Who's in

Supergirls' Hong Kong hiccup

Supergirls may be hot stuff on the mainland, but not so once they cross the border.

At the New Year concert in Hong Kong's Queen Elizabeth Stadium, half of the 3,600 seats were empty. According to press reports, many in the audience were mainland tourists who swamped to the Special Administrative Region for the holiday. The singers tried to add local flavor by including a few numbers popular in Hong Kong.

Li Yuchun (pictured), 2005's champion with the most loyal fan base, brought the show to a half-baked climax. Dressed in red, which was an implied tribute to the late Leslie Cheung whose signature concert was called Red, Li also sang Michael Jackson's Black or White. "I was busy performing, so I didn't notice how big the audience was," she said diplomatically.

Fans curse Hollywood demands of a golden emperor

The Curse of the Golden Flower is piling up stacks of gold at the box office, but newly disclosed details about how its star squandered the budget by living it up in the capital are causing ripples.

Chow Yun Fat (pictured), who plays the emperor in the film, was reported to have asked for "Hollywood standards of living". He demanded seven rooms in the Beijing International Club, an expensive five-star hotel. He wanted separate rooms for resting, make-up, meals, director meetings, and so on.

He counted his work hours by the time he took off from his hotel room, but since he insisted on the inconveniently located hotel, it sometimes took two hours to get to the soundstage in the Beijing Film Studio. Inside the studio, he wanted a lavishly equipped 10-meter trailer, at a cost of 5,000 yuan ($640) a day for the 40-day shoot. But Chow and his wife used it just for its toilet, said the reports.

To be fair, Chow often bought food for the cast and crew. Yet they preferred teen idol Jay Chou's style, which they said was less condescending.

In a Netease web survey, two thirds of the respondents said Chow should not have had such ego-massaging behavior.

Houston: Do we have a problem?

Whitney Houston (pictured) used to sing in The Bodyguard: "I have nothing, nothing " trailing off in a powerful coloratura. At the rate she wants to sell off her Atelier Versace tanned chiffon evening dress and beaded bustier, she may end up with nothing. Well, not really nothing, but much less to put in a warehouse.

"Whitney is selling off at auction old tour equipment that is no longer in use. Part of the proceeds will go to pay a debt owed to the storage company in keeping with court order," Houston's publicist, Nancy Seltzer, said in a statement.

The Grammy winner, who shot to superstardom in the 1980s and downgraded to tabloid status in the 90s, is to sell off more than 400 lots, including pianos, keyboards, organs, drums, designer hats, shoes and outfits from well-known names such as Giorgio Armani, Jean Paul Gaultier, Pamela Dennis, Gianni Versace and Dolce & Gabbana. The auction was ordered by the New Jersey Superior Court and will be held on January 9. It is not clear how much she owes to the warehouse.

China Daily

(China Daily 01/05/2007 page18)