Who's in

Zhang's perfect new role

Zhang Ziyi's latest film, co-starring mainland A-lister Fan Bingbing, Taiwan icon Peter Ho (pictured right) and Korean star So Ji-sub is called Feichang Wanmei, which literally means "very perfect". The English title is tentatively Sophie's Revenge.

The film is a light-hearted love story. Zhang is Sophie, an illustrator; Fan is a superstar and her rival in love; So plays the man in demand.

Ho plays a fashion photographer and being a photography buff himself, took to the set an antique camera he had collected and provided photos for an exhibition scene in the film.

Rumors say that Zhang and her buddy Wendi Deng, wife of News Corporation Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, invested in the project, but the two have not officially confirmed the news so far.

Shooting is in full swing and the film should hit theaters in August.

Ang Lee to head Venice film festival jury

Taiwanese director Ang Lee, a two-time Golden Lion winner at the Venice film festival, will chair the international jury of this year's festival in September, the organizers said.

Lee, who bagged the top award in 2005 for Brokeback Mountain and was honored again in 2007 for Lust, Caution, is "one of the most successful directors in creating a dialogue between the film-making culture of east and west," a statement said.

He will head the jury responsible for awarding the Golden Lion and other prizes.

Emotional Hoffman honored

American actor Dustin Hoffman (pictured right) fought back tears as he was honored by France in Paris last week.

In an elaborate event in a gilded hall, Culture Minister Christine Albanel made the two-time Oscar winner an honorary commander in France's National Order of Arts and Letters and tied a green medallion around the 71-year-old actor's neck.

Hoffman, who was accompanied by his wife, Lisa Gottsegen, had to regain his composure as his eyes moistened and joked: "When you get to my age, you even cry at the weather reports."

On a more serious note, he said he was "as satisfied as you can be when you wake up in the morning and say 'that's the best dream I've ever had'."

Albanel called Hoffman "one of the greatest actors of our time", paying tribute to his Oscar-winning performances as a workaholic father in Kramer vs Kramer (1979) and as an autistic man in Rain Man (1988).

Hoffman said he had long been fond of French cinema, particularly movies by New Wave directors of the 1960s and post-WWII films. The LA-born actor, who gained instant stardom as a youngster seduced by an older woman in the 1967 film The Graduate, got another honor, a lifetime achievement award at the French equivalent of the Oscars.

China Daily-Agencies

(China Daily 03/02/2009 page8)