city Secret: Last News

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Cheng Pei-pei, the Chinese-born action film icon who starred in Ang Lee’s Oscar-nominated “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and King Hu’s seminal wuxia feature “Come Drink With Me,” has died. She was 78. Cheng, considered a pioneer of martial arts roles for female actors, died in the San Francisco Bay Area on Thursday.

It’s been a tough week in the world, and that posed a difficult challenge for Bill Maher on his Real Time show on Friday. How do you conduct a show built on political comedy when the subject matter is so grim?

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Top actor Asher Keddie will co-produce and star opposite David Wenham in Paramount+ Australia’s freshly-commissioned “Fake” drama-thriller series. Keddie has a long TV career with recent credits including “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart,” “Nine Perfect Strangers” and “Stateless.” Her movie credits include smaller roles in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and eccentric comedy “Rams.” Wenham’s filmography includes “SeaChange,” “Elvis,” “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers & The Return of the King.” “Fake” follows Keddie’s character, a smart and brilliant writer who thinks she has found her ideal match when she meets a successful rancher, portrayed by Wenham, on a dating app. But after she commits, she discovers that her boyfriend isn’t all he has led her to believe. The show is inspired by the book “Fake” by Stephanie Wood and was created for television by renown screenwriter, Anya Beyersdorf with award-winner director, Emma Freeman (“Secret City,” “Glitch,” “The Newsreader”). The eight- part series is produced by Kindling Pictures’ Imogen Banks (“Safe Home,” “Offspring”) and Emelyne Palmer (“Safe Home,” “RFDS”).