Netvigator Launches Everywhere

Mobile broadband wars just got stiff new competition.

It was bound to happen, Netvigator has launched its Netvigator Everywhere service in Hong Kong. This means with a USB modem you can get Wi-Fi, 3G and HSDPA with download speeds of up to 7.2 mbps broadband connection to your laptop anywhere in Hong Kong.

Read more

AirAsia Flying to Hong Kong

Budget airline flies us to South East Asia for cheap starting this December.

According to the SCMP (Subscription required) Malaysia-based AirAsia will start flying in and out of Hong Kong. What does that mean to you? Expect 1-way tickets to Bangkok for HK$300, Kuala Lumpur for $400 and Kota Kinabalu for $250. All fares include tax:

“We have been contemplating the plan [to come to Hong Kong] for six years,” AirAsia Group chief executive Tony Fernandes said yesterday.

Two years ago, instead of Hong Kong, AirAsia chose Macau as its first entry point into Greater China and later flew to Shenzhen. The airline, one of the most profitable low-cost carriers in the world, operates nine daily flights to Macau and two daily flights to Shenzhen, which will soon increase to four daily flights.

Mr Fernandes said Hong Kong had offered an incentive package to bring flights to the city. He would not elaborate, other than saying they were not as generous as incentives given by Macau.

AirAsia will begin daily flights from Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Kota Kinabalu to Hong Kong between December and January.

AirAsia has already been named Low-Cost Airline of the Year by World Airline Awards (Tiger is 2nd and Oasis 3rd) and Richard Branson owns a piece of AirAsia’s long-distance line AirAsia X. This must all be in preparation for quick access next year for the Olympics and is exciting for holiday and business travelers as well. More as it develops, and hopefully they do something about those bright red outfits soon.

Igors Sends You to IMAX for Free!

Run up a bill of $500 and get 2 IMAX tix for Free.

Go and eat at on at Igor’s restaurants Wildfire, Cafe de Paris, Stormies Crabshack, Peccato or The Boathouse on any Wednesday night from now till September 12th (so that gives you 3 more chances: August 29, Set. 5 and 12) and spend $500 and they will give you 2 free IMAX tickets (value is HK$115 each but currently only Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and the The Panda Adventure are playing) so that means you are getting almost 50% off a dinner and a chance to visit the new Megabox mall and see an IMAX flick. Score!

Luxury Week Begins Next Friday

Mastercard makes Hong Kong ‘priceless.’

Mastercard kicks off their Luxury Week next week with all kinds of exciting fashion events happening in Hong Kong, which are mostly “invitation only” but we hope to be able to bring you some inside info and photos. Dubbed Mastercard Luxury Week Hong Kong 2007, they have declared that Hong Kong is the Luxury Fashion Capital of the world! Wow, thanks Mastercard - that is “priceless.”

The eagerly anticipated event runs from 31 August to 9 September 2007, and includes an exclusive schedule of catwalk shows will take place within a specially built tent at Chater Garden, Central. This is the first time that fashion collections have been presented this way in this thriving Asian metropolis.

The exclusive ten day schedule of events will provide ‘invitation only’ and fashion industry guests the unique opportunity to get a first-hand glimpse of designer picks from a variety of the world’s leading internationally significant ready-to-wear and luxury designer brands.

Presenting Fall Winter 2007 collections, these shows will coincide with the arrival of collections in store and editorial previews in the region’s leading fashion publications.

Learn more at their site here and of course get in on some Mastercard promotions at their luxury site here.

And yes, MTV-Asia fans, that is Denise Keller in the photo above. She is the “ambassador” of the event.

Why is Jet Li Banned in China?

The Lethal Weapon takes issue with China’s movie censors.

China-born kung fu superstar Jet Li (李連杰) is mad. And he has every right to be. Did you know that not one of his Hollywood movies in the past 7 years has ever been screened legally in his home country:

“I remember back after I finished filming The Bodyguard from Beijing, the movie was banned from China due to the fact that, in reality there would be no situation as depicted in the film.”

Former kung fu champion Li has seen a string of his Hollywood films banned in his home country. In 2000 Romeo Must Die did not make it past the censors because it featured gangsters, whilst 2001’s Kiss of the Dragon was blocked because Li’s Chinese policeman character is seen to kill people abroad.

The strictness of Chinese censorship only allows an average of 20 foreign films to be shown officially each year, and those which do make it through can be heavily cut.

“It is my hope that audiences can mature and develop to see the difference between a movie and real life; not everything needs to be realistic,” said Li.

As we reported in June, Chow Yun-Fat’s character in this Summer’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End was trimmed because of the “demonizing of Chinese” that it seems only these Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon type movies ever get made in China which is sad, because we believe that to be a world power China needs to at least understand what the rest of the world is seeing in at least the fictional movie world, if not true history. But we digress…

We don’t know what is more surprising, that China would ban a Jet Li movie or the fact all this info comes from Jet Li’s own blog?!!

In other movies news, today is Thursday so that means new movies in cinemas. Besides our look at Blood Brothers earlier this week, we’d have to say a big pass to the 2 Hollywood offerings: Evan Almighty and The Invasion - while both films look great in their trailers, they both received near bottom level ratings at RottenTomatoes (24% and 20% respectively) leaving us to banishing them to “rental” viewing.

HD-DVD Inches Closer to Victory

The HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray battle gets more ammunition.

Paramount and Dreamworks just threw a big monkey-wrench into the ongoing battle of Who-will-be-the-next-home-video-format Wars as they have decided to go EXCLUSIVE with HD-DVD even though Blu-Ray is outselling HD-DVD 2 to 1:

The studios will exclusively support the HD DVD format starting with next week’s release of Blades of Glory. Later this year, DreamWorks’ summer hits Transformers and Shrek the Third will also be released only on HD DVD (and of course standard DVD). Earlier this year, Flags of our Fathers and Dreamgirls were released on both Blu-ray and HD DVD, but older Shrek films are not out on either format.

The availability of lower-cost HD DVD players led to the studios pulling their support from Blu-ray. Toshiba currently has players in stores for less than US$300.

The high price of players — previously starting at about US$500 — has kept consumers from buying into either format, says DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg. “That’s why I have been very reticent to have us move into it.”

That’s a pretty definitive side to be choosing, especially with the losing side. While Sony hasn’t had a great record in deciding the new medium back to the days they introduced the Betamax format, this time they did give us the Playstation 3 that doubles as a Blu-Ray player and many “experts” believe Blu-Ray to be the better of the two. So we shall see if picture quality or price will be the deciding factor on who wins this Christmas.

UPDATE: This news has gotten at least one director riled up. Transformers director Michael Bay has already stated he will not direct Transformers 2 because of this decision that would limit the amount of people that would watch his movies. But alas, he must have been drunk when he said that, because less than a day later he took it back and said he in fact he “thinks he will be back for Transformers 2″ - and the entire internet and newspaper community has picked up this story and has in fact fueled new interest for the HD-DVD format and bringing more attention to it. Well played Paramount, well played.

Splash With Heineken on Saturday

Yoyo Island dance and fashion party on August 25.

Looking to get hot and sweaty (well at least very wet) on the beach this Saturday? Join Heineken’s Splash party on Yoyo Island, Lantau. Heineken has a dance party starting at 2pm and going all night with a Quicksilver and Roxy fashion show, water sports, DJ’s, bands and more. Tickets are HK$140 each and you’ll need to catch the ferry #9 from Central to Yoyo Island but sure there will lots of Heineken beer around to make it worth the trek.

Blood Brothers Opens on Thursday

Big Hong Kong name cast in big buzz movie.

If you are like us, and want to love Hong Kong cinema but can’t because of all the dreck that is released - there might be some salvation in the new big-buzz flick debuting on Thursday called Blood Brothers (天堂口).

Loosely based on John Woo’s Bullet in the Head but decidedly not about Vietnam but based in sexy and stylish 1930’s Shanghai with an all-star cast including Daniel Wu (吳彥祖) and Shu Qi (舒淇) and produced by John Woo himself, this could be the one to watch out for. Yes, we’ve said that before only to be burned - but it does look great from the stills and trailer, and good enough to be the closing film at the Venice Film Festival next month. It does look a bit cliche from the trailer below but everyone loves a good 1930’s Shanghai movie, if only to see the sets and costumes: