Ghost films have become a trend in Hong Kong filmmaking and something a money making machine at the box office. But making all this "ghost money" might, for the superstitious Hong Kong film industry, have inauspicious effects.
In Inner Senses (
PHOTO COURTESY OF GROUP POWER
According to Hong Kong media, making this ghost film might have damaged Cheung's acting career, which is currently in transition as he angles to become a film director.
In the film, Cheung plays a psychiatrist who is treating Lam, a young woman suffering from constant hallucinations and panic attacks. Cheung convinces himself that the symptoms are caused by Lam's traumatized family life and her love affairs, and that by falling in love with her, he will be able to rescue her from falling into a psychological black hole.
Then the inconceivable happens. The psychiatrist starts to see the ghost of his high school girlfriend who committed suicide 20 years ago when he broke up with her.
In real life as in the film, Cheung (who established a reputation for his roles in Farewell My Concubine and Days of Being Wild), has been reported suffering from depression. Although his role in Inner Senses earned him a nomination for a Golden Horse award last November, this does not seem to have lifted his mood.
During the shooting of Inner Senses, the 46 year-old actor was reported as being "too involved" in his role for this film and was suffering from insomnia as a result. And now, Cheung has turned down all promotional appearances for health reasons even as the film is getting ready for commercial release in Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. During his few public appearances Cheung has looked pale and weak.
Speculation has been mounting in the Hong Kong media. It's been reported that the actor has been worried that his screen image is not youthful and beautiful anymore, and signs of baldness have been commented on in recent years.
Cheung began his career as an actor and pop singer in 1978, and has always been portrayed as a handsome, clean-cut leading man. His current depression has been attributed to a crisis in his 17-year relationship with his boyfriend, the mysterious Mr. Tang. The official reason is that Cheung is taking a course of Chinese medicines and it is inconvenient for him to travel.
Whatever the reason may be, many on-going projects have been affected. Cheung recently canceled such filmmaking projects as Beautiful Shanghai (
His own production company, Dream Team (夢幻聯隊), was preparing to shoot Stealing Heart (偷心), to be directed by himself and starring two Chinese actors, Hu Jun (胡軍) and Ning Jing (寧靜), but even this personal project has been temporarily abandoned.
Has the making of Inner Sense put a hex on Cheung? This is what the gossip rags are asking, and ghosts and lost love are definitely more exciting than a career that has been involved in an extended downswing.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist