Rabu, 5 Februari 2014

The Star Online: Metro: Sunday Metro

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The Star Online: Metro: Sunday Metro

Mystery giant jellyfish washes up in Australia
The agony and ecstasy of Hong Kong's extreme runners
Insurance against bullying in South Korea

Mystery giant jellyfish washes up in Australia

Posted: 05 Feb 2014 06:43 PM PST

SYDNEY: Scientists were Thursday working to classify a new species of giant jellyfish that washed up on an Australian beach, describing it as a "whopper" that took their breath away.

The 1.5-metre (4 foot 11 inch) specimen was found by a family in the southern state of Tasmania, who contacted a local marine biologist.

Lisa Gershwin, a scientist with the government's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), said the type of jellyfish had been seen in the past, but never one so big and not one that became beached.

"We know about this specimen but it hasn't been classified yet, it hasn't been named," she told AFP, adding that there had been a massive jellyfish bloom in Tasmanian waters over the past month.

She said the new species was related to the lion's mane jellyfish, the largest known species of the marine animal in the world.

"It is so big it took our breath away," added Gershwin, who has been working with jellyfish for 20 years.

"It's a whopper of an animal but it's not life-threatening, although it does sting."

CSIRO scientists now have enough pictures and samples to begin a proper analysis to classify and name the creature. Despite this, much remains unknown, including how it eats and breeds, and its habitat.

"It's so big but we know nothing about it," said Gershwin. "It highlights again how much we still have to learn about the ocean."

The jellyfish was found by the Lim family on a beach south of the Tasmanian capital Hobart with mother Josie saying "it blew our minds away".

"It's not really jellyfish territory here and all we could do was stand back and admire it," she told AFP. -AFP

The agony and ecstasy of Hong Kong's extreme runners

Posted: 05 Feb 2014 07:27 PM PST

HONG KONG: Hong Kong is known for its long working hours and rat-race lifestyle, but on the rugged trails of the surrounding hills extreme runners are driven by a different ambition - the ultimate 'ultra' experience.

Defined as any distance beyond the 42.2-kilometre (26.2 mile) marathon, ultra races are becoming increasingly popular around the world - and with its 300-kilometre network of trails criss-crossing rocky terrain, exposed peaks, bays and reservoirs all close to the city, Hong Kong is increasingly being seen as the ideal venue.

With three new 100-kilometre races launched in the territory in the past three years and also a 100-mile race, trail runners are pushing themselves to go further than ever.

That's in spite of the common risk of serious falls, sprained ankles, repeated stress injuries, cuts, grazes, blisters and lost toenails.

"People are seeking something else to set them apart," said Jeanette Wang, health editor of the South China Morning Post and a competitive trail runner.

"When you say you've done a marathon, you're not the life of the party any more. In Hong Kong in the last two years, things have got so crazy that even 100 kilometres isn't unique."

Two decades ago ultras were run by an intrepid few, with the United States and Europe the main centres. But the lure of spectacular routes and a special camaraderie - for many the challenge is simply to cross the line - has seen popularity go global.

According to the International Association of Ultrarunners there are now more than 1,000 races around the world.

The Vibram Hong Kong 100 became the first stop on the inaugural Ultra-Trail World Tour in January this year, linking "emblematic" races on every continent - with Hong Kong and Japan's Mount Fuji the two Asian events.

"The opportunity to run these trails so close to a huge population of people is very different from many trail runs in the world," said prominent New Zealand ultra runner Vajin Armstrong of the Hong Kong course.

"Asia is such a growth region for trail running at the moment...it's really important that athletes come here and get a sense of what it has to offer."

Smiling through the pain

Hong Kong's longest-standing ultra dates back almost 30 years to the days of British rule, when an annual 100km training exercise led by Gurkha soldiers opened up to the public.

That "Trailwalker" event, now sponsored by Oxfam, attracts more than 10,000 participants and Nepalese teams still often dominate, taking first and second in 2013.

The city's ultra races attract everyone from committed athletes, to competitive "weekend warriors" and novices who just want to finish.

While elite runners might cover 100 kilometres in 10 hours, those further down the pack will be toiling for much longer, often through the night.

"Ultra running is not pretty," said Hong Kong-based runner and writer Rachel Jacqueline, 30, who has completed two solo 100-kilometre races in the city and two team 100km events.

"Your face is like sandpaper from the salt. Any two body parts in close proximity will chafe. There's tiredness, inflammation, hunger, muscle pain."

She runs up to 20 hours a week in peak training and admits it is hard to socialise and hold down a job too - she took a year to prepare for her first solo 100km race.

"Experiencing pain and discomfort and knowing you are strong enough to overcome it and persevere is incredibly empowering," she said.

"If you can tackle all that and come out with a smile on your face, you can do anything in life."

Though ultras are physically and mentally tough, many runners find them the perfect antidote to modern life in a highly-strung city.

"I don't like road races - I like getting out into the mountains because it's beautiful," banker Wilson Leung, 45, said after finishing the popular 50-kilometre Green Power Hike.

"In the hills I can forget my problems."

He spent seven years working up to ultra distances after taking up running in his late 30s and says it suits his age group.

"People lose their speed but not necessarily their endurance, so they start running longer as they get older. Experience is important, knowing how to protect your body and building up slowly."

Clouds on the horizon?

But there are fears of a blot on the landscape for future trail races in Hong Kong as pollution worsens in the territory.

Murky smog frequently blankets the skyline and a new government index has recorded high or very high levels of pollution almost every day since it was implemented late last year.

"The air quality is better in remote places, but Hong Kong is too small to get away from it completely," says Keith Noyes, race director of The North Face 100 Hong Kong and organiser of the long-standing King of the Hills mountain marathon series.

"It's only going to take one incredibly polluted event with a big international crowd to get a bad reputation."

For now though, while runners might stay indoors on the smoggiest days, the lure of the hills remains.

"The demand for the more challenging trail races in Hong Kong is phenomenal," says Noyes.

The Vibram Hong Kong 100 saw 1,650 racers, compared to 250 in its first 2011 edition, with 500 enthusiastic volunteers en route.

"Runners are beginning to realise it's much more fun to be on the trails than the roads," says race director Steve Brammar, who founded the event with his wife Janet Ng.

"They are also realising that a marathon distance isn't the limit of human endurance - it's almost just the start." -AFP

Insurance against bullying in South Korea

Posted: 05 Feb 2014 06:49 PM PST

SEOUL: One of South Korea's largest insurance companies is to begin offering a policy for victims of school bullies, as part of a government campaign to stamp out the problem.

The policy from Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance will likely debut in March, a company spokesman said Thursday.

"The priority isn't really on making money with this product, but more on providing a public service that helps build up social security networks," he told AFP.

As well as bullying, other policies will be introduced offering protection to victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and food adulteration - or what President Park Geun-Hye has collectively condemned as the "four social evils" afflicting the country.

According to the state regulatory Financial Services Commission (FSC), the bullying policy will help cover costs for physical injuries as well as counselling fees for those traumatised by school violence.

Monthly premiums would be a maximum of 20,000 won ($18), but the FSC said it would raise joint funds with municipalities to pay premiums for those unable to afford them.

According to a survey conducted by the Education Ministry last year, more than 77,000 school students of all ages said they had been bullied, with nearly 10 percent of those saying they had considered suicide.

Nearly 140 South Korean school students killed themselves in 2012, mostly as the result of family problems, exam stress and bullying. -AFP

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star eCentral: Movie Reviews

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The Star eCentral: Movie Reviews

'The Killing Fields': It changed all our lives
Bullets Over Petaling Street: A scary and exciting shoot
Matthew McConaughey to enter Gus Van Sant's dark forest

'The Killing Fields': It changed all our lives

Posted: 05 Feb 2014 08:00 AM PST

Thirty years on, those involved in making The Killing Fields look back at its legacy.

THE Killing Fields premiered 30 years ago as more than the first major film to explore the atrocities of Pol Pot's reign of terror in Cambodia in the 1970s.

The film "changed my life", said actor Sam Waterston, who earned an Oscar nomination playing New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg, one of the few American journalists left in Phnom Penh when the city fell to Khmer Rouge guerillas in 1975. Added Waterston: "I think it changed the lives of every single person involved in making it."

That would include Haing S Ngor, who won the Academy Award for supporting actor portraying Dith Pran, Schanberg's translator and journalistic partner, as well as director Roland Joffe, who remains involved with Cambodian charities.

Warner Home Video offers reminders of the film's storied creation and lasting legacy with the recently released 30th anniversary Blu-ray edition of The Killing Fields, which earned seven Oscar nominations, including wins for Ngor, Jim Clark for editing, and Chris Menges for his documentary-style cinematography.

British producer David Puttnam, who had won the Best Picture Oscar for 1981's Chariots Of Fire, explained that The Killing Fields was the movie "I had been waiting to do."

As a teenager, he had been gobsmacked by Gillo Pontecorvo's 1966 semi-documentary-style war film The Battle Of Algiers. The film, Puttnam said, "changed my attitude towards cinema. It was the first film I saw that allowed me to believe that cinema could be something more. You didn't know you if you were watching a movie or not."

He felt the story of Schanberg and Dith would have the same effect on audiences. Though Schanberg and other journalists were allowed to leave Phnom Penh, Dith was among the hundreds of thousands of Cambodians forced to leave the cities and work in the labour camps of the communist Khmer Rouge.

Puttnam first read about them in a small piece in Time magazine. "It was the photograph of the two men hugging in the refugee camp, and it said an American journalist is reunited with his interpreter," the producer recalled.

The article and Pulitzer Prize-winner Schanberg's subsequent New York Times Magazine piece, The Death And Life Of Dith Pran, piqued the interest of several filmmakers.

"I went with the British group," said Schanberg, now 80, who still works as a freelance journalist. "These people who were making it were really good people. They weren't doing it to make a buck. They didn't make a lot of bucks. I never found a way to thank them for what they did."

Bruce Robinson's script for The Killing Fields attracted attention from top-line directors, but Puttnam eventually chose Joffe, who until then had directed mostly theatre and TV movies. Puttnam gave Robinson's dense script to Joffe.

"Three days later, I got this long, three-page letter detailing the strengths and weaknesses of the script," Puttnam said. "It was absolutely brilliant."

Joffe, who earned an Oscar nomination for his work, realised The Killing Fields wasn't just a war drama but a love story between Schanberg and Dith.

"If you make it a story about friendship and how that exists among men, you will make something indelible," Joffe recalled in a recent interview.

Though they felt pressure to cast a Hollywood star as Schanberg, Puttnam and Joffe went with Waterston, who they felt not only resembled Schanberg but also captured the spirit and passion of the journalist.

Waterston, who remained friendly with Dith until his death in 2008, remembered that Dith had hoped – before the cast was decided – that Schanberg might be played by an actor like Kirk Douglas.

"When I first met him, he said something about the fact that Sydney had a very big heart, and then he hit me really hard in the chest," Waterston said. "It was literally like he was trying to put Sydney's heart into me."

But the real casting gamble turned out to be Ngor, a doctor in Cambodia who suffered the same horrors as Dith under the Khmer Rouge, eventually escaping to Thailand and arriving in the United States in 1980.

Ngor had never acted before. Casting director Pat Golden spotted him at a Cambodian wedding in Long Beach.

"I talked to Pat Golden and said I think we should do an improvisation with Haing," Joffe said. "He didn't want to do it at first, but I kind of lulled him into doing something – mainly getting him to describe a few things, and he basically began to act them out. I realised this man was a born actor."

But Ngor didn't want to be in the movie.

"I had to do a lot of arm twisting to get him to be in it," Joffe said. "I said, 'You have to play this part. You have to do it for your country. It will be difficult, but I'll be there.' "

Emotions ran high for the Cambodian refugees who worked on the film. Ngor broke into tears during the scene in which a young girl playing a soldier for the Khmer Rouge pulls out a tomato plant Dith had been growing.

"He suddenly stopped in the middle of the scene," Joffe said. Ngor couldn't do it anymore. The cold expression on the young girl's face hit too close to home. In the moment, Ngor thought she really was a Khmer Rouge soldier. But Joffe eased his fears and eventually he completed the scene.

Rounding out the cast were John Malkovich as photojournalist Al Rockoff and Julian Sands as British journalist Jon Swain. Sands said the director sent the actors to Thailand a month before shooting started to get immersed in the place and the truth of the story.

"I remember the profound impact of visiting the Khmer refugee camps on the Thai-Cambodian border and talking to survivors about their experiences with Haing Ngor as translator," said Sands from Puerto Rico, where he is filming the NBC pirate series Crossbones with Malkovich.

Eleven years after winning his Oscar, Ngor was shot to death outside his apartment near Dodger Stadium. Waterston recalled that beyond his co-star's "tremendous spine", one could also see an "unbelievable gentleness of spirit".

After completing the film, Waterston and Joffe became involved with Cambodian charities. Joffe still visits the country often and with friends started the Cambodian Trust, which makes artificial limbs and operates a school for prosthetics. Waterston, who followed his long stint on NBC's Law & Order with HBO's The Newsroom, has lent his support to an American advocacy organisation Refugees International. Puttnam frequently visits Cambodia as the prime ministerial trade envoy to that country as well as Vietnam and Laos.

Before The Killing Fields, Schanberg said, Cambodians "never knew during their time under the Khmer Rouge whether anybody in the outside world knew about what was happening to them. The truth was, that was pretty true. The movie changed that." – Los Angeles Times/McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

Bullets Over Petaling Street: A scary and exciting shoot

Posted: 05 Feb 2014 08:00 AM PST

Chen Han Wei's take on his character in the movie.

THE whole cast of Bullets Over Petaling Street gets to go crazy with their characters. "Everyone except me," groused Chen Han Wei.

"Mine is the most normal character you will find in the movie. I play a very ordinary, goody two-shoes sort of guy next door," Chen, 44, offered about his role as mild-mannered restaurateur Xie Da Xiang, who operates Foo Tai Restaurant in the film.

"He is also a very romantic fellow, who still carries a torch for his childhood sweetheart (played by Debbie Goh)," added Chen, for whom the most memorable scene was the one he dubbed "locks of love" which was filmed on a flight of stairs with Goh.

Collaborating with Goh for the first time, Chen was impressed by her command of the script and her grasp of the character.

"Debbie is very clear about what she wants out of each scene and knows exactly what is required of her, and delivers her best at every shoot, so working with her was a breeze.

"Other cast members like William San and KK Wong were also fun to work with. I especially like that they are all straight-talking folks," said the multiple-award-winning actor (Singapore's Star Awards, 2001, 2005, 2009 and 2010).

"Making movies in Malaysia is such an enjoyable experience. Most notable were the exceptional teamwork and strong camaraderie between cast and crew," said Chen, who looks forward to more projects here and hopes that some weird and quirky roles will come his way.

Bullets also marked many firsts for Chen. Apart from being his Malaysian film debut, the action comedy also features Chen speaking in a mix of Mandarin, Cantonese and even Bahasa Malaysia for the first time.

Born and raised in Johor Baru, Chen has been plying his trade since age 18 in Singapore, where all Chinese productions are in Mandarin, with an occasional smattering of Hokkien in movies.

Fortunately, the personable chap has his Malaysian upbringing to thank for his easy familiarity with several Chinese dialects.

"Unlike Singaporean productions which are only in Mandarin, Malaysians like to use various dialects and languages. Luckily my mother is Cantonese, so I learnt how to speak the dialect," he mused, alternating effortlessly between Mandarin and Cantonese in a recent phone interview from Singapore.

Chen also spoke of how filming on location in Petaling Street was a special experience for him. "Running around trying to film our scenes in Petaling Street was no easy matter as there were always lots of people everywhere.

"Plus it was scary and exciting at the same time, as there was always the possibility of us bumping into real-life triad bosses!"

The lanky thespian recalled how he had to complete his scenes in 10 days, then rush back to Singapore to film Yes We Can!, a Lunar New Year TV series which is currently airing on Singapore's MediaCorp Channel 8 and Malaysia's Astro Shuang Xing (Ch 324).

Chen, who made his film debut last year in the Gilbert Chan-helmed Singaporean horror flick Ghost Child, already has some 80 television drama credits to his name. Upcoming projects include two more TV series, a year-end blockbuster, and some coaching clinics for newbies.

Related story:

Debbie Goh: Lethal in heels

Matthew McConaughey to enter Gus Van Sant's dark forest

Posted: 05 Feb 2014 07:05 PM PST

The American star has won the lead role in Sea of Trees, a story of survival within Japanese surroundings.

A HOT contender in the Oscar race for 2014's Best Actor award with Dallas Buyers Club, Matthew McConaughey is to star opposite Ken Watanabe in Gus Van Sant's feature, which is set in Japan.

Sea of Trees will focus on the mystery surrounding Aokigahara, a dense woodland area that is famous for its unusually quiet nature, for its rocky caves, and as a traditional destination for those wishing to take their own lives.

The story, written by Chris Sparling of Buried and ATM, chronicles the journey of an American who sets off into Aokigahara, located at the base of Mount Fuji, with the intention of making it his last expedition.

But he meets another traveller on the way and together they resolve to escape the forest's dangerous, labyrinthine envinroment.

Gus Van Sant is to begin filming Sea of Trees in the next few weeks. – AFP Relaxnews

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star eCentral: Movie Buzz

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The Star eCentral: Movie Buzz

'The Killing Fields': It changed all our lives
Bullets Over Petaling Street: A scary and exciting shoot
Matthew McConaughey to enter Gus Van Sant's dark forest