Photoshoot: A Splash of Diamonds: Studio shoot with the finest bling in Hong Kong

When makeup artist Angie Pasley wanted to create a unique beauty shoot, to spice things up, we coordinated with the biggest brands in the jewellery business. 

Off the top of our heads, we rang up the sparkling offices of Cartier, De Beers, Gerrard, Harry Winston and jewellery designer Prerna Chainani (who’s range of exotic Asian inspired jewellery is sold at Neiman Marcus, New York). 

They loved the idea and sent over US$2.7 million to the humble studio of photographer James Gabbard. Inspired by the amazing range of bejeweled baubles, the artist that is Ms Pasley came up with unique looks for the magazine and styled, cast (threw bottled water at the model!) and worked her magic. 

We think the blonde might be from a bottle, but the gal's pure gold!

Producer: P.Ramakrishnan 

Photographer: James Gabbard 

Hair & Makeup: Angie Pasley 

Model: Stella

Maiden Italy: Monica Bellucci: Interview with Italian actress and icon for Kee magazine: A Hong Kong exclusive

Temptation, thy name is Monica Bellucci. Actress and celebrated beauty, not necessarily in that order, P.Ramakrishnan was in conversation with Italy’s hottest export. In a Kee magazine exclusive, he finds a reluctant sex symbol who’s happier at home coaxing her new baby to sleep, than coquettishly cajoling cine-goers to sleepless nights.

American cinema, indeed the world film arena, has long been fascinated with Italian actresses. Since the perfectly petulant pout of Sophia Loren protruded off the celluloid in Quo Vadis (1951) and Aida (1953), audiences have had to close their gaping, gawking mouths, and lick their dry lips back to life. Scorching screen presence that eclipses everything else in the frame, Monica Bellucci is very much like her pulchritudinous predecessor and yet so different.

“I am not crazy enough to compare myself to Sophia Loren!” laughs Bellucci, in that soft breathless chuckle that has thrilled her fanatics in the past decade that she’s blossomed under the arc lights in.

“Oh my God! It’s too much. She’s the person I wanted to be. When I was little, I dreamed about Sophia [Loren]. I always wanted to be an actress because where I was, we used to watch classic Italian movies and there was no one like Loren. I haven’t met her yet but I really want to and tell her, she’s my dream! I cannot compare with her. There will never be another Sophia Loren.”

True as that may be, Bellucci pours into the curvaceous mold left vacant by the legendary Loren as no one else hitherto has – her reluctance withstanding.



Tempting mortals to mortal sin, as Persephone in the Matrix series, Cleopatra in Astérix & Obélix and even in her maudlin role as Magdalen in Passion of Christ, she brought her devilish good looks to her saintly role. She’s donned the role of the belle of the ball often, but give her role she can bite into, and she’ll chew up the scenery.

Starring as Malena Scordia in the (often sepia-toned-) epic Malena (2000), it was her first taste at a gravely serious role, and ours of the full potential of the stunning actress. The world caught only a glimpse of her in the American film Dracula (“A cameo really, it was a very small role but I was asked by Francis Ford Coppolla and who says no to Coppolla?”) but it was an Italian film that hit global theatres, where a collective gasp erupted in the aisles as Bellucci appears on screen.

Raw emotions, naked flesh, gut-wrenching violence, palpable tragedy and, merciful  redemption. It had it all.

“Malena was a very difficult role and I’m so proud of it. It’s been four years since the film and I look back and I’m glad that I did it. Beautifully shot, it was the vision of the director Giuseppe Tornatore – who also made Cinema Paradiso – that made it wonderful. I always pick my movies according to the director. The box-office, the role, the money, all else is incidental!” she confesses.

There were some graphic scenes of violence depicted against Bellucci’s character. Set in World War II, she is lynched by the village for having slept with a German soldier. She’s left bloodied and bruised, her hair pulled out in clumps and she appears in an unflattering crew/lobotomy-cut. Were there any fears of appearing ugly – especially when you’re listed amongst the most beautiful women in the world?

“No. It was an education for me. Perhaps an American actress would have been afraid to look ugly but I am European don’t forget,” she laughs, tongue in chic. 

“Listen, all this magazine covers and the beautiful lists, it means nothing. How many women are on the planet? Did they meet all of them? It’s flattering of course – better the magazines say I look good than I look bad all the time! I don’t take all that too seriously. In a movie, I am a character and what my director says, I do on film. I learnt new sides of myself when I did and saw that.”

Suddenly breaking into a tangent, she says, “I am surprised that Malena was shown in Hong Kong? Really? Well, that’s the power of having a distributor like Miramax. You know in Italian cinema, or European, there’s no budget for exhibitors so only a few people can see the rare, wonderful films. Not like American movies which the whole world can watch.”

She’s proud of her cinematic heritage and dutifully recognised so by the Italian foreign press association, which awarded her the European Golden Globe cinema gong on July 2nd, for her contribution in bringing awareness of Italian cinema to the globe. But she’s concerned for the ailing industry too.

“How many movies now get made in Italy? 10? 12? Fifteen at most. There’s no encouragement for young, new talent. No support. Not like France where cinema is in the culture. They make 200 movies a year and a dozen are made in Italy. I hope there’ll be more done with government or corporate investment in films. How else will they find the next Fellinni?”

How indeed.

Passionate though she is about her hometown, currently, she resides in Paris with her husband actor Vincent Cassel. The couple met in 1996 on the set of the French film, L'Appartement, and they went on to star in eight films in the following years. The duo recently starred together in the French film Agents Secrets, but their joint production of now 10-month-old baby girl Deva is what Bellucci’s most thrilled about.

“Deva, it means creature from heaven in Sanskrit. I loved the sound of it, just four little letters but it means so much and it sounds like an old Italian name. She is surrounded by Italian, French and English (my agent is American and always with me!).”

Not uncommon with new moms, she gushes about her new baby, “Her birth was of course my biggest moment of my life…” she suddenly pauses. “Can you hear her in the background? Most incredible thing for a woman. That is of course if a woman wants it to be. I know many women who don’t want to have children and they’re so happy with it. It’s not the same for everybody and it is about choice. Which is very important.”

This freedom of choice isn’t a phrase that she’s belted out as a pseudo-feminist overture. Bellucci strongly feels for her sisterhood – all too visible when she was among the protesters speaking against the Vatican not long ago.

Bellucci posed nude and pregnant in Vanity Fair (Italy) as a remonstration against the new Italian laws, which allow only married couples to use in-vitro fertilization (Ivf) and prohibits the use of donor sperm. With a group of doctors who went on strike, supported by Nobel prize-winning scientists, Italy’s premier actress marched and famously demanded: "What do politicians and priests know about my ovaries?"

A quote that, predictably, landed in all the papers and infuriated a few papal caps.

She continues in the same vein, “There’s too much integration and interference from the Church in Italy. It was such a horrible moment when we lost. We’re going back in history. Italy’s the only place where there’s such a close relation between Church and state and that’s very dangerous. The state should dictate the law, not the Church but that’s not the case. This law is against women. I’m mostly worried about poorer women. If you’re rich, this law doesn’t affect you – you can just fly off to Switzerland or France or anywhere else and get IVF, no matter what your age. But what options do poor women have? They can go to church and pray for a miracle!?

Indeed, the efforts to overturn laws on fertility treatment in Italy failed because of the dramatically low turnout in a two-day referendum. A victory for the Vatican, which had called for a boycott of the campaign, and a personal loss for her.

“I am not a political actress. I went to speak as a woman. I was pregnant at the time when I saw what was happening and I had to do something about it. But… what was the point I think now. I didn’t change anything. I was just another woman there against this stupid, stupid law.”

Take a, pun intended, pregnant pause. The voice of dissent against the Vatican comes from the same woman who starred in the mother of all Christian films, The Passion of Christ! The iconic role of Magdalen which she portrayed was seen by billions, the movie went on to gross more than US$600 million worldwide and set a DVD release record for the biggest debut for a live-action title in history!

“Well, let us not confuse the actress with the person!” she grins, a saucy smile playing on her lips. “Any decision I make about films, it’s always about the director. As soon as I met Mel Gibson, I saw his passion for the film, his incredible energy, what he wanted to say. A film in Aramaic, I thought it would be a small little movie, which a few people might see. People told me, why are you doing the movie? Without distribution, it will go nowhere – Mel had to distribute it himself you know? It was a nice working experience for the actress in me, I was crying from the beginning to the end of that film! Always sad, always in that emotional state, the idea of playing something classic, the role of Magdalen was interesting. But it was just a role!”

The press went on to…

”Oh the press is always the same!” she interjects, all too familiar with the direction of the aborted question. “In those times, life was very violent. It was part of the game. It was reality. Life of Jesus was very different at the time, there was torture, there was suffering. When you take a subject like this, religion in general, whether it was Scorsese’s movie (The Last Temptation of Christ, 1988) or anyone else’s on the subject, it inspires people to write and talk a lot about it a lot. I knew there would be a reaction – but I didn’t think the movie would make so much money!”

Sci-fi thrillers, religious epics, historical dramas, within a short span, her career already orbits alongside luminaries in her space. What would tempt this new mom on to a set again?



“Comedy! The last comical role I did was Cleopatra’s for the Asterix movie in France. That was a lot of fun and I am told it is one of the biggest blockbusters in the country. Now, I’m so happy to play the evil queen in the Grimm film!”

The Brothers Grimm, with Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, hits Hong Kong in November, where the tale of Will and Jake Grimm unfolds. The two travelling con-artists encounter a genuine fairy-tale curse which requires courage instead of their usual bogus exorcisms. They meet the evil Queen Mirror, essayed by Bellucci with nefarious glee in the most outrageous costumes.

“It was so much fun to really ‘play’ this role. Gilliam (director) is such a visionary on film – I just saw it a few days ago and it looks wonderful. Such a talented director, he’s made incredible films like Brazil, Twelve Monkeys so I knew the film would shape up well. And it has. I have the role of a very old woman but with a magic spell I curse myself – yes, I become young but very mean. This evil person, to play that was so funny. I enjoyed it completely.”

You have one life to live they say, well, seven life cycles according to Hinduism (not to divorce from Bellucci’s newfound love for Sanskrit!), so why not enjoy it right?

“Right! Each movie, my modelling, my studies, everything I’ve done was an experience for me. Any movie that didn’t make any money, that was also an experience for me. The memories last. There’s this flow to my life that I go with - I loved my life in Umeria (where I grew up, a few miles away from Tuscany) but I wanted to be an actress. I went to the city as student but I didn’t want to study anymore so I became a model. Coppolla some pictures of mine and offered me a part, then I became an actress. I enjoyed it so much, I decided to focus on it. In films I met my husband and now we have a child. I’m sure that there’s so many things to learn with each thing I do, life is just a work in progress. I’m just it’s a work in progress,” she concludes.


NOTES:

Full disclosure; deep, mad love for Monica Bellucci. At the time, a life and career-saving interview for me! She is/was/will forever be DIVINE! 

Plan ahead to enjoy your sunset years

Former top businessman Chung Po-yang says it is essential to find purpose in life after retirement, writes P Ramakrishnan.

A few years before his death at the age of 85 in 2001, noted British sociologist Peter Laslett, proposed a theory of how people should define their lives.

He posited that the first age is one of immaturity, education, dependence, as experienced by children. In time, they develop and progress to the second age, when the children mature to become adults who take up full-time jobs and parental responsibility.

After a lifetime of productive contribution to society, they reach the third age. There are no clear boundaries defining when it begins, but the term has generally been used to denote a period when people are in retirement, when their active career and parenting ends and they become free to pursue their personal fulfillment without the pressures imposed by work and family responsibilities.

It has been described as the age with the greatest freedom but ends, however, with the onset of illness and terminal decline, with a drifting into the fourth age before death.

In Hong Kong, much attention on ageing has rested on its effects on productivity which, combined with one of the world's lowest birth rates, is projected to put a squeeze on the size of its readily available workforce.

But there is also a dawning concern that some people are not ready to leave their jobs behind and enter retirement.

Speaking at an American Chamber of Commerce luncheon last year, Chung Po-yang, chairman emeritus of delivery company DHL Asia Pacific, warned that Hong Kong's baby boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, might find themselves unprepared as they exited the city's workforce.

When asked whether he thought that Hong Kong's generation of baby boomers was ready for that third stage, he replied: "No, I don't think so.

"Not enough of them have gone through the experience. Baby boomers are going through the new phenomenon. The previous generation didn't have the option, they came down [to Hong Kong] after the war, they have a refugee mentality so they worked non-stop.

"They only think to make sure to continue accumulating wealth. But it gave them purpose to get out of bed."

Bereft of their jobs, he believed that many in this group would be unable to find a purpose in life, he said. "This is what happened to me and others too, I'm sure. I started working for my company when I was 29, I graduated when I was 27, so I've been working for 30-something years. I was really looking forward to retiring, but after 18 months of retirement, there was only so much good food I could eat, only so much good wine I could enjoy. I had to find a purpose.

"People who don't have a purpose will struggle through their last phase, go through a lot of pain and misery. That's why I encourage people to develop a hobby early on.

"People who read a lot are lucky, it's a great hobby that can only grow. The general definition for the golden age is to have a good life, live where you belong, with the people you love, doing the right thing, on purpose.

"I encourage young people to start early, to think about what they really want to do after retiring. As young as those in their 20s," he said.

With an ageing population who live well into their 80s, and even 90s, there are a good many decades left for those of active body and sound mind past the legal age of retirement.

"In the old days, people lived up to their 60s, but nowadays I can live up to the age of 90," Mr Chung said. "I'm 63 now. I've retired, but what do I do? That's the question I had to ask myself, which I'm sure many others have done or will do at the age of retirement."

Meanwhile, an increasing number of people are also looking to retire early, which means that their third age lasts longer.

A recent HSBC survey of 1,002 people in Hong Kong found that a greater proportion of younger respondents were seeking to retire early. It showed that only 26 per cent of women aged between 40 and 49 wanted to retire early, compared to 43 per cent in the 60- to 79-year-old bracket.

Meanwhile, 27 per cent of the men surveyed in the younger age bracket said they would choose early retirement, while 32 per cent in the older group said so.

Having reached this age, Mr Chung added that different people must prepare for the third age in their own ways.

"You have to work it out with your spouse on where you want to live too, it is most important that you come to an agreement. Women go through this phase at an earlier age - especially mothers who find themselves free when their children leave home, go off to university, get married and so on. But they deal with it well," he said.

"I encouraged my wife to paint, she sings, she does yoga, she arranges flowers, she has a small what-not shop in Prince's Building, so she's fully occupied. I just have to find money to pay for all the tuition," he chuckled.

Mr Chung, who over the course of his career has been awarded distinguished honours such as Hong Kong's Silver Bauhinia Star, an Order of the British Empire and being appointed a justice of peace, seems busier than ever.

He recalled how he first reflected upon his own stage in life after reading the book Repacking Your Bags: Lighten Your Load for the Rest of Your Life by Richard Leider, the founder of a coaching and consulting company in the US, and David Shapiro, education director of a non-profit organisation in the US.

"I asked myself, what do I need to shed? Here I was sitting at the head of a huge company. I realised that all the things I wanted to do I had already done in the first 15 years of my working adult life. The last 10 years were not fun for me. Then I started looking for a successor. In the process, I also found out the things I liked to do, so I started taking lessons in painting and calligraphy."

Since then, he has studied a master's degree in fine art in Australia, and campaigned for longer and better-rounded university terms for students in Hong Kong.

He said he was still playing a vital role in his company and was an active member of society, teaching at the University of Hong Kong and having created the Centre for Asian Entrepreneurship & Business Values.

"Ah, but the difference is, I choose to keep myself busy," he said. "At this stage in life, I only do what I want to do. I wanted to learn more about art, so I did. I wanted to learn some music, I did, I wanted to share my years of knowledge and experience and I get an opportunity to do that through teaching and seminars. I like to pen my thoughts so I keep a journal. I've a column in a local paper every Monday, about the choices one has and what one should do in the third act of life and it's all been great fun for me," he said, showing that he has a busier diary than most heads of companies.

"The things I didn't enjoy, learning the piano for example, I dropped. At his stage, at this age, its about choices."

With no worries of mastering an instrument with a goal of performing to sold-out venues, or with the perennial pressure of a deadline greying one's hair, the liberty to do only what one enjoys seems idyllic.