6 Feb – Brothers Mak Chi-shing, 27, and Mak Chi-hang, 28, who operate an air conditioner shop, each pleaded not guilty to charges of blackmail and assaulting a police officer. The two tried to extort nearly $13,000 (RM43,413) from Hollywood director Michael Bay while he was shooting the latest Transformers film in Hong Kong. Bay was attacked by the men wielding an air conditioning unit and demanding compensation for filming in the city's Quarry Bay district on the first day of location shooting in October. Bay had recounted details of the incident at the time in a statement on his website, "Every vendor where we shot got paid a fair price for our inconvenience, but he wanted four times that amount," he said, adding that he told the man and his friends to "forget it".
"He didn't like that answer. So an hour later he came by my crew as we were shooting, carrying a long air conditioner unit. He walked right up to me and tried to smack my face. "But I ducked, threw the air unit on the floor and pushed him away. That's when the security jumped on him. But it took seven big guys to subdue him. It was like a Zombie in Brad Pitt's movie 'World War Z' - he lifted seven guys up and tried to bite them," Bay said. The director faced a second extortion attempt within a week of filming in the city, with police arresting a 35-year-old male on suspicion of intimidating a member of Bay's film crew. The court could not immediately be reached for comment. The fourth instalment of the "Transformers" franchise, "Age of Extinction" starring Mark Wahlberg and Nicola Peltz, is scheduled to hit theatres 26 June.