Print

Mail

wiki links

[POP STOP]

Ethan Ruan, left, and Tiffany Hsu are taking their relationship to another level. PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES

The biggest stars of Saturday's 44th Golden Horse Awards (金馬獎) were, of course, Ang Lee (李安), with his erotic spy thriller Lust, Caution (色,戒), the flick's cast and crew and veteran actress Joan Chen (陳沖), who plays Tony Leung Chiu-wei's (梁朝偉) wife in the film.

Chen trumped contender Tang Wei (湯唯) to pick up her second Best Leading Actress trophy for her performance in Australian production, The Home Song Stories, but was given the cold shoulder by the media, which swarmed around the Lee camp, especially 28-year-old Tang.

The smile on the 46-year-old actress' face froze and faded when she was almost left out of the happy photo moment. It was the last of Chen the press would see for the rest of the night. The sulky actress didn't show up at the after party and left Taiwan the following morning.

The annual event also gave the hoi polloi a chance to spot stray celebrities on the streets of Taipei. Skilled in making good use of her hard-earned stardom, Shu Qi (舒淇) made time during her short visit home to attend a party thrown by Jaeger-LeCoultre watches last weekend.

Shu Qi, before a donut or two. PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES

Apparently, Qi's no-eating-at-parties rule made her ravenous. After the party, the belle, dressed in a Burberry wool coat, gold boots and black stockings, legged it to a donut shop on Minsheng East Road, closely trailed by paparazzi, and swiftly returned to her Mercedes for a nibble.

The moral of this showbiz tidbit is: don't believe the hype. You can have your cake, eat it and still be a thin glamour-puss.

How does an obscure male model make it onto the billboard of the city's premier shopping mall? Easy, date the owner's sister. A year of going out with Breeze Center (微風廣場) art director, Liao Hsiao-chiao (廖曉喬), sister of the mall's owner, paid off for wannabe star and model Denny Huang (黃柏鈞). His Herculean body is featured predominantly on the center's new billboard advertisement for the winter holidays.

Huang may be a business-savvy man who knows how to take a shortcut to fame and glory, but the Liaos are also notorious for using the family for modeling and showbiz. The clan succeeded in propelling Breeze owner Henry Liao's (廖鎮漢) wife and society dame Amy Sun (孫芸芸) to stardom by featuring her in promotional material.

In other model-related news, the love between Catwalk's (凱渥) Ethan Ruan (阮經天) and Tiffany Hsu (許瑋甯) has matured over the past six months, with gossip hounds partaking in each and every treasured moment of their high-profile courtship.

The liaison blossomed from a casual summertime fling on the beach, when the pair appeared on a reality TV show filmed in Kenting (墾丁), to house-hunting last week, which has been interpreted by the tabloids as a sign of hitting the final phase of romance.

As every showbiz news reader will know, the race is on to uncover any hint of double-crossing or a breakup.
This story has been viewed 9983 times.