"Birdman" just kidding with that little kimchi remark

The film is at the centre of a controversy over a snippet of its dialogue involving kimchi, that traditional Korean dish that makes you wonder how vegetables could ever possibly get so hot. The Korea Herald reports that citizens are fuming over Emma Stone’s character criticising the pungent “smell of kimchi” at a New York City flower shop run by a Korean. 

Stone is on the phone to her dad, played by Michael Keaton, asking him what kind of flowers he wants for his dressing room at the theatre. He tells her to just buy some that “smell nice”, and she says, “It all smells like [expletive] kimchi!”.

Well, we felt a wince of sympathy for the Korean florist, but we can only imagine the impact the line has on Korean expatriates in the US – and on the folks back home. The insensitive remark – from a script that did NOT win an Oscar – had already drawn fire from American critics and moviegoers before the Korean populace got wind of it. The film’s marketing people in Seoul have had a go at defending the line.

“It’s only meant to depict the daughter’s neurotic character – there was no intention to belittle a certain country or a culture,” they tried. Did they succeed? We’ll have to wait until the movie opens there to find out. Meanwhile, we’ve seen and heard far worse in movies, though maybe not an Oscar champ.

 

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Jaycee ready for Marines

Hong Kong action-film superstar Jackie Chan has done what any father would do upon finding his son involved with drugs and other nonsense – he gave him a crew cut.

It was (very) short back and sides for Jaycee Chan, who apparently didn’t have to be held down while the old man did the shearing. Jaycee says he’s ready at age 32 to start over to get on with his life after completing a six-month jail term for drug offences. 

We would have thought the prison authorities would keep his hair nice and short, but there’s Jackie with the scissors in a pair of photos that Jaycee posted online last Thursday. The new hairstyle made its debut on Weibo, the Chinese Twitter, in Jaycee’s first post since his arrest in August. The caption says, “Congzin kaishi”, which means “Start from the beginning.” 

The state-run China Daily helpfully points out that the hair trim echoes the Chinese idiom xiaofa mingzhi, which translates as “cut your hair short to show your firm determination”.

Jaycee made the requisite apology to the public upon being released from jail on February 14. He said he had no excuse for his behaviour, which amounted to some excellent partying with Taiwanese actor Kai Ko, who also got busted. 

Apology accepted, it seems, with the online version of the China Daily story getting 358,000 “likes” within the first few hours and being shared 43,000 times. It’s drawn more than 70,000 comments, most of the messages encouraging Jaycee to keep his promise. 

A lot of people also complimented Jackie on his hair-cutting skills. Could be a new career in it for the old fella.