BY KARSON YIU (@karsonwhy) AND ENJOLI FRANCIS
April 19, 2012
A powerful, charismatic politician and his calculating wife. Their wayward playboy son. Money laundering. A coverup gone wrong. A cop on the run. And a dead British businessman in a hotel room. Murdered.
The dramatic fall of once-golden Chinese leader Bo Xilai reads like a Hollywood pitch for a political thriller, an epic one at that. The biggest scandal to hit the Chinese government is unfolding in such an operatic manner it is almost ripe for an HBO-"Boardwalk Empire"-type series.
No matter how much the government censors have been working overtime to curb the discussion online, "How about Bo Xilai?" is the hottest topic of conversation right now in China.
Bo rattled the Communist party elders with his flamboyant politicking and was expected to run into resistance on his way to a seat on the Standing Committee of the Politburo, the nine most powerful members of the Chinese government.
Nobody, however, would have predicted that Bo s political career would end in this fashion.