Trends and Buzz

Tsui Hark to film Brigitte Lin biopic

JDM050725lin.jpg
Can Cecilia measure up to Brigitte?

Tsui Hark, fresh off the premiere of his new wuxia flick The Seven Swords, has finally received permission from Brigitte Lin to film The Brigitte Lin Story. And the actress he's fingered to play Ms. Lin is Cecilia Cheung.

It's a bit hard to imagine Cecilia commanding the same sort of steely fierceness that made Brigitte such an effective star in wuxia roles like Asia Invincible; Cecilia's cross-dressing has been played for laughs rather than for menace. And though Cecilia played Brigitte's character in the remake of Zu Mountain, it's hard to compare the two since the second movie was such a mess. Fortuantely the biopic will only cover Ms. Lin's early years, probably up to the point when she was plucked off the street to star in Outside the Window.

This isn't the first association between the two actresses; back in 2000 it was rumored that they were to appear in a movie together as mother and daughter. It's also a bit strange to shoot a biography of an actress who's still alive and only just turned 50. But Ms. Lin hasn't appeared in a movie since 1994, and given the current state of the HK film industry, maybe nostalgia is the order of the day.

Meanwhile, on the guy movie side of things, a confluence of action stars is set to shake the universe to its very core. Ken Watanabe, Chow Yun-fat, Andy Lau, and Tony Leung will star in The Battle of Red Cliffs, a Three-Kingdoms adaptation directed by John Woo.

Links and Sources
Media Partners
Visit these sites for the latest China news
090609guardian2.png 090609CNN3.png
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
The latest recommended blogs and new media
laomo2010x80.jpg
From 2008
Books on China
The Eurasian Face : Blacksmith Books, a publishing house in Hong Kong, is behind The Eurasian Face, a collection of photographs by Kirsteen Zimmern. Below is an excerpt from the series:
Big in China: An adapted excerpt from Big In China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising A Family, Playing The Blues and Becoming A Star in China, just published this month. Author Alan Paul tells the story of arriving in Beijing as a trailing spouse, starting a blues band, raising kids and trying to make sense of China.
Pallavi Aiyar's Chinese Whiskers: Pallavi Aiyar's first novel, Chinese Whiskers, a modern fable set in contemporary Beijing, will be published in January 2011. Aiyar currently lives in Brussels where she writes about Europe for the Business Standard. Below she gives permissions for an excerpt.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ Korean history doesn't fly on Chinese TV screens (2007.09): SARFT puts the kibbosh on Korean historical dramas.
+ Religion and government in an uneasy mix (2008.03): Phoenix Weekly (凤凰周刊) article from October, 2007, on government influence on religious practice in Tibet.
+ David Moser on Mao impersonators (2004.10): I first became aware of this phenomenon in 1992 when I turned on a Beijing TV variety show and was jolted by the sight of "Mao Zedong" and "Zhou Enlai" playing a game of ping pong. They both gave short, rousing speeches, and then were reverently interviewed by the emcee, who thanked them profusely for taking time off from their governmental duties to appear on the show.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky rsschiclet2.png (on the mainland)
or Feedburner rsschiclet.gif (blocked in China)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Main feed: Main posts (FB has top links)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Top Links: Links from the top bar
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Jobs: Want ads
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Digest: Updated daily, 19:30