Jet Li (李連杰) dropped a bombshell this week when he announced -- from the set of his new martial-arts period flick Huo Yuan-jia (霍元甲) -- that his days as an kung-fu action star are over. "It's time for a change of direction," the 42-year-old told the Apple Daily (蘋果日報). "Huo Yuan-jia is the end of martial-arts films for me. There are more important things I have to do. After [finishing this movie] I will spend only half my time on filming movies."
It's hard to imagine what sort of roles Li will take now that martial artists are a no-no. In fact, it's hard to imagine Li at all without thinking of martial arts. Between the ages of eight and 16, the Hebei native won five martial arts championships in China, and shocked everyone when, instead of going on to win a sixth, he made a movie: the 1982 Shaolin Temple.
Now, having spent the better half of his life building a career as one of the most prominent martial-arts actors in the world, Li says, "I've proven I can do it."
It's unclear what "more important things" Li plans to move on to, but it's not a bad bet that he'll start with some quality time with the missus -- Nina Li Chi (利智) -- who he says will be his strongest supporter no matter what he ends up doing.
As Jet Li prepares for something new, Chow Yun-fat (周潤發) is going back to his roots. After a long stint in Hollywood, the actor has taken his first Hong Kong role in a decade. He'll be playing a conman who falls for a mark in Ann Hui's (許鞍華) The Aunt's Postmodern Life (姨媽的後現代生活).
"I agreed to this movie because I haven't worked with Ann in a long time. Plus the role I was offered was something new. I've never played a swindler before, so I want to try," Chow said simply in an interview with the Apple Daily.
Of course Lin Chih-ling (林志玲) news is obligatory here at Pop Stop, so this week we bring you news that boy-band member and Lin's rumored boyfriend Jerry Yan (言承旭) took a break from his duties in F4 to go on a "secret" mission to Dalian, China, to visit Taiwan's favorite convalescent model. Perhaps he was spurred by jealousy over a similar trip last week by Qiu Shi-kai (邱士楷) -- Lin's other rumored boyfriend.
Yan took all the usual precautions befitting a high-profile boy toy trying to travel incognito. He wore sunglasses. And hat. To be fair, he did try to sneak out of the hospital by a different way than he'd come in, but the paparazzi were there waiting for him, and followed him all over town as he tried to lose them.
Failing to present the unified front that might have been politic at such a time, Lin Chih-ling's brother Ling Chi-hong (林志鴻) denied that Yan had visited his sister, while their mother Wu Tzu-mei (吳慈美) confirmed that he had.
The rumors of a Lin-Yan hookup began last year when a photograph of the model and the boy posing in their bathrobes was stolen from Lin's cellphone.
Readers of the Great Daily News (大成報) are claiming that there's another notch in the ABC section of Mando-pop star Elva Hsiao's (蕭亞軒) bedpost. They reported catching the star hanging around Plush and intimately "chatting" with a male friend a couple weeks back.
The only problem with their theory is that the singer herself coolly shot it down. "The music in there was too loud, so you had to get real close to talk, that must be why people mistook us [for a couple]." "If we had hit it off or fallen for each other, I would admit it, because I really do want to be in love, but I really am not right now. Those guys were just friends of my friend."
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