On Friday, December 14th — in a report that was picked up by other media outlets and countless blogs — British tabloid The Mirror alleged “porn star” Shu Qi was involved in a tryst at a London restaurant with Hugh Grant and film director John Duigan. According to the report, Grant and Shu Qi were kissing passionately while Duigan caressed Shu Qi’s thigh. Supposedly, Shu Qi was in London looking for career opportunities.

For the record, Shu Qi spoke to the Chinese media this week and flatly denied the allegations. In a Xinhua Newsnet article, Shu Qi said: “I haven’t been to England in around five years. I have never even met Hugh Grant. I think his acting is OK but I don’t have any ‘feel’ (attraction) for him.”

A spokesperson for Shu Qi’s management told the Chinese media that the reports were wildly inaccurate and that Shu Qi was in Hong Kong and Taiwan during the days that she was allegedly in London. The spokesperson also stated that Shu Qi’s management is looking into taking legal action.

Since Shu Qi was photographed in Hong Kong on December 13th attending the “Shiny Night” charity event at the Conrad Hotel, her strong denials appeared more credible than the British tabloid report. As it turns out, The Mirror issued a retraction on Friday declaring that they have “learnt that Shu Qi was not the woman in the restaurant with Hugh Grant and John Duigan.” The tabloid went on to state that they were “happy to correct [their] mistake and apologise for the error.”

Here is The Mirror’s full retraction:

On December 17, in a story on page 15 under the headline “Shu’s that girl”, we printed a picture of Shu Qi, an ex-porn star, and said that she was the woman who had been snogged by Hugh Grant whilst his friend, John Duigan, caressed her thigh in a restaurant (as we reported on 14 December). We have since learnt that Shu Qi was not the woman in the restaurant with Hugh Grant and John Duigan. We are happy to correct our mistake and apologise for the error.

Related Links: Retraction by The Mirror, Photos of Shu Qi at the charity event (CRIEnglish.com), More of Shu Qi at the charity event (Ming Pao)

Happy correction notwithstanding, if I were Shu Qi, I would still be out for blood. I’d be asking my lawyers if I still had any kind of case against The Mirror. Even if the initial report was true, referring to Shu Qi as a “porn star” was egregious. I may have more liberal sensibilities than most but I wouldn’t characterize what Shu Qi did at the beginning of career as “porn”. Next time you go to a Chinese video store, wander into the Japanese porn section (don’t worry, no one in the store will care) and check out some of the video covers. Now those videos are porn. Shu Qi’s early work isn’t even remotely in the same vicinity. Besides, Shu Qi’s body of work in the past ten years has been substantial enough that calling her a “porn star” is like calling two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank an “action star” because her first lead role was in THE NEXT KARATE KID. For Pete’s sake, Shu Qi was in a Hou Hsiao-Hsien film — that’s as far away from porn as you can possibly get!

Unfortunately, I think Shu Qi got caught in the line of fire between the British tabloids and Hugh Grant. The report was more about taking Hugh Grant down a peg or two than slighting Shu Qi. Though it’s patently unfair, this sort of thing happens in the entertainment circle. Be that as it may, she was still 6,000 miles away from Hugh Grant and that restaurant so, if I were her, I’d be looking to get more than that flimsy retraction and weak apology.

Now, something more appropriate to the season …

Earlier this month, during my search on iTunes for Miriam Yeung’s version of 每當變幻時 (”When Changes Occur”), I was fed an ad for the “Twelve Girls of Christmas” album by Twelve Girls Band. Since the holiday season was approaching and the whole album only cost $9.99 to download, I decided to buy it and give a listen to the musical phenomenon I’ve been reading about since 2002 or 2003.

Going in, all I knew about Twelve Girls Band was that their schtick was hot babe musicians playing modern music using traditional Chinese instruments like the erhu and the pipa and that they famously covered Coldplay’s “Clocks” for one of their albums. As I appreciate both Chinese culture and hot babes, I had always intended to give them a listen but just never got around to doing it. Until now.

What did I think of the album? In the words of Larry David: “… pretty good, prett-ay, prett-ay, prett-ay good”. It was cool to hear a Chinese spin on traditional carols like “Joy To The World” and “Silent Night” as well as modern Christmas tunes like “Jingle Bells”, “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town” and “All I Want For Christmas Is You”. An aside, it’s hard to believe that “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is a Mariah Carey original. It feels like a cover version of a 1950s, 1960s Christmas song but it was actually an original creation for Mariah Carey’s 1994 Christmas album.

While traditional Chinese instruments are featured by Twelve Girls Band, they play somewhat modern compositions so, if you are a strict Catonian when it comes to Chinese traditional music, then “Twelve Girls of Christmas”might not be for you. Instead, old-schoolers may want to try looking for an album called “Chung King Christmas” by the Oriental Echo Ensemble. It also features traditional Chinese instruments but has a more conventional sound than Twelve Girls Band. Unfortunately, the album appears to be out of print. I heard it back in the early-1990s at my friend Jürg’s house. Jürg’s father owned a bookstore so he had access to all sorts of albums. Hence, “Chung King Christmas” was playing while Jürg and I wasted part of our Christmas holiday with Sega Genesis games like Golden Axe. I was going to make a copy of it but those were the days before Pentium computers and CD burners so I never got around to borrowing the CD and recording it on cassette tape. Why didn’t I just buy it from the bookstore that Jürg’s father owned? Well, it was an expensive import and it wasn’t like I was of independent means back then. My Mom was giving me rides to Jürg’s house.

Getting back from that trip down memory lane … Any opinions on Twelve Girls Band? Are they a cool spin on traditional Chinese music or a cheesy commercial gimmick? Any Twelve Girls Band fans out there? Is there anything else by the girls that I should try as the Leung treasury allows? Any Japanese fans out there who knows what “Koibito Ga Santa Claus” and “Shiroi Koibito Tachi” means?

… and with that flurry of questions, Happy Christmas and Merry Holidays! I intend to spend part of it watching DIE HARD — my reigning favourite Christmas movie. To me, nothing brings out the toasty warm feelings of the yuletide season like John McClane decorating Karl’s brother Tony with a holiday motif or the touching moment at the end when Al overcomes his psychological problems and saves McClane by blowing Karl away.

Have a safe and joyful holiday everybody! Yippy-ki-yay!

Image credits: Metro.co.uk (Shu Qi story screen grab), Ming Pao (Shu Qi at the Shiny Night charity gala), Domo Records (Twelve Girls of Christmas album cover) RCA Victor (Chung King Christmas album cover), Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (DIE HARD screen grab)

I’m ready to share some thoughts on HOOKED ON YOU now that I’m back home after a trip to the St. Annie Cake Shop where I redeemed my cake coupons before the store went out of business.

HOOKED ON YOU
每當變幻時
Official Site: http://www.hookedonyouthemovie.com/
Director: Law Wing-Cheong
Cast: Miriam Yeung Chin-Wah (Miu), Eason Chan Yik-Shun (Fishman), Stanley Fung Tsui-Fan (Miu’s Father)

Synopsis (from Yahoo! Movies Singapore): Miu (Miriam Yeung) works as a fishmonger at the Fortune Market to pay off the debts of her father (Stanley Fung). She gives herself three years to settle her father’s debts, leave the wet market and find a man worthy of her. At the market, however, she finds herself at loggerheads with Fishman (Eason Chan) in the neighbouring stall. A fierce battle ensues but the two are forced to work together when a new supermarket threatens their business at the Fortune Market. Will Miu find her Mr Right, or is he a figment of her imagination?

PRE-CONCEIVED NOTIONS: I can’t imagine myself disliking this movie. The always reliable Johnnie To is the producer and it stars Miriam Yeung and Eason Chan — two very affable personalities that I’ve liked for years. It’s not an elaborate martial-arts costume epic engineered for the international market or an art film designed to appeal only to film sophisticates. There’s no way this film can turn out to be a stinker — right? The probability of Athena Chu Yan showing up at my front door in a short skirt and a long jacket has got to be higher than the probability of me sitting on my couch disappointed and angry after watching this movie.

AFTER THE MOVIE: As I hoped, HOOKED ON YOU did not disappoint. While a few cheesy elements and some overplayed scenes keep it from being a masterpiece, the movie is thoroughly entertaining and exquisitely captures the bittersweet sentiments of the 1970s classic Cantopop song (”When Change Occurs”) that it bases its Chinese title upon (see below). For the most part, it manages to maintain the delicate balance between being entertaining and being thought-provoking. As a result, it should please both the “artsy” crowd looking for insight and the “fartsy” crowd who just want a good time at the movies.

MORE THOUGHTS (WARNING: Contains spoilers): To me, the most remarkable aspect of HOOKED ON YOU is that it takes what is basically the setup for a disposable light-comedy TVB drama and manages to subtly deliver astute observations about the bittersweet nature of life. The effective incorporation of benchmark events from the ten years of Hong Kong history since the Handover help to highlight the theme that time passes, changes occur, there will be ups, there will be downs, you’ll win some and you’ll lose some so all you can do is move forward and not dwell too much on the past, just cherish the good times and remember the bad times. I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by this result because I was expecting a regular, good-ol’ romantic comedy — a well-made one — but routine nonetheless. I envisioned myself sitting on the couch and going “awww, what a nice love story” as I was switched off my DVD player. I was not expecting to be dazzled by philosophical insight.

I’m certain that the “when changes occur” message refers not just to an individual’s life but extends to Hong Kong as well. Clearly, Fortune Market is a metaphor for the Fragrant Harbour. As I don’t live there anymore, I don’t have any sort of feel for day-to-day life in Hong Kong. Therefore, I’m not going to embarrass myself by attempting to explain how the film’s message applies to Hong Kong. I do recognize that it’s there and I’m sure that it resonates somehow with the local audience.

While its philosophical accomplishments are impressive, there are flaws in HOOKED ON YOU that make it just miss the mark of being a pantheon Hong Kong film. The TVB-style setup at the beginning robs the film of a bit of the gravitas required for pantheon status. The Fishman character starts out as a caricature. Miu’s character, and her hard-luck story, come straight out of the TVB drama writer’s handbook. You also have the loveable but irresponsible parent and the local dai lo. I’m not knocking TVB and its dramas. Of the three major forms of HK entertainment: movies, TV serials and Cantopop, TV serials — especially the ones by TVB — are my favourite. If I was an emperor, then TV serials would be my empress while movies and Cantopop would be consorts that I occasionally hang around with. I’m just saying that the low-brow setup and thin characterizations rob HOOKED ON YOU of some credibility preventing it, just barely, from being thought of as a great film. It’s very good and I’ll remember it fondly but I wouldn’t categorize it as a classic.

Speaking of TVB, I’m sure that a graduate student in sociology can find plenty of material for a thesis if they look at TVB and Hong Kong society. While jotting down a few thoughts for this post after I put the DVD away, I couldn’t help thinking of HOPE FOR SALE (街市的童話) — a 2001 TVB drama starring Gallen Lo Ka-Leung, Christine Ng Wing-Mei and Melissa Ng Mei-Hang. In the series, Gallen Lo plays a vegetable-seller who enjoys his simple life working at the wet market while Melissa Ng plays his materialistic wife. She pushes him to “better” himself and leave the market.

If HOOKED ON YOU was a TVB drama, it would have had a much different outcome. Fishman and the way he clutches to the wet market lifestyle would be seen as virtuous while Miu’s quest to leave the wet market would be vilified as materialistic and vain. HOOKED ON YOU’s nuanced message would be replaced by the standard message from TVB dramas: 平凡是福 (ping faan si fuk or “a common life is a blessing”). As TVB is in the ratings business, it has to make product that appeals to its audience so, clearly, something about the “common life is a blessing” theme appeals to Hong Kong society. Like I said, there’s a thesis in there somewhere.

MISCELLANEA:

- I’m not a PETA supporter but I definitely felt bad for the eel that Miriam Yeung chops up at the beginning of the movie. Having watched Hiroyuki Sakai and Masaharu Moritomo slice up eels in IRON CHEF episodes, I thought I was de-sensitized to live eel killing but it looked to me that Miriam Yeung didn’t chop her eel all the way through. It must have been in agony as Yeung slid it into that plastic bag. Poor eel.

- Jo Koo, where are you? Right now, if I could have an entertainment circle girlfriend, I think that it’d be Jo Koo (Kuk Tso-Lam). So, it pains me to say that I was surprised when I saw her name in the credits because I didn’t spot her in the movie. Does anyone know who she played?

Yes, if I could have an entertainment circle girlfriend it’d be Jo Koo and if I were a rich man, ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum. All day long I’d biddy biddy bum. If I were a wealthy man.

- Hey, it’s interesting to me! Scanning the credits, I was intrigued by the name Marie Zhuge (諸葛梓岐). Having probably spent months of my life playing various video and computer games based on ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS, I wonder if Marie Zhuge is a descendant of the legendary Zhuge Liang (諸葛亮). A Google search yields no pictures but reveals that she is a Canadian (Yeah! Fellow Canadian!) and that she belongs to the same modeling agency as Kathy Chow Man-Kei and Qi Qi. I figure she must be Fishman’s favourite prostitute, Fishman’s wife or the girl who bugs Miu about her age. Anyone know?

- Speaking of the girl who bugs Miu about her age, I liked the way the film used her to help mark the passage of time and advance Miu’s storyline. She started as a young woman cooking dinner for the first time for her boyfriend and ended up as a married woman with child. Anyone know who plays girl who buys Miu about her age?

- Funny, but the last definition of “miss” — the courtesy title before the name of an unmarried woman or a girl — never occurred to me until I read the intertitle. Perhaps it would have had my “mind voice” pronounced it HK-style: “misseee”.

ABOUT THE SONG: HOOKED ON YOU gets its Chinese title from 每當變幻時 (”When Changes Occur”), the hit Cantopop song from 1977 sung by Fanny (薰妮 aka Fun Nei aka Fanny Wong). As you can tell from the following translation of the song lyrics, the movie does a good job of capturing the bittersweet sentiments of the song.

A quick disclaimer, I am not an English major so pardon me if my rudimentary translation does not do proper justice to the Chinese lyrics of Jim Lo Kwok-Tsim (盧國沾). Nevertheless, I think you can get a sense of how well the movie plays upon the song’s message. For your information, the song starts playing at around 1:32:20 of the film.

Thanks to a box of tapes that belonged to my late Uncle Kwok-Hung and a mp3 file from my cousin, I was able to listen to both the Fanny version and the Miriam Yeung version of the song. With all due respect to Miriam Yeung, I think the Fanny version is better. The arrangement and the vocal inflections of the 1977 version suit the wistful nature of the lyrics better than that of the 2007 version.

By the way, does anyone know why it’s virtually impossible to buy Cantopop songs on iTunes? I suspect that it probably has something to do with Hong Kong music companies not being able to adapt to the times. Don’t they realize that if they make things easy and cheap for consumers, most people will take the path of least resistance and buy the songs from a legal source like iTunes rather than waste time searching for illegal downloads on the Internet?

IMAGE CREDITS: Media Asia (HOOKED ON YOU screen captures, Jo Koo), Wing Hang CD Ltd. (Fanny Wong)