A Hong Kong doll maker with a history of creating figurines of controversial world leaders has launched a replica of US President Donald Trump complete with replaceable heads and hands.
Trump follows in a line of other limited-edition figures made by the firm, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. The company also issued a model of former US president Barack Obama after he won the US presidency eight years ago.
The 30.5cm Trump figure comes with a red “make America great again” cap and presidential podium, as well as two removable heads with different facial expressions.
Photo: AFP
Four swappable hands can be fixed to the toy, including one with a jabbing pointed finger.
The doll — which costs about US$120 — has received “love and hate” responses, toy maker Dragon in Dream founder Howard Cheung (張學鈞) said.
“This one definitely had more feedback and interest than the others,” he told reporters.
The company is displaying a prototype of the doll in Hong Kong toy shop Seven and has taken a total 300 pre-orders so far, including online from the US. There is a thriving toy collecting scene in Hong Kong and the Trump doll stands among an array of other models in the shop, from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Star Wars figures and a replica of Adolf Hitler.
The toy has received an “enthusiastic” response, with 50 pre-orders through the shop alone, store manager Monita Chan said.
“Maybe they like Trump’s aggressive style — it’s been quite popular,” she said.
One customer told reporters he had pre-ordered the doll to add to his collection of miniature historic figures, which includes Napoleon, Hitler and late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.
“I think anybody’s better than [former US secretary of state] Hillary [Rodham] Clinton, including Donald Trump,” said the customer, a Hong Konger in his 30s who gave his name as Joe.
The doll maker’s Facebook page showed photographs of the toy roaming Hong Kong’s busy streets and even visiting a karaoke suite.
While some users registered excitement after ordering the doll, others ridiculed it.
“What a waste of your time and plastic! Does it come with a white hood and robes?” one netizen said on Facebook.
“Good lord, they need to keep these things sealed up,” another said, adding that the doll’s hands were “too big,” referring to descriptions of Trump having small hands.
The doll maker in 2015 became embroiled in controversy after it made a Nazi soldier model that bore a striking resemblance to German soccer player Bastian Schweinsteiger.
The Manchester United midfielder threatened legal action over that doll, which the company had named “World War II German Army Supply Duty Bastian.”
Cheung told reporters that the company never received a lawsuit from Schweinsteiger.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
RSS