The Golden Melody Awards are set to take place next week, and this year the traditional hostess of the event, Momoko Tao (陶晶瑩) will be joined by two of Taiwan's hottest TV personalities: Lin Chih-lin (林志玲) and Patty Hou (侯佩岑). The ceremony, which is set to be held in Kaohsiung to the dismay of reporters on the pop beat who are all concentrated in Taipei, has been given the rather bland theme of "Party."
Pop Stop isn't quite sure if the theme is meant as a verb or a noun, but is certain that having Lin Chih-lin don a shaggy wig and pretend to be a member of the Beatles and Patty Hou dress like a 1950s teenie bopper at a pre-event press conference this week didn't quite scream party. It was just plain weird. Hopefully it doesn't foreshadow more Golden Melody bloopers to come. In the past there has been a dais that didn't rise out of the stage when it was supposed to, award presenters who've announced awards for themselves, or who have been handed the wrong category envelope, or whole categories where no winner was selected.
This week the Cannes Film Festival was in full swing, but there has been little hype about the competing Chinese-language films. The only news out of Cannes concerned the glitterati parties at nearby French castles and Shu Qi (舒淇) taking a major financial hit by ditching a movie set she's working on in Beijing to be part of the fun in France and cheer for The Best of Our Times (最好的時光) by Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) in which she stars along with Chang Chen (張震).
After veteran actor/comedian Ni Min-jan's (倪敏然) tragic death, audiences around the Mandarin-speaking world have bee closely following the family scandal. The story can be as simple as the following: The virtuous wife retreats quietly to her well-protected home in the US, the evil family-breaker refuses to play the role of a teary-eyed victim, and instead comes out tough and aggressive. Ni's friends all gang up against this lying crazy woman from China by cutting her off from the entertainment business in Taiwan. Appalled by her hostile attitude, the local media also joined the latest witch hunt by de-picting her as morally degraded woman with a foul mouth full of lies. One can only hope this disturbing episode will soon come to an end.
Expecting her second baby in July, sexy mom Lee Chien-rong (李蒨蓉) just can't squelch her craving for designer luxuries. Taking her bulging belly into consideration, Lee has decided to quit lavish clothes for a while and turn to expensive bags instead. In just four month, she has already spent NT$540,000 on 14 designer bags, including a limited-edition Bottega Veneta handbag worth NT$150,000. Famed for her always fashionably correct taste for designer items, the star admitted occasional slips, such as a yellow Chanel bag she purchased this spring/summer season but now uses as a diaper carrier for her baby. For those who don't approve of such extravagance, the good news is the mom has learned her lesson: According to Apple Daily (蘋果日報), her wealthy husband Alan gave her a good spanking for the NT$150,000 bag she bought.
RSS