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Try to recognize the stars in this poster for Infernal Affairs II. PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES

Hundreds of fans of Leslie Cheung (張國榮) gathered outside the Mandarin Oriental hotel in the city's Central district last Thursday to commemorate the actor and singer's suicide a year ago. Cheung, who was affectionately known as ge-ge, or big brother, suffered from severe depression and jumped off the hotel's roof following an argument with his lover. Cheung had been one of Hong Kong's most adored stars.

The Hong Kong Film Awards, which took place Sunday, paid a special tribute to Cheung and to Anita Mui (梅艷芳), another Hong Kong star who died last year. The awards ceremony was otherwise a jolly affair, with the police thriller Running on Karma (大隻佬) taking the award for best film and best screenplay, while its star Andy Lau (劉德華) took home the best actor award. In the movie Lau plays a monk who becomes a stripper and gets caught up in the life of a young and beautiful police officer (Cecilia Cheung, 張柏芝), who carries the curse of very bad karma, which Lau's monk character can see in visions.

Rene Liu is speechless when asked if she'd dress up as a maxi-pad for her wedding PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES

In an example of exactly how small the Hong Kong film industry is, Cecilia Cheung took home an award, as well, though it was for her role in Lost in Time. And Johnnie To (杜琪鋒), who directed Running on Karma, got the best director award, but for the cop drama PTU.

After the domination of the Infernal Affairs (無間道) franchise at Chinese-language awards ceremonies over the past year, the absence of the series' third installment from the major awards came as a bit of a surprise, as did the arrival in Pop Stop's e-mail of a photo of a hilariously ugly hand-painted poster for the movie (shown below) that hung outside an as-yet-unknown cinema.

Speaking of unattractive mugs, Taiwan's TV personality Hsu Chun-mei (許純美), who was the country's favorite TV spectacle only a few short months ago, has been engaged in a loud battle with her own agent Shen Yu-lin (沈玉琳) over the terms of her contract and the recent drop in invitations for TV appearances. According to the Apple Daily (蘋果日報), she was so angry with Shen that she fainted, but when she came to she begged him to stay on as her agent.

Actress and singer Rene Liu (劉若英) had a rough time Saturday at a press conference to promote Whisper maxi-pads for which she is the most recent spokeswoman. The company had organized a mock slumber party for Rene and three models, who were to discuss the merits of the supposedly revolutionary pad. Rene was dressed in all-white casual gear, while the models were done up in night gowns designed to look like maxi-pads. When the press conference started, according to The Liberty Times (自由時報), one of the models asked Rene if she would wear the maxi-pad gown to her wedding, to which Rene responded: "For the first time, I really don't know what to say." So, having not gotten an answer out of Rene, the model turned to the crowd of reporters and asked the same question. The reply came quickly. "Can you hurry up and finish this press conference?" A photo with the report shows Rene burying her head in hands.

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