Sunday, September 27, 2009

Confirmed : Stardust Dissmisses Sawajiri Erika

Management agency Stardust Promotion is reportedly considering the dismissal of actress Erika Sawajiri (23) for breach of contract. Sawajiri’s conduct has long caused headaches for the company, and it seems that they have decided to finally put an end to it.

Sources say that Stardust began talks of canceling Sawajiri’s contract earlier this month. The actress still has some time remaining on her contract, and she is said to be cast in a major movie project. However, the agency has apparently determined that she is guilty of a serious breach of contract, and they do not plan to wait until the contract’s expiration.

When asked about the story, Stardust replied with "no comment."

Sawajiri has long had a reputation of a difficult personality, earning her the nickname of "Erika-sama." In 2007, she was heavily criticized by the media for her unprofessional attitude during a PR event for the movie "Closed Note." Around the same time, she was also discovered to be in a relationship with multimedia creator Tsuyoshi Takashiro (45), whom she married this past January.

Despite her career being mostly quiet since the "Closed Note" incident, Sawajiri has been in the newspapers several times. One recent incident happened in July, when she visited Amami Oshima for the solar eclipse. While there, she was filmed operating a motorized bicycle, and it was later noticed that the bicycle was not properly registered, as it should have been.

Sawajiri also caused trouble for Stardust in February, when she visited New York and participated in the promotion of a popular fashion brand without going through her agency.

In addition, rumors have surfaced that Sawajiri frequently used drugs while in Europe with Takashiro. In particular, they are said to have often attended drug parties in Ibiza. There are further reports that while they were at Amami Oshima, they went to an event that Noriko Sakai and Yuichi Takaso also attended.

Although Sawajiri’s dismissal is not official yet, it appears likely to happen. This would have a significant effect on her career, though she may be able to continue independently.

source: kawaii joyuu

===========================
Stardust Promotion has dismissed Erika Sawajiri from their agency. The reason seems to be a breach in her contract. Stardust has made no comments at this time, but Erika's husband, Takeshi seems against the whole situation. Her BMW contract has been cancelled as well.

Some are saying the reason for her dismissal has to do with her promoting another brand while in New York while the Yomiuri reports that Sawajiri left Japan and stayed in the UK and Spain to study language and graphic design for eight months. She returned to Japan for a brief visit to the total eclipse event at Amami-oshima at the end of July. The same event that Sakai and Takasou have been seen going too.

So it looks like they are thinking that she's been abusing meds on top of everything else.

source: suitestaboo

"The Storm Warriors" to Hit Cinemas in December

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CRI.English

The Hong Kong martial arts film "The Storm Warriors," hailed as China's first live-action, all-digital effects movie, will hit cinemas on December 17, the People.com.cn reports.

The newly released posters for the film present an intriguing look at what is expected to be a film blockbuster. They feature actor Aaron Kwok as the nomadic hero Cloud standing back-to-back with Ekin Cheng's character Wind against an awesome backdrop of a hollow dark sky and a bright moon atop a mountain.

The sequel to the hit film "The Storm Riders" released a decade ago is actually a stand-alone movie with a separate storyline. Kwok and Cheng reunite to reprise the protagonists who this time find themselves up against actor Simon Yam's Lord Godless, a ruthless Japanese warlord bent on invading China.

Kwok and Cheng's fatal duel following their loose fraternal ties and estranged relationship is a highlight of the sequel.
Other heavyweights in the cast are Charlene Choi and Nicolas Tse. Newcomer Tang Yan from the Chinese mainland plays opposite veteran actor Kwok.

"The Storm Warriors," adapted from the bestselling comic book "Fung Wan" by screenwriter Ma Wing-Shing, was shot primarily in Bangkok, Thailand. It is the first Chinese film to be shot against blue screen to create the special effects and on custom-made sets which are as realistic-looking as those in the comic book.

The film's stunning visual effects cost 80 million yuan ($11.7 million) in post-production.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

G-Force

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Producer Jerry Bruckheimer brings his first 3-D film to the big screen with G-Force, a comedy adventure about the latest evolution of a covert government program to train animals to work in espionage. Armed with the latest high-tech spy equipment, these highly trained guinea pigs discover that the fate of the world is in their paws. Tapped for the G-Force are guinea pigs Darwin (voice of SAM ROCKWELL), the squad leader determined to succeed at all costs; Blaster (voice of TRACY MORGAN), an outrageous weapons expert with tons of attitude and a love for all things extreme; and Juarez (voice of PENELOPE CRUZ), a sexy martial arts pro; plus the literal fly-on-the-wall reconnaissance expert, Mooch, and a star-nosed mole, Speckles (voice of NICOLAS CAGE), the computer and information specialist.

Ok, so if you like cute and funny, this would be a movie for you. But if you're looking for something more 'deep', you can skip this.

Elva Hsiao's S$13,000 diamond-studded headphones

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Slated to release her latest album in October, Elva Hsiao's management company spent S$50,000 on an image makeover for the Taiwanese pop singer. Following Elva's image as the fashionable dance queen last year, the company hired five top stylists to come up with a brand new image for her this year.

These five stylists spent five days and five nights continuously sewing and making her new outfits. During Elva's fitting session, they squatted around her for at least four hours, making amendments and sewing little embellishments onto her outfit.

Apart from her brand new image, the next most captivating piece of accessory from her new wardrobe includes the S$13,000 vintage headphones encrusted with a variety of different gemstones and diamonds. This pair of captivating headphones was personally decorated by Elva and her stylists.

Despite the headphone's beautiful exterior, the singer grimaced about its heavy weight, "Pasting all these onto the headphones has increased its weight to more than 1kg. After wearing it for more than five minutes during the photoshoot, my whole head felt heavy and my feet felt light. I started to get dizzy spells!"

Sporting a short crop for the first time since her debut in 1998, Elva appeared visibly pleased with her new hairdo, "I feel as if I am back to the little boy look I had in junior school. I think this hairstyle enhances my stylish look and will mesmerize a lot of girls!"

Yahoo! News

Fahrenheit Braves Summer Heat; Sign 7000 Copies of New Book

Fahrenheit's new pictorial book, 原點.飛輪海/The Beginning: Fahrenheit (by Reading Times), was released on the 13th. The group help a 7-hour "marathon" book autograph session; the four signed until they couldn't take it anymore! Arron Yan YaLun asked some workers for a massage, Jiro Wang DongCheng donned a wrist guard, and Wu Zun and Calvin Chen YiRu repeatedly cried out that they were hot, downing water wildly to replenish their energy.

There were fans from all over at the autograph session-- fans from Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Mainland numbered more than 700. Some fans were in kimonos; there was even an 80-year-old Taiwanese grandma who brought her elementary school-aged granddaughter with her on stage. The sharp-eyed, observant Fahrenheit even recognized her: "Ama (Grandma) comes to every one of our events!" The four young men signed nearly 7000 copies of their book yesterday. 50,000 copies were printed; it has been enthusiastically received in all channels.

Fahrenheit said that they were very much involved in the preparation and execution of this pictorial book ("We 管很大 guan hen da (managed a lot)!"*); from the photo shoot locations to the styling and proofing of each member-- the four members did it all! The four donated items were also delivered to the hands of their respective charity auction winners; the $780,000 NTD in proceeds will be used to help children affected by Hurricane Morakot resume their studies.
* Translator's Note: 管很大 Guan hen da doesn't actually make much sense grammatically... however, it's meant as a joke/pun, a mimicry of a currently popular commercial catchphrase: "殺很大 Sha hen da (very killer)!"

By coincidence, Rainie Yang ChengLin, who has been rumored to be with Jiro in the past, was right next to the autograph session for her own activity, an Adidas spokesmodeling event. She said that she and Jiro are friends, and that they contact each other via MSN and send each other "Happy Birthday" texts (SMS). When asked whether or not she'd purchase a copy of their book to support her friend, she replied frankly: "No, I'd be afraid that people would misunderstand and think I'd fallen for him. I'll wait for him to give one to me!"

News Source: Yahoo! Taiwan, ChinaTimes, http://asianfanatics.net/forum/
Translation Credit: tammiest @ http://asianfanatics.net/

Inuyasha: The Final Act to Debut in Asia on October 10

The television channel Animax has announced that it will premiere the 26-episode Inuyasha: The Final Act anime series across Asia on October 10 — one week after the Japanese premiere on October 3. Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and South Asia will premiere the anime on that day at 8:00 p.m., while WIB will start the anime at 7:00 p.m. Hong Kong will run the series at 7:30 p.m., and Taiwan will debut it at 11:30 p.m.

Inuyasha: The Final Act continues beyond where the first anime series ended and adapts the story from the final 21 compiled book volumes of Rumiko Takahashi's original manga. (Takahashi had ended the manga in the Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine in June of 2008.) The original staff and cast will reunite for the new anime adaptation, and the musical acts Do as Infinity and AAA will perform the "Kimi ga Inai Mirai" ("A Future Without You") opening theme song and the "With you" ending theme song, respectively. The North American distributor Viz Media announced at Comic-Con International in July that it acquired the rights to Inuyasha: The Final Act.

Anime News Network

Monday, September 14, 2009

Fuji TV’s 50th Anniversary Dorama

Today Fuji TV announced its big 3-episode dorama special that is going to commemorate the station’s 50th anniversary. No other than Mitani Koki (48) is going to provide the script for the dorama called "Waga Uchi no Rekishi" (My Family’s History) which is going to air next spring. It is going to tell the story of a family’s life during 1945~1964 (Showa period) and at the same time it is going to tell us a bit about the period in general. Shibasaki Kou (28), Matsumoto Jun (26), Sato Ryuuta (29), Horikita Maki (20) and Eikura Nana (21) are going to portray the members of that family, but the list of the doesn’t end here!

The story focuses on the "Yame Family" and its 7 family members. It starts in 1945, so it will be interesting to see how families lived right after the end of th war. "It’s the first time we are mixing the genre of a family dorama with a post-war dorama," Mitani comments. "During that long story, we are going to see laughter, tears, romance, suspense and love within the family and not to forget the classic teledrama component. I couldn’t have wrote something like that, if it wasn’t for the 50th anniversary." He added.

Of course, a 50th anniversary dorama has to come with an amazing cast and Fuji TV really did a great job in getting a lot of top-class actors and actresses. Above you already heard about the 5 starring people who are going to play the siblings of the family, but you are also going to see popular stars such as Sato Kouichi (48), Nagasawa Masami (22), Ooizumi You (36) and Amami Yuuki (42) who we are used to see in starring roles as well. Nishida Toshiyuki (61) and Fuji Sumiko (63) are going to play the parents of the Yame family.

For the 5 people playing the siblings, plus Nagasawa and Ooizumi, it’s going to be the first time they are appearing in a dorama or movie written by Mitani. Shibasaki who is going to play the eldest daughter: "Instead of all-smiles, it’s going to be a very deep story and I’m glad to be a part of it." Matsumoto, the eldest son: "I’m very happy to be able to participate in such a wonderful project."

Other comments from some of the actors: "It’s a great honor to participate in a project of a great senior from my university." (Sato Ryuuta) – "I’m very happy to become a part of the Mitani family." (Nagasawa)

This dorama is going to be the last of 5 planned anniversary projects by Fuji TV. Many big moments of the Showa period are going to be portrayed next to the family story, such as the Teikoku Bank Incident, the US-Japan Security Treaty conflicts, the start of the Shinkansen trains, the Olympics in Tokyo and so on. Fuji TV is already really full of expectations for their big birthday dorama, "We are confident that you’ve never seen a dorama like this before!"

source: kawaiijoyuu

Saturday, September 12, 2009

200 Pounds Beauty: The Sequel coming soon

It has been confirmed that a sequel to the 2006 Korean blockbuster hit "200 Pounds Beauty" (or literally in Korean "Being a Beautiful Woman is Painful") is currently in the works!

An official of KM Culture (the production company in charge of the film) revealed that the screenplay has been drafted and that the sequel's title will be (in Korean) "Being Mother and Daughter is Painful". Initially, there was plan to make the sequel a continuation of the first movie; however, the production company decided to make the sequel more of a spin-off.

For those of you who haven't watched the first movie, "200 Pounds Beauty" is centered around a female character's quest to win the love of a man by using plastic surgery. Though talented in singing, Hanna (Kim Ah Joong) is unsatisfied with her body image when her music producer & the object of her affections, Sang-Jun (Ju Jin Mo) completely ignores her. She then decides to go under the knife, getting a full-scale head-to-toe procedure that makes her become almost unrecognizable. Hanna, or Jenny, as she later renames herself, transforms into a pop star with all the beauty and talent in the world. She quickly finds out that being beautiful, however, doesn't only have good effects...

The sequel, which will be directed by Kim Jung Min, will deal with the conflicted relationship between a "plastic" mother and non-plastic daughter, who looks just like her mother pre-surgery.

credits: allkpop

Korea do a remake of "Itazura na Kiss" Flower Boy, Lee Min Ho is the most popular choice



Source Ent Hunan TV
Translated by Elvenstar @ http://asianfanatics.net

Joe Cheng and Ariel Lin starred in "It started with a kiss" a remake version of "Itazura na Kiss", it has been viewed that this was an example of a successful remake. Reporters have found out that the creators of the Korean drama "Boys over Flowers" will announce that they will be doing a remake of "Itazura na Kiss", at present they are looking for cast members, the netizens one after the other recommended "Boys before Flower" Lee Min Ho with his popularity at present extremely high.

Joe Cheng and Ariel Lin's version "It started with a kiss", they had only intended on shooting one, but they never of expected that such an old storyline would trigger explosive ratings, soon after the director decided to continue shooting "They kiss again", this has also been named a rare success story for a remake drama. The reporters saw in forums of "Itazura na Kiss" a lot of fans from "It started with a kiss" had also paid attention to the Japanese version and had a huge debate over whether Joe Cheng or Kashiwabara Takashi was more handsome, "I had watched the Taiwanese version 1st and really liked it, then I found the Japanese version to watch. I never of thought the so called "the 1st impression is the strongest" had no effect what so ever. After seeing Chong Chong (Kashiwabara Takashi) I felt the Taiwanese version wasn't that attractive, at most it was a bit more funny."

Currently, Korea's "Boys before flower" creator has also announced they will do a remake of "Itazura na Kiss", at present they are looking for cast members, In "Boys before Flower" in the Korean version starring as "Domyoji" Lee Min Ho has been demanded the most. While the other male cast members of "Boys before flowers" each had their own supporters. While for female lead Kotoko the most popular choices were Goo Hye Sun and Kim So Eun.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Delightful/Sassy Girl Chun-Hyang Episode 17 (Final)

Delightful/Sassy Girl Chun-Hyang > Episode 17 [Watch it]
With the intention of returning the money, Chun-hyang asks Hak-do out. Hak-do mistakenly assumes that Chun-hyang wants to celebrate his birthday. Mong-ryong’s friends also misunderstood the situation and informed him of their meeting. However, Mong-ryong asserts that he trusts Chun-hyang.

Hak-do is disappointed when Chun-hyang returns him the money and tells him that they should keep a distance from each other in the future. Back at the shop, Chun-hyang goes out for dinner with Mong-ryong. A jealous Hak-do tries to hold her back. She feels bad when she realizes that it is Hak-do’s birthday.

Mong-ryong brings Chun-hyang home to visit his parents. Chun-hyang agrees to Mong-ryong’s father’s proposal to hold a proper wedding ceremony. Chae-rin manages to get hold of the invitation card and makes Hak-do vow to possess Chun-hyang by all means necessary.

Hak-do flaunts his abilities and wealth, making Mong-ryong feel so inferior that he decides to stdy hard so that he can provide well for Chun-hyang.

At the bridal studio, Chun-hyang gets a premonition when she breaks a photo frame. Mong-ryong discovers that Hak-do has placed many orders online for Chun-hyang’s goods. He goes to confront Hak-do, but ends up getting accused of molest by a starlet. Mong-ryong’s father goes by the book and assures Chun-hyang that he will get to the bottom of the case.

Knowing that his son was being framed, Mong-ryong’s father helps him escape. As a result, Mong-ryong’s father has to leave the police force as a consequence. Chun-hyang attends to Mong-ryong’s mother, who has fallen ill. Seeing how upset Mong-ryong’s mother is, Chae-rin urges Hak-do to give Chun-hyang up, but he refuses.

Chae-rin informs Chun-hyang that Hak-do was the one that framed Mong-ryong, so as to force her to return to his side. Hak-do admits to Chun-hyang that he did everything for her sake. If also tells her that if he releases the video recording, Mong-ryong will be found guilty. Mong-ryong confronts the starlet who accused him of molest.

When Mong-ryong gets hospitalized, Chun-hyang decides to choose Hak-do, in order for Mong-ryong to clear his name and carry on with his life. Hak-do tells the starlet to change her testimony. When Mong-ryong is released, his parents and friends are waiting for him. He buys a cake, wanting to celebrate with Chun-hyangt, but she tells him she wants to break up with him and leaves with Hak-do.

Mong-ryong learns that his father lost his job because of him, and he guesses that Hak-do was behind the incident. He confronts Hak-do and is upset when Chun-hyang asserts that she trusts Hak-do. He is even more miserable when she tells him that she wants to divorce him. Hak-do gives Chun-hyang the necklace that he bought for her and tells her that he will bring her to Japan after their engagement.

However, Chun-hyang learns that it was Mong-ryong who bought her the necklace previously. Mong-ryong tries in vain to stop Chun-hyang from getting engaged to Hak-do. But when she makes it clear she loves Hak-do, Mong-ryong agrees to sign the divorce papers.

Chun-hyang closes her shop and returns the money to Mong-ryong’s parents. On the plane to Japan, Chun-hyang tells Hak-do that she is going to the washroom. But in reality, she leaves after handing a letter and the necklace to an air stewardess. Hak-do rushes out after her but is unable to find her. He decides to keep silent on Chun-hyang’s disappearance and continue to Japan as originally planned.

Chae-rin urges Mong-ryong to respect Chun-hyang’s decision. She too is determined to forget him by going overseas to study. Mong-ryong hopes to forget everything by going back to his old hometown.

Years pass and Mong-ryong has graduated, becoming a public prosecutor. He gets to meet Chun-hyang after so long of not being to get over her, and their love is rekindled….. [Watch it]