It's natural with the hot weather to shed inhibitions and clothing. Singer Alex To (杜德偉) and his fans are no
exception.
For his latest album Take Off (脫掉), To not only makes a nude appearance in his music video, but he also invited his fans to do the same. On Sunday in a promotion for his new musical offering. To stripped to his shorts in Ximending. His record company advertised "half naked for half price, all naked for free" CDs, to encourage people to go on stage and strip with To. A few women took off their tops and presumably got half price CDs.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
"I look at myself in the mirror every night, naked, and make believe I'm 25. I can dance, sing, act, write songs and I'm good-looking!" said To (actual age, 42), adding he's proud of his iron-hard hard butt. According to The Great Daily News (大成報), however, To didn't just lose his clothes last week, he also lost his wallet and work permit in a taxi, causing a headache for his manager.
Thai action star Tony Jaa was another hot male body in action last weekend. In a promotion for his movie Ong Bak, Jaa gave Taiwanese reporters a first glimpse of his awesome Thai martial art powers. He somersaulted into the press conference and then practiced "kicks" at a 2m-tall colleague. It was all done so quickly the photographers present had to ask him to do it again, and again.
"I don't smoke, drink or have sex. I don't touch anything that's bad for the body. The most important thing for me is Thai boxing," the 28 year-old actor said. "The sacrifice is worth it." Whatever, Jaa is now back in Thailand to shoot the mega-budgetedTom Yum Goong, a story about saving an elephant from being abducted.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Jackie Chan's (成龍) 22 year-old son Jaycee Chan (房祖明) is receiving recognition for his singing skills and dad will doubtless be chuffed. At the 6th CCTV-MTV Music Award Ceremony held last Saturday in Beijing, Chan Jr. took the award for Best Hong Kong New Performer. Never mind the fact that his record has not been released yet, and few people in China (let alone Taiwan)) have ever heard of his singing. Dad has clout, obviously. Jaycee Chan is also starring in the NT$320 million action thriller, Twins Effect II (千機變II花都大戰), in which his father is an investor.
"I don't want to rely on my father's connections in the entertainment field. In fact, I don't want people to mention his name in front of me," Chan was quoted as saying by Chinese media. Yeah, right.
In its second week of release, the negative reception to House of Flying Daggers (十面埋伏) is becoming a chorus of disapproval in the media and in Internet chatrooms in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In Beijing, film professor Su Mu (蘇牧) wrote an article slamming the film as "childish and ridiculous."
"Most of the audience was laughing in the theater and this expressed the contempt of the audience toward Chinese filmmakers," Su wrote. In Hong Kong well-known actor and director Michael Hui (許冠文) told Apple Daily (蘋果日報) that only one word could describe the movie ? "crap." In Taiwan, a movie Web site concluded, "Basically you can treat this movie as a comedy and laugh about it. But then again, NT$250 is better spent on more meaningful things."
In Taiwan’s rural lowlands, it’s a common sight at this time of year. Having cleared and plowed their fields, farmers intending to grow pineapples, strawberries or certain other crops, roll lengths of thin black plastic across the ground. To keep the film in place, soil is piled over the edges. Plastic sheeting — or plastic mulch, as it’s often called — makes farmers’ lives easier by suppressing unwanted foliage that might otherwise crowd out their crops. As an inexpensive labor-saving technique, its appeal is obvious. Taiwan’s farmers are getting old (in 2014, their mean age was 62 years), and finding
In our neoliberal, corporate capitalist world, things fall into just two categories, the useful and the discarded. Useful things are exploited until used up, then moved to the other category and forgotten. In Taiwan, that includes children. Last week the Social Work Department with the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF) sounded an alert: the nation’s young are being eaten alive. Suicide and suicidal thoughts among teenagers are spiking. According to a survey of over 600 young people by the charity, a fifth had thought of suicide. The charity pointed out that the number of reported suicides and suicide attempts
Foreign viewers at the Cannes premiere of Moneyboys (金錢男孩) may not have noticed the glaring incongruities that persist through the movie, but Taiwanese viewers certainly will. They’re apparent to the point that it’s difficult to enjoy the movie. First of all, the entire film is obviously shot in Taiwan, but the plot is set in fictional locales in southern China, with most secondary characters, passersby and television announcers speaking in Beijing-accented Mandarin. This melancholy tale revolves around gay sex workers in China and the unique challenges they face, especially regarding traditional expectations, including marriage, and the large-scale rural-to-urban migration of
Ten years ago, the psychologist Steven Pinker published The Better Angels of Our Nature, in which he argued that violence in almost all its forms — including war — was declining. The book was ecstatically received in many quarters, but then came the backlash, which shows no signs of abating. In September, 17 historians published a riposte to Pinker, suitably entitled The Darker Angels of Our Nature, in which they attacked his “fake history” to “debunk the myth of non-violent modernity.” Some may see this as a storm in an intellectual teacup, but the central question — can we learn
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