Free Planet Press

Da Vinci boost for Malaysia writer

The phenomenal success of the US thriller novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown has caused an unexpected windfall for feng shui masters. Between chunks of action-adventure, the book powerfully pushes “sacred geometry”: the belief that there are right and correct proportions for things. Where can ordinary fans get advice about this kind of thing? Feng shui masters, of course. Malaysia-based Stephen Skinner, who has made a career publishing Chinese feng shui works in English, has taken to following the thriller writer closely, having recently published a volume called Sacred Geometry. Dan Brown’s next book is called The Solomon Key, titled after a book of magic originally published in the Middle Ages. Skinner’s new book is shortly to hit the stands, and is also a compilation of ancient magic spells from the Middle Ages. Dan Brown has unexpectedly brought eastern and western geomantic sciences together.

Meet the Men in White

Men in Black, meet the Men in White. The former is a Hollywood classic comedy while the latter is a film in production from Singaporean horror director Kelvin Tong. Due for release this summer, it tells the story of a group of Singaporeans who die and return as ghosts. The film is billed as a horror-comedy, with lots of horror-themed slapstick. But industry-watchers say there’s risk in naming a project after a Hollywood hit. First, the title doesn’t quite fit: some of the ghosts are female. And second, does he really want to invite comparison? The 1997 movie Men in Black was written by successful comedian Ed Solomon (John Cleese’s son-in-law), and had a budget of US$90 million.
          Singapore’s Men in White was written by Tong himself and has a budget of just half a million US dollars. The financiers of Tong’s horror movie may well have shivers up their spines.

'Colonialism' fear overshadows Asian prize

Asians submit, but Western expats stand in judgment

November 6, 2007

THE NAME of the Asian author who will receive the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize will be finally revealed on Saturday, November 10 th. But will the names of the people giving out the prize also become more apparent?

                The press release doesn’t give the organizer’s names.  Communications tend to use the term “Administrative Committee”. Even the front pages of their website prefer to use that anonymous phrase, with the actual names tucked away on deeper link.  Why are administrators so shy about revealing who they are?

Disney goes for Asian tale

WALT DISNEY is being Asianified. The US movie maker has moved on from its normal diet of Western fairy tales such as Snow White and looked east for inspiration.

            The newest film is The Secret of the Magic Gourd, a mix of live action and 3D computer-generated characters, based on a novel written by children’s author Zhang Tianyi in China in 1958. It will spread to cinemas in various countries after its summer launch on the mainland.

            A boy has a sentient, wish-granting magic gourd (hey, that’s no more far-fetched than a talking mirror with a beauty fixation).

            Hong Kong songstress Gigi Leung fills the role of the child’s teacher, and provides star power eye-candy on the way.

            Disney is using local partners (the China Film Group Corp. and Centro Digital Pictures) to give it a genuine Eastern flavour.

            You can buy Disney-themed cookies and snacks these days, but I doubt if movie-tie-in gourds will be on sale. Gourds may be related to melons, but kids are unlikely to want to chow down on the latest cute Disney character.

Pop idol to be "ethical"

The producers of hot new Chinese television series Happy Boy are being super-careful with their Mandarin version of American Idol, itself a copy of UK show Pop Idol. Happy Boy is an all-guys version of Super Girl, a competition for Chinese female singers said to have attracted 400 million mainland viewers: that’s more than the entire population of the United States.
            The producers of Happy Boy know they have a winning format. But the broadcasting authorities issued an edict telling them that songs must be healthy and ethically inspiring, judges are banned from humiliating the contestants (which proved to be the big sales point in other versions of the show), and stars must display “no weirdness”. That last point would instantly put the vast majority of Western pop stars out of the running. This isn’t going to be Pop Idol as seen elsewhere on the planet.

Dessert wars break out

Asian dessert wars have broken out in Los Angeles. The latest food fad in West Hollywood is Korean frozen yogurt. People have been queuing for up to an hour to buy the stuff, available in plain or green tea flavours, from a store called Pinkberry. 
            But Korean company Red Mango has cried foul, claiming that they started a chain of yogurt stores in Seoul in 2003. The name, the menu and even the design of the two chains are very similar. They sell the same products in cafes with similar Asian pop aesthetic: plastic seating in bright colours with menus written on glass walls. Now Red Mango is opening stores in the United States so consumers have a choice of outlets.
           Why such a fuss about this east-west dessert? Unlike American “froyo” (the heavy ice-cream-like frozen yogurt of the past), the Korean stuff is light, retains an addictive, yogurt-y sourness, is served with chunks of fresh fruit, and is relatively low in calories. Who would have thought that a dairy dessert sensation would come from Asia, a place where people were until recently intolerant to lactose?

Norah Jones for HK movie

Talk about a charmed life. Singer Norah Jones is starring in the next Wong Kar-wai movie, despite having no acting experience. My Blueberry Nights is the story of an enigmatic blueberry pie eater who travels across America to find true love. It’s the first English language movie for Wong, and will be launched in June. One of the actresses in it, Rachel Weisz (you know her as the female lead in The Mummy and The Constant Gardener) is working with Wong on his 2008 project, a 1930s spy thriller called The Lady From Shanghai.

            Wong has revealed that My Blueberry Nights was based on a Hong Kong short movie he did, but it must have evolved: the two main elements are long-distance road travel and blueberry pies, neither of which are exactly characteristic of Hong Kong.

Here comes fish-free sushi

Many people like sushi but don’t like to think about eating raw fish. This is no longer a problem. Western chefs are taking sushi (historically Chinese, but now identified with Japan) and breaking all the rules. The California Roll, made of cooked crabmeat and avocado, has become one of the most popular varieties. Other parts of the US have hit back with their own inventions, such as the Philadelphia Roll, which features cream cheese and salmon, and the Boston Roll, which contains prawns and lettuce. Yo! Sushi, a restaurant in London offers strawberries-and-cream sushi.

           In the meantime, the US government has developed a way to take out the seawood taste, having developed sushi wraps from substances such as broccoli and carrot. Food scientists at the US Department of Agriculture have produced a roast pork sushi rolled in a pineapple-apricot-ginger wrap, which you can follow with dessert: a creamy cheesecake sushi in a blueberry wrap.

            Tang Dynasty chefs must be rolling in their graves.

It's their loss as China director moves

Chinese film director Lou Ye has found himself banned from working in China -- so he’s plying his trade outside his homeland. The moviemaker showed Summer Palace at Cannes last year, despite it not having been officially approved, and was punished with a ban on working in China until 2011.
          So Shanghai-born Lou is making a film in the Middle East, based on the story of a man he met at a writers’ program in Iowa, in the United States.
            The tale: Ahmad, a Palestinian, is released after a decade in an Israel prison, and returns home to his wife Ameena. After waiting all those years for a reunion, they are horrified to discover that prison has left him impotent.
          Lou says that he is excited not just by the human drama of the story, but by the evocative locations: Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Ramallah. The working title is Ameena in Chinese, and The Last Hour in English.

Europeans meet the Asian comic

OO-LA-LA! Le Manga est arrivé! At first glance, you might think French society and its Japanese counterpart have little in common. But they both share a common love for grown-up comic books -- and have now given birth to a hybrid offspring.

            In Japan, the public buy huge amounts of manga, which are lengthy comic tales usually on domestic themes. Top titles sell millions of copies per issue. In France, bande dessinées, which are illustrated stories often sold as large format hardbacks, are a staple of bookshops.

            Recently, European distributors have been translating manga for consumers in France, who now buy more than 10 million volumes a year, making them the second biggest consumer after Japan. Now the two societies have their own offspring. Nouvelle Manga is a movement credited to Frédéric Boilet, a French artist who became a mangaka -- manga-maker.

            What are the characteristics of the new generation? From Japan we get the sophisticated, low-key tales of modern life and relationships, and from France, the fine art standards of European illustration techniques.

            Meanwhile, as the word manga becomes common in the West, Japanese youth these days talk about collecting komikku.