Zhang Ziyi has fans worldwide except in Hong Kong

Zhang Ziyi has fans worldwide except in Hong Kong
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-17 11:37

She speaks English with a cool Beijing accent. The beaded black and grey
Armani outfit she wore to the Oscars was frumpy. She squats on the ground like a
vulgar Chinese farmer when she goes procuring.

So
say Hong Kong media, which simply like to bash Zhang Ziyi _ the film world’s
hottest younger Chinese actress.

Although Hollywood is enthralled with the spunky magnificence who starred in
“Memoirs of a Geisha,” Zhang’s critics in this movie-mad metropolis get pleasure from choosing her
aside. And the criticism may be downright vicious.

“Zhang Ziyi’s Armani evening gown made her look so flat-chested it was
scary,” the Sing Tao Daily, a serious Chinese-language newspaper, mentioned in a
headline concerning the 27-year-old starlet’s look on the Oscars this month.

Zhang, who declined to offer remark for this story, has mentioned beforehand
the venom has to do with Hong Kongers’ deeply entrenched bias towards mainland
Chinese, who're considered as bumpkins and gold diggers.

“They think, ‘How can you be an international movie star? You are only from
China.’ For them, China is like the countryside,” Zhang was quoted as saying in
an interview with The Sunday Times of London in 2004.

Hong Kong was a British colony for greater than 150 years earlier than it was returned
to China in 1997. The metropolis, a worldwide monetary heart, is far more cosmopolitan
than mainland cities, and the inhabitants is best educated and extra prosperous.

A very good instance of the disdain for mainlanders is discovered in a 2004 article
about Zhang in Next journal, a well-liked weekly shiny identified for its
hard-charging paparazzi.

The publication printed a photograph allegedly displaying Zhang squatting right down to
have a look at the underside shelf in a retailer. A snarky caption learn, “Miss Zhang displays
the special trait of our motherland’s compatriots: spreading her legs wide and
squatting down.”

People can typically be seen squatting in China in crowded locations _ akin to
railroad stations _ the place the bottom is simply too soiled for sitting and there’s
restricted public seating.

Zhang’s speedy rise and ongoing success may feed envy that has made her
the favourite dart board for Hong Kong’s newspapers and magazines, whose hyper
aggressive movie star protection makes U.S. grocery store tabloids appear like National
Geographic.

Many of the Hong Kong publications made positive their knives have been additional sharp
for the Oscars, the place Zhang introduced the award for greatest enhancing.

A headline in Apple Daily _ one of the vital in style dailies _ ripped into
Zhang’s English: “Zhang Ziyi presents awards with Beijing-accented English.” The
story added, “She still can’t change her English with a Beijing country accent.
She didn’t pronounce the ‘r’ in the winning movie ‘Crash’ properly.”

Sing Tao Daily mentioned Zhang learn her cue card with “quivering lips” and her
pronunciation of “Crash” sounded extra just like the toothpaste “Crest.”

The Ming Pao Daily famous that Zhang forgot to hug or shake palms with the
award winner, although the newspaper conceded that her English was enhancing.

The Zhang bashing didn’t cease there. Hong Kong writers additionally savaged her
Giorgio Armani outfit: a black beaded bustier with a crystal-encrusted grey
skirt.

“Lacking in youthful vigor,” learn a photograph caption in the Oriental Daily News,
a mass-market Chinese-language newspaper. Apple Daily hissed: “Zhang Ziyi two
decades behind the times.”

Zhang’s efficiency may have been an ethnic Chinese pride-pumping second,
and that’s the way it was handled by media in mainland China and Taiwan.

“Zhang Ziyi’s English rolls off her tongue,” mentioned the Liberty Times, one in all
Taiwan’s three greatest dailies. Another Taiwanese newspaper, the Min Sheng
Daily, mentioned “Zhang Ziyi’s English is no longer poor.”

She made her massive display debut with famed Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s “The
Road Home,” launched in 1998. Her subsequent movie was the Oscar-winning kung fu flick
“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” in 2000. In her brief profession, she’s made 11
movies, together with the Hollywood films “Rush Hour 2” (2001) and “Memoirs of a
Geisha.”

Thomas Shin, a movie critic and editor on the Hong Kong
Economic Times, mentioned Zhang is strong actress with robust fundamentals. He mentioned he
interviewed the actress, and he or she left an excellent impression.

“She’s very nice and she’s a very smart woman,” he mentioned.

“She’s really sincere,” he added. “She says what’s on her
mind.”