei-ming, who works in the
tobacco industry.
"The climate here is too humid and there are
not many friends here. Most people don't talk about the arts."
The couple plan to start a family within a few
years.
Asked exactly when, she said: "Next year, the
year after. I would become a fat woman."
The 34-year-old said she had ambitions beyond the
film industry.
"I would be glad to work as an ambassador for
the United Nations," she said. - By Simon
Mcklin South
China Morning Post8
February 2000
Elly Leung exchanged the busy Hong Kong
lifestyle for a slower West Coast career. He's now happily semi-retired.
Elly Leung sits beneath a portrait of his
former self -- dressed as a beggar packing a gourd full of booze -- and
smiles.
Ahhh. The glory days.
A contract player with the Shaw Brothers
Studios during the 1960s and '70s, Leung was one of the biggest stars in Asian
cinema during the heyday of Hong Kong action movies. Over the course of his
film career, he made more than 90 features -- generally starring as the good
guy with a gift for flying through the air and felling his enemies with one
fluid sweep of his sword.
Today, he sits in his South Vancouver
office -- a little older, a little rounder, but every bit as charismatic as he
was back in the day when he'd give pointers to a 10-year-old kid with big-time
movie ambitions -- Jackie Chan.
The picture above his desk is from one of
his biggest hits, Come Drink With Me -- a 1965 King Hu-directed classic in the
martial-arts genre, and the main inspiration behind Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon.
Unavailable since the Shaw studio ceased
production in the mid-'80s, Come Drink With Me -- as well as the rest of the
Shaw catalogue -- was recently acquired by a new owner, meaning the film will
get to see the light of a projector bulb for the first time in nearly 20 years
tonight as a special presentation at the Vancouver International Film
Festival.
For Leung, the chance to see his
breakthrough film on the big screen will be a bit of a spiritual homecoming.
After all, it turned a young kid from Shanghai into an action superstar
virtually overnight.
"It was a very stressful time -- you
make so many movies so fast. I remember shooting two fighting films at the
same time -- in two different cities in Taiwan. I'd fly to one city at night,
shoot for hours, then take the plane and shoot all day on the other
film," says Leung.
"You can't really turn down work when
it comes to you. You have to make money -- I had a wife to support."
Currently Mandarin program director at CHMB,
AM 1320, Leung says he's now happily semi-retired, happy to exchange the busy
lifestyle of a Hong Kong leading man for a slower, West Coast lifestyle. The
move to Vancouver in the early 1990s wasn't really his idea, but that of his
wife and daughter. They knew they wanted to leave Hong Kong before the
turnover, but the location was selected by his family.
"They did all the research. So when
they said Vancouver, I said okay."
He's still busy: honorary envoy for the
multicultural station, constant community representative at Chinese cultural
affairs, as well as a recipient of the Citation for Citizenship (1994),
presented by the federal government for outstanding community service.
He's even taken supporting roles in a few
films that pulled into Vancouver, but for the most part, Leung says his
swordfighting days are behind him.
"I still exercise. Play soccer. But
you need a lot of training to do those movies. I'm too old to do them
now," he says, laughing.
Beginning his career in show business
through the musical training he acquired as a student at the Music Academy of
Shanghai, Leung moved to Hong Kong to join the rest of his family in 1962. He
soon picked up work with the Southern Theatre Group, and after just a year of
touring, he signed an eight-year contract at the bidding of Run Run Shaw --
the head of the studio.
Though Leung had no formal martial-arts
training when he signed on with the studio, he was a quick learner. "I
was always very athletic. I played a lot of sports -- baseball, soccer,
everything. I only learned the martial arts later, through the theatre
training. But it was a lot like dance," he says. Leung says the balletic
fighting moves that King Hu helped create are still used today, but the real
beauty of the action movie has been sullied by the frequent use of guns and
explosions, which he feels miss the point of the film exercise.
"There is no story in so many action
movies these days. Action should help the story, not be the story."
Based on an old opera, The Drunken Beggar,
Come Drink With Me pays homage to ancient Chinese storytelling as it features
a "yellowbag" -- a beggar with supreme martial-arts skills -- who
helps a young princess, with excellent fighting skills, free her brother from
kidnapping bandits.
Leung plays the drunken "yellowbag"
to Cheng Pei-Pei's fightin' princess. The drunk fighter has been used in other
martial-arts movies, most notably the Tsui Kun -- Drunken Master --series
starring Jackie Chan, but Leung says it all goes back to the famed Drunken
Beggar Peking Opera piece, which King Hu was the first to adapt to the screen.
"I remember I told King Hu that I
didn't know what it was like to be drunk. I was a little nervous about the
movements. When I wasn't looking, he changed the water in the gourd for real
alcohol. Then I understood what kind of feeling I was supposed to have,"
he says.
The rest of the screen magic, and the fight
sequences, were the product of endless rehearsals and trampolines.
Leung says he still hasn't been able to
watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It's a bit too close to home, but he
respects Ang Lee as a film-maker -- even if he did borrow much of the story
from Come Drink With Me and another King Hu film, A Touch of Zen.
"So much has changed now. We all had
good friends during that time. But the Hong Kong industry has changed. There's
more competition and the movies are copied illegally so quickly that you can't
make any money ... But everything is changing. I remember when I grew up in
Shanghai, Pudong was all farm land," he says of the site where Shanghai's
high-tech international airport now stands.
"Everything changes. ... But I'm
happy. I feel very lucky. I'm looking forward to the movie screening ...
maybe, I'll even bring my sword."
- Vancouver
Sun
Frances Yip enjoys superstardom at a
comfortable pace
Hong Kong pop music diva Frances Yip
estimates she has sung her signature song more than 10,000 times, but she
still brings down the house whenever she belts it out.
"If I don't sing it [Shanghai Beach],
my audience won't let me get off the stage," said Yip, fresh from an
Alaskan cruise and gearing for her upcoming concert here.
The Saturday performance at the Queen
Elizabeth Theatre will mark Yip's 10th or 11th visit to Vancouver (she's lost
count) since she first played the Orpheum in 1984, returning to the Plaza of
Nations during Expo 86.
Her last appearance was at the Orpheum two
years ago. Before that, she sold out two concerts at the QE in spring 1999.
But like fans of her Western contemporaries, such as Diana Ross and Tina
Turner, people often fear that any visit now could be Yip's last. After all,
at 54 and having survived breast cancer, she describes herself as being in
"semi-retirement," performing far less frequently (about a dozen
times a year) and usually mostly for charity rather than personal profit.
She dispels fans' concerns, saying she'll
keep singing as long as the demand is there and they keep buying tickets.
"I've never seriously considered [full] retirement. I would be
bored," Yip said. "I still enjoy the buzz of performing. Like a good
cognac, people say I get better with age."
Besides, Yip, who's a "golf
fanatic" sporting a 12 handicap, enjoys her visits to Vancouver,
especially to look up old pals and golfing partners.
She's looking forward to teeing off this
week at the Westwood Plateau Golf & Country Club in Coquitlam, voted among
the best courses in Canada.
At the peak of her career in the 1970s and
'80s, Yip worked up to 17 hours a day, for all but six weeks of the year. Her
venues have included nightclubs in Singapore, London's prestigious Savoy
Hotel, aboard the luxury liner QE2 and at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
What sets the multilingual Yip apart from
other Cantonese pop stars is her longevity and the fact many of her songs are
sung in flawless English. (Her husband and manager is British-born David Lomax,
a former journalist).
A milestone in Yip's career happened in
Hong Kong in November 1998, when she performed at two sellout concerts at the
Hong Kong Coliseum, backed by the 92-piece Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.
Since winning a Hong Kong television
singing contest in 1969 with her rendition of Dusty Springfield's You Don't
Have to Say You Love Me, Yip's career has spanned 33 years and more than 80
albums, recorded in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Thai, Japanese and
Polynesian.
In her early days, her music was influenced
by the likes of Connie Francis, Patti Page and Karen Carpenter.
"I'm a big Barbra Streisand fan, but I
don't have the same range," Yip said.
"Now I listen to Marc Anthony and
Ricky Martin. I enjoy Julio Iglesias, but only in Spanish.
"When I met Julio in Singapore, I told him, 'Please, please sing in
Spanish and leave English to other people.' "
Yip's wide-ranging repertoire includes
cover versions of Streisand's Evergreen and The Way We Were, as well as Celine
Dion's My Heart Will Go On, Tina Turner's Simply the Best, and three Andrew
Lloyd Webber compositions, Cats, With One Look and You Must Love Me. She
also does Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender and Cliff Richards' Ocean Deep, but
in Cantonese.
Her signature song -- called Sheung Hoi Tan
in Cantonese -- was written for her in 1980 by lyricist James Wong and famed
composer, Joseph Koo, who is now retired and living in Vancouver.
The tune was the theme song for The Bund,
an immensely-popular 60-episode TV drama series that rocketed actor Chow Yun-Fat
to stardom.
For weeks, every night at dinner time, Hong
Kong's streets would empty as people went home to catch the next episode. The
series is still shown in reruns and is available on video, while Yip's song
remains the rage in karaoke bars around Asia and parts of North America.
Last year, Yip fulfilled one of her
ambitions by appearing in one of the leading roles in Jubilee, a Cantonese
stage musical that ran every night for 10 weeks.
In the hit production, Yip portrayed a
lovestruck young singer pining to find a husband. "It was quite
something, being in your 50s and behaving like a 20-year-old," she
laughed.
She sang duets in Cantonese, Mandarin and
English with Annabelle Louie, now a Vancouver resident who will be Yip's guest
performer on Saturday.
Yip, who has performed in more than 30
countries on five continents, has involved herself in various fund-raising
activities to benefit such charitable causes as medical care, assistance for
new immigrants and nursing homes.
Last November, she headlined a concert in
the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, raising more than $450,000 to finance
education for underprivileged children. In January, she helped launch the
Singaporean government's national breast cancer awareness program through
concert and TV appearances.
Net proceeds from Saturday's QE concert
will be donated to Vancouver's United Chinese Community Enrichment Services
Society (SUCCESS) to allow the social agency to operate its day-care centre
for senior citizens.
Yip's Vancouver visit is part of a
four-city North American concert tour that will take her to Toronto on May 25,
San Francisco May 27 and 28, and the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City June 2.
- Vancouver
Sun
VICTORIA
Richard King collected an assortment of cheery communist propaganda posters
in the 1970s. The posters, worth pennies at the time, literally illustrate the
political climate of the day
>> MORE
SCMP photo
Joyce Cheng with her mother [the late] Lydia "Fei
Fei" Shum greet the press at the book launch of My Diet Diary. Cheng's new
body shape on her book cover and before when she was heavier.
The story of teenager Joyce Cheng Yan-yee's quest to
shed nearly 40kg in one year was a key attraction at yesterday's Hong Kong
Book Fair opening.
But other book-lovers weren't as impressed by
numerous publications on celebrities' diet and beauty tips and the lives of
Canto-pop stars, saying they were disappointed by the lack of serious books on
offer.
Cheng, who was dressed in a black tank-top, had heads turning when she and her
mother Lydia "Fei Fei" Shum Tin-ha, a television showbiz veteran,
arrived at the Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai to meet the press.
Her book, My Diet Diary,which is in Chinese,
has pictures of her before and after her weight loss and a daily summary of
what she ate for one year.
Cheng, a 17-year-old student who used to weigh
103kg, also shared her experiences on clothes shopping and gave tips on how to
get smoother skin.
Even before her book launch, yesterday, Cheng's
transformation has had plenty of publicity with slimming company Sau San Tong
touting her on sponsored television programmes and in local newspapers.
The company helped Cheng shed the kilograms.
"I really want to help other girls and boys
like me," Cheng said.
"If I can help them regain their confidence,
then I will be very happy."
Her mother Shum said: "I hope from now on you
can have a very normal life and be able to wear whatever you want."
Cheng's book was one of several diet-related books
sold at the fair. Other books that drew crowds were on singers Christopher
Wong Hoi-kan and Joey Yung Cho-yee.
The annual event, the city's most popular public
fair, drew 3,200 visitors in the first hour, or 6 per cent more than last
year, according to the organiser. The fair is expected to attract more than
400,000 book-lovers before it ends on Monday.
The first person in the queue of about 200 people
waiting to get in yesterday was Mandy Chiu Siu-lai. She waited more than two
hours before the doors opened at 9am.
"I'm here to buy Christopher Wong Hoi-kan's new
book," she said.
She was one of several people who rushed to the
booth selling the Canto-pop singer's book.
Wendy Tam Yuet-ling, a civil servant shopping with
her husband and son, said she was disappointed to see fewer selections of
books on history and philosophy.
"Most of the books here are for leisure and
popular interests," she said. "I guess there is a commercial reason
behind that."
Commercial Press had a large promotional booth for
Belgian comic book character Tintin. The publisher won publication rights for
the Chinese copies of the series, which marked its 75th anniversary this year.
"Tintin embodies many good qualities, such as bravery and the eagerness
to find the truth," said Terence Leung Wing-chung, assistant general
manager of Commercial Press.
--
SOUTH
CHINA MORNING POST 22 July 2004
Hidden in a Hong Kong vault for decades,
some of the best martial arts movies ever made will soon be slashing their way
back onto the screen following a breakthrough deal to unlock a treasure trove
of the genre.
The films, produced by the Shaw Brothers
studios from the late 1950s through the late 1970s, helped to define a genre
that has gained a new worldwide following with the success of "Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
But while they have been cited as
inspiration by directors ranging from action master John Woo to cult auteur
Quentin Tarantino, few young fans have ever seen the Shaw Brothers originals.
That is about to change. Under a HK$ 600
million (about US$84 million) deal, Hong Kong-based Celestial Pictures has
purchased the Shaw collection along with all video, remake, sequel and
theatrical production rights.
"We've been working hard to restore
the films," said William Pfeiffer, chief executive officer of Celestial
Pictures. "They've been kept in their original negative cans in the
Shaw's storage facilities for all of these years."
News that the Shaw library is going to be
re-released has swept both martial arts buffs and Asian cinephiles alike.
"This is really great, fantastic
news," said director Woo, who began his career as a script supervisor at
Shaw Brothers and went on to helm such Hollywood blockbusters as
"Face/Off," "Mission Impossible II" and the current
release "Windtalkers."
"There's a lot of great films and
treasures from Shaw Brothers that haven't been seen for over 30 years,"
he said.
GOLDEN AGE OF HONG KONG CINEMA
Woo said acclaimed Shaw Brothers directors
from the 1960s including Chang Cheh changed the whole look of Hong Kong film,
imbuing it with the snappy razzle-dazzle that has won generations of fans for
martial arts movies.
Shaw Brothers, under charismatic leader Sir
Run Run Shaw, was established in Hong Kong in 1959 and by 1961 was the largest
privately owned studio in the world.
With strong story lines and trim film
budgets, the studio churned out wildly popular movies that helped make it one
of the dominant players in Asian cinema for decades.
But the Shaw Brothers library was kept
under lock and key, with Run Run Shaw refusing to sell the collection and
declining even to loan out prints for film festivals or educational
institutions.
Meanwhile, the studio saw its position in
the local film industry eclipsed by rivals like Golden Harvest Group, while in
recent years Hong Kong's film industry slid downhill as rampant copyright
piracy and gangsters muscling onto production sets led to a rapid decline in
quality and an exodus of talent.
Production plummeted to about 80 films in
1998 from over 300 in the heydays of the late 1980s -- leading some analysts
to wonder if Hong Kong's days as the "Hollywood of the East" were
over.
HEROIC SWORDSMEN
Whatever the fate of Hong Kong's film
industry, the Shaw collection will give legions of fans a fresh look at what
it was like when its film-making powers were at their height.
Heroic swordsman films such as "Come
Drink With Me" (1965) and "The One-armed Swordsman" (1967)
rocketed martial art queen Cheng Pei-pei and Jimmy Wang Yu to superstardom,
while "The 36th Chamber of Shaolin" (1977) set the standard for
kung-fu films about China's Shaolin monks.
Officials at Shaw Brothers said the
decision to sell the library came after a long period in which the company was
weighing whether or not to make the financial and technological push to
exploit the collection itself.
"So in the year 2000 we decided, 'No'
and that we would leave it up to someone else so we decided to put the films
on the market," said Jerry Rajakulendra, Shaw Brothers' chief financial
officer. "Of all the companies interested, Celestial simply offered us
the best deal."
Celestial, affiliated with Malaysia's Astro
All Asia Networks, plans to release the first films from the collection this
fall, Pfeiffer said.
"We also want to strike new 35 mm
prints for limited theatrical re-releases for festivals with special
retrospectives, then on video and our TV channel to be launched worldwide
later this year," he said.
CLASSICS ON TOUR
That is good news for Lim Cheng-Sim, a
programmer at the University of California-Los Angeles Film and TV Archives
responsible for curating film exhibitions.
For years Lim has been working with John
Woo trying to put together an ambitious film festival of martial arts
classics.
"We want to show 20 films in L.A.
highlighting the genre's development from its silent roots in Shanghai through
the early '80s," Lim said, adding that the exhibition would then tour
nonprofit film museums and festivals in the United States and Canada.
"People say they love Hong Kong
martial art films but in truth they haven't really seen them," Lim said.
"Celestial's move is very significant because now it's possible to see
them again."
The pull of the Shaw Brothers mystique is
strong in Hollywood, which saw how successful a kung-fu epic can be when
"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" scored a whopping four Academy
Awards in 2000, including best foreign language film.
And while directors like Woo have been
bringing elements of the martial arts visual lexicon into U.S.-made movies,
some are also making the pilgrimage to Hong Kong to get a first-hand look at
how it is done.
Tarantino, a well-known martial arts buff
who wowed American audiences with "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp
Fiction," is now shooting his next film, "Kill Bill," on the
old Shaw Brothers lot.
"I've always loved the Shaw Brothers
films and they have a very special place in my heart," Tarantino said.
"It's important for me to shoot part of 'Kill Bill' on the old Shaw
Brothers lot. It's sort of my homage to Hong Kong film and there will be
references to Shaws in the film."
And with more Shaw Brothers originals due
to make it back to the screen, industry watchers say the Hong Kong connection
to Hollywood is likely to grow stronger.
"The doors are now open for remakes as
well as sequels where today's technologies can improve upon the film,"
Celestial's Pfeiffer said. --
REUTERS 2002 June 27
Credit: MGM Hollywood may yet recognize the great star quality of
Chow Yun-Fat
He's not that kind of monk: In
Bulletproof Monk, Chow Yun-Fat does what he must to protect the Scroll of the
Ultimate.
Tequila has never gone down smoother than in the
shots provided by the 1992 film Hard-Boiled. The John Woo bullet ballet stars
Chow Yun-Fat as the indestructible detective who takes his name from a liquor
bottle and teams with an undercover cop posing as a Triad hit man to bring
down an arms dealer.
Hard-Boiled came to typify the new breed of Hong
Kong filmmaking that emerged in the 1980s under the direction of Woo, Ringo
Lam and Tsui Hark -- one that redefined the action genre, with Chow as its
biggest star. And the film became legendary for a climactic hospital shootout
that lasts 45 minutes, as Chow's Tequila mows down bad guy after bad guy while
holding a newborn in his arms.
But it's a (relatively) quieter moment that stands
out as one of the coolest in action cinema: Chow, a toothpick hanging just so
from the corner of his mouth, a pistol in each hand, slides down a banister
with guns blazing. This was the image Western audiences had of Chow: a
two-fisted gunfighter, cool under pressure and quick on the trigger, who looks
good in ultra-stylish slow motion.
Unfortunately, this is the only image Hollywood knew
when it came calling with offers of stardom, and it shows in his first two
American films: the less-than-killer The Replacement Killers with Mira Sorvino
and The Corruptor with Mark Wahlberg, which did even less to establish Chow as
an action star outside of Asia. And 1999's Anna and the King, a remake of The
King and I, had Chow prancing about in Yul Brynner's curly-toed shoes as a
backward monarch in need of Western enlightenment in the form of Jodie Foster.
After that, Chow might have been reduced to playing
wizened oriental masters, Confucian stereotypes who divide their time between
instructing young heroes-in-training and plucking flies out of the air with
chopsticks. Indeed, that pretty much sums up his role in Bulletproof Monk,
released today, in which he's out to train American Pie's Stifler (Seann
William Scott).
But there is yet hope for Chow in Hollywood, as
evidenced by 2000's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Taiwanese director Ang Lee
cast him as a legendary Wudan swordsman in that film, and it brought to Middle
America what Hollywood could not: Chow's sex appeal.
This is an actor, after all, who was chosen one of
People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in 2002. From his early days as a
Hong Kong soap opera star to his rise as Asia's top action hero and romantic
lead, Chow has been compared to Cary Grant, and aptly so. Critic Pauline Kael
claimed that unlike, say, Marlon Brando, Cary Grant acted "from the
outside," carrying his past characters with him to become "the sum
of his most successful roles." Like Grant, whatever character Chow plays,
whether gambler, hit man or cop, it's always Chow we're watching. And just as
Grant had only to appear onscreen for "our goodwill to be extended to
him," as Kael says, audiences are immediately swept up in Chow's
undeniable charisma.
Because unlike Brando or Clint Eastwood -- with whom
Chow has also drawn comparisons, if only for his portrayal of steely-eyed
gunmen driven by their own moral code -- Chow's cool is not detached or cold
or ironic in any familiar way. In fact, as Hong Kong film writer Steven Rubio
says, Chow's cool is distinctly warm: "You trust him, want to be around
him. He's the perfect lover -- handsome, considerate, chivalrous, funny -- and
he's the best of best friends, loyal to the end, [and] a lot of fun along the
way."
The fun really began for the 47-year-old Chow in
Woo's hyper-violent gangster movie A Better Tomorrow, in 1986. Chow was still
primarily a TV actor, and Woo was best known for making kung fu comedies and
musicals. But the combination of the two in an action movie that juxtaposed
intense moments of choreographed violence with intense moments of male bonding
resulted in a new kind of action film without respect for the niceties of the
genre (or filmmaking generally).
The film was a critical and box-office smash and
landed Chow the first of his three Hong Kong best actor awards. Since then he
has starred in more than 70 films, from action to drama to romance. But it's
Woo's slow-mo infatuation with Chow's every grin and grimace in two subsequent
films, The Killer and Hard-Boiled, which both centred around themes of
loyalty, honour and corruption, that are best known from his Hong Kong days.
He is equally chivalrous and sadistic in these
films, and like Cary Grant, Chow moves gracefully while his clothes hang
impeccably on his body. And a smile never seems far from his face, Rubio
points out -- one of the keys to Chow's appeal. "We want to smile with
him and laugh with him. We want to be happy to look at him," Rubio
writes, paraphrasing Kael on Grant.
And it's not just women who find Chow sexy, as he is
the object of desire for men as well (although this homoeroticism always
occurs within moments of excessive violence that is invariably represented as
beautiful, stylized and desirable). For example, in Full Contact Chow is
pursued by a gay gangster. Before Chow kills him, the gangster says he hopes
they meet in the afterlife, to which Chow responds in the bizarre phrasing
common to English subtitles, "Masturbate in Hell!" He thus condemns
the villain to death, but also, Rubio explains, to an eternity of fantasizing
about Chow Yun-Fat.
Of course, it seems Hollywood is oblivious to any of
this, having turned Chow into an onscreen eunuch. There is hardly a hint of
romance in The Replacement Killers, none at all in The Corruptor, and Anna and
the King is positively asexual.
And as for the impact of Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon, the only image of Chow from that romantic epic that seems to have
registered with Hollywood filmmakers is that of a martial arts master capable
of kicking butt and walking on tree branches.
Of course, Bulletproof Monk may not necessarily be
more proof that English-speaking audiences will never truly appreciate Chow's
talent. After all, Jackie
Chan found his first true Hollywood hit by being teamed with screeching
comedian Chris Tucker in Rush Hour. The leap from Monk to a project worthy of
Chow's talent and range just might elicit that smile that's always just below
that cool surface. - Barrett Hooper National
Post
15 Apr 2003
'Working in Front
of the Camera Keeps Me Alive'
On the eve of Anna and the King's Dec. 23 première in his hometown, Hong Kong
superstar Chow Yun-fat chatted with TIME reporter Stephen Short about the fun
and challenges of the film
TIME: If this had been a remake of The King and I and still a
musical, would you have taken the role? Yun-fat: No, I would have advised them to use Andy Lau or
Aaron Kwok, they'd be far more practical in a musical.
TIME: You did release a CD though, didn't you? I know because
I've got it. Yun-fat: Oh god, it's awful, It's awful, it's awful, awwwful!!
TIME: Yes, I've only played it once. Yun-fat: You must be one of the few people with a copy of
that. I don't think they printed too many.
TIME: Your English is terrific in this movie and your Thai as
well. When we last met after you'd made The Replacement Killers, you told me
you found it impossible to say "my condolences." Yun-fat: My condolences.
TIME:
How did you step it up so quickly? Yun-fat: I was lucky that Andy Tennant changed a lot of the
dialogue. The original draft had language the way Rex Harrison speaks, talking
in old Oxford English, it was almost like Shakespeare, but Andy modernized it.
Every single articulation he wanted as clear as possible. We had some problems
but every sentence worked I think.
TIME: Jodie Foster must have helped? Yun-fat: Yeah, particularly with the dialogue and her having
to affect an accent as well. She kept telling me simpler ways to say words in
scenes and that made things a lot quicker. Off and on camera she was terrific
in every way.
TIME: How difficult is it to express your words in a separate
language with any great feeling for them as an actor? Yun-fat: Some of the substance of English words, I just don't
understand at all because the culture's so strange to me. So once I memorize a
line, I just try to use my imagination, then simply say it. That's so
different in Hong Kong when I'm using my own mother language, I can treat the
line in one thousand different ways, with many different reactions. But when
I'm speaking English, it's very hard to understand the substance of the
language you're speaking. This is still a big barrier for me and it is for a
lot of foreign actors.
TIME: Do you genuinely enjoy acting? Yun-fat: Yeah, very much. As an actor we're just like workers
in a factory, we provide our services to directors. But I must do my job
perfectly, and I love what I do. Working in front of the camera keeps me
alive. I couldn't care less about actors' trailers and food on sets and stuff
like that--I just want to act. That can be frustrating in the States as they
take so long to set up every single shot. You wait four hours between shots,
not like wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am Hong Kong where every set is so quick and
it's like one big family.
TIME: Do you feel more vain for that reason when you're
shooting in the States? Do you feel more self-conscious? Yun-fat: Yun-fat feels you just have to cooperate.
TIME: Would you play James Bond? Yun-fat: Why not? It would be a lot of fun, sunglasses,
toothpicks, guns--I could be 008 from Shanghai.
TIME: As the man who seems to have almost everything, what's
on your New Year's wish list? Yun-fat: I'd like to be 25 years old all over again.
TIME: But you don't look a day over 25. Yun-fat: Thank you very, very much.
--
Time
Asia
In need of cash, Hollywood looks to China
and India
Disney's
US$4 billion purchase of Iron Man movie-maker Marvel Entertainment signals a
possible wave of media industry consolidation, but the cash to do deals may
come from India or China, not Hollywood or Wall Street.
Even before Walt Disney Co and Marvel
Entertainment Inc made their announcement on Monday, Hollywood watchers said
that Indian firm Reliance ADA Group's recent US$325 million investment in
Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks movie studio was a sign that opportunity exists
for similar deals.
As the recession took hold in late 2007,
Hollywood saw financing from US hedge funds and banks dry up, and analysts say
Indian and Chinese firms are now in a better position to invest.
For its part, Hollywood needs overseas cash
to continue expanding globally where growth opportunities are strongest.
'If you have capital to invest, you can
probably cut a better deal now than any time in the last 10 years,' said Larry
Gerbrandt, principal at consultancy Media Valuation Partners.
'A lot of Indian and Chinese companies have
excess capital these days and Hollywood, aside from the fact there's a certain
glamour factor, those (Indian and Chinese) markets also need content, so
there's interesting deals to be made.'
Sky Moore, an attorney who worked with
Reliance as it put together the DreamWorks financing package, said that a
bigger deal could be in the offing within two years.
'I think the bigger move is buying a
studio, and I don't know if it will be (a company from) India or China, but I
think somebody is going to buy a studio,' Mr Moore said.
The Disney/Marvel deal fuelled speculation
DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc, maker of the Shrek movies and a separate company
from DreamWorks Studios, could be next on the acquisition target list, because
of its solid position in the marketplace and focus on the lucrative family
market.
Mr Moore and Mr Gerbrandt also named Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Inc as a potential acquisition target, although they said that they had no
specific information of any deal in the works.
Rumours of MGM's potential sale have
surfaced for years. The storied Hollywood studio faces looming payments on
US$3.7 billion of debt from a 2005 buyout of the firm, and earlier this week
it replaced its CEO and hired a turnaround specialist.
Chinese film studios are strengthening ties
with their peers across the Pacific. The Huayi group, which Morgan Stanley
called 'China's Warner Bros for tomorrow', has said that it is seeking capital
to expand and has developed movies with Hollywood majors such as Sony
Pictures. Its larger rival, The China Film Group, is reportedly keen on
developing projects in the US as well.
India's expanding reach into Hollywood has
included Reliance's purchase of about 50 US theatres and Indian entertainment
company UTV's investment of tens of millions of dollars over the last three
years in several movies, including The Happening and The Namesake, Mr Moore
said.
'It's not about bringing Bollywood to
Hollywood, it's about mainstream worldwide English-language entertainment,' he
said.
Hollywood studios have also made big
investments in India.
Warner Bros, a division of Time Warner Inc,
has signed multi-picture deals with Indian companies People Tree Films and
Ocher Studios.
Twentieth Century Fox, a division of News
Corp, has started a joint venture with Asian broadcaster Star to create films
for India under the name Fox Star Studios.
Foreign investment in Hollywood is nothing
new, of course. In the 1990s, German tax credits spurred production of US
movies, and before that Japan's Sony Co in 1989 bought Columbia Pictures. Sony
also has a stake in MGM.
David Molner, managing director of Screen
Capital International, a media and entertainment financing firm, said that
without foreign investment, Hollywood could simply have to endure a slowdown
due to lack of capital.
'Either the Asians lead the pack or we have
a lull,' he said.
'Mostly because they're probably going to
be the fastest out of the blocks as the economy recovers.' -
2009 September 3 Reuters
Queen of Cantopop Faye Wong
Hong Kong diva Faye Wong has won a place in the
Guinness Book of World Records as the best-selling female singer of Cantonese
pop music.
According to the Web site guinnessworldrecords.com,
Wong had sold 9.7 million copies of her 20 albums by March 2000 and is one of
the first women to dominate Hong Kong's recording industry.
Her album "Lovers & Strangers",
released in September 1999, has sold more than 800,000 copies so far and was a
number one seller in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia.
The Guinness accolade is unique for the
Beijing-born, native Mandarin speaker, who only learnt the southern Chinese
dialect of Cantonese after settling in Hong Kong in the late 1980s.
The 32-year-old single mother released her first CD
in 1989 and was named the most popular female singer in China, Hong Kong and
Taiwan by music Channel V in January.
She boasts at least 100 dedicated Web sites,
thousands of fans in Chinese-speaking communities all over the world and a
long list of awards under her belt. - Reuters
17 May 2002
Faye Wong A Mom
Pop diva Faye Wong has given birth to a healthy
4-kilogram baby girl in Beijing by Caesarean section.
Wong's agent, Chen Jiaying, confirmed the birth at
Beijing's Xiehe hospital.
He said mother and daughter are healthy and her
whole family is really happy.
Wong's newborn is believed to be fathered by Chinese
actor Li Yapeng, whom she reportedly married in July.
The pop star has another daughter from her previous
marriage to Chinese rocker Dou Wei.
Wong, a Beijing native who made her name in Hong
Kong, started out in mainstream Chinese pop but branched out into more
alternative fare.
She was hugely popular in China and Hong Kong in the
mid-1990s but has unofficially retired from the entertainment scene in recent
years. -- 2006 May 4
Taiwan (AP) -- The big stars in the Chinese-language
pop music world picked up trophies at Taiwan's 15th annual Golden Melody
Awards, with Jay Chou of Taiwan winning the best album award and Hong Kong
diva Faye Wong getting the prize for best female artist.
No single performer dominated Saturday's ceremony --
a major Chinese music event that also draws talent from Singapore and
Malaysia.
One of the surprises of the evening was the best
male artist award, which went to Taiwan's Sky Wu, who hasn't won a Golden
Melody award since he was named the best newcomer in 1990.
"In the past 15 years, I've been nominated
seven times and I finally got you," Wu said as he admired his trophy for
his work on "Pianist of Love."
The ceremony's theme was "Asia is No. 1,"
and guest singers from across the region performed, including Thai pop star
Tata Young, South Korean singer BOA and Malaysian songstress Siti Nurhaliza.
Chou's album "Yeh Hui-mei," named after
his mother, was nominated in eight categories. Some thought the singer, who
melds R&B with hip-hop, could have repeated his sweep of 2002 when he
walked away with awards for best album, songwriter and producer.
But Taiwan's Wang Lee Hom beat Chou in the best
producer category for his "Unbelievable" album.
"Music is my life so thank you everybody for
recognizing my life," Wang said as he picked up his trophy.
The prize for best songwriting went to Taiwan's Song
Yueh-ting for his song "Life's a Struggle" from the album of the
same title.
Best female artist Wong was also nominated in eight
categories for her album "Under the Flower Tree." In the best singer
category, she was up against Singapore's Tanya Chua, Taiwan's Jolin, and Fish
Leong and Penny Tai, both from Malaysia.
The Hong Kong songstress kept her acceptance speech
short. "I can sing songs. This I know," Wong said. "Now that
Golden Melody judges have given me their approval, I approve of their
approval."
Taiwan's May Day was named best rock band. The
group's singer, Ah-Hsin, yelled "Long live rock and roll!" as the
band members collected their prize for "Time Machine." Another band
member, Ma Shah-tseh, announced to the crowd that the musicians weren't
wearing any underwear.
The award for the best vocal group went to Taiwan's
Ah-Pao and Brandy for "Ah-Pao and Brandy," and the best new artist
was Singapore's J.J. Lin for his album "The Musician."
-
May 9, 2004 CNN
Riot at Hong Kong pop star Andy Lau's
concert in China
Chaotic scenes greeted Hong Kong pop idol Andy Lau
when a riot broke out at one of his concerts in China resulting in dozens of
people being injured, a press report said.
The concert hall in Wuhan was said to be packed with
fans of the 43-year-old heart-throb, currently on a world tour, leaving 50,000
fans stuck outside waiting to get in, according to the Oriental Daily News.
The fans outside turned angry when a glass door was
closed preventing any more people entering the venue.
Scuffles broke out and fans smashed open the glass
door and rushed inside the hall. Anti-riot police were called in to calm the
crowd.
Some fans suffered cuts during the frenzied panic
and more than a dozen others, including a 14-year-old girl, were trampled in
the stampede.
The situation inside was just as chaotic as the
crowd tried to push towards the stage. Lau called for them to stay calm but to
no avail, forcing the singer to end his show early.
Lau, one of Asia's biggest stars, was later whisked
away secretly in a fire engine, the paper added.
Lau is a leading star in the world of Canto-pop, the
Cantonese language hybrid of Chinese ballads and Western pop, and an
award-winning actor who has starred in some of Hong Kong's most critically
acclaimed films including Infernal Affairs. - 28 Oct 2004 ASSOCIATED PRESS
The ``Kids from Fame'' could have some serious Asian
rivals if Andy Lau has anything to do with it.
Showbusiness veteran Lau has been appointed a tutor
at Hong Kong's Catchy Entertainment New Artist Academy where he will be
instructing ambitious youngsters.
The plan is for college and university students from
Hong Kong and around the region to take part in auditions, with the successful
ones giving up their regular courses for six months to study with Lau in the
SAR.
Hugely popular in Singapore, Lau will be teaching a
group of star-struck candidates from the Lion City, as well as others from
Malaysia, on a forthcoming course.
Speaking on CNN's Talk Asia show, Lau said the key
to success is hard work, and talked of the advice he received from actor Chow
Yun-fat in the early days of his career.
``Chow showed me his Rolex watch and said `If you
work hard you'll get one','' Lau recalled.
After 20 years in the business and with more than
100 film roles under his belt, Lau has plenty of tips to pass on to the
students who will be working with him.
He said playing comedy is the hardest of all acting
roles and cites Chow as the best Asian comedy actor.
``The laughs come from deep inside of you when you
watch him,'' he said.
Looking back to the early days of his career, Lau
recalled his role in Boat People - the 1982 film that thrust him into the
limelight - in which he co-starred with Cora Miao.
``I was very nervous, particularly when she had to
kiss my hand,'' he said. ``It was very intense. I'll remember that kiss for
the rest of my life.''
-
Hong
Kong Standard
10 March 2003
Hollywood Movie Studios See the
Chinese Film Market as Their Next Rising Star
A film crew works on the set of the James Ivory movie "The
White Countess" in Shanghai in November
Snow White
and the seven ... monks?
Like the rest of American industry, Hollywood has seen
the future, and it is China. Some of the biggest movie studios are now
scrambling onto the mainland and planning to invest more than $150 million over
the next few years in China's burgeoning film industry.
Walt Disney Pictures may even spend part of its
legacy, with a plan for what some people involved say is a live-action
martial-arts remake of "Snow White" that would be shot in China and
replace the dwarves with Shaolin monks. The director is expected to be Yuen
Woo-Ping, the Chinese director and choreographer who arranged the fight scenes
for Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" series, as well as "Kung Fu
Hustle" and the "Matrix" movies.
Other studios intent on China include Sony's
Columbia Tristar Pictures unit, which is already producing and financing feature
films here. Time-Warner's Warner Brothers studio recently formed joint ventures
to make films in China. And Merchant Ivory Productions' latest film, "The
White Countess," set in 1930's Shanghai and starring Ralph Fiennes, was
filmed on location here last year.
A few weeks ago, Harvey Weinstein, the co-founder of
Miramax Films and one of Hollywood's biggest producers, told a gathering at the
Shanghai International Film Festival that the company he will run once he leaves
Disney's Miramax will also produce and finance feature films in China.
Drawn by China's fast-growing economy, inexpensive
film production sites and its increasingly popular martial arts and feature
films - most notably "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" in 2000 -
Western studios are stepping up their presence here and looking to eventually
turn China into a major film production base.
"China is going to grow, so a lot of companies
want to come in here and produce films," said Li Chow, the general manager
of Columbia Tristar Film Distributors, a division of Sony Pictures
Entertainment. "Chinese films have done well internationally, ever since
'Crouching Tiger' came out. So this is a trend."
The moves come as Hollywood officials are still
fighting to get their own American-made movies shown here. And they are also
putting greater pressure on the Chinese government to crack down on rampant film
and DVD piracy, which costs Hollywood millions of dollars every year. But
Hollywood executives also say they are making plans to produce and invest in
movies with a Chinese theme or Chinese language movies that could later be
exported to the rest of the world. And American studios are laying the
foundation to produce movies solely for China's domestic film market.
China's box office receipts are still small compared
with ticket sales in the United States, where box office revenues were a record
$9.4 billion in 2004, according to Exhibitor Relations. But analysts here say
affluent Chinese are becoming avid movie-goers, particularly in big cities like
Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai. The domestic market is expected to grow to $1.2
billion by 2007, from about $500 million in 2004, according to China E-Capital,
a private investment bank in Beijing.
Hollywood is also coming here to tap into China's
growing television, Internet, gaming and mobile phone markets, which producers
see as new and potentially lucrative outlets. A few weeks ago, Warner Brothers
Online announced that it would team with Tom Online, an online and wireless
service based in Beijing, to distribute Warner Brothers film content on the
Internet and to mobile phone users across China.
Perhaps more significantly, Hollywood executives
recognize that China now has a collection of talented film directors who are
breaking box office records at home and selling well overseas.
Over the last year, for instance, two movies from the
acclaimed director Zhang Yimou - "Hero" and "House of Flying
Daggers" - have together grossed more than $190 million outside China.
And this year's "Kung Fu Hustle," a comedy
produced by the Hong Kong actor and director Stephen Chow, has already pulled in
more than $54 million overseas.
The biggest Chinese language hit so far was Ang Lee's
"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," which in 2000 introduced American
audiences to the Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi and went on to earn $128 million,
making it the highest-grossing foreign language film ever shown in the United
States.
But Chinese directors are doing far more than martial
arts pictures these days. Chen Kaige ("Farewell My Concubine"), Feng
Xiaogang ("Cell Phone") and Wong Kar Wai ("In the Mood for
Love") are considered established storytellers who can appeal to broad
audiences.
"We now have a group of world-class actors and
directors," said Ren Zhonglun, president of the Shanghai Film Group, which
produces movies and has also formed a joint venture to operate cinemas in this
country with Time-Warner. "These people can attract investment from all
over the world."
Disney's "Snow White" remake, which is still
in development and subject to change, will be in English. But the Hollywood
studios hope to produce a mix of Chinese and English-language films.
"There are going to be a lot of American films
with a Chinese component," said Dede Nickerson, a producer who has handled
Miramax's Asia operations for the last four years.
So far, Sony Pictures' Columbia TriStar film division
is probably the most aggressive Western film company operating in China. It has
already financed, produced and distributed Chinese-language films that include
"Kung Fu Hustle," and "House of Flying Daggers" and the
"Road Home." In August, the company will release Wong Kar Wai's latest
film, "2046," a Chinese-language feature starring Zhang Ziyi, in the
United States. TriStar is also planning to finance a Chinese-language sequel to
"Kung Fu Hustle."
Time-Warner is investing in China as well. Through
various joint ventures, the company is putting money into more than 70 cinemas
around the country in preparation for a potential theater-going boom.
And its Warner Brothers unit has said it will form a
partnership with the state-owned China Film Group of Beijing and the privately
owned Hengdian Group, one of China's largest film companies, to co-produce
mostly Chinese language movies here. One advantage in forming such a venture is
that any film produced in China is exempt from the country's quota of 20 foreign
films a year.
Then there is the powerful producing tandem, Harvey
and Bob Weinstein, the brothers who founded Miramax Films.
Last month, at the Cannes Film Festival, the
Weinsteins said that their new business, the Weinstein Company, had already
acquired the distribution rights to Chen Kaige's next film, "The
Promise," which at $35 million is one of the most expensive Chinese
language films yet made in China. The Weinsteins and the IDG New Media Fund, an
investment vehicle controlled by the giant technology publisher, the
International Data Group, purchased the North American, England, Australia and
South African distribution rights to the film, which is expected to be released
in December.
It is not Mr. Weinstein's first foray into China.
During his time at Miramax, Mr. Weinstein signed deals that brought Chinese
language films to the United States, including "Farewell My
Concubine," "Chungking Express" and "Hero."
And Miramax produced Quentin Tarantino's "Kill
Bill" series, much of which was shot in Beijing, as well as the forthcoming
"The Great Raid," which was also shot largely in China.
In June, Harvey Weinstein appeared at the Shanghai
International Film Festival with a group of financial advisors from Goldman
Sachs and a team from IDG Films. The group is believed to be looking to
produce or acquire the rights to additional Chinese films.
"This can be a major production base," said
Steven Squillante, a former Miramax executive and independent producer who is
now a partner at IDG Films. "L.A. has doubled for everywhere in the world.
And so can China. They have high-quality crews, stunt men and good facilities.
Backlots are backlots, and sound stages are sound stages. And the construction
costs are manageable."
Hugo Shong, a senior vice president at IDG who grew up
in China and invests heavily in technology companies here, recently set up the
company's New Media Fund with $150 million in startup capital. IDG also formed a
film and content production unit, and hired several film executives including
Mr. Squillante and David Lee, a former Sony executive.
Perhaps the most telling sign of the movie world's
interest in this country has been the appearance of a Chinese language version
of Variety magazine, published here by IDG, and the opening of a new Beijing
bureau of The Hollywood Reporter.
"Why am I here?" Jonathan S. Landreth, the
new Beijing bureau chief of the Hollywood Reporter, asked rhetorically.
"Because everyone else in Hollywood is." - by David
Barboza NEW
YORK TIMES 4 July 2005
TELEVISION
NEWS
One of our favourites - who is now a role
model
Now this is our idea of a talented global 'brain'.
She is also a humble and nice person. Educated at Journalism School
in the US, Karuna anchored Asia Business News from Singapore which started every
business day when TaiTai
太太
lived in Asia. Subsequently she joined CNN but halted her career to
have a family in Hong Kong. Here's a transcript from CNN page.
Karuna Shinsho, CNN International anchor,
joined the CNN.com chat room on February 3, 2000 to discuss the programs she
anchors, "CNN
This Morning, Asia edition."
Shinsho joined CNNI from NHK Television in
Japan, where she anchored the programs "Japan Weekly", "Today's
Japan Weekly" and "Japanscope". Prior to that, she was CNN's
acting Tokyo bureau chief and correspondent in June 1997.
Shinsho participated in the chat from the
CNN bureau in Hong Kong. The following is an edited transcript of the chat.
Chat Moderator: Welcome Karuna
Shinsho!
Karuna Shinsho: Hi everyone, thanks
for logging on! Well, as you saw today, it was a pretty hectic day... with
breaking news out of Kosovo today!
Question from Torrence: How did she
find the transition from Japanese Television to a worldwide channel like CNN
international?
Karuna Shinsho: Hi Torrence. Well,
it was a pretty big change. I worked at the national broadcaster and a lot of
what we reported on was controlled. It was a great experience, and it has
brought me to CNN in the end.
Question from ajm: Ms.
Shinsho...what dramatic changes have you seen in Hong Kong since the Chinese
took over the island?
Karuna Shinsho: Hi ajm. I have to be
honest. I just moved here to Hong Kong to help launch the morning shows in
April of last year. So I cannot profess to be an expert on China. But it does
seem to be as lively economically and culturally as everBut of course, as you
see in the news... still a lot of challenges for Hong Kong in terms of being
under Beijing rule now.
Question from Lars: How about
freedom of speech at CNN: Is there anyone who screens what goes online and
what not?
Karuna Shinsho: Lars hi. Not
"controlled" in the big brother sense... but is moderated by our
colleague in Atlanta to keep things running smoothly.
Question from Kato-chan: What did
you mean "controlled" in Japan?
Karuna Shinsho: Hi kato-chan. What I
meant by "controlled" was that we had to report on whatever NHK (the
national broadcaster) wanted to. Which is fine... but it was a challenging
position to be in because they were hiring outside journalists to help them
launch a new set of programs (in English) for viewers overseas. So the content
of our news was very regulated and confined.
Question from Torrence: Karuna, you
speak exceptionally well in English. I understand that many Japanese do not
speak fluently in English. Were you educated internationally when you were
young?
Karuna Shinsho: Hi again Torrence.
Yes, I have Japanese parents and I was born and raised in the US. But I lived
in Japan later. So I speak both Japanese and English.
Question from Obuchi: Are relations
between Japan and China becoming better?
Karuna Shinsho: Obuchi? Are you the
Prime Minister? or just a fill in?
Obuchi: No, but it is my name.
Karuna Shinsho: We have been
covering some of the challenges between Japan and China despite the fact that
the war has been over for many years. But I hope that we can contribute in
some way so that the younger generation of both countries will get along
better than their parents' generation.
Question from JimB: Karuna, how much
pressure is Beijing putting on Taiwan not to drop their position on
independence?
Karuna Shinsho: Jim b hi. I am not a
spokesperson for Beijing ... but we have been reporting that Beijing is still
reserving the right to use force if Taiwan does indeed declare independence.
But of course, everyone is waiting to see what happens in the upcoming
presidential elections in Taiwan in March for signs on Taiwan's future
position on China-Taiwan ties.
Question from Jim: Karuna How old
are you?
Karuna Shinsho: Hi Jim. I am 31
going on 13.
Question from BJ: Can you read and
write Japanese?
Karuna Shinsho: Hi BJ. Yes, I can
read Japanese. Writing, I can with the help of a dictionary. But I would say
my writing in English is much stronger.
Question from BJ: Is the news on CNN
this morning and other Asian based programs written by the controllers in
Atlanta?
Karuna Shinsho: BJ, the news here at
CNN, as well as in Hong Kong, is written by a team of journalists that are
familiar with the content and CNN's format. Atlanta does not control the news.
Staff there may step in to help with breaking news, but we operate fairly
independently.
Question from Lars: Everything on
CNN runs very smoothly. Are the news shows really live or do you record them
to look that perfect?
Karuna Shinsho: Hi Lars. We are live
throughout all our shows... from 6 in the morning Hong Kong time to 9:30.
Question from Candyce: Does CNN This
Morning have any plans for upcoming specials?
Karuna Shinsho: Candyce, we are
going to be covering the Taiwan elections in March extensively. And other
ambitious projects are being planned so stay tuned!
Question from David: All of the CNN
viewers I know in Japan are very dissatisfied with the balance of coverage on
your show. You seem to ignore or downplay important stories from the U.S.,
Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere in favor of stories of very limited
local interest. How can we register our complaints?
Karuna Shinsho: Hi David. Everyone
feel free to e-mail your comments and criticisms on our shows at
CNNthismorning@CNN.com. We'll be watching out for them! That is something CNN
has been working on since we have started the "regionalization" of
our operations. The challenge of covering everything from everywhere is
enormous. And we do try to bring in news from all over the region. Within
Asia, we try to cover all the big stories without compromising our strength of
covering global events. Use the e-mail address above to give us more of your
feedback. Thanks.
Question from BJ: Other than Inside
Asia, there are no other Asian programming on weekends - especially on
business. Is there any in the pipeline?
Karuna Shinsho: BJ, CNN is
continuing to strengthen our operations here in Asia. CNN.com will also be
launching a new operation in Asia. So weekend programming is something that is
being discussed.
Question from ajm: Ms. Shinsho...you
speak of the Taiwanese elections coming up next month...can you tell us what
interest Asians have taken so far in the upcoming US presidential elections?
Karuna Shinsho: Hi ajm. What do you
think? Are Asians interested in seeing more coverage of the US presidential
elections? Maybe others on-line could comment.
Question from Torrence: Karuna, How
is the workload as a news anchor at CNN.. i.e. work hours per week?
Exhausting?
Karuna Shinsho: Torrence, it's a
tough schedule. Up at 3 and in at 4. Then I'm usually here till early
afternoon.... if not later, depending on interviews I need to prep for the
next day. Aside from the abnormal hours, I really enjoy this job.
Question from pslk116: Karuna, when
do you find time to have breakfast?
Karuna Shinsho: pslk116 hi. I eat
before the shows and sometimes if I can dash out of the studio into my office
between shows, I eat something... to keep me going.
Question from David: AJM raises an
important issue. All of the Japanese people I work with every day have a great
interest in the U.S. election, but very little in that of Taiwan.
Karuna Shinsho: David, yes, I saw
that trend at NHK as well. Given historical links, it's not surprising that
Japan thirsts for so much us content.
Question from Fred: Is the media in
Hong Kong more circumspect since China took over?
Karuna Shinsho: Fred, there are
differing views on that. Some would say that things haven't changed that much.
There have been some legal and freedom of speech challenges of late, but the
media here have been reporting them. But others say that, though there isn't
outright censorship, they do feel the need to self-censor the news.
Question from Arthur: You were
hosting "Your Money" while at ABN several years ago. But now you
anchor general news program, what's the difference?
Karuna Shinsho: Hi Arthur. Yes, I
was anchoring business/financial news at ABN. It was a great opportunity and
challenge. But I enjoy general news(politics, culture, etc.) more.
Question from ShirtlessGuy: Are you
planning coverage of the anniversary of the fall of Saigon in Vietnam?
Karuna Shinsho: Yes, we are planning
to do that. It's a big milestone and we are going to cover that for you.
Question from David: Japanese
people's preference for U.S. news over that of SE Asia certainly reflects some
historical prejudice. But doesn't it also reflect a realistic recognition of
the relative importance both regions really play in the world as a whole?
Karuna Shinsho: David, you make a
good point. I don't think anyone would argue against the global importance of
the U.S. and Japan. It's our hope to try to balance our news from all parts of
the world, including Asia.
Question from arthur: I enjoy
"CNN this morning and Business news" as well as "Moneyline
& Moneyline Newshour". Money line will be replay in the afternoon,
but Moneyline news hour does not. Can CNN Asia replay that program?
Karuna Shinsho: Arthur, send that
comment to CNNthismorning@CNN.com, and the relevant people can address that
issue.
Karuna Shinsho: Before we wrap,
anything you viewers would like to see more of or less of? That is, on CNN
this morning.
Guyin40s: Karuna it is really nice
of you to spend so much time with us!
Karuna Shinsho: Guyin40s... thanks
for that. It's really been a pleasure... I wasn't really expecting so many of
you to log on to talk to me.
Question from BJ: How about profiles
of Asian Newsmakers - politicians, entrepreneurs, etc.
Karuna Shinsho: BJ Asia business
morning does a weekly segment called "Entrepreneurs." Only that
highlights successful people in the biz world here in Asia. In terms of
politicians, we have gotten many high-profile leaders for some exclusive
interviews... and we'd like to continue to do that.
Robert: Karuna I'm from Jakarta,
your coverage of Indonesian events is very good.
Karuna Shinsho: Robert, thank you.
There has been a lot of news coming out of that region and that is still the
case now. We will continue to cover Indonesia. Plus, we have an excellent
bureau chief/correspondent Maria Ressa, who has been helping with our
Indonesia coverage.
chris2000 : I hope that there will
be more of this in future (with Karuna) as I did not get a chance to have my
questions answered this time. Thanks all the same for the time.
Karuna Shinsho: I'm sorry I couldn't
get to all of your questions. But I want to thank you all again for logging
on. Perhaps, we can do this again so that I'll be able to answer more of your
questions about the shows and CNN. Happy Lunar New Year everyone!
Chat Moderator: Thank you Karuna
Shinsho for joining us today. -
CNN
Chat page 2000
If you can, you must see Paul Yee's first
play ever at UBC's Freddie Wood Theatre. I went last night to the
opening. Thoroughly enjoyable, the Cantonese Opera perforemers were
great, and somehow the different elements worked. - COLLEEN
LEUNG
(Ian Smith,
Vancouver Sun)
Oscar winning designer Tim Yip was the
art director for Heaven and Earth, which opened at The Centre in Vancouver For
Performing Arts.
Nina Mu plays The
Goddess of Love in the play.
Tim Yip, Oscar-winning art director for
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, is in Vancouver to create the look of Heaven
and Earth at The Centre.
It certainly feels like The Centre of
things. As all the lobby carpet is torn up to be replaced and the smell of
fresh paint wafts from the executive office, where the only reminders of
former owner Garth Drabinsky are the hooks on the walls for his valuable
collection of art, The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts is the
proverbial beehive of activity.
Things are even busier down in the
labyrinth of backstage (or to be more accurate in the case of the former Ford
Centre, below-stage) corridors and dressing rooms where dozens of fresh-faced
young Chinese performers fill the air with the sounds of Mandarin. Above,
through the doors of the auditorium into that ocean of royal-purple fabric and
blond wood, is the near-chaos of what many find to be the most exciting part
of a new production -- its rehearsal.
A choreographer sits in the auditorium with
a cordless microphone, directing the movements on stage of dozens of dancers
in all kinds of costumes. Lights and music come up and down as levels are
tested and while technicians fine-tune all of the hall's equipment, much of it
brand new, maintenance workers test every armrest for 1,800 seats.
Tim Yip sits in the hall and smiles.
Perhaps it's because as art director for Of Heaven and Earth, the extravaganza
due to open The Centre next week, his job is largely done and he can actually
sit and chat for a few minutes.
Best known for the Oscar he won last year
as art director for Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Yip is here from
Beijing for just two days to ensure his costumes, sets and lighting are in
order before returning to the Chinese capital and a new movie that's already
started shooting. It's about a young woman who grew up through Beijing's
explosive growth and massive change of the last 20 years, and Yip is delighted
to be collaborating on the film's design with some of the French
special-effects wizards who helped make Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie such a
hit.
Then it's off to Taipei to take 100 of
Taiwan's citizens from every walk of life, governor to streetsweep, and put
them on the runway in the rich fashions he now designs. "The idea is
quite interesting for me," he says, "because I will also get
many different kinds of artists together for the show -- somebody is making
sculpture, somebody is making music, somebody is making graphic design."
When Dr. Dennis Law and his three brothers
came from Denver to buy the former Ford Centre, they wanted to christen their
new theatre with a bang. Years ago, Dennis and Yip had discussed mounting a
reinterpretation of David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, but Yip had to cancel
all other obligations when the complexities of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
came along. By the time they met again, Law had an even more ambitious project
in mind.
Of Heaven and Earth would be, as Law loves
to dub it, the world's first "action musical," combining many
elements of Chinese folk arts in a wholly modern retelling of the legend of a
goddess and a cowherd.
"Everybody in China knows the story of
the lady and this guy," says Yip.
"They have many problems, they're kept
apart, all kinds of conflict takes place and then, after many different
beautiful actions, they're together."
A happy ending, but not before Yip has
paraded a rich banquet of sights and sounds drawn from millennia of Chinese
artforms. He scoured the enormous nation in search of material, "and from
the beginning we prepared everything for an international audience, so it's
very easy for people to understand."
Yip says Westerners will find Of Heaven and
Earth "special and new," while Chinese audiences who tire of seeing
one too many folk-dance troupes "will like it because we have a whole new
feel for the dances they think they've seen before."
All of theatre's magic will be called into
play as heaven and earth make love and war. The fly galleries above the stage
will earn their title as cast members soar and swoop, while giant projections
behind the action will offer glimpses of Yip's own unique artistic talents.
He started out at school in Taiwan wanting
to be a painter but soon shifted to photography, and especially fashion
photography. At an exhibition in Hong Kong he met film director Ching Siu-tung
(A Chinese Ghost Story) and it wasn't long before Yip was working for John Woo
on what would become Woo's first runaway hit, A Better Tomorrow. "Quite
frankly," says Yip, "I don't like to make that kind of movie.
It was only later, when I worked on Stanley Kwan's Rouge, that I changed my
impression of movie-making." The supernatural love story won five Hong
Kong film awards and plenty of praise for its artistic integrity and emotional
depth.
Best known in Asian artistic circles for
work even more avant-garde than what we saw in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Tiger,
Yip says he likes Of Heaven and Earth "because it's so big and so easy to
know." But he's also keen to return to projects that really test a
theatre audience.
"I never use dialogue to tell a
story," he says. "Whether it's Beijing Opera or dance, music or
movement, I'm trying to do things in theatre that make you forget yourself,
make you look deep in your mind and memory. When you hear dialogue, you are
thinking, trying to understand, but for dance or music you cannot use your
brain. You must use your body to experience it, and I want to touch the heart
of the audience."
Yip is asked if winning the Oscar opened
doors for him. "Yes, even inside," he replies, "because
before I didn't know if I could write [he's at work on a complex four-part
novel set beyond time and space] or design fashions. I think it's the right
time to do the things I want to."
A symbol of that new-found strength came
when Yip was on his way to the airport in Taipei and a strong earthquake hit
the city. He left not knowing what had happened at his home, and for a month
in Europe and then China worried about whether Oscar had fallen from its high
perch atop a cabinet.
Back home, he found his British film
award for Crouching Tiger on the floor. Oscar, by contrast, hadn't budged an
inch. - by Peter Birnie Vancouver
Sun 21 May 2002
