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Hong Kong actor-singer Andy Lau (劉德華) says he quietly got married but did not announce it because he wanted to protect his wife while they tried to have a baby.

Lau said in a brief message on his official Web site late Saturday that he and his wife married in the US because they want to have a child by artificial insemination — a procedure authorized only for wedded couples in Hong Kong.

“I was afraid that if I announced the marriage, she would be stalked by reporters, so I made a selfish decision. I thought if things go well, I would tell everyone when the baby is stable, but instead I made things more complicated,” he said.

He did not give more details on their efforts to have a child.

Lau did not identify his wife, but public marriage records made available online by the Clark County Recorder’s Office in Nevada show that Lau and Carol Chu (朱麗倩) wed on June 24, 2008. The records were first reported on Saturday by Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper.

Calls to Lau’s publicists yesterday went unanswered.

Speculation about Lau’s personal life has dominated the entertainment pages in Chinese-language newspapers after he was spotted in Hong Kong’s international airport on Tuesday with Chu, a former beauty pageant contestant from Malaysia.

Entertainment reporters had staked out the funeral of Chu’s father in Kuala Lumpur and mobbed Lau and Chu when they returned to Hong Kong.

The 47-year-old star of films like Infernal Affairs (無間道) and House of Flying Daggers (十面埋伏) has appeared in more than 100 movies since his debut in 1982 and is one of Asia’s biggest celebrities.

One of the biggest Hong Kong female stars sidelined by the Edison Chen (陳冠希) sex photos scandal made her stage debut on Thursday, giving her first performance since launching her comeback five months ago.

Gillian Chung (鍾欣桐) from female duo Twins starred in a Cantonese production of the Neil Simon comedy I Ought to Be in Pictures. The show was financed by her management company and opened to a near-capacity audience at a 1,200-seat theater at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

The 28-year-old actress-singer said she valued the experience of playing an aspiring actress who reconnects with her estranged screenwriter father.

“I’ve really learned a lot since I started rehearsing,” she said after the first of five performances late Thursday.

Chung and seven other female Hong Kong stars were seen performing sex acts with Chinese-Canadian actor-singer Chen in photos that were leaked onto the Internet early last year, causing a huge uproar in the socially conservative

community. A Hong Kong computer technician was sentenced to 8 1/2 months in jail in May for copying the photos from Chen’s laptop.

Chung launched her comeback in March by endorsing a line of jeans.

Also jumping on the comeback wagon is independent Chinese director Zhang Yuan (張元), who said on Wednesday that he is releasing his first movie in China since he was detained in a drugs bust more than a year ago.

Zhang, known for taking on sensitive social issues including homosexuality and mental illness, was detained for allegedly using illegal drugs after police officers raided his home in Beijing in January of last year. The scandal grew when footage of the police raid — showing an irritated Zhang talking back to police officers — circulated on the Internet. It was unclear how long he was held.

The 45-year-old director said that Chinese film regulators — known for their aversion to sex, crime and political controversy — have not punished him for the drug scandal and that he plans to release his new film, Dada’s Dance (達達), nationally on Sept. 11.

The drama is about a young woman who takes to the road after she is falsely told that her mother is not her birth mother. Zhang said the film’s distributor, Beijing Polybona Film Distribution Co, still has not decided how many screens to release the movie on.

However, Dada’s Dance is getting a late release in China. It premiered nearly a year ago at the Pusan International Film Festival in October 2008. Asked about the long delay, Zhang said he was “working on other things,” but did not elaborate on why his plans had delayed the release.

Zhang was also vague when asked about the drug bust, hanging up after answering several questions. It is not clear if he was charged with any crime. Zhang denied using drugs in the footage of the police raid.

Zhang’s credits include Mum (媽媽), Beijing Bastards (北京雜种), The Square (廣場) and East Palace West Palace (東宮西宮), whose bold exploration of the power play between a police officer and a gay man set off alarms among Chinese censors. Chinese officials confiscated his passport to prevent him from promoting the film overseas, and the movie was never shown in China. — agenciES

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