It was bound to happen sooner or later, but supermodel Lin Chih-ling's (
Equally big-headed, but proud of it, Chang Chen-yue (
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
More language lessons were on display this week when Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi (
She was in Toronto with Zhang Yimou (張藝謀), who's basking in the stunning box-office take of Hero (英雄) in the neighboring US, where ticket sales topped US$40 million last weekend. This brought the movie's total worldwide take to US$146 million, according to the International Movie Database, making it far and away the highest-grossing Chinese movie ever. This is the movie that theater audiences in China laughed at. And House of Flying Daggers, which was similarly panned in China, hasn't even made it out of the festival circuit in North America. If we're working on the principle that Western audiences love what Chinese audiences find ludicrous, Zhang may be sitting on another golden egg.
For his next project, Zhang told reporters at the festival that he's considering returning to politically sensitive topics with a story about the Cultural Revolution. His film may provide some counterweight to the movie now showing some success in China titled Zhang Side (張思德), which tells the story of the title character whose sacrifice in the early days of the Communist revolution inspired Mao Zedong's (毛澤東) famous epigraph, "Serve the People" (為人民服務).
Meanwhile in Hong Kong on Saturday, Andy Lau (
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