vivi nevo confirmed that he will marry with zhang ziyi

Lastest news:Vivi Nevo said he will marry Zhang ziyi next year(2009)

It is not just the Western movie scene that Asia’s leading actresses such as Zhang Ziyi, Datuk Michelle Yeoh and Maggie Cheung are making a name for themselves. Here is a run-down of the hottest transcontinental romances making headlines now.

Ingenue and millionaire: Zhang Ziyi and Vivi Nevo

When Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi, 28, openly locked lips with a craggy-faced man at a New York Knicks basketball game in January, no one knew who he was.

Some tabloids mistook him for 53-year-old French actor Tcheky Karyo, who appeared in movies like Kiss of the Dragon (2001).

Zhang Ziyi with Vivi Nevo (left) and Warner Music Group vice-president Alex Zubillaga during a break at a media conference in Idaho, the United States, in July.The recipient of the now-famous public display of affection was actually Vivi Nevo, 41, a New York-based Israeli venture capitalist who has been called an “international multi-millionaire of mystery” by the media in the United States.

American magazine Details ranked him Number 23 in its Power 50 list this year. The little that is known about Nevo is impressive: He is one of the biggest individual stockholders of media giant Time Warner; was an early backer of the Weinstein movie company; has a Los Angeles-based company that invests in a variety of sectors including media and technology; and his wealth is inherited, reported Details.

He was also previously linked with British supermodel Kate Moss and Brazilian model Jeisa Chiminazzo.

Beijing-born Zhang Ziyi herself boasts impressive credentials. Her first movie outing was in The Road Home (1999) directed by the feted Zhang Yimou.

In 2000, she made a global name for herself in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Since then, she has appeared in Hollywood blockbusters like Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) and Rush Hour 2 (2001) and Chinese epics like Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004).

Nevo kissing Zhang Ziyi as they stand in line to get a salad during lunch at the media conference.Before Nevo, she was involved with Eric Fok Kai San, now 24, the second son of the wealthy Fok family from Hong Kong, whose business is in Macau casinos. They met in March 2004 but split up quietly two years later.

Neither Zhang Ziyi nor Nevo have openly admitted to their relationship, though the couple have been photographed at an Oscar party and happily riding bicycles in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Cornered by the media in Beijing recently, she did not deny the romance but said: “I won’t speak about personal matters. Anyway, I’m very happy now.”

Singaporean stylist David Gan, who does Zhang Ziyi’s hair, visited the couple in New York in April this year.

“She’s very happy with this guy. I can see the change in her because she is now very Westernised, very elegant and very nu ren (Mandarin for womanly)”.

Bond girl and Mr Ferrari: Michelle Yeoh and Jean Todt

Apart from having just won the Formula One championship, Ferrari boss Datuk Jean Todt may soon boast another prize.

Todt, 61, a Frenchman, and Malaysian actress Datuk Michelle Yeoh, 45, have been dating since 2004, and a wedding seems to be on the cards.

Yeoh, who shot to international stardom as a Bond Girl in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and as a kung fu-kicking heroine in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), said in March that they will marry once she wraps up filming for Babylon A.D., a sci-fi thriller co-starring Vin Diesel. It is said to be in post-production.

At the Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong, she sported a blue diamond ring and told reporters: “The date hasn’t yet been set, but it should be soon.”

The odd couple – Yeoh, a former Miss Malaysia, is svelte and glamorous while Todt is rotund and shorter than her – have been a fixture on the F1 racing circuit since they met at the opening of a Ferrari merchandise store in Shanghai in June 2004. Cameras often capture her on the track wearing F1 garb and celebrating the team’s wins with him.

Ironically, she had gone to the Shanghai store with her then-boyfriend of four years, Hong Kong-based movie producer Thomas Chung, a big Ferrari fan.

Of her first encounter with Todt, she told People magazine in 2005: “It was fate – he was generous and sweet.”

Todt, the son of Polish immigrants in France, is the chief executive officer of Italian carmaker Ferrari. He has been credited with turning Ferrari’s fortunes around by hiring now-retired star driver, Michael Schumacher.

Yeoh was previously married to Hong Kong tycoon Dickson Poon, but they divorced after three years in 1991. She was also engaged to American cardiologist Alan Heldman but they broke up after two years in 2000. She went public on her romance with Chung later that year.

Three months after she met Todt, he announced to the South China Morning Post that he had proposed to her, which she vehemently denied.

But their relationship appears to have gone from strength to strength. In January 2005, he visited her parents in her hometown of Ipoh.

“We are happy together, which is the most important, and, yes, it (marriage) is an option,” Todt said.

But Yeoh countered last year: “We’ll stay together as long as we’re happy. We don’t necessarily have to get married. Marriage is a bonus.”

Arthouse muse and architect: Maggie Cheung and Ole Scheeren

She is a Hong Kong-born, British-raised, French-speaking actress whose layered turns in arthouse flicks like Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love (2000) and ex-husband Oliver Assayas’ Clean (2004) have made her an international critic’s darling many times over.

He’s an acclaimed German architect whose ambitious projects include the avant-garde landmark China Central Television headquarters in Beijing – two towers which lean and fold through 90° at the top and bottom to form a giant loop and which house about 10,000 workers – and the gravity-defying Scotts Tower in Singapore.

Maggie Cheung, 43, and Ole Scheeren, 36, were instantly drawn to each other when they were introduced at a birthday party for her manager Melvin Chua in Beijing in June, reported Apple Daily this month.

Chua, and Kevin Lee, the founder of Hong Kong’s West/East fashion magazine, played matchmakers.

On July 6, the couple were spotted in Rome at designer Valentino’s 45th anniversary exhibition. Scheeren, however, kept a low profile.

Then on July 19, Cheung confessed in Taipei that she had ended her four-year relationship with former Ebel chief executive officer Guillaume Brochard, 41.

Cheung and Scheeren made their first public appearance as an item on Oct 20 at the Swarovski Fashion Rocks bash in London. That same day, Hong Kong tabloid Sudden Weekly exposed their relationship, publishing photographs taken of them at Hong Kong’s airport on Oct 7.

Based in Beijing, Scheeren is a partner in the Dutch firm Office For Metropolitan Architecture, founded by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas.

The 1.9m-tall Scheeren cuts a dashing figure beside Cheung’s lithe frame.

Raised in Britain before moving to Hong Kong when she was 19, Cheung was first runner-up in the 1983 Miss Hong Kong pageant and was last seen in 2046 (2004).

She evidently has a taste for creative, high-powered men who in turn regard her as a muse of sorts.

Before Scheeren and Brochard, she was married to French film director Assayas, with whom she made films like Clean, which won her the best actress award at Cannes in 2004. The couple split amicably in 2002 after four years of marriage.

She met Brochard a year later. It was in Singapore that he first came across her picture in a local women’s magazine. So smitten was he that, a few weeks later, he signed her on as the face of Ebel.

In the late 80s, Cheung was also romantically involved with Hong Kong film director Derek Yee. It was rumoured that her then fiery temper led to an acrimonious break-up.

Despite having played many reserved characters on screen, Cheung has said she is a needy, passionate lover. – The Straits Times, Singapore / Asia News Network

Zhang Ziyi is engaged: Reports

Zhang Ziyi and Vivi Nevo pose at Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Party