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!

April 21, 2008

Gokusen V.S. Change

This battle between the new dramas in Japan this season is starting to look very interesting indeed! Gokusen 3 starring Nakama Yukie has exceeded all expectations scoring a sky high rating of 26.4% on its very first episode last Saturday! This result has undoubtedly put pressure on ratings king Takuya Kimura's new drama Change which will debut on May 12, whether Gokusen 3 will continue to triumph when Change debuts remains to be seen. But it definitely looks set to be a tough fight!

[Update 20/05/08
According to the latest ratings for the week of May 12 to May 18, Gokusen 3 is still on top with an average rating of 25.3% beating Change's 23.8%. But Change is only just a little behind and could still end up being the ultimate winner as this dorama has been getting generally postive reviews since it started airing on May 12. ]

The main attraction of Change is undoubtedly Kimura as the Prime Minister of Japan. He reportedly gained weight to make himself look more serious and authortative. And after seeing some screen shots of his new "un-kimutaku-like" nerdy image in the drama serial from this site, I think this drama could just be the vehicle that he is looking for that will finally allow him to leave his "teen idol" image behind him and propel him to greater heights in his acting career.

And besides Change, he is also starring in a new English language movie - I Come With The Rain with Josh Hartnett, South Korean hunk Lee Byung-hun and Hong Kong hotshot actor Shawn Yue. Here is the trailer of the film that I managed to find on YouTube. With so many good looking hunks all together at one place, this definitely looks like a great movie to me ;-)



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April 13, 2008

Jet Li Wins Best Actor At The Hong Kong Film Awards

The Warlords won eight awards at the Hong Kong Film Awards today, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Jet Li) and Best Director (Peter Chan). Co-star Andy Lau lost out to Jet Li in the Best Actor category but won the Best Supporting Actor award for his role in Protege. Best Actress was scooped up by Siqin Gaowa for her role in The Postmodern Life Of My Aunt. And Ang Lee's Lust, Caution added another feather to its cap with an award for Best Asian Film. More details can be found in these news reports:

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jgQXtvJTwayGc1gUGZAseXxpUCIg
http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/5902/1/


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