Starring Jay Chou (周杰倫) and teen-idols Edison Chen (陳冠希) and Shawn Yue (余文樂) from Hong Kong, the most talked-about Chinese movie of the year, Initial D (頭文字D), finally hit the big screen last Friday in Taiwan. With a string of terrible reviews because of the poor acting of its protagonist, the movie nevertheless grossed over NT$7 million in ticket sales in the first half day of screenings.
No surprises there. A blockbuster movie is never about good-quality performances and intelligent story-telling. It's all about grand promotions, well-plotted publicity stunts and behind-the-scene stories that the press can happily chew on for weeks.
The three young male idols
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
involved know all the tricks. And like their female counterparts, they understand the importance of lavish outfits and accessories. Showing up at their press conference in Taipei, Shawn smiled confidently with his NT$160,000 necklace (almost invisible to the untrained eye) and Edison strutted out of the car in a pair of Adidas sneakers worth NT$40,000. As for Jay, he didn't need to try hard -- or even try at all -- with the title King of Mando-pop under his belt.
It hasn't all been smooth sailing, though. Bad-boy Edison reportedly got pissed off by Chou's steeply rising star and felt frustrated enough about being ignored by the media during promotional tours to make a noise about it.
Petty break-up news from the self-absorbed celebrity circle is as follows: Following the break-ups of Big S (大S) and Lan Zheng-long (藍正龍), Elva Hsiao (
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
TV hostess Momoko Tao (陶子), on the other hand, happily showed off her two-year relationship with actor Lee Lee-ren (李李仁) by talking about the possibility of marriage in a promotional event on Monday. As an ordinary-looking woman, Tao admitted she once wanted to get her whole body revamped with plastic surgery, but said, as reported by the Apple Daily (蘋果日報), ``on second thought, there must be a beautiful side of me -- otherwise how could I have landed such a great-looking boyfriend?''
Truth is, wealth and power can can get most people (male or female) what they want and they don't have to be good-looking to get it.
Although she's one of the least-favored movie stars in the eyes of the Chinese press, Zhang Zi-yi (章子怡) has been gaining increasing popularity and recognition in the West. She has recently been honored by becoming a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and she's so hot there that the big-hearted Chinese media have accused her of being a snob who's forgotten where she came from and who doesn't give a shit about Chinese-speaking markets.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Hong Kong beauty Maggie Q is another Asian actress who's made it to Hollywood. According to the Great Daily News (
The four-piece boy band F4 is going to have a girl version soon, according to the local media. But while the boy band uses pretty faces as their selling point, the F4 girls will take pride in their voluptuous breasts -- that is, all four band members are required to have F-cup equipment. The band has already recruited three big-bosomed babes, all college girls. If you want to join the band and have the right stuff, hurry to get your application form in. This is your chance to be counted and join "Fantasy 4."
Nov. 11 to Nov. 17 People may call Taipei a “living hell for pedestrians,” but back in the 1960s and 1970s, citizens were even discouraged from crossing major roads on foot. And there weren’t crosswalks or pedestrian signals at busy intersections. A 1978 editorial in the China Times (中國時報) reflected the government’s car-centric attitude: “Pedestrians too often risk their lives to compete with vehicles over road use instead of using an overpass. If they get hit by a car, who can they blame?” Taipei’s car traffic was growing exponentially during the 1960s, and along with it the frequency of accidents. The policy
While Americans face the upcoming second Donald Trump presidency with bright optimism/existential dread in Taiwan there are also varying opinions on what the impact will be here. Regardless of what one thinks of Trump personally and his first administration, US-Taiwan relations blossomed. Relative to the previous Obama administration, arms sales rocketed from US$14 billion during Obama’s eight years to US$18 billion in four years under Trump. High-profile visits by administration officials, bipartisan Congressional delegations, more and higher-level government-to-government direct contacts were all increased under Trump, setting the stage and example for the Biden administration to follow. However, Trump administration secretary
In mid-1949 George Kennan, the famed geopolitical thinker and analyst, wrote a memorandum on US policy towards Taiwan and Penghu, then known as, respectively, Formosa and the Pescadores. In it he argued that Formosa and Pescadores would be lost to the Chine communists in a few years, or even months, because of the deteriorating situation on the islands, defeating the US goal of keeping them out of Communist Chinese hands. Kennan contended that “the only reasonably sure chance of denying Formosa and the Pescadores to the Communists” would be to remove the current Chinese administration, establish a neutral administration and
A “meta” detective series in which a struggling Asian waiter becomes the unlikely hero of a police procedural-style criminal conspiracy, Interior Chinatown satirizes Hollywood’s stereotypical treatment of minorities — while also nodding to the progress the industry has belatedly made. The new show, out on Disney-owned Hulu next Tuesday, is based on the critically adored novel by US author Charles Yu (游朝凱), who is of Taiwanese descent. Yu’s 2020 bestseller delivered a humorous takedown of racism in US society through the adventures of Willis Wu, a Hollywood extra reduced to playing roles like “Background Oriental Male” but who dreams of one day
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