Profiles

Zhang Ziyi has fans, not in Hong Kong

(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-17 11:37

She speaks English with a funky Beijing accent. The beaded black and gray Armani outfit she wore to the Oscars was frumpy. She squats on the floor like a vulgar Chinese farmer when she goes shopping.

Actress Ziyi Zhang presents the award for film editing at the 78th annual Academy Awards in Hollywood March 5, 2006. [Reuters]

So say Hong Kong media, which just love to bash Zhang Ziyi _ the movie world's hottest young Chinese actress.

Although Hollywood is enthralled with the spunky beauty who starred in "Memoirs of a Geisha," Zhang's critics in this movie-mad city enjoy picking her apart. And the criticism can be downright vicious.

"Zhang Ziyi's Armani evening gown made her look so flat-chested it was scary," the Sing Tao Daily, a major Chinese-language newspaper, said in a headline about the 27-year-old starlet's appearance at the Oscars this month.

Zhang, who declined to provide comment for this story, has said previously the venom has to do with Hong Kongers' deeply entrenched bias against mainland Chinese, who are viewed as bumpkins and gold diggers.

"They think, 'How can you be an international movie star? You are only from China.' For them, China is like the countryside," Zhang was quoted as saying in an interview with The Sunday Times of London in 2004.

Hong Kong was a British colony for more than 150 years before it was returned to China in 1997. The city, a global financial center, is much more cosmopolitan than mainland cities, and the population is better educated and more affluent.

A good example of the disdain for mainlanders is found in a 2004 article about Zhang in Next magazine, a popular weekly glossy known for its hard-charging paparazzi.

The publication printed a photo allegedly showing Zhang squatting down to look at the bottom shelf in a store. A snarky caption read, "Miss Zhang displays the special trait of our motherland's compatriots: spreading her legs wide and squatting down."

People can often be seen squatting in China in crowded places _ such as railroad stations _ where the ground is too dirty for sitting and there's limited public seating.

Zhang's rapid rise and ongoing success may also feed envy that has made her the favorite dart board for Hong Kong's newspapers and magazines, whose hyper aggressive celebrity coverage makes U.S. supermarket tabloids look like National Geographic.

Many of the Hong Kong publications made sure their knives were extra sharp for the Oscars, where Zhang presented the award for best editing.

A headline in Apple Daily _ one of the most popular dailies _ ripped into Zhang's English: "Zhang Ziyi presents awards with Beijing-accented English." The story added, "She still can't change her English with a Beijing country accent. She didn't pronounce the 'r' in the winning movie 'Crash' properly."

Sing Tao Daily said Zhang read her cue card with "quivering lips" and her pronunciation of "Crash" sounded more like the toothpaste "Crest."

The Ming Pao Daily noted that Zhang forgot to hug or shake hands with the award winner, though the newspaper conceded that her English was improving.

The Zhang bashing didn't stop there. Hong Kong writers also savaged her Giorgio Armani outfit: a black beaded bustier with a crystal-encrusted gray skirt.

"Lacking in youthful vigor," read a photo caption in the Oriental Daily News, a mass-market Chinese-language newspaper. Apple Daily hissed: "Zhang Ziyi two decades behind the times."

Zhang's performance could have been an ethnic Chinese pride-pumping moment, and that's how it was treated by media in mainland China and Taiwan.

"Zhang Ziyi's English rolls off her tongue," said the Liberty Times, one of Taiwan's three biggest dailies. Another Taiwanese newspaper, the Min Sheng Daily, said "Zhang Ziyi's English is no longer poor."

She made her big screen debut with famed Chinese director Zhang Yimou's "The Road Home," released in 1998. Her next film was the Oscar-winning kung fu flick "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" in 2000. In her short career, she's made 11 films, including the Hollywood movies "Rush Hour 2" (2001) and "Memoirs of a Geisha."

Thomas Shin, a film critic and editor at the Hong Kong Economic Times, said Zhang is solid actress with strong fundamentals. He said he interviewed the actress, and she left a good impression.

"She's very nice and she's a very smart woman," he said.

"She's really sincere," he added. "She says what's on her mind."