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China fans give Zhang Ziyi earful over lip synch
2008-02-09
China rang in its new year with howls of public outrage when film star Zhang Ziyi was accused of lip-synching her way through a gala holiday performance. The actress, best known for her role in the Oscar-winning "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," was the main act of an annual televised show -- a fixture of the country's Lunar New Year celebrations that attracts up to 700 million viewers. "The biggest flaw of the evening was Zhang Ziyi's singing, way too amateur," said one among dozens of similarly critical blog entries at Culture City, a popular entertainment Web site (www.wenxuecity.com). Zhang, 28, is one of the few Chinese film stars to break into Hollywood, signing a three-picture deal with mogul Harvey Weinstein in 2006, but success has both inspired pride and earned her detractors at home in China. Chinese entertainment reporters said performers often mouth lyrics to songs to ensure the carefully scripted new year's show goes off without a hitch. But some faulted Zhang, who trained at China's top acting college, for not doing a good enough job of masking it. "Everybody knows the 'tradition' of lip synching, but Zhang Ziyi just did not prepare enough and could not even remember the simplest of lyrics," wrote the Modern Express, a newspaper published in Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu Province. "As an international celebrity, Zhang Ziyi's appearance was the most eagerly awaited," said the Guangzhou Daily in southern China. "But ordinary people could not stand it. It was too fake." One of the gala's directors, Chen Linchun, felt compelled to defend Zhang's prominence in the evening's line-up. "Our first consideration in inviting her was her power to attract," Chen told the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper. "When she stepped on stage, the whole place fell silent and looked at her. That is the attractive force of a fine work of art or an excellent singer." Some blog writers were also livid that Zhang's pink dress, which puffed out three meters at its base, was rumored to have cost 100,000 yuan ($13,910). Zhang sparked controversy two years ago for her role in "Memoirs of a Geisha," which Beijing pulled from theatres over worries a Chinese actress playing a Japanese geisha would rile people still upset over wartime atrocities. ($1=7.188 Yuan) (Reporting by Simon Rabinovitch; Editing by Katie Nguyen)
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