Saturday, July 30, 2011

The Story of David With Huang Bo

Beijing publicity event for The Story of David (lit. Egg Fried Rice) which opened July 28, starring Huang Bo, Sophie Guo Jin and Wang Yi.

The Forrest Gump-like tale tells the story of 3 Beijingers and the social changes over the course of three decades. The film features both comedy and nostalgia. Huang Bo plays a fool who sells a family heirloom and opens a fried rice restaurant.

Actress Sophia Guo Jin is a former ATV-sponsored Miss Asia Pageant runner-up (1997, to Belinda Hamnett) who later returned to the mainland to restart her career.

Director Chen Yu has a PhD. and is currently associate professor at Beijing University School of Art.

 Made in 2009, the small-budget film is just now getting released. At this year's Beijing Student Film Festival, The Story of David won the Best Debut Award.



Huang Bo


Guo Jin

Director Chen Yu, Huang Bo, Guo Jin

Huang Bo, Guo Jin, Wang Yi

Director Zhang Yang lending support




Love triangle

Huang Bo, Wang Yi, Sophie Guo Jin

Guo Jin



Huang Bo, Sophie Guo Jin

Huang Bo, Wang Yi, Sophie Guo Jin

Guo Jin and sugar daddy

Sophie Guo Jin rock style


 
Guo Jin

Wang Yi, Guo Jin, director Chen Yu, Huang Bo

2009 promotional appearance - Guo Jin,  Huang Bo (Xinmin)


Friday, July 29, 2011

Actor's perfect role: saving old films (SCMP)

After leaving the limelight, Lui Ming found and restored hundreds of 'Cantonese oldies'

Clarence Tsui
Jul 30, 2011

Compared to the three other veteran thespians featured in the Film Archive's tribute to the Hong Kong film industry's character actors, Lui Ming seems to have had a much less stellar career.

The Black Rose (1965)
While Lee Heung-kam, Helena Law Lan and Wang Lai can lay claim to filmographies spanning more than four decades, Lui's acting career began in the early 1950s and ended with the 1964 film The Seven Tigers.

What casts Lui apart from his peers is what he did after leaving the limelight. His company, named after himself and established in the early 1960s, was a major player in the circulation and preservation of Hong Kong films produced from the 1950s to the '70s.

He was one of the few distributors responsible for procuring the black-and-white "Cantonese oldies" that have been broadcast late at night on the two Chinese-language terrestrial stations for four decades.

Lui said he began finding these films for TVB in the late 1960s, when his company - set up to co-ordinate advertising and publicity campaigns for recently released films - helped the broadcaster secure the appearances of film stars on its daily Enjoy Yourself Tonight variety show.

"TVB's people asked me whether I could help them get their films to be shown on TV too," said Lui. "So I went around buying screening rights to these films from producers."

One problem was that producers had not kept the prints in good condition.

My Kingdom For a Husband (1957)
"Soon everybody in the office was helping out cleaning celluloid," said Lui, who recalled installing an editing desk in the office to remove worn-out and liquefying bits of the copies they took out of the clunky cans.

While some of these films have since ended up in the vaults of TVB and ATV, Lui has a sizeable collection in storage. He has also passed more than 500 prints to the Film Archive.

Born in Macau, Lui - whose real name is Chin Bun - came to Hong Kong after the second world war and became an actor at the now-defunct Tai Koon studio in 1951. He began working as a voice actor in radio plays, first at Radio Rediffusion and then Commercial Radio in the early 1950s.

Driver No. 7 (1958)
Having financed and starred in two films in 1954 - Good and Evil Have Their Own Rewards and Heaven Never Lets the Kind-Hearted Down - Lui's break finally came in 1958, when he found himself in regular contact with the actors and producers of the Cathay and Union studios, whose offices were in the same building as Commercial Radio.

Working with Union's actor-director Cheung Ying on his film Driver No 7 - which will be shown at 7pm today at the Film Archive - Lui signed with Cheung's Overseas Chinese Films company, a deal which brought him a stable monthly salary of HK$300 and a fruitful spell in which he established himself as the company's go-to actor for crooked and corrupt characters. He played villains in such films as Ten Brothers (1959) and Many Aspects of Love (1961). These two will be screened tomorrow at the Archive.

Lui Ming, Fung Fung, Tsang Cho-Lam
Driver No. 7 (1958)

Leung Suk-Hing, Ha Ping, Lui Ming
Many Aspects of Love (1961)
Ten Brothers (1959)

By then, Lui had founded his own company and delved into publicity and production projects. After retiring from acting, he produced a thriller, Excelsior, in Taiwan in 1973, followed by Hong Kong comedies such as Fun HK Style and Star Wonderfun.

His sons have followed him into the industry: Andy Chin Wing-keung is a film director, David Chin Wing-shing is a TVB producer, and Bernard Chin Wing-lai is a sound recordist.

Lui now runs his business from his home on Prince Edward Road West, and regards the decline of TV screenings of the black-and-white oldies with regret. "Maybe the younger generation aren't interested any more," he said. "TVB still shows them in late-night slots, but ATV doesn't have time for that any more."

7.29.2011 - News

ChinaPost: The Killer Who Never Kills review
Another Taiwanese singer has made his movie debut: Jam Hsiao. The popular entertainer stars as a sympathetic contract killer who saves lives, but fails short of saving his first feature film “The Killer Who Never Kills”

CF: Two Chinese Films Compete for the Golden Lion
Festival organizers announced yesterday that Hong Kong director Ann Hui's drama "A Simple Life" and Taiwanese director Wei Desheng's epic film "Seediq Bale" will compete with 20 other films for the top award during the 11-day event which runs from August 31 to September 10.
Tony Ching Siu-Tung's imminent fantasy movie "It's Love" will open the Screening Section of the 68th Venice International Film Festival.
Deannie Ip - A Simple Life

Deannie Ip and Ann Hui (Sina)

CF: Time to Celebrate the 1911 Revolution with Sun Film
Produced by Central Pictures Corporation and directed by Wang Caitao, the movie "Sun Yat-sen," a long-awaited tribute to that other anniversary this year, the centenary of the 1911 revolution, will tell the heroic story of the founder of the Republic of China. Singer and actor Han Geng plays Sun's secretary, Hu Hanmin.
MSN: Cecilia Cheung and Donnie Yen are the new Mr. and Mrs. Smith
CNA: Donnie Yen and Cecilia Cheung to star in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" remake
Filming for "Assassin Couple" is scheduled to begin in March next year.

Xiao Shenyang and Cecilia Cheung in a scene from The Lion Roars 2
  (Sina), 2, 3


According to the Venice International Film Festival site the version of Seediq Bale shown will be 135 minutes long. The international two-part version seen in a preview by festival director Marco Muller is reported to be two and a half hours long. (Sina), 2

A few more stills of Huang Yi in The Woman Knight of Mirror Lake (Qiu Jin)
Huang Yi


Anthony Wong, Lam Suet, Huang Yi
One of Qiu Jin's descendants, a nephew, has complained about her depiction based on the script. He said it does not respect the facts and portrays her in a vulgar light. [Maybe he's angling for a consulting fee?]

Louis Koo suffers yet another injury on his right leg, sparking concerns that he might not be able to star in historical epic "Saving General Yang".
Major Chinese dailies also reported that the Weibo accounts of Chinese artistes Tang Wei and Ge You were terminated after they condemned the authorities over the train crash in China.
Model Kibby "Blueberry" Lau is upset with alleged boyfriend Raymond Lam Fung because he is denying they are a couple to the media.
Tavia Yeung is being called a Pinnochio, not only because of her longer nose but because the actress is denying any surgical enhancement to it
In the past, Mavis has come forward to single Raymond out as a love rat.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Louis Vuitton Opening - Louis Koo, Huang Yi, et al

(July 27) Louis Koo attended a Louis Vuitton ribbon-cutting store opening ceremony in Guangzhou last night despite injuring himself the night before. Louis tripped on a carpet and took a fall down the stairs at home reinjuring his ACL and also hurting his wrist. The injury was considered worse that the original, which occurred while shooting A Chinese Ghost Story last year [9.13.2010], because he cannot have surgery so soon after the previous surgery.

Louis was scheduled to begin work on Ronny Yu's Yang Family Warriors on August 2. Besides the possibility of missing the boot ceremony, Louis might resign from the film entirely(?).

 Huang Yi looked after Louis Koo at the LV event. Other celebrities at the event included: Dong Jie, Hu Bing, Kathy Chow, Niki Chow and models Patina Lin and Du Juan.

Louis Koo

Cane, knee and wrist brace

Huang Yi



Dong Jie

Kathy Chow, Niki Chow

Patina Lin


Hu Bing, Huang Yi




Dong Jie, Yves Carcelle, LV Chairman and CEO, Huang Yi








(Sina)2, 3, 4