TigerPaw

Yeah. Like i didn't exactly love it but this was so much better than Shang Chi IMO. Shang Chi had one of the worst 3rd acts of any MCU film IMO, (bad) CGI fest + spoken mandarin accent was all over the place..and the acting of the leads were pretty bad. Eternals at least took risk...

Raging Fire is good - best Asian film this year IMO. Check out the RT score. It opens on 12th November there i think - you can check that out.

Anyone knows why a leaked HD version of this film is out there now? was it released on streaming anywhere?

No idea. Its on every Chinese piracy site.. and China's version of Google drive.. It is on torrent as well, not sure how it was leaked. Was it even released on streaming early in any countries? There is no hardcoded Korean subs..

Nice. Keep this coming. Love the commentary. Btw Venom 2 HD has leaked.. with Chinese subtitles on most China file hosting sites. 😐

the co-main event was good though. I thought Zhang Weili won rounds 1 - 3, but one of the judges decided to be blind. but ya I think impact to movies isn’t much even though there were two title fights Sorry to be off topic.

No one would watch a movie if the film is bad and only his character stood out. Leung has been in many bad films where his acting was great but the films were bad - I.e Great Magician or Europe Raiders - how did those fare? No single actor can save a movie if it is bad. Shang Chi did well in many parts in Hk because 1) it is MCU - this is indisputable, just look at how Eternals just opened. 2) WoM is good in terms of it being an entertaining flick. 3) HK (and even Singapore or Malaysia) didn’t really care for Dune unfortunately hence like the US it has 0 competition for 4 weeks.

Just some fans here who doesn’t know him or his movies’ performance in Chinese speaking territories, found out about him through the movie and thought his casting will help carry the film. Lol. MCU brand is huge, it overrides personal drawing abilities especially in these Asian countries, especially when a person is not much of a draw to begin with..

Did well in Asia too - HK and Taiwan. A lot of MCU fans there; hence it was really not the Tony Leung effect for Shang Chi (like i said Leung has never been a proven draw in HK or any Chinese speaking markets). MCU films are the highest grossing films in these countries. Good for Eternals.!

Yes but i thought Netflix would do some further due dilligence. The games, while based on Chinese Novel - The Romance of Three Kingdoms, was produced in Japan. Japan might have done the film better? At least in terms of CGI. Netflix didn't dilligence the talent involved in the film; director and action team was medicore, and the actors chosen for the key roles almost all did not fit their roles and also had no martial arts background. I mean such China / HK production usually see interests from only a handful of countries (where we usually see cinematic distributions) including Southeast Asia, AUS / NZ. Am not even sure the film hit viewership targets in these countries. But Netflix is rich so i think they just want to add another title in their library. Try watching the film.. it is really absurd and the acting made it look like comedy. Haha

I don’t think MCU is in trouble at all. But I do think your comparison is flawed. Is Eternals a simultaneous release on a mainstream streaming platform? Or was Eternals hit by HD piracy 1 week prior to release? Was Dune part of perhaps the most popular cinematic franchise in the world today (where the last film, of an unknown character, in the same franchise released 3 months back is currently the highest grossing film domestically)? There is a difference in expectations of course. You cannot compare absolute numbers like that.

To be fair he did the same with Iron Monkey, and Iron Monkey was as good as hero. Both excellent films

Woo. Not bad. You have seen some of the Good Ones. Raging Fire is the best movie from China this year i feel - very very entertaining and incredible acting and action. In terms of classics, there are too many! But I would recommend: Martial Arts: Hero, Ip Man 1 & 2, Iron Monkey, Shaolin Soccer Mythology (with comedic elements): A Chinese Odyssey part 1 & 2, Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, Mermaid Comedy: Lost in Thailand, Hello Mr Billionaire Police / Traid Films: Infernal Affairs, Chasing the Dragon, Shockwave. Of course there are many other good films but these are some of my favourites. Stephen Chow, Donnie Yen, Andy Lau, Jet Li films, you usually never go wrong.

Yes exactly. Thank you. In the earlier pages for Eternals, i and many others expect at least 500 - 600m worldwide - obscurity / unknowness of the characters is not a huge factor for a MCU film.. Issue now is that reviews / mixed WoM have killed interests of the GA hence our expectations all lowered.

If it was better reviewed, had better WoM and opened to 110m OW - would you have said the same? What I am saying is that the pull back in expectations recently for OW is due to reviews, the obscurity of characters has not been considered an issue for people expecting it to open 90 - 110m; but suddenly this reason is now brought up as consolation when OW is lower than what some people expect?

To be fair; this is post End Game and the MCU brand is stronger than before. We also have Angelina Jolie’s debut in the MCU. I am not sure actually how many MCU fans worldwide are comic book readers? Like I don’t think there is a huge difference in terms of “recognisability” between GoTG and Eternals for the GA (before their respective movies were released). I think people know it’s MCU and they will give it a chance and watch it. If Eternals had better reviews (I.e above 90% on RT), I think more GA will be curious and I think a better OW will be expected. The obscurity of these characters (for an origin film) at this stage isn’t really a factor IMO, at least for the MCU.

Agreed. Watched it in IMAX, it was incredible. My wife usually hates superhero films but said WW84 was the best movie she ever watched in theaters. Experience vastly differs when people watch a movie on their tablet / TV versus the big screen. For example - Dune; many whom I spoke to who hated it are the same people who pirated it..

Which distributor will want to put in money to re-market the film? Which cinemas would want to show it and have Low PTA? Haha. Every more cent spent is another cent wasted. sometimes saying that a film is removed to be “re-released” another date is just an ego-talk.

There are a lot a lot more Chinese films that were better quality, had more attention and were cheaper..

Sorry missed this one. Lots and lots of flops each year. Both local and overseas films. The most high profile flop in my opinion this year is Dynasty Warriors, lol. It has a star studded cast, many familiar faces.. huge budget but within days of being released - because of the Low box office, they released it on streaming sites. Netflix was silly to buy the overseas rights thinking there is an audience for this; one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

Of course. LOL. it is gonna flop big time. Haha.

I still see alot of English articles talking about Changjin breaking records though.. I am not sure whether China cares about overseas media to be honest.

Sounds like a Chloe Zhao fan... we need to know how G.A and not fans feel as well.

Shang Chi's ratings are pretty bad; not a good comparison as there were people upset with the lead looking like Mr Xi. WoM on the street is above average though. Usually HKmovie6 is a quite a good measure for WoM but not for SC... if Eternals have same score as SC, that is not good at all. 3.9 - 4.4 should be the target..

HK aggregate reviews are not very good on Wmoov as well as HKmovie6.. Don't forget today is opening day and there is a fan rush.. will see how scores normalize going forward.