3.19.2012 - News [Roast Pork Sliced From A Rusty Cleaver] (飲水思源)

Deanie Ip - Best Actress ("A Simple Life"), again

Asian Film Awards (Sina), 2

Best New Artist - Ni Ni ("The Flowers of War")

Ni Ni (Sina), 2, 3

Ann Hui and Lifetime Achievement Award (Sina)

Zhang Jingchu was one of the presenters Monday night

(Sina), 2

SCMP: HK-mainland co-productions take five film awards

Hong Kong-mainland production Wu Xia, a martial-arts thriller directed by renowned Hong Kong filmmaker Peter Chan Ho-sun, won the best cinematographer, best production designer and best composer honours. Another martial-arts epic and the world's first such 3-D flick, The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate by Tsui Hark, won the best visual effects and best costume designer awards.

THR: Song of Silence review
A quietly moving if not cutting-edge family drama a welcome narrative change from China.
ScreenDaily: Love in the Buff review
Love In The Buff is still a relentlessly entertaining romancer that should please more than a few viewers from any culture.

FBA: Harpoon review

A well-directed low-budget slasher that's light on real thrills.

FBA: The Floating Shadow review

Impressively acted psychodrama centred on two women, a female prisoner and a police officer.
 

FBA: Dr. Qian Xuesen review

Above-average biopic of the father of China's missile programme.
 
Hong Kong Filmart: Emperor Readies Firefighter Drama (THR)
Emperor Motion Pictures will back an as-yet-untitled firefighter drama to be directed by award-winning helmer Derek Kwok and starring Nicholas Tse.

FilmMart 2012: Pang Brothers to Unleash ‘Inferno’ (THR)
Scheduled to begin filming in mid 2012 for release at the end of 2013, the producers describe Inferno as the first of its kind. “There is yet to be a fire disaster film in 3D made anywhere in the world, we have the courage to try,” said producer and Universe COO Alvin Lam

FilmMart 2012: Powerful Asian Alliance to Fund ‘Micro Movies’ (THR)
Micro movies refers to the small budget of the productions, targeted to average at around $1 million for each film.

Hong Kong Filmart: Showbox’s ‘Thieves’ Gets Pan-Asian Bow (THR)

The film will feature a who’s who of Korean and Hong Kong stars, including Kim Yun-seok (Punch), Kim Hye-soo (Tazza: The High Rollers), Lee Jung-jae (The Housemaid), Gianna Jun (My Sassy Girl), Simon Yam (Ip Man), Derek Tsang (Dream Home) as well as Hong Kong-based Malaysian Angelica Lee (The Eye).

CF:"The Unfortunate Car" Hits Cinemas on April 1
[T]he film documents the hilarious story of four strangers who meet one another when buying a car. The film touches upon a number of hot issues within modern society, including the license plate lottery, car-sharing, the odd/even license plate restriction plan and online shopping.

CF: Famous Photographer Works on "Guns N' Roses" Poster

Guei Lun-Mei arriving for the Asian Film Awards (Mar.19)

(Sina-gallery)

CNA: Hong Kong director Ann Hui honoured for life's work

CNA: Donnie Yen, Vincent Chiu clash over "Special Identity"

MSN: Donnie Yen meets Keanu Reeves in Hong Kong
MSN: Andy Lau names soon-to-born daughter

THR: Jeremy Lin Linsanity Prompts Canada's First All-Mandarin NBA Telecast
Canadian broadcaster Omni Television has hired former Chinese national basketball team player and basketball commentatorWeiping Zhang to call its first-ever NBA game in the Mandarin language whenJeremy Lin and the New York Knicks play the Toronto Raptors on Friday night.

  Artist admits to shortcuts in show about Apple, (AP)

 

SCMP: Simple life? Only in the movies [Roast Pork Sliced From A Rusty Cleaver] (飲水思源)

Clarence Tsui
Mar 09, 2012


Actress Deanie Ip Tak-han was ready for a simpler life when she called time on her career after the 2000 release of Queen of Kowloon. It's ironic that, 11 years later, her turn in A Simple Life brought her back to show business.

"I've received a few screenplays down the years, but most of the time I couldn't accept the parts they offered me," said the 64-year-old. "For example, there were youth films looking for an elderly woman - but I hated youth films because most of them talked about crap. I don't really need to work in the movies to earn a living, so it was like, no thanks."

Ip, who won best actress at the Venice Film Festival in September for her role in A Simple Life, said she had not received that many requests for her to return to the fold, but she certainly made the right bet when she took up Ann Hui On-wah's offer of a script about a domestic helper and her film producer boss.

Having steered Paw Hee-ching to her first best actress honour in 2008 with The Way We Are, Hui has again helped relaunch a veteran's career. Since Venice, Ip has added three more prizes for her role as a domestic helper - including the best actress title at Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards. The record number of prizes has led to speculation she is a shoo-in at the Hong Kong Film Awards next month.

What drew her to A Simple Life, Ip said, was Hui's understated way of telling the story of Tao, an ailing amah for a jet-setting film producer (Andy Lau Tak-wah). And her preparations for the role were made easier by the fact that her character is based on the real-life domestic helper of the film's producer, Roger Lee Yun-lam.

Ip said she did a lot of additional research, such as talking to two retired maids to understand more about their lives - a meeting that depressed her, she said.

"One of them said she needed an operation for her leg and she had to pay for that herself," Ip said.

"I asked her why her employers didn't foot the bill - since it's clearly stated in the law, just as it protects Filipino domestic helpers. But she brushed that comment aside, said she was happy enough that they visited her now and then. It's painful to see that they didn't know they were being abused."

More anguish was to follow when she visited homes for the elderly to acknowledge the circumstances in which the real Tao spent her final days. She remembered hearing stories about how some residents were simply abandoned at the homes by their families. And she recoiled when she recalled the pungent smells and confined living spaces of the places she visited.

Ip said the shocking revelations during her research for A Simple Life rival those she had while preparing for her role as a middle-aged sex worker in Rachel Zen's Cream, Soda and Milk in 1981.

"That was the first time I had a look at where real prostitutes worked and lived," Ip said.

"I was shown their rooms and told how they operated - it is still firmly etched in my mind.

"And to see how helpless they were, being marginalised by everyone and seeing their own daughters following in their footsteps. It was heartbreaking."

Her harrowing performance in Cream, Soda and Milk brought her first film honour - a Golden Horse for best supporting actress.

On screen, Ip is best known for her portrayals of single mothers struggling with their lives as part of the city's downtrodden underclass.

Those roles were a sharp contrast with her public persona in the early days of her career. The daughter of a hotel manager, Ip released her first album in 1969. She then became a programme presenter and comedienne at Rediffusion Television, the precursor to Asia Television, in the early 1970s.

While establishing herself as a singer in the early 1980s, Ip also began the shift from television to film, playing small parts in Tsui Hark's Dangerous Encounters - First Kind and Patrick Tam Ka-ming's Love Massacre.

Both films are now regarded as landmarks in the so-called Hong Kong New Wave cinema movement. Meatier roles came with more mainstream fare in the late 1980s and 1990s, in dramas such as The Unwritten Law (the first of many subsequent on-screen collaborations with Lau, her Simple Life co-star), or comedies such as Dances with the Dragon and Fight Back to School 2.

Working with Hui - a stalwart of the New Wave movement - has brought Ip's film career full circle, but the actress says she does not have any plans to return to acting full-time. Instead, she said she was keen to revive her music career and find a backer for a series of concerts.

"I hope to stage shows, where people would say they were there to listen to Deanie Ip rather than to watch her," she said.

With her re-emergence on the big screen, that just might happen. But one thing's for sure - that simple life is just the stuff of movies for Ip. (SCMP)

Rare Images of Hong Kong Stars (3) [Roast Pork Sliced From A Rusty Cleaver] (飲水思源)

More photo crack from Elven Ho's weibo.

Carina Lau

Carina Lau

Cherie Chung

Taken in Tsim Sha Tsui East during filming of "Moon, Star and Sun" (1988)

Cherie Chung

Taken in Kowloon Tong during "Mister Mistress" (1988)

Lan Kwai Fong during the day

Deanie Ip

May Law

2nd left: Law Kar-Ying, Petrina Fung Bo-Bo, Ni Kuang, Raymond Wong, 

front row: Helena Law Lan, Ng Kwun-Lai (in front of Petrina)

Cinema City's starlets, not positive who is who

 Gigi Lai (rear?), Fung Bo-Bo, Bonnie Law, Fennie Yuen, Charine Chan, Loletta Lee(?)

Fennie Yuen

Golden Horse Awards - Red Carpet [Roast Pork Sliced From A Rusty Cleaver] (飲水思源)

This post was produced by Roast Pork Sliced From A Rusty Cleaver: http://yellowcranestower.blogspot.com

Some photos from the red carpet at the Golden Horse Awards in Hsinchu, Taiwan (Nov.26)

Tang Wei

Jimmy Wang Yu, Tang Wei

Eddie Peng, Tang Wei presented Best Newcomer Award

Carina Lau

Chie Tanaka, Luo Mei-ling, Vivian Hsu

Vivian Hsu

Angel face, devil body

Peek-a-boob

Chie Tanaka

Luo Mei-ling

Eric and Bowie Tsang

Wang Qianyuan, Qin Hailu

Kara Hui

Angelica Lee

Rene Liu (zoinks!)

Andy Lau, Deanie Ip 

(Sina), 2

(Sina), 2, 3, 4, 5