Even before Taekwondo fighter Chen Shih-hsin (
Chen's colorful past before winning an Olympic gold medal is said to be the main attraction for adapting her story to the silver screen. She was a dropout at the age of 16, working as a betelnut girl. Also she has done jobs cleaning ash trays in computer arcades and selling Hello Kitty dolls as a street vendor, constantly playing hide-and-seek with the police. It was after three years of self-abandonment that Chen found her life goals and returned to home and school.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
News that Hong Kong production house Tse-Xin Films (澤星電影) would be making Chen's story into a movie caused ripples in the business, but Cheung's agent said she was unaware of the news and thus could not confirm whether she's playing the role. Chen herself thinks of Cheung as a suitable candidate, but added that Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊), who excels at fighting scenes, could be more a more appropriate choice.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
"I've seen a few films of Cecilia Cheung and read about her on-and-off romance with Nicholas Tse (
Speaking of the Olympics, director Zhang Yi-mou (張藝謀) was bombarded for his direction of the seven-minute performance during the closing ceremony in Athens. Internet users attacked his use of red lanterns as "cliched, cheesy and totally selling superficial Chinese culture to Westerners." Zhang obviously doesn't mind selling Chinese culture to the Western world. His Hero (英雄) was released in the US last week and immediately became the top-selling movie at the box office, grossing more than US$7 million. Hero was also the most widely released Chinese film in the US. It was screened in 2,031 cinemas, exceeding the record of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (臥虎藏龍), which was shown in 2,027 cinemas in the US.
Boy band 5566 last week just finished their first concert and immediately held a post-party celebrating the success of the concert. While the band members were spraying champagne at each other, they received complaints from their fans that their voices were dubbed at the concert. Fans were furious, saying they spent five hours standing in line, with NT$1,200 for a concert ticket, but in return had a dubbed concert. There were also fans complaining that the performance was full of slap-stick slip-ups. One of the boys lost his grip on a walking stick and another boy tripped and fell on stage during the encore song.
5566 admitted that some of the fast songs were dubbed and explained that the main entertainment of those songs was the visual parts. "We wanted the concert to be a visually stunning show," Sun Hsieh-chih (
The magnetic power of being a pretty-looking idol is still strong. Jerry Yen's (
Taiwanese rocker Chang Chen-yue (
"I want Westerners to know that there is not only William Kong (who won recent fame for his comic singing and performance) in Asia. We have also critical and humorous music," Chang said last week, according to Apple Daily. Chang added that the concert will be in Mandarin only. He will not be singing songs in English. "I don't think Americans will come to my concert to hear my English. Aren't there enough English songs in the US?" -- Compiled by Yu Sen-lun
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50