Supermodel Lin Chi-ling (林志玲) is getting an image makeover with her role in Treasure Hunter (刺陵), a big-budget action flick scheduled to open next week. This is her second role in a feature movie. Clearly Lin is making the right kind of moves because Treasure Hunter stars Jay Chou (周杰倫), features a high-profile cast including Eric Tsang (曾志偉) and Chen Dao-ming (陳道明) and is directed by Kung Fu Dunk (功夫灌籃) director Chu Yin-ping (朱延平). This is a significant shift from Lin’s previous role as Xiao Qiao in John Woo’s (吳宇森) Red Cliff (赤壁). In Treasure Hunter, Lin casts off her demur demeanor and takes up sword and spear in a martial role akin to that of Angelina Jolie’s Laura Croft.
At a press conference in Singapore to promote the film, Lin said that she gave herself a seven out of 10 for her performance. Lin garnered mixed reviews for her presence in Red Cliff, but on this occasion she has certainly impressed other cast members, including Chou, with her energy and eagerness to learn. The United Daily News quoted Chou as saying: “When a beautiful woman fights, it looks good no matter what. That’s the important point.” Perhaps Chou wasn’t being so complimentary about Lin’s talent after all. Lin also took it upon herself to write the lyrics for the film’s theme song. Chou, who composed the music, dispensed with the services of Vincent Fang (方文山), the much sought-after lyricist, after seeing Lin’s efforts. “Next time we won’t have to book Fang,” Chou said. “He always has so much work on hand.”
With Treasure Hunter, Chou’s bid to make it in the movie business, on both sides of the camera, is clearly being established. Another singer who has dabbled in acting — and who now wants to take the director’s chair — is Wang Lee-hom (王力宏). According to the United Daily News, Wang has quietly begun shooting in China for a new feature film and has received support and advice from mentors Ang Lee (李安) and Jackie Chan (成龍). Chan’s own new feature film Big Soldiers (大兵小將), staring Wang, is scheduled for release early next year. In regard to his directorial style, Wang said he wanted to be a director like Ang Lee, someone who didn’t have to resort to shouting at people on set. “I’m not very good at telling people off,” he was quoted as saying.
Wang — once regarded as one of the hottest men in the Chinese-language entertainment industry — is nowhere to be seen in the Apple Daily’s poll of best looking men, with heartthrob Vic Chou (周渝民) of boy band F4 fame taking the top spot. Singer Jerry Yan (言承旭) took second place, and Ethan Ruan (阮經天) third. Takeshi Kaneshiro (金城武) placed fourth. The 36-year-old actor is doing well to have kept his place in the top five lookers despite his age. Fifth place went to Mark Chao (趙又廷) of the recent hit cop shop series Black & White (痞子英雄).
On the romantic front, Jolin Tsai (蔡依林) is back on the prowl and Next Magazine reports that following her traumatic breakup with Eddie Peng (彭于晏), she has picked up with model Godfrey Kao (高以翔). According to Next, Kao is keeping a low profile on his conquest as Tsai’s former boyfriend Peng is a buddy. This hasn’t prevented the paparazzi from catching the two flagrantly trying to avoid public scrutiny by leaving various nightspots surreptitiously, and by different exits.
Common sense is not that common: a recent study from the University of Pennsylvania concludes the concept is “somewhat illusory.” Researchers collected statements from various sources that had been described as “common sense” and put them to test subjects. The mixed bag of results suggested there was “little evidence that more than a small fraction of beliefs is common to more than a small fraction of people.” It’s no surprise that there are few universally shared notions of what stands to reason. People took a horse worming drug to cure COVID! They think low-traffic neighborhoods are a communist plot and call
It is barely 10am and the queue outside Onigiri Bongo already stretches around the block. Some of the 30 or so early-bird diners sit on stools, sipping green tea and poring over laminated menus. Further back it is standing-room only. “It’s always like this,” says Yumiko Ukon, who has run this modest rice ball shop and restaurant in the Otsuka neighbourhood of Tokyo for almost half a century. “But we never run out of rice,” she adds, seated in her office near a wall clock in the shape of a rice ball with a bite taken out. Bongo, opened in 1960 by
Over the years, whole libraries of pro-People’s Republic of China (PRC) texts have been issued by commentators on “the Taiwan problem,” or the PRC’s desire to annex Taiwan. These documents have a number of features in common. They isolate Taiwan from other areas and issues of PRC expansion. They blame Taiwan’s rhetoric or behavior for PRC actions, particularly pro-Taiwan leadership and behavior. They present the brutal authoritarian state across the Taiwan Strait as conciliatory and rational. Even their historical frames are PRC propaganda. All of this, and more, colors the latest “analysis” and recommendations from the International Crisis Group, “The Widening
From a nadir following the 2020 national elections, two successive chairs of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) and Eric Chu (朱立倫), tried to reform and reinvigorate the old-fashioned Leninist-structured party to revive their fortunes electorally. As examined in “Donovan’s Deep Dives: How Eric Chu revived the KMT,” Chu in particular made some savvy moves that made the party viable electorally again, if not to their full powerhouse status prior to the 2014 Sunflower movement. However, while Chu has made some progress, there remain two truly enormous problems facing the KMT: the party is in financial ruin and
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