A man dying to act gets his final wish

Veteran Hong Kong actor Law Lok-lam looked like he was having a grave run of bad luck when he died in five different soap operas in a 24-hour period last week. He was terminated in a martial arts fight, vomited blood before dying in another, while shuffling off his mortal coil from illness in yet another soap opera. In two other dramas his passing was discussed.

And it's all good news for the 63-year-old bit-part TVB actor, who's never been more popular. After his knack for being killed off was the subject of an article in his native Hong Kong, it quickly became an international story and his manager eventually had to tell eager journalists that he was too busy for any more interviews.

Also, Law benefited from a superstitious attitude toward death that had the production crews of his soap dramas giving him "red envelopes" of money to ward off bad luck.

"When I get a job, I don't care if my character in the drama will die. If he is supposed to die, he should go on and die," Law said in a video posted on YouTube.

Internet postings about his multiple "deaths", however, have upset his daughter, according to the news agency AFP.

"Why would dying in a drama matter? It's not for real. So my daughter, you shouldn't be unhappy. The most important thing is I've done my job well," Law said.

Another man whose career has been resurrected is Taiwan actor Steve Ma, who was previously best known for his hyperbolic performances in dramas during the 1990s!!!

His overblown acting, seemingly more suited for theater, has recently inspired a literary style popular on the Chinese Internet called paoxiaoti, or "roaring style". It is characterized by simple declarative sentences, the phrase yes or no!!! and over-punctuation, particularly of exclamation marks.

Out of favor for many years, Ma became an instant micro blog celebrity when he opened an account and tweeted a simple greeting to his fans earlier this week. A torrent of more than 100,000 exclamation marks was the response to a single, simple greeting from Ma. Yes or no!!! Yes!!!

His micro blog attracted more than 50,000 followers just 12 hours after he started it on Tuesday and the message was re-tweeted 33,300 times and gained 20,372 comments in 10 hours. Naturally, fans greeted their hero in their own way, often by posting pictures of the actor in some dramatic pose, or crying inconsolably!!!