SUPERSTAR Chow Yun-fat certainly knows how to keep his audience happy. At a press conference for his latest movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the actor kept up a steady patter of wisecracks, and regaled the people with tales of his tribulations on the set of the Ang Lee film.
One of the biggest problems was the blow to his confidence when he discovered Putonghua was giving him a bigger problem than either the English or the Thai he used in Anna And The King.
'On the first day of shooting, I had a scene with very long dialogue and we had to have 28 takes because I couldn't get the lines right,' said Chow, Hong Kong's longest-reigning heartthrob. 'I begged and pleaded with Ang Lee to split the scene into two, but he said the scene had to be done in one.
'Everybody on the set spoke Putonghua and there I was known for my dramatic acting but fumbling over and over again. That was very hard to take, very, very hard,' he said with a playful grin before calling Lee 'very strange' for casting him because he 'couldn't act very well, couldn't fight very well, and couldn't speak Putonghua'.
In the movie, Chow plays Li Mubai, an honourable and highly skilled martial arts expert who finds his plans to retire are easier made than executed.
Video and vegetables Jacky's fatherhood tools GOD of Song Jacky Cheung Hok-yau is excitedly preparing for the coming birth of his first child with wife May Law Mei-mei in September. Cheung said he had finally taken a video camera that friends had given him and was learning how to use it because, if allowed, he planned to videotape the birth.
The singer who last week signed with a new record label, What's Music, after a long career at PolyGram also turned vegetarian about two months ago when his wife was in danger of miscarrying.