Twelve Girls Band.

Will the retired Faye Wong accept RM40 million to sing and act again? Chances are it’s going to be difficult for the record company reportedly making the offer.

Korean group Jewelry.

Faye Wong.

῕ A RECORD company has reportedly offered retired Chinese songbird Faye Wong a princely sum of RM40 million to take up the mike again and, better still, return to the stage.

Wong, a Beijing native, shot to fame in the mid-1990s singing Cantopop, her dulcet voice winning her fans across the region. She quit singing after marrying actor Li Yapeng a few years ago. They have two daughters.

Wong also made an impact on the big screen. Two of her more memorable stints were in Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express (a role that won her the Best Actress award at the 1994 Stockholm International Film Festival) and 2046, with dashing Tony Leung.

Given her fiercely independent nature, my bet is that money will never be a consideration for her when it comes to her craft. It has to be on her own accord and on her own terms.

Back in 1999, at the end of her performance in Bukit Jalil, I remember how she refused to perform any encores despite the extended applause and anticipation. That’s how stubborn she is. And no, it’s not because she’s acting like a diva. It’s just how she is. Note that she has even turned down an invitation from the Olympics committee to sing in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

῕ SOUTH Korean boy band TVXQ finished its tour of the Land of the Rising Sun last month. The boys performed in eight cities including Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Fukuoka and Nagoya, singing, dancing, strutting and looking cool for an estimated 180,000 fans.

῕ FORBES China magazine’s 2008 Chinese celebrity top 100 list includes Chinese mainland TV hostess Li Xiang, actress Jiang Qinqin, pianist Li Yundi and Twelve Girls Band.

Chinese mainland actor Deng Chao and singer Zhang Liangying won the awards for “the Male or Female Entertainers with the Most Attention from the Media” respectively. Now that’s some category.

῕ YOU can’t fault them for trying. But whatever it is that sexy Korean female group Jewelry is doing, it seems to be working – getting loads of attention, that is.

The girls are catching the eye of many with its “ET” dance. It’s apparently quite easy: The dance moves involve mainly putting one hand over your head and getting it to meet the finger of your other hand. How’s that again? And what does ET stand for? Don’t ask. All I know is that it’s currently all the rage in South Korea.

Some industry people say the four girls have successfully replaced Wondergirls as the country’s national sensation of 2008, with their hit songs topping the local charts for weeks.

In fact, according to one report. they are so much in demand that they go to work by helicopter. ET would have been so proud.

῕ IT seems that Jacky Chan, who was recently seen in The Forbidden Kingdom with Jet Li, is eager to do a sequel.

Chan had a dual role in the Hollywood-helmed fantasy martial-arts film, reprising his Drunken Master role for the new generation (and speaking English too!) and also played an aged pawnshop keeper.

According to Chinese media, Chan and Jet Li will appear in part two of the film, together with actress Crystal Liu Yifei, who turned a lot of heads with her Hollywood debut.

The sequel may even feature a romance between Jet Li and her, hinted the reports, quoting sources. Just make sure buxom wife Nina Li Chi approves.

῕ IT has been quite a few months since the Edison Chen celebrity nude picture scandal but audiences in Hong Kong are still not letting Gillian Chung off lightly. Many are still making formal complaints to the television stations whenever she appears in any of the shows that are broadcast. Time to forgive and forget, people.

῕ YESTERDAY was a special day in Vancouver and especially for fans of Lydia Shum. Vancouver’s mayor had declared it a day to commemorate the Hong Kong actress comedienne.

It would have been Shum’s 63rd lunar calendar birthday too had she not succumbed to liver cancer on Feb 19 this year.

Lydia migrated to Vancouver in the 1980s. Rest in peace.

 

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