HK media bashes actress Zhang Ziyi
(AP)
2006-03-28 17:01
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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 the Zhang forgot to hug or shake hands with the award winner, though the paper 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 paper. 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 paper, 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 "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," the Oscar-winning kung fu hit of 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, doesn't buy into the Zhang bashing. He feels she is a solid actress with strong fundamentals. And when he interviewed her 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."