In the Mood for Bhutan

Photo: Courtesy of Jet Tone Films


Hi,

This is for everyone who called/e-mailed/instant messaged today asking for more information about Carina and Tony’s wedding.

Very glad that the IHT found space to run the story in today’s paper, but to satisfy all the inquiring minds out there, here is a slightly expanded version of the IHT story with quotes from Carina and Chang Chen as well as assorted trivia about the wedding.

I'll try to reply to questions and comments when I can. Meanwhile, enjoy…

Xx
Alex.


In the Mood for Bhutan
By Alexandra A. Seno
alexandraseno.blogspot.com

The bride, just like so many women about to be married, hoped for what she called “a quiet, solemn and romantic wedding.” Except she is the A-list Hong Kong actress Carina Lau Kar-ling and the groom is Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Chinese cinema’s biggest dramatic star. They say their vows today, Monday, July 21, at the Uma Paro hotel in Bhutan after a relationship that stood up to decades of popular scrutiny and almost 20 years as a couple.

While Lau will probably still be able to remember her wedding day as the stuff of dreams, the Chinese media frenzy around it has been anything but quiet or solemn. Since the incomparably tenacious Chinese entertainment press discovered the once-secret wedding locale on Monday, July 14, in typical fashion, the industry deployed considerable human and financial resources to cover the Chinese entertainment world’s marriage of the century.

Dozens of reporters and photographers, and hundreds of thousands of dollars have relentlessly pursued the wedding party and their guests through three cities including Paro, in the remote Himalayan hills where the Buddhist ceremony will be held.

The booming Chinese entertainment media sector has proven not only profitable but also more competitive than ever. The five top-selling magazines in Hong Kong focus on pop culture and like the rest of the industry, sell 95% of their copies on newsstands. Snapshots of Lau, 42, and Leung, 46, as well as facts and fiction about their upcoming marriage have dominated front pages in the last week. The pair famously worked on classic Wong Kar Wai films like 1990’s “Days of Being Wild,” and this year’s “Ashes of Time Redux.”

Before her wedding day, in an e-mail exchange, Lau who was in Paro said: “I felt a little uncomfortable with all the attention. My intention all along is to keep the wedding low profile and share this special moment with Tony, our family and friends. I was hoping to share this news and joy with everyone after we come back. Of course, I realize we are both public figures and cannot hide. I want to thank the media friends for working very hard in the past few days and for the good wishes.”

The diplomatic language aside, in keeping with Lau’s desire for a private moment, the press has not been invited to the wedding, even as throngs continue to stake the couple and their friends. The bride, who won a prestigious Golden Rooster acting prize last year for “Curiousity Killed the Cat,” denied that landlocked Bhutan, which only allowed television in 1999 and continues to impose a complicated visitor visa process, was chosen mainly for its isolation.

The date was set at the end of last year, when they decided to wed. Lau originally considered France, Italy and Japan until a friend suggested Bhutan, which she visited for four days last month and loved. “I long to live the simple and peaceful life of the Bhutanese people. The place is so peaceful and quiet,” she said.

Paro remains relatively peaceful despite the media onslaught and the lengths the reporters have gone to get their story. By Wednesday, July 16, they found out the wedding party’s travel details. Leung’s management company believes at least six were on the flight from Hong Kong and one photographer attempted to take a picture of the couple, curtailed by airline staff. At least 20 trailed the group in Bangkok where they had dinner before flying to the Himalayan kingdom.

One reporter is believed to have obtained the difficult-to-get and expensive Bhutan visa by applying in Russia. At the end of last week, several Hong Kong reporters were in Paro and many have spent a lot of time mainly lurking on roadsides hoping to snap images. On Friday, hotel security removed at least eight Hong Kong journalists who entered the premises of the luxury, Singaporean-owned Uma Paro. Some of the bridal party are billeted and the main wedding events will be held at the 20-room, 9-villa hilltop resort.

“Chinese entertainment media are very, very aggressive and are willing to dole out money to get the job done,” says Yuen-ying Chan, director of the University of Hong Kong Journalism and Media Studies Centre. While she doesn’t encourage her graduates to build careers in the genre, she acknowledges the publications are “hugely successful.” Facts are often not the main elements for these stories, as the Lau-Leung wedding is proving, just the photograph. Chan says: “If they don’t have the facts, they use their imagination. It is entertainment and readers are nosy by nature.”

(The groom’s management company declares several tidbits in the tabloids and on the Internet to be fictional. Among them that the India-based Karmapa Lama will officiating at the ceremony, that two private jets ferried guests to Bhutan – Leung and Lau went commercial in fact, and that the wedding cost HK$10 million.)

Chan notes that the “Hong Kong style” in pop culture reporting has been a role model for the booming mainland media. She says: “In China, politics is sensitive and the government is more tolerant of soft news.” Local pop culture-oriented publications do “dramatically well” with advertisers, which is why the segment is growing, according to Vivek Couto, head of research at Media Partners Asia, a boutique consultancy.

“Hong Kong doesn't really have much real hard news, so entertainment is very important. The field is very crowded so we have to do what we can.” says Mark Simon, group advertising director for NextMedia, owner of three of the territory’s five top-selling magazines. Partly because of their Taiwan revenues have grown and partly because their publications do well financially, NextMedia, listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, reported that earnings for 2007 were up 32% and profit 52%.

“Competition is fierce. Advertisers love entertainment news. So what if some guy is sleeping with some girl – the beer and cosmetic brands don’t care if you put them beside the story,” says Simon. Unlike in Europe and the US, most Chinese paparazzi work on staff for publications and not motivated by the potential earnings from a single photo. Hong Kong is one of the world’s most crowded media markets where hundreds of publications serve 7 million residents. On the weekend, NextMedia’s publications ran candid shots from Paro.

The wedding of Lau and Leung, star of Ang Lee’s recent, critically acclaimed movie “Lust, Caution,” is irresistable to the Chinese entertainment press, also because of the personalities involved. As a friend of the couple, Hong Kong’s international award-winning art house filmmaker Wong Kar Wai signed up for an unprecedented and unpaid role: wedding planner.

Wong, in an e-mail, said that a bit like his ambiance-drenched films, he planned to work with music to set the mood. The closely guarded wedding program includes a traditional tea ceremony for the bride, groom and their mothers on Monday morning, followed by a Buddhist blessing at 11 am., then an Italian lunch, capped by cocktails and a barbeque buffet in the evening. Sakul Intakul, florist to the Thai queen, designed the décor which incorporates bamboo with blooms flown in from Bangkok.

Depending on the weather, Wong said he intended to use tunes ranging from Mendelssohn to Stan Getz, Chinese pop diva (and wedding guest) Faye Wong, to Sergio Mendes. The director’s frequent collaborator, film editor and creative director William Chang Suk-ping, has been doing visual direction for the event in Bhutan and found Lau’s ivory Vera Wang dress in Hong Kong.

The guest list of 140 includes luminaries like producer Nansun Shi, martial arts star Ti Lung and retired Taiwan actress Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia, who have all traveled to Bhutan.

Fresh from a round of golf and being hounded by telephoto-lens toting Chinese paparazzi, Taiwanese actor Chang Chen, a wedding guest, on Saturday in a phone interview, described the mood among the party in Paro to be generally relaxed despite the media hoopla.

Chang, who recently co-starred with Leung in John Woo’s Chinese box office record-making “Red Cliff,” was unsurprised that despite Bhutan’s isolation, so many – invited or not – should want to be part of the couple’s special day. He said: “Their wedding is a very happy occasion. A close friend is getting married and marriage is a very big thing, this is why many people would love to be here.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Cliff_(film)

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/showbiz/2008-07/21/content_6863202.htm

http://www.uma.como.bz/paro/default.asp

http://www.sakulintakul.com/



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