Sao Feng, "Howling Wind" by Hot Toys 2007

Chow Yun-Fat is one of the most famous actors in Asia and a major actor in the Hong Kong film industry, who is famous for his collaboration with filmmaker John Woo in heroic bloodshed genre films like "A Better Tomorrow", "The Killer", and "Hard-Boiled". He has won Hong Kong's "best actor" award three times and Taiwan's twice.

In 2007, Chow played the antagonist pirate captain Sao Feng in "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End". Sao Feng is the Pirate Lord of Singapore and the South China Sea, who possesses a map to World's End, the gateway to Davy Jones' Locker. Let me assure readers out there that Singapore is not a Pirate Island, never has been and never will be AND most importantly, Singapore is NOT in CHINA.

Hot Toys released this Sao Feng figure in 2007. They have certainly outdone themselves in the sculpting department, wardrobe, accessories and every other 1:6 scale description you can think of. IMHO, their details are much much better than some of the ridiculously priced statues out there today (Don't quite understand the logic of paying so much moolah for a piece of stone).

According to Xinhua, the state news agency of the People's Republic of China, 10 minutes of footage containing Chow Yun-Fat's portrayal of Sao Feng was censored in mainland China. As proclaimed by mainland officials, "He has a long beard and long nails, whose image is still in line with Hollywood’s old tradition of demonising the Chinese." Me thinks they over-reacted.




There's even a nice "tattoo" of a dragon on his head, and check out those eyes, the angry stare that says, "I'll sooner crush you before you can say 'censored'!"