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August 25, 2005
EXHAUSTION: NOT JUST FOR HOLLYWOOD ANYMORE
Exhaustion has long been the "covers everything" explanation of choice for a variety of celebrity ailments ranging from severe crack addiction to...well, exhaustion. Many child actors learn "exhaustion" as their first word. But Hong Kong celebs have been exhausted since way before being exhausted was cool.
Now, the exhaustion hall of fame adds Daniel Wu to its ranks. The hardest-working man in Chinese showbiz has been the victim of a PRC law that requires him to appear in every single Hong Kong movie. In 2004/2005 alone he's been in at least 12 of them. While promoting the latest (DRINK, DRANK, DRUNK, ironically) he left an event, walked out into the parking lot, threw up for a while, and then collapsed. Sounds like he needs too get some rest.
August 25, 2005 at 12:31 AM in News | Permalink
Comments
what is a prc law? why they made him play in every single movie?
Posted by: teiiko | Aug 28, 2005 6:46:25 AM
It's just a joke. At the Hong Kong Film Market this year they had 10 presentations for upcoming films where the cast and director would go onstage and talk about the project and show clips. After Daniel Wu went up onstage about 6 times for 6 different movies everyone started to laugh. Daniel Wu works so hard that either a) he actually is exhausted and deserves a break or b) he actually is on a lot of drugs and he probably needs them because of all this work.
Posted by: Grady Hendrix | Aug 29, 2005 9:26:48 PM
He's merely following the footsteps of Andy Lau who held the previous title as the hardest working actor in HK.
Working on multiple movies simultaneously was not unusual in the 70s and 80s when HK churned out movies as fast as Big Macs.
Posted by: oj | Aug 29, 2005 10:35:41 PM
You're right, but it's a kind of prolific that's become a thing of the past in recent years as stars stay off the screen in order to drive up their demand by limiting their exposure.
Does Andy hold the record for most number of movies? Or does that go to Anthony Wong?
Posted by: Grady Hendrix | Aug 31, 2005 7:20:36 AM
Well, going by the most rough estimate of film appearances (imdb-which almost certainly skipped a few movies from both), Wong has 127 movies to Andy Lau's 125. So, it's gotta be virtually the same either way, although where credit is due, Andy Lau does have his ridiculous-costume singing career to contend with as well.
Or, to put it mildly differently, they're both insane movie-making machines. Though now that I think about it, has anybody seen an Andy Lau movie for 2005 yet?
Posted by: FiveVenoms | Aug 31, 2005 3:04:19 PM
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