A Chinese performing company announced on Wednesday that they had filed a lawsuit at a court in Beijing's Chaoyang District, against South Korean star Rain's agency companies both in China and in South Korea.

Zhao Shaowei, general manager of Beijing Jushi Music, says that they had signed a contract with Rain's Chinese agency company in 2004, appointing them to handle the South Korean Star's 2004 Beijing concert and a future concert in Shanghai.

He says that the agency gave them 49 days to prepare for the singer's Beijing concert in 2004. Though aware that the concert wouldn't make a profit, they nonetheless went ahead with it, in the hope that they can make money through the Shanghai event. They even paid the star's Chinese agent 1.76 million yuan, about 226,000 US dollars, in advance of the concert.

Zhao explains that though they had planned to lay on the concert last March, it was cancelled, due to Rain's "tight schedule". The star's South Korean agency then promised to set a clear date for a later Shanghai concert, or to refund the wasted preparation fees to Jushi Music.

But, with the South Korean company announcing this year that they hadn't signed any contract with Jushi, the situation has been increasingly heated.

Rain will kick off his Shanghai tour on April 14, 2007, the administrator of that show claiming that the new performing contract was signed with an agency claiming to be the Star's Chinese agent.
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(CRI January 26, 2007)