The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| From London with love: Bond show in Shanghai Posted: 31 Mar 2013 02:14 AM PDT  A poster of Michelle Yeoh playing Chinese spy Wai Lin in the James Bond movie "Tomorrow Never Dies" is seen at an exhibition on the fictional British spy in Shanghai on March 28, 2013. — AFP picSHANGHAI, March 31 — An exhibition on fictional British spy James Bond opened in Shanghai Thursday, just weeks after the Communist government's censors cut parts of the latest film in the franchise, "Skyfall". But Neil McConnon, lead curator of "Designing 007 -- Fifty Years of Bond Style" said there had been no censorship of the show, organised by London's Barbican. "We certainly didn't edit at all for a Chinese audience," he told AFP. "We have encountered censorship before in some exhibitions, but not in this exhibition." Parts of "Skyfall" — partly shot in China's commercial hub — proved too sensitive for the authorities ahead of its release in January. A scene showing prostitution in Macau, a special administrative region of China, was removed, as was a line in which Bond's nemesis mentions being tortured by Chinese security agents. A section in which a hitman takes out a Chinese security guard in a skyscraper in Shanghai itself was also cut. The Shanghai exhibition, backed by a commercial company, is being mounted at the privately-owned Minsheng Art Museum. It is an expanded offering from previous shows in London and the Canadian city of Toronto, incorporating more material from "Skyfall" including the boat used by Daniel Craig as Bond to enter a Macau casino. In a room dedicated to villains, the display also includes an outfit worn by Michelle Yeoh playing Chinese spy Wai Lin in "Tomorrow Never Dies" -- who as a cover story claimed to be a reporter for China's official news agency, Xinhua. Visitors can see a model of Bond's Aston Martin DB5, the bowler hat used as an airborne weapon by the character Oddjob in "Goldfinger", and the orange bikini worn by actress Halle Berry in "Die Another Day". But Chinese audiences are more familiar with recent Bond films, through both theatrical release and pirated DVDs, than the classics of the franchise. "It will be perhaps a different experience for a Chinese audience who won't have the same shared experience and the same resonance as audiences in the US or Europe," McConnon said. — AFP pic |
| Freddie Mercury ‘took Princess Diana to gay bar in drag’ Posted: 30 Mar 2013 09:33 PM PDT  In her book, Rocos said she did not know whether Diana was propositioned in the bar in her guise as a male model. - Reuters pic LONDON, March 31 — Princess Diana in drag? That's what comedian Cleo Rocos recalls in her memoir, The Power of Positive Drinking, in which she remembers Queen singer Freddie Mercury disguising the late Princess Diana as a male model and smuggled her into a notorious gay bar. In the book being serialised in Britain's Sunday Times today, Rocos recounted how she, Mercury and fellow comedian Kenny Everett dressed Diana in an army jacket, cap and sunglasses for a night out at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, south London, in the late 1980s. "When we walked in... we felt she was obviously Princess Diana and would be discovered at any minute. "But people just seemed to blank her. She sort of disappeared. "But she loved it," said Rocos, who co-starred in Everett's television show. In her book, Rocos said she did not know whether Diana was propositioned in the bar in her guise as a male model, but added: "She did look like a beautiful young man." She went on to recall the presence of Mercury, Everett and Rocos diverted revellers' attention and Diana was able to order drinks undetected, she told AFP. Diana, the ex-wife of heir to the British throne Prince Charles, lived under the glare of the paparazzi and died in a car crash in Paris in 1997, pursued by photographers. Mercury, loved for his spellbinding live performances and enduring Queen hits including "Bohemian Rhapsody", died in 1991 aged 45 of an AIDS-related illness. - AFP |
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