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.”
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist