Huang Xiaoming, the panda man

I posted a picture and some links about Huang Xiaoming on one of my comics blogs (because he looks a bit like one of my characters), and Ainur said "the panda man has got to go on Chirayliq." So here we go to the eastern fringes of Chirayliq land!

Huang Xiao Ming was born November 13th 1977 in Qingdao, China, and is an actor, singer and model. (It's very common, if not the norm, in Chinese/Hong Kong showbiz to have this kind of combined careers.) His image is perhaps a bit that of a "pretty boy", but he is certainly very professional - in 2003, for example, Huang was seriously injured in a car accident: his car flipped over while he was driving through a mountainous area to catch a filming. But he immediately reappeared on the set with a neck brace, impressing the media crew as well as his fans.

Huang Xiaoming has recently sponsored the twin panda cubs Ping Ping and An An at the giant panda breeding center in Ya'an in Sichuan Province. Ping Ping and An An were the first giant panda cubs who were born after the deadly earthquake hit the province on May 12th 2008. (I recommend reading Coco Wang's excellent comic to find out about how the panda center coped with the earthquake.)
Huang donated one million yuan (about 150,000 US dollars) to adopt the two cubs and was named an ambassador to China's Panda Protection Research Center.
Here is an article with several pictures at Chinadaily.com: "Panda Daddy" Huang Xiaoming revisits reserve (warning: cute overload!)
He also did a photoshoot for a 2009 calendar with the Sichuan panda babies.






See all the calendar photos here!

I recently watched a film with Huang Xiaoming called Sniper. He plays the former police sniper talent Lincoln, who has recently been released from jail after serving a sentence for involuntary manslaughter. He made a mistake during a hostage situation, and is convinced that his former partner purposely gave a testimony to his detriment. So now that he is out of jail, he is looking for revenge ... and redemption.
It's a pretty cliché storyline, and a lot of the film boils down to muscular guys looking hot with their big rifles. But what makes the film rewatchable many times over (besides the hunky guys) are the action scenes, which really make the most of the unusual theme of sniper rifles ...


Lincoln (Huang Xiaoming) and his former police sniper buddies.

Screencaps galore:





Lincoln is reunited with his wife ...



The rookie sniper OJ, who gets involved with the case of Lincoln and is tempted by the dark side, is played by Edison Chen. He is cute, too.

But among the three main characters I think Huang Xiaoming is the cutest.

Although this (unnamed) guy isn't bad either.