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China-Japan-Koreas
Film's bare flesh causes a buzz
2006-12-22
Think Madame Bubbles, er, Butterfly.
Chinese cinemagoers are getting more spectacle than they bargained for in a record-breaking historical epic. Attention has focused on the quantity of bare flesh in Curse of the Golden Flower, which took 96m yuan (£6.3m) in its first weekend.

Web forums have buzzed with debate on whether the film, nicknamed Curse of the Golden Corset, is salacious. Even the normally sober state news agency has described lead actress Gong Li's appearance as "eye-popping". The $45m (£23m) epic deals with court intrigue in the Tang dynasty and had the best opening weekend of any Chinese movie.

But the costumes, or lack of them, have raised eyebrows both on the internet and in official circles. The Xinhua news agency said: "The most eye-popping role is played by Gong Li, the empress, whose breasts are so tightly wrapped that they appear ready to pop out of her costume."
Matinee tomorrow is at 2.
Chinese web portal Sohu.com alone has received 8,000 postings on the subject. "With costumes like that, you'd think China was more liberal than America," said one unnamed web user. "It caters to Western tastes while ignoring our own country's sentiments." Internet surfer "Bond" said: "What I remember is not the fighting scenes or the acting, but the shiny white flesh."
Evening shows are at 7 and 9:30.
Line forms 7 blocks down. Near the Running Dog DVD Copy Shop.
Actress Gong, who was in the updated Miami Vice movie, defended the skimpy costumes as modelled on Tang dynasty fashions. "They show the beauty of a woman's curves. There was no feeling of awkwardness or danger for us wearing the costumes," she said.
Posted by:.com

#15  Gong Li was in my favorite Chinese film, "To Live". She's still beautiful and she's 41 years old! Talk about MILF!
Posted by: JDB   2006-12-22 23:43  

#14  "What I remember is not the fighting scenes or the acting, but the shiny white flesh."

He says that like it's a bad thing...
Posted by: Raj   2006-12-22 17:57  

#13  No wonder the FBI can't seem to keep their hands off Chinese women spies.
Posted by: Steve   2006-12-22 14:19  

#12  Actress Gong Sohu Vice curves and Tang.
Posted by: Besoeker   2006-12-22 14:06  

#11  
'Nuther view 1.
'Nuther view 2.
Posted by: .com   2006-12-22 14:01  

#10  original equiptment or after-market?

/who CARES!!! :-)
Posted by: RD   2006-12-22 13:49  

#9  Oh MY! :-P.....
Posted by: gorb   2006-12-22 12:35  

#8  Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Gong Li. A healthy girl.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2006-12-22 12:12  

#7  ChinaÂ’s state news service Xinhua is known in the expat community as Sin Who? It's the best newspaper for getting a little salacious content in China. And best of all it's English version is on the net.
Posted by: tipper   2006-12-22 10:36  

#6  Give Kimmie time, Frank ...
Posted by: Steve White   2006-12-22 08:37  

#5  so why don't we all have bootleg dvds of this flick?
Posted by: Frank G   2006-12-22 07:51  

#4  China's population at the end of the 18th century was 400m. The US population at that point was just over 5m. Today, China's population is 1.2b and increase of 3x from 200 years ago. The US population is 60x from where it was 200 years ago. Which country has had the population boom? At the end of the 18th century, the UK population was about 11m. Today, it is about 60m, or roughly 5x what it was back then, despite the emigration of huge numbers of Britons to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, all former Crown Colonies. Tell me again about the population boom.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2006-12-22 07:03  

#3  AH9418: I knew there was a reason for the great number of Chinese in the world.

China is an empire with twice the land area of Western Europe. Of course there's a lot of people there. The primary* difference between Europe and China is that China has been civilized a lot longer - meaning that agricultural technology was more advanced, for a long time - thus allowing it to support larger populations.

* The other difference is that China is a unified political entity, whereas Europe is not. But the similarity lies in the fact that China probably has more distinct languages (which the Chinese call dialects, but are mutually incomprehensible) than Europe.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2006-12-22 06:49  

#2  I knew there was a reason for the great number of Chinese in the world.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2006-12-22 02:05  

#1  Attention has focused on the quantity of bare flesh in Curse of the Golden Flower, which took 96m yuan (£6.3m) in its first weekend.

"It caters to Western tastes while ignoring our own country's sentiments."

"What I remember is not the fighting scenes or the acting, but the shiny white flesh."

Har har! I love watching societies dealing with cognitive dissonance! These statements are mutually exclusive. Getting all three of these statements to live together is going to be impossible. More evidence that the Chinese are officially starting to get it! :-)
Posted by: gorb   2006-12-22 01:49  

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