Jiang Wen’s “Bullets” Flys Ahead in the Holiday Fight for the Box Office

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Jiang Wen (Director and Actor of 'Let Bullets Fly') and Lead Actor Ge You, Star of all the Christmas Blockbusters

Living up to the anticipation, Jiang Wen’s Let the Bullets Fly took off with both critics and the public alike, with stellar reviews and a great than 9.2 rating at  douban. It also took in a record box office. The  first day tally was 30.18 million RMB, second to only Aftershock‘s opening, and its three day weekend tally was over 100 million RMB.  Next week the film will get an additional release in Sichuanese dialect Mandarin.

Coincidentally,  veteran actor Ge You, still one of the biggest box office draws in China, has a part in three of the big movies being released in theaters before the year ends. The first was the Orphan of Zhao, and next of the list is the  sequel to the 2008 hit romantic comedy, If You Are the One with Shu Qi. This time they are joined by Yao Chen, Sun Honglei and Ady An. The first one broke box office records in China when it was released, and If You Are the One 2 is already making its own mark in history, by being the first film to simultaneously open in China and North America. It will premiere on Dec 2th, in 20 AMC and Cineplex Theatres in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C., Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa.

Source: Sina, Douban, Filmbiz Asia, The Hollywood Reporter

Full GQ photoshoot here

Feng Xiaogang and John Woo on the future of Chinese Cinema

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The above posters are for two Chinese movie that set new precedents in China this year. The one the left is Feng Xiaogang’s If You Are The One, which according to Variety, finally took away the title of “highest-grossing movie in China” from Titanic, and brought it back home. The on the right, John Woo’s Red Cliff didn’t do too shabby either, becoming the 43rd highest grossing movie world-wide of 2008, only second to Ponyo on the Cliff (Hayao Miyazaki’s latest) in terms of Asian films.

Both gave thoughts on the future of Chinese cinema. Actually while John Woo talked about presenting Chinese culture with Hollywood production values, Feng Xiaogang, who doesn’t have a career in Hollywood to worry about, was far less diplomatic, and flat out said, “We don’t need a foreign market at all, and in five years, our market will be too big to be overlooked” and then gave lots of statistics for support on how China is gaining on Hollywood.

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Kwai Lun-mei Rocks It; Feng Xiaogang Evaluates Peers

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The girl with the name that I will never know how to romanize properly but still love, is dabbling in singing with her quirky song “Hello Microphone”, theme song to quirky movie “Not All Women Are Bad”, in which she plays a quirky singer. I use the word quirky a lot because I don’t know any other adjectives for the movie. I wish I could call it good, but If You Are the One‘s director Feng Xiaogang has apparently monopolized that adjective for the season. But can he write lyrics??

Gui Lun-mei – Hello Microphone (lyrics by movie’s director Tsui Hark)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYFmnnElNXU]

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"If You Are The One" Dominates the Box Office

December 24, 2008 | Posted in Mainland China,Movies, Tagged ,

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Well, we all knew it would, despite the lack of too much promotion (boring posters and trailers that don’t say much) because it’s a Feng Xiaogang movie and that man has the midas touch when it comes to box office power. However, with a 100 million yuan intake for the first six days it’s been out, its already almost double the already good take for “Mei Lan Fang”.

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Ten Most Anticipated Chinese Movies for Holiday Season

Just because China is a largely agnostic country doesn’t mean it doesn’t like its winter holidays, and while I doubt China celebrates Thanksgiving, around this time the streets in China are starting to get lined with Christmas decorations and it becomes a busy time for movies. This was actually a very weird year for the Chinese movie industry because of the Olympics, and much of the production activity was halted for China so I’m not sure how these movies would have been affected, but hopefully some of them will surprise me and hopefully some of them will live up to hype. Some of you may be wondering, am I actually on hiatus? I don’t know. I have a few more posts lined up though, so maybe not. :P

kimi

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