Olympic champ diver Tian shines in romantic film

[April 11, 2011]  HONG KONG (AP) -- Chinese champion diver Tian Liang has won glowing reviews from a prominent Hong Kong director as the two-time Olympic gold medalist transitions from elite athlete to entertainer.

Tian, the men's 10-meter platform champion at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and synchronized platform champion four years later in Athens, plays an autistic young man who marries a mute woman in Andrew Lau's upcoming Chinese-language romance "A Beautiful Life."

Lau told The Associated Press on Sunday, "The surprise this time was Tian Liang."

He said, "He was very hardworking. He bought many books about autism. He studied how autistic people speak. And I was very happy that he even mastered the gestures of autism sufferers."

[Associated Press]

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