Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson was spotted shooting scenes for French director Luc Besson’s action thriller Lucy in Taipei yesterday.
Johansson, twice named the sexiest woman alive by Esquire Magazine, was sporting a leopard print jacket and a V-line dress in front of the Regent Taipei.
She appeared to be in a scene with a male actor, who was wearing a cowboy hat.
Signs have been erected by the Taipei Film Commission near the hotel announcing that streets around the hotel would be blocked from yesterday through Thursday. The front door of the hotel was also closed off, reportedly for the shooting of the film.
The Taipei Financial Center Co, which owns Taipei 101, confirmed earlier that the film crew will take aerial shots of the skyscraper.
The movie is reportedly about a woman, played by Johansson, working in Taiwan as a drug mule, who gains supernatural abilities and becomes a warrior.
The film is the largest
Hollywood film to be shot in Taiwan after Oscar-winning Taiwanese director Ang Lee’s 3-D epic adventure film Life of Pi.
Johansson has appeared in such blockbusters as Iron Man 2 and The Avengers. Besson is best known for his 1997 movie The Fifth Element. His latest works include The Lady and the Taken series.
Local media on Sunday camped out at the Regent Taipei, where Besson is staying, but the presence of the media appeared to bother the director, who showed up later that day and told journalists not to disturb his work.
Taiwan is to commence mass production of the Tien Kung (天弓, “Sky Bow”) III, IV and V missiles by the second quarter of this year if the legislature approves the government’s NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.78 billion) special defense budget, an official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said that the advanced systems are expected to provide crucial capabilities against ballistic and cruise missiles for the proposed “T-Dome,” an advanced, multi-layered air defense network. The Tien Kung III is an air defense missile with a maximum interception altitude of 35km. The Tien Kung IV and V
The disruption of 941 flights in and out of Taiwan due to China’s large-scale military exercises was no accident, but rather the result of a “quasi-blockade” used to simulate creating the air and sea routes needed for an amphibious landing, a military expert said. The disruptions occurred on Tuesday and lasted about 10 hours as China conducted live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait. The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said the exercises affected 857 international flights and 84 domestic flights, affecting more than 100,000 travelers. Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the government-sponsored Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the air
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
A strong continental cold air mass is to bring pollutants to Taiwan from tomorrow, the Ministry of Environment said today, as it issued an “orange” air quality alert for most of the country. All of Taiwan except for Hualien and Taitung counties is to be under an “orange” air quality alert tomorrow, indicating air quality that is unhealthy for sensitive groups. In China, areas from Shandong to Shanghai have been enveloped in haze since Saturday, the ministry said in a news release. Yesterday, hourly concentrations of PM2.5 in these areas ranged from 65 to 160 micrograms per cubic meter (mg/m³), and pollutants were