Starring Jay Chou (周杰倫) and teen-idols Edison Chen (陳冠希) and Shawn Yue (余文樂) from Hong Kong, the most talked-about Chinese movie of the year, Initial D (頭文字D), finally hit the big screen last Friday in Taiwan. With a string of terrible reviews because of the poor acting of its protagonist, the movie nevertheless grossed over NT$7 million in ticket sales in the first half day of screenings.
No surprises there. A blockbuster movie is never about good-quality performances and intelligent story-telling. It's all about grand promotions, well-plotted publicity stunts and behind-the-scene stories that the press can happily chew on for weeks.
The three young male idols
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
involved know all the tricks. And like their female counterparts, they understand the importance of lavish outfits and accessories. Showing up at their press conference in Taipei, Shawn smiled confidently with his NT$160,000 necklace (almost invisible to the untrained eye) and Edison strutted out of the car in a pair of Adidas sneakers worth NT$40,000. As for Jay, he didn't need to try hard -- or even try at all -- with the title King of Mando-pop under his belt.
It hasn't all been smooth sailing, though. Bad-boy Edison reportedly got pissed off by Chou's steeply rising star and felt frustrated enough about being ignored by the media during promotional tours to make a noise about it.
Petty break-up news from the self-absorbed celebrity circle is as follows: Following the break-ups of Big S (大S) and Lan Zheng-long (藍正龍), Elva Hsiao (
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
TV hostess Momoko Tao (陶子), on the other hand, happily showed off her two-year relationship with actor Lee Lee-ren (李李仁) by talking about the possibility of marriage in a promotional event on Monday. As an ordinary-looking woman, Tao admitted she once wanted to get her whole body revamped with plastic surgery, but said, as reported by the Apple Daily (蘋果日報), ``on second thought, there must be a beautiful side of me -- otherwise how could I have landed such a great-looking boyfriend?''
Truth is, wealth and power can can get most people (male or female) what they want and they don't have to be good-looking to get it.
Although she's one of the least-favored movie stars in the eyes of the Chinese press, Zhang Zi-yi (章子怡) has been gaining increasing popularity and recognition in the West. She has recently been honored by becoming a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and she's so hot there that the big-hearted Chinese media have accused her of being a snob who's forgotten where she came from and who doesn't give a shit about Chinese-speaking markets.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Hong Kong beauty Maggie Q is another Asian actress who's made it to Hollywood. According to the Great Daily News (
The four-piece boy band F4 is going to have a girl version soon, according to the local media. But while the boy band uses pretty faces as their selling point, the F4 girls will take pride in their voluptuous breasts -- that is, all four band members are required to have F-cup equipment. The band has already recruited three big-bosomed babes, all college girls. If you want to join the band and have the right stuff, hurry to get your application form in. This is your chance to be counted and join "Fantasy 4."
The US war on Iran has illuminated the deep interdependence of Asia on flows of oil and related items as raw materials that become the basis of modern human civilization. Australians and New Zealanders had a wake up call. The crisis also emphasizes how the Philippines is a swatch of islands linked by jet fuel. These revelations have deep implications for an invasion of Taiwan. Much of the commentary on the Taiwan scenario has looked at the disruptions to world trade, which will be in the trillions. However, the Iran war offers additional specific lessons for a Taiwan scenario. An insightful
The problem with Marx’s famous remark that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, the second time as farce, is that the first time is usually farce as well. This week Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) made a pilgrimage to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “to confer, converse and otherwise hob-nob” with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. The visit was an instant international media hit, with major media reporting almost entirely shorn of context. “Taiwan’s main opposition leader landed in China Tuesday for a rare visit aimed at cross-strait ‘peace’”, crowed Agence-France Presse (AFP) from Shanghai. Rare!
April 6 to April 13 Few expected a Japanese manga adaptation featuring four tall, long-haired heartthrobs and a plucky heroine to transform Taiwan’s television industry. But Meteor Garden (流星花園) took the nation by storm after premiering on April 12, 2001, single-handedly creating the “idol drama” (偶像劇) craze that captivated young viewers across Asia. The show was so successful that Japan produced its own remake in 2005, followed by South Korea, China and Thailand. Other channels quickly followed suit, with more than 50 such shows appearing over the following two years. Departing from the melodramatic
Sunflower movement superstar Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) once quipped that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) could nominate a watermelon to run for Tainan mayor and win. Conversely, the DPP could run a living saint for mayor in Taipei and still lose. In 2022, the DPP ran with the closest thing to a living saint they could find: former Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中). During the pandemic, his polling was astronomically high, with the approval of his performance reaching as high as 91 percent in one TVBS poll. He was such a phenomenon that people printed out pop-up cartoon
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