It’s official: Alternative music junkies’ favorite rogue band, Radiohead, was nowhere to be seen in Tokyo’s famous Shibuya intersection — in person, via satellite, beamed in hologram or otherwise on Friday night.
Instead, what started out as a cryptic Tweet chirped from the band’s official Twitter account implying there was something happening in Tokyo’s Shibuya crossing Friday night deflated into a “special event” on the band’s Japan website — except that the website crashed.
From Japan Real Time.
How do you go about remaking the most iconic film to emerge from Asia in the past 25 years?
That’s the challenge facing Korean-American director John H. Lee, who is preparing to shoot a 3-D English-language version of John Woo’s ultra-violent 1989 Hong Kong movie, “The Killer” which starred Chow Yun-fat as a hitman with a conscience. The update will star South Korean actor Jung Woo-sung and is scheduled for release next year.
Tiny ten-seat canteens shoved into subway stations tend to be the dingy stuff of late-night fast-food runs after six too many beers.
But there are always exceptions and, in the case of Jiro Ono’s lilliputian sushi restaurant in Tokyo’s Ginza station, the exception just happens to be a three-star Michelin establishment with menus starting at US$300.
From Speakeasy.
The art industry, one of the glitzier pieces of the global economy, seems to have shrugged off the 2009 recession with nonchalance. In 2010, Christie’s had the best year in its 245-year history. The auction house attributes its success to a buoyant art market peppered with more auctions, new customers, private sales and growth in online auctioneering.
But there is more to the picture. Emilie Faure of the Farjam Collection in Dubai says that in the past decade, as individuals’ investment portfolios have grown more complicated and diverse, art has emerged as an appealing option.
More than a decade after the release of the award-winning movie “East is East,” comes its sequel: “West is West.”
The 1999 film told the story of George Khan’s multicultural and dysfunctional family in a provincial town in northern England. The sequel follows the Khan family as they journey to rural Pakistan where George tries to find the wife he left behind 30 years earlier. (Mrs. Khan No. 2, the English one, also joins the expedition, setting the ground for something of a culture clash.)
From India Real Time.
China’s Lantern Festival falls on Thursday in the Year of the Rabbit. People watch lanterns, eat glutinous rice balls and perform folk dances to officially mark the end of the 15-day spring festival celebration. See photos.
When Sotheby’s auction house said earlier this month that it was planning a sale of 106 works of Chinese art from the collection of retired Belgian businessman Baron Guy Ullens, the news caused a stir in the art world. Mr. Ullens, along with his wife, Myriam, is considered a pioneering collector of Chinese contemporary art.
So when Art Newspaper, the online trade magazine, revealed Saturday that Mr. Ullens may in fact sell his entire Chinese collection, the buzz intensified.
Organizers of the 2010 Man Asian Literary Prize released its shortlist yesterday, featuring writers from China, India and Japan. Japanese Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe is in the running for the prize for his book “The Changeling,” as is Indian debut novelist Manu Joseph for “Serious Men.” The award is given to the best novel by an Asian writer, written in English or translated into English, published in the previous calendar year.
“His statues outnumber Gandhi’s and Nehru’s, but few people know about his life or work…”
That phrase appears early on in the illustrated work “Bhimayana,” the story of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the man who drafted India’s Constitution. He was also the country’s first law minister and fought against the discrimination faced by Hindus, who like him, are Dalits, belonging to castes considered untouchable.
Artists Durgabai Vyam and her husband Subhash Vyam, who belong to the Gond tribal community and live in Madhya Pradesh, agreed in 2008 to work on the book for Navayana, an eight-year-old Delhi-based publishing house that focuses on caste issues.
From India Real Time.
For those who revel in singing ancient rock songs at the top of their lungs, especially in the all-too-rare event of a live concert in Delhi, some devastating news this morning: Tonight’s Bryan Adams concert has been canceled.
The 51-year-old Canadian rocker is on an India tour and was expected to perform to a sell-out crowd in Delhi this evening despite the inclement weather. But the Delhi police have intervened, claiming that the location of the show — the National Small Industries Corporation stadium (OK, it’s not Madison Square Garden) — wasn’t fit for the purpose. But why did they declare this just a few hours before tune-up time?
From India Real Time.
Food, wine, fashion, design and the arts in Asia. Scene is produced by Jason Chow, Nellie S. Huang, Amy Ma, Duncan Mavin and Dean Napolitano, with contributions from The Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at scene@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.
In 1886, Carl Benz filed a patent for a "vehicle with gas engine drive." To celebrate the anniversary, Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz flew four cars -- two classic and two concept -- to Hong Kong for a show at Ocean Terminal this weekend. The show ends Sunday, so here's a peek, if you can't make it. View Slideshow
Among China’s newly-minted rich set, the latest must-have plaything is an expensive riding pony.View Slideshow
A few looks from Calvin Klein and Tommy HilfigerView Slideshow