CHINA: Tom Cruise enjoys Shanghai sights and cellphones.

Actor Tom Cruise got a taste of Asian cellphone etiquette in Shanghai when a local reporter took a call in the middle of his press event on the city's historic Bund. Such interruptions are common fare in much of Asia, where people routinely talk on their phones in the middle of news briefings and public meetings, and the American superstar, in town to shoot scenes for his latest 'Mission: Impossible' movie, took it all in stride, pausing to chat with a woman on one surprised reporter's phone. "Hello. How are you?" said an amused Cruise, dressed in black, exhausting his limited Chinese vocabulary before going on to ask if the woman -- the reporter's wife -- was at work and about her marital status. Cruise and his crew were meeting the local media after wrapping up two weeks of shooting for 'Mission: Impossible III'. The movie was being shot in Shanghai and nearby Xitang, a town criss-crossed by canals, with other scenes shot in Italy, Germany and the United States. The visit to China by one of the world's biggest stars, who is travelling with pregnant fiancee Katie Holmes, has created massive buzz in the local media, where the actor is known affectionately as "Tang Ge", or "Big Brother Tom". Cruise gushed about the city's spectacular vistas and the thrill of his brief trip, saying he planned to come back in the future to see more of the country. "I think this is the largest western picture of this nature to be shot here. I know I will just go back and tell them the truth about how magnificent it is. Everyone is curious and very excited about it. I will just tell them the absolute truth. That is why it is significant and important that we finish the way we did here. I think that it is something very positive for the film community here in Shanghai and for China...I want to know about other cultures and other people. I am very interested. This film and Mission Impossible gives me that opportunity to travel to different places and photograph that and represent them I think in the way that I , that we see it. So I think it is very positive and exciting," he said. Cruise, whose credits include last year's 'War of the Worlds' and two previous 'Mission: Impossible' movies, said during the briefing that he and Holmes, who plan to get married, have yet to set a date but that the wedding will happen next year. "Where are we going to married... and when? What an exact place? What kind of dress? The designer? (laughs - translator interrupts in English saying "Let's focus on the film itself") "Well, we haven't set a date yet. It will happen this year. It will happen this year. Excuse me, no, no no, no, no. Next year. Next year. Next year. I'm sorry what month are we in now? Is this November? December? Next year, thank you," he said, laughing off the question. During his brief China trip, Cruise has been spotted at a number of trendy Shanghai hang-outs, including a swanky restaurant on the Bund, and a Sichuan eatery where he reportedly paid more than 5,000 yuan (618 U.S. dollars) for a meal -- an astronomical sum by Chinese standards. The producers of "M:I3" reportedly paid 100 million yuan for use of Xitang, which was sealed off to the public during filming. Total production costs for the film are expected to exceed 150 million (USD). Shanghai's Gotham-esque Jinmao tower, the country's tallest building and home to the Grand Hyatt hotel, and the city's futuristic Pearl TV tower, will both feature in the movie. So will the Huangpu River, which snakes through the city before feeding into the Yangtze. The first two "Mission: Impossible" movies made a combined 396 million USD at the domestic box office. The new film is directed by J.J. Abrams, the creator of hit TV series "Lost". "It begins as a rescue and it explodes and becomes more than Tom's character bargained for. The stakes of the movie are very high. The movie is very emotional. One thing we wanted to do is make a film where it was exciting, there were stunts and all that stuff you come to expect. But it was also emotional and scary and in the end made you feel better at the end of the movie than when you first came to the theater. So I think that's the goal. But the mission begins as a rescue and it goes a very unexpected direction from there," Abrams said. Abrams said he was very impressed at what he has seen of Shanghai. "We looked at a number of cities and quite honestly I felt that Tokyo and Hong Kong, they are more familiar to me. Shanghai was a city that the scale of the city and the majesty of it was something that I think is really unfamiliar to so many people. As silly as that might sound to those of you that live here, it is the truth. And I feel like when I saw these photographs (of Shanghai) and tried to look into what the city was , it was hard to deny it. And it just called to us. And we came here to location scout and I was blown away," Abrams said. M:I3 is scheduled for release next summer, a year later than originally planned due to production difficulties. The movie's makers are negotiating to simultaneously release "M:I3" in both the United States and China, in part due to the high rate of piracy in a market where films often show up on pirated discs just days after their worldwide premieres.

ITN Source | December 1, 2005

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