Farrell charms China

'Miami Vice' preems in Beijing

By CLIFFORD COONAN

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Gong Li and Colin Farrell at the 'Miami Vice' preem in China.

 

BEIJING -- Walking hand-in-hand with co-star and local legend Gong Li through the cinema, Colin Farrell made quite an impression at the long-awaited preem of "Miami Vice" in a downtown cinema in Beijing on Oct. 30th, some three months after its global bow. Gong Li is the long-acknowledged queen of Chinese cinema and was greeted with awe by the hundreds of faithful gathered for the event. Farrell is more of an unknown quantity here, but the Irish thesp charmed Beijing fans and biz people with a few Chinese phrases.

Farrell also performed some good-natured kung-fu with He Guohua, prexy of the pic's Chinese distributors, Huaxia.

"The people here have been extremely open, and it's been an amazing experience," said Farrell, who has been in China for several weeks traveling and acting as an ambassador for the Special Olympics.

Chinese film censors trimmed 20 minutes of the pic, paring back some steamy sex scenes involving Gong Li, as well as delaying the bow to make way for a blackout period to promote local movies.

Farrell told the huge local media presence gathered in the Oriental Plaza that he thought it was a sexy movie. "Is sexy the same word in Chinese?" he asked. -- Clifford Coonan