Sex Photo Scandal Rocks HK Entertainment Industry
Shu-Ching Jean Chen, 02.20.08, 3:35 AM ET
HONG KONG - It's been called the equivalent of the 9/11 disaster for the Hong Kong entertainment industry.
Sexually explicit pictures and a steamy video shot by Cantopop icon Edison Chen with female singers and actresses who have shared his bed have spread like wildfire around Asia over the past few weeks.
In a business that carefully grooms starlets with innocent, virginal images, the scandal is threatening to destroy careers and fortunes.
More than 1,000 stolen pictures are circulating of the 27-year-old Chen and eight well-known women, including Maggie Q, Bobo Chan, Cecilia Cheung and Gillian Chung of the Twins duo.
This week, the Beijing Association of Online Media censured Baidu.com, China’s dominant search engine, for delaying taking effective action to block the availability of the images to Chinese Internet users, who have caused a spike in traffic in their zeal to find them. It called for Baidu to make a public apology for the harm it has done to the society.
Shot with a Samsung digital camera and stored on an Apple laptop, the photos weren't intended for public consumption by Chen, who has appeared in over 20 Hong Kong movies, including the popular Infernal Affairs trilogy. The pictures were reportedly swiped from his computer when he took it in for repairs at a shop in downtown Hong Kong.
The photos quickly became favorite fodder during the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, causing a surge in Internet traffic across China, Taiwan and Hong Kong as the curious rushed to download them.
The affair has proved to be a shocking revelation of the private lives of a new generation of celebrities, many of whom have been portrayed by PR agents as models for today’s youth.
A survey in Hong Kong found more than 30% of high school students have passed the pictures around among themselves and 74% of them brought the issue up with their parents.
In a city few would deem prudish, Hong Kong police have reacted with startling force, raiding the repair shop, declaring possession of the photos illegal and prodding local Internet service providers to erase them under a colonial era indecency law. At least nine people have been arrested.
The backlash could prove devastating to the careers of the overexposed stars. TV viewers filed a slew of complaints with the broadcasting authority after singer Gillian Chung, one-half of the Twins singing group, made her first public appearance since the scandal broke on a local program over the weekend.
Chen, who has holed up in Boston, is facing the prospects of losing his endorsement contract with Samsung Electronics. Chen also represents Pepsi (nyse: PEP - news - people ), Levi's, Jacobs & Co. and EPS.
The stars' loss of dignity has been a big gain for entrepreneurial Chinese. Illegal downloads of the pictures are being sold on the streets in mainland China for prices ranging from 10 yuan ($1.40) to 30 yuan ($4.20).
A lingerie producer on the island of Hainan has rung up roaring sales of knockoffs of the lacy underthings worn by Maggie Q in the pictures, according to the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis newspaper.
The scandal has also been gold for Hong Kong newspapers and magazines, which have printed examples of the pictures with the naughty parts obscured, sending their circulation soaring.
For Chen himself, the price he pays for the episode might be far more than lost sponsorship deals.
Hong Kong criminal groups, which are deeply involved in the local entertainment industry, are said to be upset by the damage done to the singers they have cultivated. On Wednesday, the Apple Daily newspaper reported that an underworld figure is offering a reward of half a million Hong Kong dollars to anyone who hacks off one of Chen's hands.
It may be safer for him to appear nude on the Internet rather than return to Hong Kong fully clothed.
Link:
http://www.forbes.com/facesinthe ... autofacescan01.html
