Some 15,000 screaming fans cheered on South Korean pop star Rain at the first of two shows in Vietnam Saturday, billed as the most extravagant pop concert ever staged in the communist country.
More than 1,000 bodyguards and security staff were on duty at Ho Chi Minh City's Military Zone 7 stadium Saturday night to shield Rain from the delirious fans who have mobbed the Asian superstar since he arrived here on Wednesday. The concert, featuring pyrotechnics and spectacular sound and light effects, required more than 50 tons of equipment.
Amid the "Rain fever" in the former Saigon, many teenage admirers were left outside the venue as tickets selling for as much as US$160 were snapped up, with fans arriving from across Asia.
The pop singer and hip-hop dancer, whose real name is Chung Ji-hoon, is on a six-month tour of 11 countries and territories. Part of the proceeds will be donated to World Vision's project to help Asian children suffering from AIDS.
Over in the US, a movie production company was forced to begin its first day of shooting without Busta Rhymes after the New York Police Department raised security concerns.
The Police Department declined to detail its specific concerns about Rhymes, who angered officers last year when he refused to cooperate with the investigation of his bodyguard's murder. The man was shot during the filming of a music video.
Rhymes is a cast member in Order of Redemption, which began shooting Saturday in midtown Manhattan. Julianne Cho, associate commissioner with the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre
Broadcasting, confirmed the shooting had started — and that Rhymes was absent.
"The production agreed that Busta Rhymes would not be participating in the scenes shot here after the Police Department raised public safety concerns," Cho said in a statement.
The crime drama, starring Academy Award nominee Tom Berenger, is shooting scenes in New York City on 14 nonconsecutive days into early April. Cho said the production had the necessary permits.
"This is tremendously unfair to Busta, who has been nothing but professional during this project," director Jeff Celentano said in a statement released through his publicist. "This is a bigger loss for the city of New York." The 34-year-old rapper, whose real name is Trevor Smith, has had several run-ins with law enforcement in the past year. Police say he has driven with a suspended license, beaten his former driver in a dispute over money, and talked on a cell phone while driving.
At least some entertainers are trying to be role models. Samuel L. Jackson, in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he is filming a movie, encouraged a group of young students, most of them 4 or 5 years old, to apply themselves in school and "find that one particular thing that makes you smile when you do it, that impresses your friends when you do it.
"For me, that was acting," he said Friday.
Jackson said education is the key. "If I can be a role model for you, then I'll be that. I'm a proud man, I'm an educated man and I give back to my community in as many ways as I can," he said.
Jackson attended college in Georgia, home of the late soul singer James Brown, whose body was finally placed in a crypt Saturday at the home of one of his daughters — more than two months after he died.
Brown's body had been kept in a secret location during disputes over his estate. He died Dec. 25 at age 73. The crypt likely will not be his final resting place.
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