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Stephen Chow's company loses lawsuit against actress
Hong Kong's No 1 comedian and rising director Stephen Chow will be feeling frustrated after his company lost a lawsuit against Eva Huang, an actress who had worked for the company.
A Beijing newspaper reported the verdict, which was given in the special administrative region yesterday.
Huang became famous after being chosen by Chow to play a mute girl in his film Kung Fu Hustle in 2004. At the time, she was an actress working for Chow's agent company. In 2005 she shot a collection of sexy pictures for a magazine without informing the company and "destroyed her chaste image", according to the agent company. The company cancelled all of her performances and activities. Later Huang decided to terminate their contract and was sued by Chow's company for breaking the contract.
According to insiders, the key reason for the company's loss in the lawsuit is that the court in Hong Kong found it guilty of swindling her out of the money agreed to in a TV series.
Viewers tell reality TV: You're not the one that I want
Bored Chinese viewers fed up with endless TV talent shows can take comfort in the fact it's a universal malaise.
US network NBC's new series about the castings for a version of musical Grease, "Grease: You're the One That I Want," has fallen into the same trap as the casting show for the upcoming series A Dream of Red Mansion, and myriad other contests on the Chinese screen.
They've got to figure out a way to make this talent contest look fresh, new and different from "American Idol" and all the "Idol" worshipers that try to imitate its success.
A highlight and lowlight reel from auditions in Los Angeles and Chicago wasn't able to elevate the series from what is by now the most tired and unimaginative format on television.
The multistep elimination process that occurs before a single vote is recorded guarantees a field of talented finalists. What's more, the enormous publicity the series will generate before the curtain goes up makes the endeavor a can't-lose proposition. Well, maybe not for viewers. They've got to sit through the same teases before the endless commercial breaks and hear the same musical numbers over and over.
Swank gets a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hilary Swank and her mother came to Hollywood with only $75 in their pockets. On Monday, the two-time Oscar winner received the ultimate sign that it paid off: a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
"I remember my mom using a roll of quarters to call agents from a pay phone and telling agents they should sign me," said the emotional 32-year-old during the 2,325th star dedication ceremony.
Swank was flanked by producer Joel Silver and Richard LaGravenese, the director of her new film Freedom Writers.
In 2000, a then-unknown Swank walked away with the best actress Oscar for her chilling portrayal of murdered transgender teen Brandon Teena in Boys Don't Cry.
Five years later, she won another best actress Oscar as the determined boxer Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby.
In Freedom Writers, Swank plays a real-life English teacher whose idealism spurs her to empower teens affected by racial strife.
Agencies - China Daily
(China Daily 01/11/2007 page18)
