Stephanie Sun (孫燕姿) made an impressive comeback this week, following a year of relative inactivity, with a new album titled My Love (我的愛), which sold 200,000 copies even before hitting the shelves. The Singapore-born singer spent the past year giving her vocal chords a rest, citing what she called "burnout" after releasing seven albums in three years. Now her well-rested voice is primed and ready for another round of intense promotion and welcome-back concerts. Stephanie also has two videos in the works for the new album, each with a NT$5 million budget, the first of which finished shooting in Paris last week.
And in Hong Kong last week, Canto-pop legend Sam Hui warmed hearts by saying that "now that the territory is part of China" it should enact laws that allow for the execution of paparazzi. The preferred method for executing the press, he said, would be by shooting.
That's not too different from Jacky Wu's (吳宗憲) stated purpose a couple months ago of toying with the idea of running in the December legislative race. At the time, he said, the first thing he would do as legislator would be to push all the paparazzi into the ocean. His plan won't come to fruition, though, at least not at his hands, since he announced last week from Beijing that he will not be running for office.
Also in China last week were Blackie (黑人) and his buddy Wilbur Pan (潘瑋柏), who traveled all the way to Shanghai on a pilgrimage to watch Yao Ming (姚明) and his Houston Rockets beat the Sacramento Kings in an 88-86
nail-biter NBA exhibition game. The two almost didn't get to watch the game, though, after they snuck into the lineup on the court during the pre-game broadcast of the US national anthem and were threatened with ejection from the hall by the Chinese security guards. China's other big star, Zhang Ziyi (章子怡), has been in the US for the past two weeks to begin shooting Memoirs of a Geisha, in which her co-stars will be Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) and Gong Li (鞏俐). By contract, she's not allowed to tell anyone how much she's pulling in for this Hollywood extravaganza, but however much it is, it's probably worth a few extra English lessons. In a recent interview with American media when answering a question about her role in Hero (英雄), Zhang reportedly jumbled the words "loyal" and "oral," and this inevitably caused some confusion and raised more than a few eyebrows.
Zhang is still basking in the glow of the dual successes of Hero in North America this summer and of 2046 now playing in Asia. Tuesday was the opening of 2046 in Japan and its Japanese star Kimura Takuya surprised everyone, not least director Wong Kar Wai (王家衛) with whom he knocked heads during filming, by showing up at the grand gala. Not invited on stage with Kimura Takuya, Tony Leung (梁朝偉) and Chang Chen (張震), however, were representatives from the South Korean electronics giant LG, which is surprising, since the company practically has its own role in the movie, so frequent are its product placements, occurring at about 30-second intervals in the futuristic sci-fi sections of the film.
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