It was bound to happen sooner or later, but supermodel Lin Chih-ling's (林志玲) sell-by date seems to have arrived with surprising speed, even by Taiwan gossip media's attention-deficit-disorder standards. In this week's edition of Next Magazine (壹週刊), Lin, whose name is always prefaced with the bold title "international supermodel," is disparaged for trying to gouge diet regime empress Angela Tang (唐安麒) for an extension of her contract as the company's spokeswoman -- and also for being bowlegged. It was Lin's contract for Tang's company that first attracted major attention to her as Taiwan's biggest modelling "talent." According to the report, Tang balked when Lin's agency demanded a whopping NT$18 million for the model's endorsement and is now in negotiations to sign on someone new and presumably less expensive and "big-headed," as Next put it.
Equally big-headed, but proud of it, Chang Chen-yue (張震嶽) took one more step toward prepping American audiences for his nine-city October tour of the US with a press conference in San Francisco last Friday, attended by CNN and Reuters. Dressing for the occasion, A-yue (阿嶽), as he's best known, donned a prison-pyjama-orange football jersey with an enormous "yue" (嶽) character emblazoned on the chest and tried to lead the reporters through a basic Chinese lesson on how to pronounce his name. He's quoted in The Great Daily News (大成報) as telling the "big noses" gathered for the event: "This is the first Chinese character I want Americans to learn. This is my name. Don't forget it."
More language lessons were on display this week when Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi (章子怡) showed off her new English skills at the Toronto International Film Festival, where House of Flying Daggers (十面埋伏) screened to generally rave reviews. Facing a gaggle of over 30 reporters, Zhang fielded questions entirely without an interpreter, proving that she's brushing up on her English in preparation for filming Memoirs of a Geisha, perhaps with some help of her rumored boyfriend Huo Qi-shan (霍啟山).
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 (劉德華) reached a milestone in his career by putting on his 100th Hong Kong Coliseum concert, sealing his position as the most prolific and enduringly popular Canto-pop star -- as if that needed any further confirmation. Adopting an Olympic theme, Lau was crowned with a colorful wreath and awarded an enormous gold medal that was hung around his neck while he stood atop a podium. Lau's beyond 40, but he felt confident enough to tell the audience to keep their ticket stubs to attend his 200th concert at the venue for free.
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