Pop Stop

Taekwondo gold-medal winner Chen Shih-hsin gets her hero's welcome. PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES

Even before Taekwondo fighter Chen Shih-hsin (陳詩欣) came home to receive a hero's welcome, loads of business deals were already being made. One of the proposals is to have her story made into a movie. And according to Apple Daily (蘋果日報), the most likely candidate for her role is Hong Kong actress Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝).

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.

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.

Cecilia Cheung may play the taekwondo star. PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES

"I've seen a few films of Cecilia Cheung and read about her on-and-off romance with Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒). I know that we have a similar personality. We are both stubborn and strong-willed people," Chen was quoted by Apple Daily as saying when in Athens.

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 (孫協志) was quoted by Apple Daily as saying.

The magnetic power of being a pretty-looking idol is still strong. Jerry Yen's (言承旭) first solo album (Jerry For You) beat Jay Chou's (周杰倫) Jasmine (七里香) and became the No.1 album on five Chinese-language charts in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Yen's record company held an autograph-signing event for his fans last Saturday in Ximending. The whole area went insane, with dozens of female fans blocking Yen's car with their bodies. His assistants had their pants ripped off them and Jerry Yen himself had a few hairs pulled out, thanks to zealous fans.

Taiwanese rocker Chang Chen-yue (張震嶽) is getting ready for his first US tour in October. He will be singing in more than 10 cities in the US, becoming the first Chinese-language rock singer to tour around the US. The tour was partly organized by House of Blues, the rock house in Hollywood, in which Chang gave a well-received show last year.

"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