Pop Stop

A-mei scored high marks in her new acting career. PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES

While various celebrities caught in the recent drug use scandal wait to do time, either at home or in jail, Suzanne Hsiao (蕭淑慎), who has also been implicated, is in hospital suffering from anxiety and depression — could that be a result of her purported passion for cocaine?

The whole scandal has the Chinese-language media in a tizzy, and new lists of suspected celebrity drug users are being compiled. Without providing any evidence, newspapers have put on the blacklist 30 local stars, including pop singer Elva Hsiao (蕭亞軒) and TV host and singer Alan Luo (羅志祥), who has filed a lawsuit against the media, demanding compensation of NT$100 million.

For Hsiao, it never rains but it pours. As if being caught up in a drug scandal was not enough, she tore a ligament in her left leg while practicing new dance moves for her recently released album, the first in three years. Bed-bound for at least four weeks, the singer has been forced to cancel all performances and publicity campaigns. All these stresses and strains had her in floods of tears during a recent press conference.

If local pundits were to have their say, they would probably regard this as a sign for the celeb to try her hand at a new career.

Speaking new careers, A-mei (阿妹, 張惠妹) is doing great in her new acting career, garnered plaudits for her performance as the leading lady in the Mandarin musical Carman (愛上卡門) staged at the Taipei Arena (台北巨蛋) last weekend.

This role had the veteran singer rehearsing 13 hours a day over three months and turning down invitations for performances and product endorsements to the tune of NT$60 million. All the effort seems to have paid off, and the star's face was wet with tears when the final curtain dropped on the show.

Nevertheless, local paparazzi stayed true to their nature and sneered that A-mei's costume made her look like a sturdy farm girl.

Ang Lee (李安) may come over as being mild mannered and gentle, but the director is a strict captain when directing his crew of actors. The evidence can be found in megastar Tony Leung (梁朝偉), who has grown pale and emaciated during the shooting of Lust, Caution (色戒).

The Hong Kong star said that making the film has been the most painful experience he has ever endured and that he has kept going on willpower alone. "I look like a ghost now," Leung was quoted as saying in Chinese-language press.

Mando-pop Jolin Tsai (蔡依林), on the other hand, is looking better than ever. She was spotted sneaking into a cosmetic laser clinic last week. Her face has become miraculously thinner and her cup-size has grown from a flat A to a bodacious D, so Tsai is generally acknowledged as the best example of modern cosmetic surgery to be seen among the current crop of celebrities. Tsai has denied that she owes all to the surgeon's knife and attributes her transformation to the ancient wisdom of Chinese herbal medicine.

It seems most celebrities will turn into masters of humbug when it comes to drugs and cosmetic surgery.