Dressed in bright red, Michelle Yeoh (
Yeoh should be happy. For the past two weeks she and her boyfriend and co-producer, Thomas Chung, have been touring China's major cities from Beijing to Wuhan and Chengdu, promoting the film. The result looks satisfying. In the two weeks after its release in China, the film reached a box office tally of 17 million renminbi, which surpassed the Chinese box office sales of Spiderman and Star Wars: Episode II.
"My feelings shifted from being extremely nervous to excited and now I feel really happy and relaxed," Yeoh said at a press conference on Wednesday.
PHOTO: SHEN CHAO-LIANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Standing beside her, Pater Pau (
"She was the typical Chinese woman in Crouching Tiger, repressing her feelings towards her beloved and her anger towards her enemy," Pau said. "In Tomorrow Never Dies, she was too cool and serious." So in The Touch, Pau said the audience will see the true Michelle Yeoh, who likes to laugh and make jokes. There are also kisses with Ben Chaplin in the film.
The Touch is one of the few Hong Kong-produced films with a budget over US$20 million. Investors in the film include Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan. "Chinese filmmaking is now beginning to change its face from small-budget kung fu films to bigger and bigger productions," Pau said. "Touch is among the first ones to make this change," he added.
Helen Huang (黃寶雲), chairperson of Pandasia Entertainment, is the film's Taiwanese investor. Her company put up nearly one-third of the film's budget. "Enterprises in Taiwan do have the willingness and the vision to invest in films with international appeal," she said. "The film is a good example of this."
The Touch sees many former Crouching Tiger actors and crew members, including late Taiwanese actor Lung Sihung (郎雄), who came to fame playing the father figure in most of Ang Lee's (李安) films. The Touch was Lung's last film and perhaps his most difficult as, at age 72, he had to memorize his lines in English. He plays a Tibetan monk in the film.
April 28 to May 4 During the Japanese colonial era, a city’s “first” high school typically served Japanese students, while Taiwanese attended the “second” high school. Only in Taichung was this reversed. That’s because when Taichung First High School opened its doors on May 1, 1915 to serve Taiwanese students who were previously barred from secondary education, it was the only high school in town. Former principal Hideo Azukisawa threatened to quit when the government in 1922 attempted to transfer the “first” designation to a new local high school for Japanese students, leading to this unusual situation. Prior to the Taichung First
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
The Ministry of Education last month proposed a nationwide ban on mobile devices in schools, aiming to curb concerns over student phone addiction. Under the revised regulation, which will take effect in August, teachers and schools will be required to collect mobile devices — including phones, laptops and wearables devices — for safekeeping during school hours, unless they are being used for educational purposes. For Chang Fong-ching (張鳳琴), the ban will have a positive impact. “It’s a good move,” says the professor in the department of
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