Some 15,000 screaming fans cheered on South Korean pop star Rain at the first of two shows in Vietnam Saturday, billed as the most extravagant pop concert ever staged in the communist country.
More than 1,000 bodyguards and security staff were on duty at Ho Chi Minh City's Military Zone 7 stadium Saturday night to shield Rain from the delirious fans who have mobbed the Asian superstar since he arrived here on Wednesday. The concert, featuring pyrotechnics and spectacular sound and light effects, required more than 50 tons of equipment.
Amid the "Rain fever" in the former Saigon, many teenage admirers were left outside the venue as tickets selling for as much as US$160 were snapped up, with fans arriving from across Asia.
PHOTO: AP
The pop singer and hip-hop dancer, whose real name is Chung Ji-hoon, is on a six-month tour of 11 countries and territories. Part of the proceeds will be donated to World Vision's project to help Asian children suffering from AIDS.
Over in the US, a movie production company was forced to begin its first day of shooting without Busta Rhymes after the New York Police Department raised security concerns.
The Police Department declined to detail its specific concerns about Rhymes, who angered officers last year when he refused to cooperate with the investigation of his bodyguard's murder. The man was shot during the filming of a music video.
Rhymes is a cast member in Order of Redemption, which began shooting Saturday in midtown Manhattan. Julianne Cho, associate commissioner with the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre
Broadcasting, confirmed the shooting had started — and that Rhymes was absent.
"The production agreed that Busta Rhymes would not be participating in the scenes shot here after the Police Department raised public safety concerns," Cho said in a statement.
The crime drama, starring Academy Award nominee Tom Berenger, is shooting scenes in New York City on 14 nonconsecutive days into early April. Cho said the production had the necessary permits.
"This is tremendously unfair to Busta, who has been nothing but professional during this project," director Jeff Celentano said in a statement released through his publicist. "This is a bigger loss for the city of New York." The 34-year-old rapper, whose real name is Trevor Smith, has had several run-ins with law enforcement in the past year. Police say he has driven with a suspended license, beaten his former driver in a dispute over money, and talked on a cell phone while driving.
At least some entertainers are trying to be role models. Samuel L. Jackson, in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he is filming a movie, encouraged a group of young students, most of them 4 or 5 years old, to apply themselves in school and "find that one particular thing that makes you smile when you do it, that impresses your friends when you do it.
"For me, that was acting," he said Friday.
Jackson said education is the key. "If I can be a role model for you, then I'll be that. I'm a proud man, I'm an educated man and I give back to my community in as many ways as I can," he said.
Jackson attended college in Georgia, home of the late soul singer James Brown, whose body was finally placed in a crypt Saturday at the home of one of his daughters — more than two months after he died.
Brown's body had been kept in a secret location during disputes over his estate. He died Dec. 25 at age 73. The crypt likely will not be his final resting place.
The Reverend Al Sharpton presided over the private ceremony held for family and a few friends at the home of Deanna Brown Thomas. Also attending were Brown's partner, Tomi Rae Hynie, and the couple's young son.
"This is what James wanted, for the family to come together. Everyone really felt like James was there with us," Hynie said.
Nine Taiwanese nervously stand on an observation platform at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport. It’s 9:20am on March 27, 1968, and they are awaiting the arrival of Liu Wen-ching (柳文卿), who is about to be deported back to Taiwan where he faces possible execution for his independence activities. As he is removed from a minibus, a tenth activist, Dai Tian-chao (戴天昭), jumps out of his hiding place and attacks the immigration officials — the nine other activists in tow — while urging Liu to make a run for it. But he’s pinned to the ground. Amid the commotion, Liu tries to
The slashing of the government’s proposed budget by the two China-aligned parties in the legislature, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), has apparently resulted in blowback from the US. On the recent junket to US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, KMT legislators reported that they were confronted by US officials and congressmen angered at the cuts to the defense budget. The United Daily News (UDN), the longtime KMT party paper, now KMT-aligned media, responded to US anger by blaming the foreign media. Its regular column, the Cold Eye Collection (冷眼集), attacked the international media last month in
A pig’s head sits atop a shelf, tufts of blonde hair sprouting from its taut scalp. Opposite, its chalky, wrinkled heart glows red in a bubbling vat of liquid, locks of thick dark hair and teeth scattered below. A giant screen shows the pig draped in a hospital gown. Is it dead? A surgeon inserts human teeth implants, then hair implants — beautifying the horrifyingly human-like animal. Chang Chen-shen (張辰申) calls Incarnation Project: Deviation Lovers “a satirical self-criticism, a critique on the fact that throughout our lives we’ve been instilled with ideas and things that don’t belong to us.” Chang
Feb. 10 to Feb. 16 More than three decades after penning the iconic High Green Mountains (高山青), a frail Teng Yu-ping (鄧禹平) finally visited the verdant peaks and blue streams of Alishan described in the lyrics. Often mistaken as an indigenous folk song, it was actually created in 1949 by Chinese filmmakers while shooting a scene for the movie Happenings in Alishan (阿里山風雲) in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投), recounts director Chang Ying (張英) in the 1999 book, Chang Ying’s Contributions to Taiwanese Cinema and Theater (打鑼三響包得行: 張英對台灣影劇的貢獻). The team was meant to return to China after filming, but