French movie irks censors
PARIS - The French authorities are embroiled in a censorship row over their handling of a sex-and-violence movie ordered out of mainstream cinemas and now facing banishment to a near-non-existent X-rated circuit.
'The Perfect Storm' swamps US box office
LOS ANGELES - With the phenomenal debut of "The Perfect Storm," George Clooney won his head-to-head US box office battle against Mel Gibson, whose "Patriot" debuted as a distant second.
Childhood kungfu craze packs punch
MOVIES of Jackie Chan have won the world with his exciting displays of wushu (Chinese kungfu). Now many expatriates are learning kungfu in the Shanghai Wushu Institute.
Dumplings, noddles from magic hands
PULL it, shave it, cut it, fry it, chill it - these are the cooking methods of choice at the Shang Palace, Pudong Shangri-La's Chinese restaurant, where a Xi'an Dumpling and Noodle Festival is being held.
Poolside barbecue goog way to spend cool nights
IT was a cool evening in early July. A refreshing breeze brushed the face and the sizzling sounds of a barbecue floated into the air, along with live English songs, the splashes of water from the pool and the merry laughter of girls playing on swings.
It's hip and it's hopping
THE temperature in Heat Disco was at least 40 degrees C last Friday night. It became so crowded that long lines of prospective boppers had to wait at the door to be admitted.
The versatile tomato
TOMATO dishes served in the Yoyogi Restaurant in the Regal Shanghai East Asia Hotel are the perfect introduction to exquisite Japanese food.
Indian film legend tries small screen
BOMBAY - India's living movie legend Amitabh Bachchan is looking to work his old celluloid magic on the small screen, following a series of business disasters and a failed Bollywood comeback. Bachchan is hoping to revive his fortunes by hosting the much-hyped Indian version of the successful British quiz show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" - which was aired for the first time on Monday on the Star TV satellite network. "Television is one medium I haven't done anything on. So I decided to take on the assignment," Bachchan said of the show, "Kaun Banega Crorepati?" (Who will become a millionaire?). "Besides, I thought it would be different from what I do in films," he said. Sumantra Dutta, senior marketing vice-president at Star Plus said the vast sums of money spent in marketing the show had paid dividends. "It is the biggest ever marketing blitz from a TV channel's point of view in Asia," Dutta claimed. Amitabh Bachchan, or "the Big B," is the biggest star to have come out of India's "Bollywood" film industry. So total was his dominance of the movie scene in the 1970s and 1980s that the late French director Francois Truffaut called him a "one-man industry." A global Internet opinion poll last month selected Bachchan to be the first Indian movie star to have his wax model in Madame Tussaud's wax museum in London. But Bachchan failed to work his on-screen magic in the corporate boardroom and lost millions of rupees through his own ill-fated integrated entertainment company, Amitabh Bachchan Corp Ltd. The company last year went bankrupt owing millions of rupees to domestic banks and other organizations. (Agencies via Xinhua)
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