On Friday, Danwei described the controversy surrounding the use of a televised talent show to cast actors for the new TV version of Dream of the Red Mansions. The post closed with the information that director Hu Mei had finally given in, and had agreed to use the winners of the casting competition as the leads in her production.
Now it looks as if Hu Mei has taken things to the next level by threatening to quit if she is forced to accept the competition results. Entertainment journalist He Dong posted the following on his blog this afternoon:
The head of this blog has been granted express permission by director Hu Mei to repost the following post from the Baidu Hu Mei forum:
If the casting competition decides to impose actors, director Hu will withdraw
“The moderator of this forum learned the following from a trustworthy source close to director Hu: Director Hu has clearly notified all parties: Director Hu will not appear in casting competition activities from now on. If the casting competition imposes actors on her new production, then director Hu is prepared to withdraw.”
This is the second time that Hu Mei has avoided the traditional media and gone to the Internet to express her opinions. Her initial interview was published on He Dong’s blog, and this decision first surfaced as a forum post before being confirmed by He.
Trustworthy? No worse than the mainstream media, it appears.
The Beijing Times article that reported Hu Mei’s capitulation was apparently so far off the mark that it has utterly vanished from the paper’s website. You can see the hole in the latest PDF copy and reduced-size page image.
- He Dong’s blog (Chinese): If the casting show decides to impose actors, director Hu will withdraw
- Beijing Times (Chinese): 25 May entertainment section
- Image from Beijing Morning Post