I POP NEWS: Chinese Movies

Birth name Geraldine Estelle Halliwell

Also known as Ginger Spice, Ginger

Born 6 August 1972 (age 38)

Watford, Hertfordshire, England

Origin London, England, UK

Genres Pop, dance pop, pop rock

Occupations Singer-songwriter, author, actress

Years active 1994–present

Labels Virgin (1996–98) Spice Girls

EMI (1999–2003)

Innocent Records (2004–05)

19 (2010–present)

Associated acts Spice Girls

Geraldine Estelle “Geri” Halliwell (born 6 August 1972) is an English
pop singer-songwriter, author, actress and philanthropist. After coming
to international prominence in the late 1990s as Ginger Spice, a member
of the girl group the Spice Girls, Halliwell launched her solo career in
1998 and released her album Schizophonic. Since then, she has released
two more studio albums – Scream If You Wanna Go Faster and Passion – and
four number one singles at the UK Singles Chart, “Mi Chico Latino”,
“Lift Me Up”, “Bag It Up” and “It’s Raining Men”. In 2008, Halliwell
published a book series named Ugenia Lavender. As a solo artist,
Halliwell has sold 12 million records worldwide and been nominated for
two Brit Awards in 2000 and 2002.

In 1999, Halliwell launched her solo
career and released her debut album Schizophonic, with the lead single
“Look at Me”, produced by Absolute and Phil Bucknall. “Look at Me” would
go on to sell over one million copies worldwide, followed by further
number ones at the UK Singles Chart “Mi Chico Latino”, “Lift Me Up” and
“Bag It Up”. Halliwell performed “Bag It Up” during the BRIT Awards
ceremony in 2000, emerging between giant inflatable legs, ripping off
her shirt and walking in stiletto heels over the backs of topless
pink-haired men whilst performing the song.

“Look at Me” was released to radio in
the United States in late 1999, receiving limited airplay. With only a
radio single, Schizophonic debuted at number forty-two on the Billboard
200 before dropping out within the next month. The album was eventually
certified Gold, distributing over 500,000 copies. In 1999, she wrote an
autobiography If Only, in which described her life as a Spice Girl.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geri_Halliwell

Chinese name 章子怡

Pinyin Zhāng Zǐyí (Mandarin)

Origin People’s Republic of China

Born 9 February 1979 (1979-02-09) (age 32)

Beijing, China

Occupation Actress

Years active 1996–present

Zhang Ziyi(born 9 February 1979) is a Chinese film actress. Zhang is coined by the media as one of the Four Young Dan actresses (四小花旦) in the Film Industry in China,
along with Zhao Wei, Xu Jinglei, and Zhou Xun. With a string of Chinese
and international hits to her name, she has worked with renowned
directors such as Zhang Yimou, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-wai, Chen Kaige, Tsui
Hark, Lou Ye, Seijun Suzuki, Feng Xiaogang and Rob Marshall.

She achieved wider fame in the West
after starring in major roles for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000),
Rush Hour 2 (2001), House of Flying Daggers (2004), and Memoirs of a
Geisha (2005). She has been nominated for numerous awards throughout her
career, including three BAFTA Award nominations and Golden Globe Award
nomination.

1999–2002

At the age of 19, Zhang was offered her first role in Zhang Yimou’s The Road Home, which won the Silver Bear award in the 1999 Berlin Film Festival.

She rose to further fame in 2000 with her role as Jen (Chinese version: Yu Jiao Long) in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,
for which she won several awards in the Western world, such as Chicago
Film Critics Association Awards, Toronto Film Critics Association Awards
and Independent Spirit Awards. Zhang’s first appearance in an American movie was in Rush Hour 2,
but because she did not speak English at the time, Jackie Chan had to
interpret everything the director said to her. In the movie, her
character’s name is “Hu Li”, which is Mandarin Chinese for “Fox”.

Zhang then appeared in Hero
(2002), with her early mentor Zhang Yimou. This was a huge success in
the English-speaking world and was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden
Globe award in the category of Best Foreign Language Film.

2003–2006

She then signed on to film an avant-garde drama, Purple Butterfly (2003), which competed in the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. Zhang went back to the martial arts genre in House of Flying Daggers (2004), which earned her a Best Actress nomination from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In 2046
(2004), directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring many of the best-known
Chinese actors and actresses, Zhang was the female lead and won the
Hong Kong Film Critics’ Best Actress Award and the Hong Kong Film
Academy’s Best Actress Award.

Showing her whimsical musical tap-dancing side, Zhang starred in Princess Raccoon, directed by Japanese
legend Seijun Suzuki, who was honored at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.
She then accepted the lead role of Sayuri in the film adaptation based
on the international bestseller Memoirs of a Geisha. Controversy arose in Japan and China about having a Chinese woman portray a Japanese geisha. For this film, she was reunited with her 2046 co-star Gong Li and with Crouching Tiger
co-star Michelle Yeoh. For the role, Zhang received a 2006 Golden Globe
Award nomination, a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination and a BAFTA
nomination.

Zhang has also been known to sing, and was featured on the House of Flying Daggers soundtrack with her own musical rendition of the ancient Chinese poem, Jia Rén Qu (佳人曲, The Beauty Song). The song was also featured in two scenes in the film.

On 27 June 2005, it was announced that
Zhang had accepted an invitation to join the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), placing her among the ranks of those able to
vote on the Academy Awards.^[7] She then appeared as Empress Wan in The Banquet (2006), a film set in the Tang Dynasty.

2007–present

Zhang provided the voice of Karai in TMNT (2007). She later starred in Forever Enthralled (2008) and appeared in The Horsemen (2009) with Dennis Quaid.

In January 2010, it was announced she had plans to produce a film adaptation of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan; however, it was announced that she had turned down the role due to a busy schedule.

Zhang has been cast in the role of Lin Huiyin in a 2011 film.

Zhang is currently playing the titular heroine in Mulan,
a live-action version of the Chinese folk tale of Hua Mulan, previously
popularized around the world by Disney through their 1998 animated
movie. The film, which is directed by Jan de Bont, is expected to wrap
in January 2011.

Along with Aaron Kwok, Zhang stars in an AIDS-themed film “Life is a Miracle,” premiering on 10 May 2011.