INTERNATIONAL CHINA DAILY WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 28, 20079 Ties to China go beyond The Departed WORLDSCENE AUSTRALIA

Scorsese showed his classic crime Film Festival. He said the American Dog thief pelts man with pups Oscar-winning director Scorsese a fan of movies Mean Streets and Taxi Driver director prepared Chinese tea and An Australian man was in a serious in Beijing — but the fi lms were so new Italian snacks, and “constantly smiled condition in hospital after he was Chinese fi lmmaking since the early 1980s to China that they were translated live at us, like watching a child.” stabbed and pelted with puppies on the spot, according to Wang. when he tried to stop thieves steal- artin Scorsese has Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival By Scorsese’s own account, he ad- corsese paid tribute to one of ing rare dogs. fi nally won an Oscar last year for Still Life. mired Chinese fi lmmakers’ for “their the directors of Infernal Affairs, The man found an intruder stealing — and he did it with Taiwan-based director Peter Wang, eagerness, their passion” when he met SAndrew Lau, in his acceptance dogs when he returned with a friend a little help from his who attended the Beijing conference them in the 1980s. speech Sunday, also praising, to her home in suburban Melbourne Chinese friends. with Scorsese more than two decades Scorsese ranked Tian “wonderful Asian cinema.” late on Sunday. MThe veteran American director ago, said the New York native was ir- Zhuangzhuang’s Horse Thief and Wu The success of Infernal Affairs “As they’ve approached her property won best picture and best director ritable in the morning but generally Nien-jen’s A Borrowed Life among his helped launch Lau’s own Hollywood they’ve seen a man running out of Oscars on Sunday for the gangster easygoing. He asked people to call top 10 picks for the 1990s. He said career. He recently shot his American the premises with fi ve jack russell movie The Departed, a remake of him “Marty.” Horse Thief was “intimate yet epic, debut The Flock, which features Rich- cross dachshund puppies,” police the 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller In his autobiography, I Look Awk- completely unsentimental but yet ard Gere and Claire Danes. spokesman Adam West said. Infernal Affairs. ward, Wang said Scorsese was ex- deeply moving.” Hong Kong also cheered Scorsese’s The thief was attempting to drive off But Scorsese’s interest in Chi- tremely curious about Chinese fi lm. In more recent years, he’s become win, with news reports Monday and with the dogs when the man ran up nese-language cinema dates back “At many events, Marty would a big fan of Jia. He heaped praise on Tuesday touting The Departed as a to the car and began kicking it. The decades. pull me aside and ask me what he Jia’s debut Xiao Wu, a portrait of a remake of a local movie. intruder responded by throwing two He attended a movie conference in was eager to know in a low voice,” pickpocket. Scorsese: Chinese fi lm fan Reuters Lau’s co-director on Infernal Affairs, of the puppies at him. Beijing in 1984, when few foreigners he wrote. “This was true guerrilla fi lmmak- Alan Mak, said he was so happy he felt “As he’s kicking the car another had visited the country, meeting Chi- A picture published in Wang’s ing, in 16-millimeter format, and it him a letter in 2002 praising Xiao like he himself won an Oscar. man’s got out of the car and stabbed nese directors Zhang Yimou and Chen book shows a bearded, trench-coat reminded me of the spirit in which Wu and inviting Jia to meet him in “It feels like you won half an him several times, causing serious Kaige before they became critically wearing Scorsese, his hair still dark my friends and I had begun, back in New York. award,” said Mak, adding he was en- injuries,” said West. acclaimed darlings in the West. black, chatting with Wang and others. the 1960s,” he said. He met Scorsese, whom he affec- couraged that “an idea made in Hong More recently, he has avidly It’s a stark contrast to the gray-haired Jia said in an article published in tionately refers to as “Old Martin,” in Kong can become universal.” UNITED STATES boosted up-and-coming fi lmmaker 64-year-old honored in Los Angeles Hong Kong’s City Magazine’s book his offi ce in New York in October 2002 Jia Zhangke, who won the top Golden on Sunday. review last year that Scorsese faxed when he was attending the New York Agencies Breakup seen by thousands The Valentine’s Day breakup of two college students in North Carolina that featured singers, hundreds of spectators and a profanity-laced ‘Holy Grail’ of tirade was a hoax after all. Ryan Burke said Monday that the confrontation, which became an baseball cards instant hit on YouTube.com, was all a stunt to show the power of sets record at Internet communities and the amount of money that companies $2.35 million make from them. The pair were not even dating. Last week, Burke, 22, claimed he UNITED STATES and Mindy Moorman had been dating for four months but that The “Holy Grail of baseball cards,” he broke up with her because of the famous 1909 Honus Wagner alleged infi delity. He attracted a tobacco card once owned by hockey crowd by promoting the event on great Wayne Gretzky, has sold for a the internet, and when Moorman, record-setting US$2.35 million. 21, arrived, an a cappella group It was bought by an anonymous sang the Dixie Chicks hit I’m not buyer, only identifi ed as a Southern Ready to Make Nice. California collector, at auction in When Burke dumped her, Moor- California on Monday. man’s response was an angry rant The card was scheduled to be fi lled with expletives. shown to the public at a news confer- ence at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium CHILE yesterday. There are about 60 of the ultra-rare Tourists indulge in aphrodisiac tobacco cards in existence featuring Pluto probe passes Jupiter Tourists visiting Chile’s pictur- color images of the Pittsburgh Pirates A computer generated image esque port town of Valparaiso have shortstop, one of the fi rst fi ve players of NASA’s New Horizons space cleaned the town out of a herbal to be inducted in Baseball’s Hall of probe passing Jupiter. The outer aphrodisiac called palwen, an Fame. space probe is due to make its indigenous remedy also known as The seller, Brian Seigel, paid a closest pass of Jupiter today. “Mapuche viagra,” according to then-record US$1.26 million in 2000 Using the planet’s gravity to local media. for the prize card, which is in better accelerate the probe will reach Internet news service Alfa Chile condition than the rest. a speed of nearly 84,000 kph said tourists and performers visit- Before that Gretzky and Bruce Mc- — enough to catapult it on to ing the world famous Vina del Mar Nall, former owner of the Los Angeles distant Pluto. File photo song festival at the Pacifi c beach Kings, bought the card for $451,000 resort have exhausted supplies of in 1991. the sexual energizer. “This particular one was preserved “The Mapuche Viagra increases the in spectacular condition,” said Joe Or- desire, the libido and the sexual lando, president of Professional Sports appetites of men and women,” Italo Authenticator of Newport Beach — the Diaz, a pharmacist at the Mapuche company that certifi ed the authentic- Filmmaker shows relics Girl lost in poker pharmacy Makelawen, told report- ity of the card. ers. “The compound is a Mapuche “It’s the Holy Grail of baseball secret.” cards.” from disputed Jesus tomb Enthusiastic tourists have found Still, the Wagner cards are so game pleads for help the price for palwen at 2000 pesos rare that even those in much worse UNITED STATES the names found on the inscriptions per bottle (about $3.70) irresistible condition will sell for hundreds of were not the family of Jesus. PAKISTAN The girl’s uncle, Dur Mohammad and Diaz is trying desperately to thousands of dollars, Seigel said. The director of Titanic presented on If this is the tomb of Jesus, the said Haider apparently wanted to restock. The others “you could stick in Monday what he said was evidence revelations are likely to raise the ire A teenage girl in southern Pakistan, marry the girl to his son. the middle of the street and let cars the tomb of Jesus had been uncovered, of Christians because the discovery whose late father lost her in a poker There appears to be some confusion NORWAY drive over it through the day, take it but scholars greeted the assertion would challenge the belief that Jesus game when she was 2 years old, has in the case with local politicians and in your hand and crumple it up, and with skepticism. was resurrected and ascended to asked authorities to save her from police disagreeing over whether the Thieves raid gallery it still would be a $100,000 card,” said James Cameron and a team of heaven. being handed over to a middle-aged girl should be handed over. A Norwegian painting featuring Seigel, CEO of Emerald Capital LLC, scholars showed two stone ossuaries, The documentary comes on the relative. Khalid Rajput, a local councillor $16,311 of banknotes glued to a an asset management company, who or bone boxes, that he said might have heels of the huge success of the nov- Rasheeda, 17, said she has fi led ap- dealing with the case, said the deci- canvas proved too tempting to lives in Las Vegas. once contained the bones of Jesus and el and fi lm The Da Vinci Code, which plications with the police and a local sion that Rasheeda should be handed thieves, who made off with it at the The tobacco cards used to be Mary Magdalene. The fi ndings are the contends that Mary Magdalene had a councillor asking them to stop Lal over was taken by a tribal council. weekend, the gallery that displayed included in packs of cigarettes. Col- subject of a documentary he produced child with Jesus. Haider, 45, taking her to his home. “We know some tribal elders from it said Monday. lectors believe Wagner’s cards are called The Lost Tomb of Jesus and a But in Jerusalem, the Israeli arche- Her mother, Nooran said her hus- Baluchistan came for the meeting in Some 100,000 bills of 1,000 kroner so rare because he stopped allowing book The Jesus Family Tomb. ologist who carried out excavations band racked up a debt of 10,000 ru- which the girl’s family was told to give each were glued to Norwegian artist the American Tobacco Co to use his The two small caskets were part at the tomb on behalf of the Israel pees ($151) to Haider playing cards. her as per their customs,” he said. Jan Christensen’s two-by-four-metre image, fearing it would encourage of 10 found in 1980 during construc- Antiquities Authority, disputed the “My husband didn’t have money to But Irfan Bhutto, a police offi cer canvas, entitled Relative Value, said children to smoke. tion in South Jerusalem. Several had documentary’s conclusions. pay, and instead he told Lal Haider in Hyderabad, said Haider had been the MGM Gallery in Oslo. Nicknamed the “Flying Dutch- inscriptions translated as Jesus, Mary Amos Kloner, said the 2,000-year- that he could take Rasheeda when she summoned and Rasheeda would not The robbers broke into the gallery man,” Wagner was the National Magdalene and “Judah, son of Jesus,” old cave contained coffi ns belonging grows up,” she said. be handed over without her consent. overnight Saturday to Sunday by League batting champion in eight of Cameron told a news conference at the to a Jewish family whose names were Despite being paid his money last “We will ensure the girl does not smashing a window. Then, proceed- his 21 seasons and fi nished his ca- New York Public Library. similar to those of Jesus’ family. year, she said Haider still insisted the have to do anything against her will,” ing methodically, they cut each bill reer with a lifetime .329 average. He “This is the beginnings of an ongo- “I can say positively that I don’t ac- girl should be given to him because of he said. off the canvas individually and left retired in 1917 with more hits, runs, ing investigation,” Cameron said. “If cept the identifi cation as... belonging tribal customs. Surprisingly, this is not the only case the cumbersome frame behind. RBIs, doubles, triples and steals than things come to light that erode this to the family of Jesus in Jerusalem,” While both families live in Hydera- of its kind. Earlier this month, a Rus- “Apparently they are nice because any National League player. investigation, then so be it.” Kloner told reporters. bad, 160 kilometers north of the south- sian man lost his wife playing poker. they took the canvas out of the The fi lmmakers said that statisti- ern city of Karachi, they belong to the frame,” said gallery owner Marina Agencies cally there was a 1 in 600 chance that Agencies same tribe in Baluchistan province. Agencies Gerner-Mathisen. FRANCE

From puppet to president? NEWSMAKERS Could latex puppets of France’s top presidential candidates — depicting Mirren may have Helen Mirren, who won the best The opera will be a co-production everyone is welcome,” said Shetty’s one as an aggressive dwarf and the actress Oscar for playing Queen by the Los Angeles Opera and the spokesman yesterday. other as a slow-speaking bimbo tea with Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, may be Theatre du Châtelet in Paris. — determine the winner? invited to tea, Buckingham Palace Describing The Fly as “an unprec- Agencies/Guardian Satirical daily TV show Les Guignols said on Monday. edented addition to the operatic rep- de l’Info, a scathing spoof of French “It is speculation, but we are look- ertoire”, Domingo said: “It has long public life, has been accused of tip- ing at a number of options,” said a been my dream to unite the worlds ping the balance before. palace spokeswoman. of fi lm with those of opera.” When outsider Jacques Chirac came News of the vintage actress’ win from behind to win the 1995 elec- dominated British newspaper front tion, many felt Les Guignols gave pages and television newscasts, and Shetty says no bad him a crucial boost by portraying Mirren paid tribute to the monarch in blood toward Jade him as a lovable rogue. her acceptance speech. Now, the show features conservative Jade Goody, who triggered a racism candidate Nicolas Sarkozy guzzling row on the recent British reality tranquillisers to suppress the au- Domingo to turn and human life as we know it!” TV show Celebrity Big Brother, will thoritarian interior minister within, The Fly into opera It might not have quite that impact, find India a tolerant and cultured then telling voters: “I’ve changed.” but 21 years after the fi lm’s release, country on her current four day visit, His Socialist rival Segolene Royal “What am I working on?” asks Jeff legendary tenor Placido Domingo according to her nemesis on the show, is vacuous, spouting platitudes at Goldblum’s character at the start of is set to conduct an opera based on Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty. half-speed. 1986 fi lm The Fly. “I’m working on the movie, which sees a scientist get “Shilpa says that India is full of something that will change the world mixed up with a fl y. very tolerant and cultured people and Agencies