Sina:
Yesterday, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Yuen Woo-Ping, and Lau Ka Yung attended the Hong Kong University’s “Who Is The Grandmaster film forum”. The 1000 seats were filled in two hours, with 600 people waiting outside. When Tony Leung appeared the crowd roared and gave him a standing ovation.
Tony Leung attended an university forum for the first time. When asked whether the film will have a sequel due to good word of mouth he said, “No, I am not afraid of three more years in production. Time isn’t a problem, I just want to try something else to have a sense of freshness.” Reportedly the Berlin Film Festival screening will be an extended version, Leung asked director Wong Kar-wai to confirm this. He said that another version would not be fair to the audience, he might edit out some scenes that foreigners would not understand. He would not demand to add back his removed scenes as he thought that as it is now the movie is rather entertaining.
Reportedly Tony Leung was upset at the size of the role and he was at odds with Wong Kar-wai. Leung laughed and said, “Hahaha, you are killing me, am I this type of person? I have been friends with Wong Kar-wai for so many years that I wouldn’t mind. I am 50 years old, I have everything, what else do I want? Instead I have to learn to give, to do charity work on my free time, help those who aren’t as fortunate. I took two years off before, life was brilliant. When I woke up I would drink with friends until I fell asleep. With sustenance and responsibility, life would healthier.” After promoting the film in South Korea and the U.S., he will take two months off before deciding on his charity work. He was willing to do charity work with his wife Carina Lau Ka-ling as well.
Action director Yuen Woo-Ping praised Leung’s kung fu film prowess. He should not be compared to Donnie Yen, as their styles and specialties were different. Was Donnie Yen better? He said, “Tony is great too, they are great in different ways. Tony’s action sense is great, he is just being humble.”
After the two hour forum ended, they went to Mongkok for an audience appreciation and celebrated with a lion dance.
At a promotional press conference for Jiang Wen’s film Let The Bullets Fly, actress Carina Lau predicted that this film would be this year’s Mainland box office champion.
Without any fear of her husband Tony Leung‘s holiday film The Grand Master (Yut Doi Jung Si), Carina said, “I am very willing to defeat him!”
A reporter asked her to predict the box office of Let The Bullets Fly. Carina confidently said, “Definitely this year’s best.” What if The Grand Master made the holiday slot? “First, I felt The Grand Master wouldn’t make it. Wong Kar-wai’s film production is truly too slow. Even if it would make it, I would be very glad to defeat them. I believe Wong Kar-wai would gladly watch the character that I create to be very successful.”
http://news.xinmin.cn/rollnews/2010/09/18/6905122.html
Not directly connected to The Grand Master, but here are a couple of new publicity stills released by Jet Tone Films (Wong Kar-wai’s production company):
Tony Leung
Chang Chen
Carina Lau
http://t.sina.com.cn/projecthouse
With more and more celebrities and other public figures joining day by day, Weibo (Asian Twitter) has definitely taken the entertainment industry by storm!
The newest celebrity to join Weibo is multi-Best Actor winner Tony Leung Chiu Wai (who only joined day before yesterday). On his first Weibo postings, Tony indicated that currently, in addition to being busy with the filming of The Grand Master, he has also been working on a commercial – in his posting, he uploaded a picture of himself with cinematographer Xia Yong Kang as well as other crew members. After only 1 day, the popular actor already has over 26,000 fans “following” him and one posting alone already has over 2,200 replies.
Tony’s wife, actress Carina Lau, also joined Weibo yesterday and posted 1 message so far, stating “Hi Everyone, I am Carina Lau”. Tony and Carina have yet to “follow” each other on Weibo – in fact, so far, both of them have only added production company Jet Tone Films to their “Follow” lists.
http://www.mingpaoweekly.com/htm/20100529/mae1.htm
http://asianfanatics.net/forum/topic/722644-weibo-news-tony-leung-and-carina-lau-join-weibo%3B-charmaine-sheh-celebrates-35th-birthday/
UPDATE: Links to Weibo accounts added.
Tony Leung: http://t.sina.com.cn/n/梁朝偉
Carina Lau: http://t.sina.com.cn/n/劉嘉玲
Jet Tone Films: http://t.sina.com.cn/projecthouse
