Asia-Celebs.com - Hot celebrities of Japan, China, and Asia

Everybody wants a better contract

The Korean government and entertainment industry are looking for ways to revive the popularity of Korean pop culture in other Asian countries, which has been declining steadily, meanwhile Korean celebrities are getting frustrated about their agents being overly controlling.

Last year the Korean Fair Trade Commission surveyed 350 celebrities about their contracts. About 200 said that they were forced to report on their whereabouts even when they were not working. More than 100 said they totally lack a private life. One Korean singer told that her agent constantly rings her up to check her whereabouts.

Oppressive contracts and intrusions into personal lives create unsatisfied stars, and conflicts between agents and celebrities do have an impact on the entertainment industry, and not a good one.

The agencies response was that this monitoring is necessary because they have made big investments in their stars and need to prevent celebrities defecting to another agency.

Yeah right, if my supervisor would ring me up on my mobile on weekends and holidays, just to check up on me, to make sure I'm not looking for a better job nor contemplating on handing over my resignation letter, there's no doubt I'd entertain myself with the idea of defecting to North Korea.

And if he would dare to copy my SIM card, or let alone tamper with my mobile, it'd be war, I'm talking  software vulnerability exploitations, bot farms, DoS attacks, redirecting history to /dev/null, db injections...

J-pop star Ayumi Hamasakis' unfortunate start for year 2009.

Ayumi Hamasaki is the 4th top selling pop star in Japans' history. Her albums and singles have sold over 50 million copies and she has a major influence on high school girls in Japan, it is said that when she became the face of cosmetics company, Kose Visee, the company sold more than half a million lipsticks in a mere two days.
Ayumi Hamasaki fell down the week before new year, and injured her hand, badly enough to need surgery. She wrote on her website that the accident was due to anemia caused by overworking.

Ayumi has been suffering from tinnitus since 2001 which has gradually gone worse and last Friday she wrote on her website that she'll continue to sing although she has completely lost hearing from her left ear and that nothing can be done to cure it. Sad, but perhaps there is good karma waiting for her later during the year.

Here's a link to her official website http://www.avexnet.or.jp/ayu/

Xun Zhou - Chinese Actress

Zhou Xun, born October 18th 1976 in Quzhou, Zhejiang, China is an internationally acclaimed Chinese actress and singer. She is regarded as one of the four most promising young film actresses in China along with Zhang Ziyi, Xu Jinglei and Zhao Wei.

Zhou Xun was born to a middle-class family. Her father, Zhou Tianning, was a local film projectionist and her mother, Chen Yiqin, a salesperson at a department store.

Zhou Xun later enrolled at the Zhejiang Arts Institute, a decision which her parents initially objected as they wanted her to graduate from a university. Nonetheless, Zhou Xun fought to further her interest in the dramatic arts and was accepted.

While she was in her teens and schooling, she was handpicked for a role in a film Strange Tales Amongst Old and Desolute Tombs.

Zhou Xun caught international attention through her roles in Lou Ye's Suzhou River in 2000 (Best Actress, 15th Paris Film Festival), and in Dai Sijie's film adaptation of the book of same name, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. Dai Sijie also wrote the book, the screenplay, as well as directed the film.

  

Xun Zhou in "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress", directed by Dai Sijie (2002).

Xun Zhou in "Perhaps Love", directed by Peter Chan (2005).

Zhou Xun then successfully entered the Hong Kong film market in Peter Chan's musical film, Perhaps Love in 2005. This role won her the "Best Actress" award in the Hong Kong Film Awards, Hong Kong Film Critic's Society Awards, Golden Bauhinia Awards, Golden Horse Awards, Beijing Student Film Festival and Hangzhou Student Film Festival.

Aside from acting, she has also released two solo albums Summer (夏天) in 2003 and Come Across (偶遇) in 2005, in addition to singing for several motion picture soundtracks including Baober In Love, Xin Bian Guo Le Xi San Meng You Xian Jing, and Perhaps Love.

After Perhaps Love, her next martial arts project was Feng Xiaogang's The Banquet, in which she played a supporting role. Her singing was also featured in the movie and on the soundtrack.

Zhou's next effort was Susie Au's 2007 film Ming Ming, in which she played the title character who is in love with "D" and "Na Na", who has also fallen in love with D. The film won high praise at the 2006 Pusan International Film Festival held in South Korea. On the day of the film release, she also released her new music video, the song of which is the theme song of her film Ming Ming.

Zhou Xun can currently be seen in the Beijing Film Academy professor Cao Baoping directed romantic thriller, The Equation of Love and Death in which she plays the role of a taxi driver on the lookout for her missing boyfriend. The film was shot in the southern Yunnan province of China. She also plays the lead in Painted Skin, a remake of a classical supernatural thriller of the same name. Zhou Xun can be seen next in the urban romantic comedy All About Women which was directed by Tsui Hark.

Trivia

Height 161 cm (5' 3½") 

Her Taiwanese boyfriend is a Make-Up Artist and the reason why she's often seen wearing gloves, he says Zhou Xun's hands are too big and masculine. Erhmm, a'right, but gloves that reach up to your armpits? Talk about overdoing it...

Sources:IMDb & Wikipedia