Jay Chou (周杰倫) will make his Hollywood debut, starring alongside Nicolas Cage and Cameron Diaz in the movie version of the once-popular US television series The Green Hornet, his company said on Saturday.
“I am very delighted to have such a chance to act in a film made by international producer, and I will do my best,” said the star said in a brief statement issued by the JVR Music Company.
Columbia Pictures also confirmed in a statement that after a worldwide search, Chou, 30, had joined the cast of Michel Gondry’s The Green Hornet in the iconic role of Kato.
The film was adapted from the 1960s popular TV series starring Van Williams as the crime fighter Britt Reid or the Green Hornet, and the late Chinese-American martial arts icon Bruce Lee as his sidekick, Kato.
While things keep getting better for The Chairman, Michael Douglas’ son is headed firmly in the opposite direction. According to a criminal complaint made public last week in the US, Cameron Douglas traveled coast to coast dealing large quantities of methamphetamine before his arrest last month.
The complaint in federal court in Manhattan alleges that the younger Douglas was paid tens of thousands of US dollars trafficking the drug — referred to in transactions by the code words “pastry” or “bath salts” — since 2006. Cash and drugs were routinely exchanged through shippers like FedEx, the court papers said.
The 30-year-old son of the Oscar-winning actor was arrested July 28 at the trendy Hotel Gansevoort in Manhattan. His attorney, Nicholas DeFeis, declined to comment on Thursday.
The complaint drawn up by a Drug Enforcement Administration agent details allegations based on information provided by three unnamed crystal meth users and dealers. The users — including someone who once worked for Cameron Douglas — have pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the investigation.
The complaint said that in one deal in 2006, a cooperator shipped cash under a fake name to Douglas at a California hotel. A few days later, it said, Douglas delivered a pound (roughly half a kilogram) of methamphetamine to the cooperator at a Manhattan hotel.
In 2007, according to another cooperator, Douglas was paid US$48,000 at a Manhattan apartment. The cooperator later received a pound of crystal meth through FedEx from Santa Barbara, California.
In June and July, negotiations for more drugs were secretly recorded on wiretaps of cell phones and a cooperator’s hotel room in Manhattan.
Cameron Douglas, in one recording at the hotel, “acknowledged his prior history selling crystal meth” and “indicated that he continued to sell crystal meth.” In a separate recorded phone conversation, investigators said he spoke of “sending out a pastry” to a cooperator, and also asked, “Did you get a chance to ... smell any of the salts or anything like that?” Cameron Douglas has acted in movies including 2003’s It Runs in the Family, starring his father and grandfather Kirk Douglas.
He was previously arrested in California in 2007 on cocaine possession charges. His attorney then said the arresting officer didn’t do his job properly.
Also busted on drug charges is Japanese actress Noriko Sakai, who turned herself in to Tokyo police and was arrested on Saturday evening, reports local broadcaster NHK.
The 38-year-old actress had been missing since her husband was arrested earlier this week for alleged drug possession.
Sakai, whose disappearance sparked a media frenzy in Japan and other Asian countries, was well-known throughout the region, especially in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, because of her songs and TV dramas during the 1990s.
Tokyo police said on Saturday night they could not immediately confirm the report.
Sakai’s husband, Yuichi Takaso, 41, was stopped in central Tokyo earlier in the week by police, who allegedly found drugs when they searched him, according to reports.
Questions concerning Sakai’s whereabouts have dominated headlines since Takaso’s arrest, with her mother-in-law asking police to search for her, and the president of her management agency holding a news conference and urging her not to go through the difficult time by herself.
Another thespian with drug issues, actor Tom Sizemore, has been arrested in Los Angeles for alleged domestic violence. Police spokesman Richard French says the 47-year-old, best known for his appearances in Black Hawk Down and Saving Private Ryan, was arrested on Wednesday night in downtown Los Angeles. French did not have details of the incident.
Jail records show Sizemore was released on Thursday morning. His bail had been set at US$20,000.
Representatives for two agencies listed as representing Sizemore said they no longer did so.
Sizemore was convicted in 2003 of domestic violence involving his ex-girlfriend, former “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss. He’s also had a string of drug-related arrests in recent years.
“Anyone, Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?”
American TV personality Ben Stein has been stripped of his Sunday New York Times business column because of his work as a pitchman for a credit monitoring company.
Stein famously played the part of a monotone economics teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
New York Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis released a statement on Friday that said the newspaper decided it would not be appropriate for Stein to pitch for FreeScore.com while writing his column.
An e-mail requesting comment from the former host of Comedy Central’s Win Ben Stein’s Money quiz show was not immediately returned.
Earlier this year, Stein withdrew as the University of Vermont’s commencement speaker over complaints about his critical views of evolution in favor of “intelligent design.”
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless