Six degrees
Zhang Ziyi has been the subject of unwelcome and - let's face it - unlikely newspaper articles in recent weeks that suggest the Beijing-born actress (below) earned US$110 million by prostituting herself to fallen politician Bo Xilai and other high-fliers. Apple Daily ran the story despite a glaring lack of evidence, witnesses or reliable sources. Thirty-three-year-old Zhang made her name in big-budget martial-arts epics such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero. One incongruous entry on the actress' CV, however, is the 2001 schtick flick Rush Hour 2, directed by Brett Ratner ...
Ratner's had his own share of bad press in the past year or so. The filmmaker was forced out of his role producing the Oscars after claiming 'rehearsal is for fags'. Underscoring his classy image, the director of X-Men: The Last Stand and Tower Heist then gave a radio interview in which he offered explicit details of his sex life. Having revealed he has 'huge balls', is the world's best oral sex practitioner and has a sperm count 10 times above average, Ratner informed DJ Howard Stern that he had insisted on sending to a doctor for a venereal disease check-up one-time lover Lindsay Lohan ...
When she isn't obliterating her septum or drunkenly driving into things, 'LiLo' is deemed a capable and often fine actress. Her lifestyle has taken its toll, however, and in a recent photoshoot, which saw her recreate iconic pictures of her heroine, Marilyn Monroe, the 25-year-old was accused of looking older than the 36-year-old Monroe. Kicking a woman when she's down comes naturally to immoral media types and to prove it, this 'degree' will end with Lohan's last award: a double worst-actress Razzie for her part in the 2007 horror I Know Who Killed Me ...
The story about a young aspiring writer who disappears then magically reappears as a world-weary stripper, and some business with a serial killer, was panned as 'ludicrously plotted' and (hard to believe) 'a career nadir for all involved' by Rotten Tomatoes, which gave the film a dismal 9 per cent approval rating. Critic Richard Roeper ranked it the worst movie of the decade and it set a record for the most Razzie wins in a single year (eight). One of the more upbeat reviews described the 'preposterous' film as 'The Parent Trap as remade by the Marquis de Sade' ...
For his firm belief in man's right to do whatsoever he pleases to whomsoever he fancies, the French aristocrat spent almost half of his 74 years in prison or asylums. Considering his claim that 'no lover, if he be of good faith, and sincere, will deny he would prefer to see his mistress dead than unfaithful', perhaps confining the one-time politician was the way to go. The Dangerous Memoir of Citizen Sade by A.C.H. Smith is a 2000 'biographical' novel told from the perspective of two prisoners who loathed each other: de Sade and Pierre Choderlos de Laclos ...
The real Laclos was an army general who invented the modern artillery shell. He was also an amateur writer whose desire to pen a book 'which would remain on earth after his death' fuelled his creative output. Laclos achieved his goal in 1782, when his novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses was published in pre-revolution France. The tale of deception among the bewigged upper crust has enduring appeal, and the recent Cannes Film Festival saw the premiere of Dangerous Liaisons - the unfortunately titled latest project of scandal-hit Zhang Ziyi.
