week6-Taiwan actor Ko Chen-tung cut from blockbuster after drug arrest with Jaycee Chan

Taiwan actor Ko Chen-tung cut from blockbuster after drug arrest with Jaycee Chan

James GriffithsPUBLISHED : Thursday, 20 November, 2014, 2:01pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 20 November, 2014, 6:08pm

The fourth instalment of the Chinese blockbuster franchise Tiny Times will not feature Taiwanese actor Ko Chen-tung, after he was arrested for drug use in Beijing in July, state media reported.

The 23-year-old actor, also known as Kai Ko, served 14 days in detention in Beijing for drug offences after he was detained along with Jaycee Fong Cho-ming, son of Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan.

China’s media watchdog has warned mainland production companies not to use stars involved in prostitution, gambling or drug abuse. China Radio International reports that Ko’s scenes in Tiny Times 4, due for release in February, are being reshot.

The Tiny Times franchise, which has been called China’s ‘Gossip Girl’, has been hugely successful. On its release in July, the third film knocked Transformers 4 off the top of the Chinese box office, taking more than 306 million yuan in its first four days and setting a record for a 2D film.

Writer-director Guo Jinming said earlier this year he might have to cut Ko from the fourth film, though he later denied he was in talks with an actor to replace him.

“The movie has to be submitted for censorship and it’s beyond my ability,” Guo told the Beijing News in September.

Ko, who made a tearful confession of drug use on state TV in August, has already lost a number of high-profile endorsement deals, including with Canon, KFC, and Quaker Oats.

The actor will also reportedly be cut from ‘Monster Hunt’, the live-action debut of Chinese director Raman Hui, who previously co-directed ‘Shrek the Third’.

Jaycee Chan was formally arrested in September on suspicion of “accommodating drug users” and potentially faces as much as three years in prison.

Jackie Chan, who was named a Chinese anti-drug ambassador in 2009, has publicly apologised for his son’s behaviour and blamed his failings as a parent.

“I am always a father. I used to be an unqualified father. Now, after this event, I want to be a qualified father,” Chan told reporters last month.

Ko and Chan were detained as part of an ongoing anti-drug campaign. This week Chinese police announced that more than 100,000 drug users had been "investigated" and 12 tonnes of narcotics seized in the past 50 days alone.

Keyword：

Tones (n.) 姓氏

Ambassador (n.) 大使

Suspicion (n.) 疑心

Endorsement (n.) 背書 保證

Censorship (n.) 視察員 監察制度

Submitted (v.) 使服從 提交

Blockbuster (n.) 巨型炸彈

Installment (n.) 分期付款中的應付款

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- Jaycee Chan ＆ Ko Chen-tung

WHEN- Thursday, 20 November, 2014

WHAT- Arrested for drug use in Beijing in July

WHY- drug use in Beijing

WHERE- Beijing

HOW-no given

week5-Nigerian girls would be freed

CNN journalist: 'We wanted to believe' Nigerian girls would be freed

By Ashley Fantz, CNN
November 6, 2014 -- Updated 2359 GMT (0759 HKT)

For weeks, Nigerian officials said that more than 200 Nigerian school girls would finally be freed. When it fell apart, there was nothing but devastation.

Over and over, sources told CNN's Isha Sesay that negotiations between the government and Boko Haram, the group that snatched the girls in April, were getting somewhere. The journalist was assured that the Islamist terror group had agreed to a cease-fire, and as part of that deal, the girls would be able to return to their families.

For once, Sesay allowed herself to feel optimistic.

A native of Sierra Leone, the journalist was personally drawn to the tragedy that inspired the global campaign "Bring Back Our Girls."

"Those girls were poor, from a remote part of Nigeria," in Chibok in Borno State, Sesay said.

 Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls

 Boko Haram: Nigeria\'s crisis Boko Haram: Nigeria's crisis

The area has been long ignored, and the people there have gotten by on very little, she said.

The girls were kidnapped while they were at school.

"They were just trying to get an education," Sesay said. "But for the grace of God, I come from an educated family and my life has been different. It's the power of education that has allowed me to become a CNN anchor. These girls were in school to change their circumstances."

Sesay got on a plane to Nigeria days ago as sources told her that the girls' freedom was imminent.

When she landed she started to hear more from journalists who have extensively covered Boko Haram, and from those who knew how the terror group operated.

They were suspicious, and doubted that the government was really in talks with the terrorists.

There were other red flags. No one from Boko said anything about the supposed cease-fire. In fact, members remained active in northeastern Nigeria, and actually carried out more attacks and child abductions.

Sesay and her CNN crew kept hoping. Maybe it was simple banditry in the north, she reasoned. It was hard to bear the idea that the girls wouldn't be freed.

"We wanted to believe," she said. "We gave (Nigerian officials) the benefit of the doubt, I suppose."

A crushing video

On November 1, a video appeared of Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau saying no cease-fire been reached. The girls were not going to be released, he said, laughing.

They had converted to Islam and were married off.

"They are," he said, "in the marital homes."

It was a crushing blow.

"It was like he was saying, 'This is done,' " Sesay recalled.

 A man who never gave up hope A man who never gave up hope

 Bring Back Our Girls Bring Back Our Girls

After the video was released, Nigeria's government asserted that negotiations had happened, and Shekau had gone back on promises he'd made during those talks.

"We've heard about the video, and we can say the road to peace is bumpy -- and you cannot expect otherwise," a spokesman said. "Nigeria has been fighting a war, and wars don't end overnight."

In late October, Human Rights Watch released a report on Boko Haram violence against women and girls in Nigeria. The group interviewed kidnap victims including a dozen of the Chibok girls who escaped. The girls had been imprisoned in eight Boko Haram camps in the Sambisa Forest Reserve, the report said.

The women and girls who refused to convert to Islam were physically and sexually assaulted, HRW said, and some were forced to marry their captors.

Men and boys who were abducted, the report says, were given the choice of joining the group or being murdered.

What gives Boko Haram its strength?

'How could they do this?'

Before she left Nigeria, Sesay called Obiageli Ezekwesili, a former Nigerian government official and one of the leaders of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign.

"She sounded sick with grief when she answered the phone," Sesay recalled. "I said ... 'Are you OK?' which is ... so stupid. She was just -- her voice was hoarse with pain. She said, 'How could they do this?' "

Ezekwesili said she wasn't sure if the parents of the girls would recover.

Sesay said she is committed to continue to tell the girls' stories. Each is a person. Each deserves to live out their unique passions and paths.

"We have to keep asking questions," she said. "We have set expectations low in terms of getting meaningful answers. That can't continue."

Boko Haram -- the essence of terror

Structure of the Lead：

WHO-The girl who was imprisoned

WHEN-2014 11 06

WHAT-She finally be freed

WHY-no given

WHERE-no given

HOW-no given

Keywords：

Grief (n.) 哀傷

Imprisoned (v.) 關押 監禁

Abductions (n.) 誘拐

Journalists (n.) 新聞工作者

Kidnapped (v.) 誘拐 綁架

Remote (a.) 遙遠的 遠距離的

Snatched (v.) 搶 抓去

Negotiations (n.) 協商 談判