Basketball Stars to Help Promote Beijing Olympics - July 26, 2003 - by Arthur Volbert American basketball legend Julius Erving will team up with Chinese film director Zhang Yimou for a television commercial promoting the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a sports agent said yesterday. Erving is to be joined by fellow retired NBA great Clyde Drexler, said Xia Song, who was hired by the Beijing city government to promote the event. "We hope the two stars can help Americans better understand Beijing and China," Xia said. He said Erving and Drexler were chosen because they had made earlier visits to China. "They can bear witness to Beijing's development," said Xia, one of China's leading basketball agents who is also agent of Toronto Raptors' Chinese center Menk Bateer. Xia was also the agent who got Xue Yuyang selected as a second-round pick in this year's NBA draft. Chinese-born NBA star Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets will also appear in the campaign, according to Beijing Morning Post. It said others due to appear include Juan Antonio Samaranch, former president of the International Olympic Committee, and members of the Real Madrid soccer team. Erving and Drexler will come to China in August to work with Zhang. Zhang is famous for his lushly photographed, often tragic tales of Chinese rural life. His 2002 film"Hero" became the first Chinese movie to be nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film. Link: http://www.asia-basket.com/chn/chn.asp
sweet. Now not basketball related but why didn't "Hero" get as much play as crouching tiger did in the U.S.? Hell the movie even promoted a just war theory philosophy right when U.S. was trying to gain support for Iraq.
