Entertainment

Bling Empire, a Netflix reality show featuring a mostly Asian-American cast, is trash-TV at its finest and is a trailblazer for the representation of Asians in US entertainment. But for viewers in China, the show is yet another example of misrepresenting Asian culture.  Many Chinese viewers find the show’s portrayal of Asian culture foreign and absurd at best, shallow and inappropriate at worst. Of the 2,875 people who reviewed the show on movie review site Douban, 46% rate it three out of five stars and 36% wrote a negative review.  Inspired by the success of the 2018 movie Crazy Rich Asian, Netflix reality TV show Bling Empire portrays the life of a small circle of affluent Asians in Los

When Chinese female stand-up comedian Yang Li asked on stage, “Why are men so mediocre but still so confident?” some people were amused, while others were hostile. “This is the funniest sentence of this year,” one person said on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter. “If some men can share a bit of their confidence with me, I won’t feel inferior and anxious about my trivial shortcomings.” Chu Yin, a male law professor in Beijing, fired back: “A man doesn’t need to be special to be confident in front of you.” He continued: “A man may be average, but you are likely ugly without make-up.” It was not the first time Yang’s comments had caused a buzz online. With a style described as delivering the

China’s latest military propaganda film appears to show, once again, that the People’s Liberation Army’s publicity team has a passion for Hollywood blockbuster action movies. According to some observers, several of the scenes in a new video produced for the PLA Air Force – showing a simulated bombing exercise on an American military base in the Pacific region – look like they were lifted directly from the 2008 Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker and the 1996 action-thriller The Rock. Inkstone is able to match at least three scenes from the video with those in the Hollywood productions, in addition to what appears to be a modified aerial shot from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. A military s

Viewers in China say a new reality TV show in the country bears a striking resemblance to the popular Queer Eye series on Netflix. Just without the gay Fab Five. The reality show You are so Beautiful premiered on state-owned streaming service Mango TV in December. Like the Emmy-winning American show, the Chinese program depicts makeovers masterminded by five experts in charge of fashion, grooming, food, home design and lifestyle. However, none of the five experts on You are so Beautiful is openly gay. The show, which has streamed three episodes so far, has also made no effort to promote LGBTQ acceptance like Queer Eye.  Mentions of LGBTQ issues are often censored in Chinese media. Although

The death of Taiwanese actor Godfrey Gao has prompted questions about whether the Chinese and South Korean reality television industry exploits celebrities to satiate audience hunger for evermore extreme situations.  Gao died of sudden cardiac arrest in November during the shooting of Chinese reality show Chase Me – a spin-off from South Korea’s most popular reality show Running Man. In both shows, cast members competed in races and missions every week that involve physical activities such as running, hiding and chasing each other. Gao fell and lost consciousness while making the show, after reportedly suffering from the flu and working for 17 hours before his death. Chase Me was canceled af

China’s consumer class is always looking for the latest, most cutting-edge smartphone app or the most talked-about viral video. Who would have predicted, then, that a 21-year-old movie would take Chinese cinema by storm over the past few weeks? What’s incredible is that The Legend of 1900 was hardly a classic in the first place.  Revolving around a piano prodigy, played by Tim Roth, who had spent his entire life on board an ocean liner, the movie received mixed reviews on its release in 1998, with disapproving critics lambasting it as “fragile” (Variety), “overwrought” (San Francisco Chronicle), schmaltz that “drowns in its own treacle” (Salon.com). The first English-language feature by Ital

A Chinese television network has pulled a reality show and apologized after the sudden death on-set of Taiwanese-Canadian actor and model Godfrey Gao. Zhejiang Television offered an apology in an interview with the show’s director, Lin Yong. It was posted online on Thursday, about a week after the performer, known as Gao Yixiang in Chinese, collapsed while shooting an episode of Chase Me. In the post titled “Sorry, we didn’t protect Yixiang in his prime,” Lin said the network had been “immersed in grief and remorse since the accident happened.” “We feel we owe an apology to Godfrey Gao, to his parents and to all who loved him,” he said. Gao, 35, was a contestant on the show and collapsed aft

“Get lost gweilo!” says the old man. I firmly respond, “How dare you call me gweilo! Be respectful and call me ah-cha!”  If you got this joke, then you have a local understanding of racism in Hong Kong.  (For those who don’t get it, gweilo is a Cantonese term for white people while ah-cha refers to South Asians.)  I’m an Indian made in Hong Kong. And because I was born and raised here, my parents felt it was vital that I learn the local language of Cantonese. They wanted me to better integrate into society and avoid the limitations they faced due to their own language barrier. It seemed like a simple formula: Learn the language, become a local, everybody’s happy.  However, as we realized in

Things are changing fast in Hollywood for Asian actors, and it’s about time, says Michelle Yeoh. The Malaysian-born actress, who made her name as a Hong Kong action heroine in the mid-1980s, stepped back into the international spotlight with her performance in Crazy Rich Asians, the hit romantic movie she credits for Asian performers’ increased opportunities in American film and television. “It’s been a long time coming, so let’s not make it a one-hit wonder,” Yeoh says in New York ahead of the release of her latest film, Last Christmas, a light romance inspired by the Wham! hit of the same name. “There have been changes in Hollywood, and you can definitely see more Asian faces on the screen

The sudden death of Taiwanese-Canadian actor and model Godfrey Gao has sparked a debate over the working lives of entertainers in China.  Gao died at the age of 35 due to cardiac arrest on Wednesday during the filming of hit reality show Chase Me, a sports challenge show produced by Zhejiang Television in eastern China.  Gao collapsed at 1.30am when he was running, according to a statement by the broadcaster. He was declared dead after being sent to a hospital in the major eastern city of Ningbo.  Gao’s death has shocked both fans and fellow actors in China. In response, a number of actors have hit out at what they call a toxic work culture, saying they are doing a “high-risk” job that ofte