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GONG
LI
Gong Li's hubby wins libel case
against HK rag
Chinese film star Gong Li's husband has been awarded HK$200,000
(S$42,000) by a court after suing a magazine over claims he lived off his
wife's income, newspapers reported on Wednesday.
 
Businessman Ooi Hoe Seong challenged a December 2002 Sudden Weekly report
that he forced his wife to take on more movies and commercial shoots when he
was struggling with his own career, the South China Morning Post reported.
Mr Ooi also attacked the magazine's claims that he had links to Lai
Changxing, one of China's most notorious smugglers, the Apple Daily
newspaper reported.
A High Court jury convicted Sudden Weekly of libel on Tuesday and ordered
it to pay Mr Ooi HK$200,000 in damages, the paper said.
Gong rose to stardom more than a decade ago with art house hits like Red
Sorghum and Raise the Red Lantern. She recently appeared in Hong Kong
director Wong Kar-wai's 2046. -- AP 2 Feb
2005
Lonely Gong Li unhappy in Hong Kong
Actress Gong Li is unhappy living in Hong Kong because
of the weather and because she has few friends here.
She only stays because of her husband's work, she told Britain's Sunday
Telegraph.
She also told the paper she was angry at censorship on the mainland,
which made it difficult to produce films. She said censorship in China was
getting worse.
"Being banned is a very uncomfortable feeling. No explanation is
offered. The films have won prizes, people like them. Why can't they be
shown?"
She said the restrictions made it difficult for directors to depict what
was happening on the mainland. "When a director wants to make a film,
he has to submit the script to the censors before he starts shooting. If
they approve, you cannot make any changes or add anything. When the film is
finished, you submit it again and they make cuts."
She criticised mainland authorities for insisting on changes to the 1993
film Farewell My Concubine, which referred to the Cultural Revolution.
The film, in which she starred, won international acclaim but the last
scene had to be cut before it could be shown on the mainland.
"No one's going to rebel or protest in front of the People's
Congress after seeing this film. It's history. We should draw a lesson from
it and not let it happen again. It's unreasonable to ban it."
Despite allowing more foreign films to be shown in China, the mainland
had not relaxed official censorship, she said.
The Film Bureau in China sometimes seemed to order changes purely to
justify its existence, she said.
"If they don't make changes, the Film Bureau will have nothing to
do. It's a bureaucratic problem."
She admitted directors were prone to self-censorship and were not willing
to reveal the extent of poverty and other social problems in China. Many
chose instead to film historical dramas to reflect modern problems.
Li, who lives in a penthouse on the Peak, says she only stays in Hong
Kong because of her husband, Ooi Wei-ming, who works in the tobacco
industry.
"The climate here is too humid and there are not many friends here.
Most people don't talk about the arts."
The couple plan to start a family within a few years.
Asked exactly when, she said: "Next year, the year after. I would
become a fat woman."
The 34-year-old said she had ambitions beyond the film industry.
"I would be glad to work as an ambassador for the United
Nations," she said. - By Simon Mcklin
South
China Morning Post 8 February
2000
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