April 28, 2008

Forbidden Kingdom Breaks Box-Office Records Across Asia

After becoming the Number 1 movie in the U.S. over the last weekend, the Jackie Chan & Jet Lee actioner The Forbidden Kingdom has continued to reign over the box-office across Asia, topping box-offices in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, South Korea and South-East Asia, even setting the highest opening day box-office record for China this year.

This result is truly incredible and shows the immense pulling power of the two biggest martial arts stars of today. But honestly, although North American audiences seem to love this movie (based on what I gather from the user reviews on IMDB) critical acclaim from Asian audiences have been rather muted*. For me, I think the movie is not too bad... But in a perfect world, I would have prefered Jackie Chan and Jet Li collaborating in a true blue Made-In-Hong Kong movie, with more spectacular and faster fight scenes, and for added oomph, have Donnie Yen and Ong Bak star Tony Jaa joining in the cast as well. We will then have Drunken Fist, Shaolin Kungfu and Muay Thai all in one movie haha!

Btw, according to this Chinese language news article, Jackie and Jet got along so fabulously that they are planning to make another movie together, and this time they are thinking of inviting the legendary Bruce Lee to join them! How are they going to go about doing this, I honestly have no idea, but with the magic of state-of-the-art special effects nowadays, well, anything could be possible! If they really succeed in making this movie, I can safely say that the box-office will explode! And don't forget to ask Tony Jaa and Donnie Yen too ;-)

And here is a YouTube video that shows the much talked about fight sequence between the two masters in The Forbidden Kingdom. Enjoy!

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