Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money
Jet Li’s ability to do the impossible on film has wowed audiences for years. Now he’s making jaws drop for utterly different reasons. His latest foray into film, Warlord, has made him the highest paid actor in a Chinese language film. For this epic, based on a Qing dynasty story, Li’s paycheck totaled $13 million USD. With the way prices are skyrocketing for Chinese art, that will definitely get him in the door at this week’s Christie’s auction.

The Pandas Are Mad and Aren’t Taking it Anymore
Fashion designer Zhao Bandi has managed to upset the gentlest of all creatures, the panda. For his runway show during last month’s China Fashion Week, Bandi’s use of panda motifs to illustrate socio-economic issues in China has caused the city of Chengdu, home to the panda, to accelerate their plans for legislation that would ban abuse of the panda’s image. This all encompassing law, which would also include other stipulations such as a ban on breeding, would be a first for panda kind.

Hollywood Studios Get Sue Happy
Five Hollywood Studios, Walt Disney, 20th Century Fox, Columbia, Universal and Paramount Pictures, have decided to sue a Shanghai internet cafe and Jeboo.com for providing access to a plethora of films from each respective company. The suit, not the first of its kind, is seeking 3.2 million yuan in damages. Maybe this lawsuit was the reason why China temporarily prevented the U.S. Navy from docking in Hong Kong this past week? Things that make you go hmmm.

Image: Filmwad.com

Silence and anticipation will grip the S.A.R. this Sunday as Christie’s Hong Kong gears up for its biannual auction. Going on the block is a mix of 2,400 pieces of classic and contemporary art valued at HK$1.8 billion, said to be the largest collection of Asian finery up for grabs. Jonathan Stone, international business director of Asian art at Christie’s said, “I think we can look forward to one of the highest (Asian) sales we’ve had.” According to Reuters, Christie’s previous record for a Hong Kong auction was US$210 million set last autumn. With growing interest in all things China, it seems as if Chinese art is the new bling. Will Ne-Yo have a couple of Yue Minjun paintings in his next video? As the infamous heiress currently traipsing all over Shanghai would say, “that’s hot.”

Art aficionados out there, there’s still time to listen to the good governor of California’s advice about pumping iron in preparation for the auction. Your arms have to be ready to go the distance as the bidding is going to be fast and furious, and, as I’m sure Barry Bonds secretly agrees, an extra edge never hurts. Interestingly enough, according to Bloomberg, unlike buyers in the West, this mix of mostly Chinese and Taiwanese art connoisseurs won’t be looking for modern art. Instead, they’ll be keeping an eye on the classics. Like property in China, the art market is overheating which, in turn, has valuations skyrocketing. As such, local buyers may be backing off of those newfangled pieces in favor of something that has been witness to the ebb and flow of history. Bloomberg found one art lover who talked about this return to the old school:

There’s an essence, a spirit in fine antique pieces that is absent in contemporary artworks,” said Cai Mingchao, 43, general manager of Xiamen Harmony Art International Auction Co., who paid a record HK$116.6 million last year for a Ming Dynasty Buddhist bronze statue. “Many people are speculating on Chinese contemporary art, that’s why prices have risen so much. They have no one but themselves to blame should prices collapse.”

In the end, whether vintage or contemporary, a scroll or a canvas, there is one constant of the Hong Kong Christie’s auction: nothing will be cheap.

Image: France Magazine

History has a tendency of repeating itself. Looking at the current landscape, it’s like the late 19th century all over again with foreign entities coming in to carve up a piece of China. Even though the trade is no longer in opium, a new drug has hastened the slicing and dicing of the market. This drug makes the red paper fly out of your pocket as you attempt to fill the hunger inside, but at least with this addiction you end up looking good. Damn good. We’re talking about the insatiable beast that is fashion, and, for all anglophiles out there, get ready to scream in unison as the U.K.’s uber-trendy Topshop will hit our shores in 2008. Yes ladies, next year you too can be as glamorous as Kate Moss.

Rumor has it that the megalith that is the Super Brand Mall in Shanghai’s Pudong will be the site of the first Topshop in China. According to Reuters, “Topshop is definitely not coming to China for just one store. It is also looking at many other Chinese cities, such as Beijing and Hong Kong.” With China’s retail market valued at $1 trillion USD, that’s more than enough impetus for Topshop to tread where Zara, the French Connection, and MNG have all gone. As part of its entry strategy, Topshop plans to target young Chinese consumers with a philosophy of hip designs at affordable prices. Hmmm, isn’t that supposed to be H&M? Somebody better call Don King because I smell a cat fight.

Image: The Beautifully Damned

The Man Booker Prize has spawned a child, the Man Asian Literary Prize, and taking the inaugural award home this year is Beijing author Jiang Wong for his novel Wolf Totem. Having been relocated to Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution himself, Jiang’s novel vividly explores life in Mongolia during this period. There’s no doubt that the 6 years it took to write this novel was well worth it, and, for us hanzi illiterates, the English version comes out in 2008. Remember, reading puts the fun in fundamental.

Image: Cover of Wolf Totem

Although relatively unknown outside of Asia, with the Jackie Chan vehicle Around the World in 80 Days as one of her Hollywood credits, Karen Mok is a superstar. One can’t walk down the street without seeing her image splashed on various billboards for watches, cameras, and other lifestyle products. I’m still waiting for the day that there will be a Karen Mok approved toilet tissue. With Mr. Whipple gone, r.i.p., that day has just come one step closer; remember, don’t squeeze the Charmin.

The singer, actress and savior of China’s Moon Bears, all titles worthy of a business card, has a new credit to her name. Good Housekeeping, yes the one and the same, has voted Mok as China’s “Most Feminine Star”. Looks like she better order a new set of cards. While it is true that she’s a great entertainer, what does “most feminine star” mean? When I look at television, music and movies, I don’t exactly see an army of Serena and Venus Williams clones. So, if you’re like me, wondering just what it takes to be most feminine, according to China Radio International, Mok is “known for her supermodel figure, especially her long legs.” So that’s all? I think I hear the rumble to the plastic surgeon’s office growing louder.

Monday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the body responsible for nominating and selecting the winning films for the Academy Awards, announced the short list of 15 films competing for the Oscar for Best Documentary. If you’re not familiar with the AMPAS, this is the academy referred to in 99% of all Oscar acceptance speeches when winners say, “I’d like to thank the academy.”

Among the 15 films selected for the 2007 award was the big-budget Sicko, Michael Moore’s muckraking take on the American healthcare system, and the highly-touted No End In Sight, Charles Ferguson’s examination of how the Bush administration bungled the war in Iraq. Along with Ferguson’s film, seven more of the fifteen deal with current or past wars. In January, this short list will be cut down to five nominations, one of which will be named the best documentary of the year at the February 24 Oscar ceremony.

Two of the documentaries included on the Academy’s short list deal with China: Nanking, the American-made movie about the 1937 massacre of 30,000 Chinese by Japanese soldiers and a lesser known documentary entitled Please Vote for Me. As part of the BBC’s “Why Democracy?” documentary series, Please Vote For Me chronicles an experiment in democracy at the Evergeen Primary School in the Chinese city of Wuhan. In a third grade class, 8-year-old students are forced to elect a class monitor from three candidates who organize campaigns and resort to savvy and slimy political tactics to get votes. Ronault L.S. Catalani of the Asian Reporter described the film as having “compelling charm” and wrote of it:

Every old trick of “representative” leadership is played out in grandiose rises and moral tumbles, in triumph and in tears. This is wonderful documentary. No voiced-over supportive stats or pithy political science. Just three third-grade politicos, some reluctant, some shameless, yet all participants in a social experiment of unprecedented scale and consequence.

The film is directed by Weijun Chen, a Wuhan news reporter who made a name for himself with the 2003 documentary To Live is Better Than To Die, an investigation of the HIV/AIDS crisis in rural China. Please Vote for Me aired last month in America as part of the Independent Lens series on PBS, on the BBC in England and in 33 other countries around the world.

Video Clip from Please Vote for Me

Image: Scene from Please Vote for Me/Indiewire

When Vanity Fair is not taking pictures of nude pregnant actresses for its cover, the magazine can at times put forth a captivating feature. In the December issue, on newsstands now, art writer Barbara Pollack presents a comprehensive view of the Chinese art scene, the conditions that created it and the monster it has become. It certainly is not your average, “there’s art in China!” piece. Pollack profiles a handful of the major art talents in mainland China and conversely, those entrepreneurs, restaurateurs and any other word ending in -eurs who have elevated the price tags and demand for unique pieces. Here’s an interesting clip:

Once an empire of enforced egalitarianism, this nation of 1.3 billion is waking up from a stupor of isolation as Shanghai and Beijing prepare to become capitals of a China-dominated world culture. And once wary state officials have managed to befriend a few of the country’s most rebellious artists just in time for Beijing’s giant 2008 photo op, the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. “The place is just an environmental disaster, but there’s a kind of energy,” says noted New York architect Basil Walter, who has collected Chinese art during visits to his Shanghai office. “In the art districts, ladies in Bentleys pull up, dressed to the nines, and slog through the mud to get to a gallery where they’re seeing a new artist’s work, while some deranged person is quivering off to the side. There’s a visual bombardment that makes the place really exciting.”

I think I know that quivering deranged guy. You can read the full article here.

Image: Ai Weiwei’s “Marble Arm” Sculpture (2007)/Artnet

If you wake up Tuesday morning in Shanghai and something is amiss, perhaps the air has a tinge of the Can Can fragrance and off in the distance you can hear faint utterances of “that’s hot,” it may be because there’s a certain heiress in town. Fresh off a stint in jail, Paris Hilton arrives in Shanghai Tuesday for an appearance at Friday’s MTV Style Gala at the Shanghai Grand Stage. An inside source tells The China Arts Page that Paris will be staying at the new Hyatt on the Bund Hotel on the north end of Shanghai’s famous waterfront. And you thought hairy crabs season in Shanghai was over.

Monday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that a new sex tape was leaked to YouTube and adult pay sites starring Hilton and an anonymous man. In the video, Hilton is naked in a bubblebath hosing herself down with a shower head as she exchanges idiotic blather with yet another man who stands to profit from the heiress’s promiscuity. However, the video clip in question and the screenshots from the bathtub video have been floating around the Internet for months. Perhaps the SMH has confused their Paris Hilton sex tapes? It happens.

What we know for sure is that the MTV Style Gala is a joint production from MTV China and state-run CCTV. The show will air on CCTV 6 in December. If for no other reason, viewers might want to tune in to see Paris wearing clothes.

On Sunday a black sabbath fell upon Shanghai as one of the original auteurs of nu-metal, Linkin Park, commandeered the stage at Hong Kou Stadium for their long awaited debut in China. According to China Daily, making this show extra special was the fact that this was the first open air concert by a major international rock group. As one of the most popular rock bands in the People’s Republic, fans were so eager to see their heroes take the stage that, according to Xinhua, the audience started screaming for Linkin Park during Thin Man’s opening set. Talk about your embarrassing moments. I hope that Thin Man don’t overeat to fill the emotional void. There’s only room in pop culture for one set of Fat Boys.

With over 40 million records sold the band is a force to be reckoned with, however, unlike Beyonce’s set, the show was pared down and simple. Co-founder Mike Shinoda said, “a good concert, is not the production or the lights or anything like that, it’s more about playing and putting together the best experience for the fans that we can. We have a lot of room for improvisations.” Hopefully, their improv will wow the crowd at their next stop in Hong Kong on the 20th. However, the boys are warned to bring it on their sojourn south as Hong Kong has already seen the likes of The Cure and Nine Inch Nails this fall. They’ve got some tough acts to follow.

Image: Jan’s Lie’s Flickr Page

The Fat Ladies Are Singing in China
If you’ve ever channel surfed in mainland China, you know that 23 of the 40 available channels are devoted to Chinese women in headdresses singing in pitches so high that you’re thankful your television screen doesn’t shatter. This would be the Peking opera and there’s a lot of it here. What China lacks, according to Maureen Fan of the Washington Post, is European opera, though that’s about to change. The Mandarin opera “Farewell My Concubine” premiered in Beijing last month and more Chinese productions of European opera are expected to follow.

Sold! To the Guy on the Couch at Home!
A new Hong Kong auction house will become the first in the region to sell fine art over the Internet. Wednesday, Atting House launches a new online auction system whereby bidders can buy the most sought after Chinese art without leaving home. The first cyber-auction will offer 130 works from 66 up and coming contemporary Chinese artists, according to a press release.

The Pope of Pop Pops Into Singapore
For the first time, the people of the Lion City viewed over 100 works from the legendary pop artist Andy Warhol. The exhibition, titled “A is for Andy,” commemorates the 20th year anniversary of the artist’s death and includes prints of the famous Chairman Mao portrait and the iconic Campbell’s soup painting. Select Singaporean art collectors got a chance to bid on certain pieces during a preview this week, the public only had the weekend to view Warhol’s art. Seems a bit short.

Say Ru Lao! Photo Exhibition Opens in Lishui
Saturday, the 12th China International Photographic Art Exhibition took over the Zhejiang province city of Lishui. About 40,000 photographers from about 100 countries submitted photographs to the China Photography Association who selected about 360 photos to display. The Lishui exhibition began in 1981 and in recent years has become one of the most influential photography events in the world.

Image: “Farewell My Concubine”/China National Opera House