China Box Office Thread | Oppenheimer-August 30

[UserHN]

46 minutes ago, TigerPaw said:

Exactly. Haha. Some of the posters here or even Hollywood executives need to have some updates on Chinese stars...

 

The hollywood exes know some big names such as Fan Bing Bing but have zero awareness that she is infamous and her bad rep.

 

Similarly, i recall reading a couple of articles last year on The Foreigner starring Jackie Chan where the articles were saying the film will do very well in Hong Kong as Jackie is a huge star. They have 0 idea that movie-goers and cinema-chains have boycott Jackie Chan films for the last 10years-or-so and his films are released in limited theatres with extremely low attendance in Hong Kong.

Why is HK boycotting Jackie Chan?

[Gavin Feng]

28 minutes ago, UserHN said:

Why is HK boycotting Jackie Chan?

 

HK people & Taiwanese don't want to obey to the Communist Party's will. Jackie Chan keeped very good relationship with formal president of China Jiang Zemin and always said something good about CP in public. So HK people see him as a loyal Hachi of CP and dislike him.

[fabiopazzo2]

16 hours ago, Gavin Feng said:

China no matter how Marvel revise the role in the film. Some already sent letters to SARFT for banning Shang-Qi(actually they sent it to the wrong address. Film Bureau now control films)

Wtf?!

Edited July 23, 2019 by fabiopazzo2

[UserHN]

@Gavin Feng @firedeep How likely are these Shang-chi online negativities possibly affect the BO? Do you sense that these are just from vocal minority or is it a widespread dissatisfaction? 

[A Marvel Fanboy]

1 hour ago, Gavin Feng said:

 

HK people & Taiwanese don't want to obey to the Communist Party's will. Jackie Chan keeped very good relationship with formal president of China Jiang Zemin and always said something good about CP in public. So HK people see him as a loyal Hachi of CP and dislike him.

He IS a loyal hachi of CP, like a lot of other HK stars have been.

[A Marvel Fanboy]

Jackie Chan's movies are being rejected by Mainland audience as well, not because he speaks for CP though, but he constantly makes crap movies. You will see how Journey to China: The Secret of the Seal of the Dragon bomb on Aug 16.

[Gavin Feng]

22 minutes ago, UserHN said:

@Gavin Feng @firedeep How likely are these Shang-chi online negativities possibly affect the BO? Do you sense that these are just from vocal minority or is it a widespread dissatisfaction? 

 

When the trailer come out, everyone forget they have ever boycotted it.

[Legion Again]

4 minutes ago, Gavin Feng said:

 

When the trailer come out, everyone forget they have ever boycotted it.

So just like America then.   

 

I seem to recall that initial tone on Mulan after casting announcement was also rather negative, right?

 

Edited July 23, 2019 by Thanos Legion

[Gavin Feng]

7 minutes ago, Thanos Legion said:

So just like America then.   

 

I seem to recall that initial tone on Mulan after casting announcement was also rather negative, right?

 

Some similarity. People didn't like Mulan because Liu Yifei is seen as box office poison. Those arguments were reasonable at that time. The situation for Shang-Chi is more ridiculous because those people think they are very patriotic & will destroy the evil conspiracy of anti-China forces by boycotting it.

 

And, I didn't forget I boycotted Mulan. But those idiots will say: I knew Shang-Chi wouldn't disappoint me. Boycott? Never happened.

[A Marvel Fanboy]

2 hours ago, UserHN said:

@Gavin Feng @firedeep How likely are these Shang-chi online negativities possibly affect the BO? Do you sense that these are just from vocal minority or is it a widespread dissatisfaction? 

It is hard to tell. I agree that if the end product proves of excellence and absolutely free of any possible interpretation of discrimination, then it is all good. Otherwise, film would tank in China. I am confident Marvel will avoid that.

 

From the point of view of all Chinese people, the criticism on Marvel's decision to attach Mandarin into the film, among other things, is nevertheless from a tiny vocal minority. However, from the point of view of audience of Marvel in China, I would sense it is a fifty to fifty situation. Then again, Marvel's audience in total is a minority compared with 1.3 billion Chinese people.

 

I see several factors contributed to the controversy/criticism here:

 

1. the on-rising trends of nationalism/populism in China (thanks to CCP and Xi). In today's China, patriot is the no.1 political correctness above all. Anything considered insulting the past, the current and the future China or Chinese people is unacceptable [to most Chinese people]. That means, practically in Hollywood films, super villains cannot be Chinese, or ...ban...

 

2. a miscomunication between Marvel and Chinese audience/netizens. Marvel did not disclose that MCU Mandarin will differ greatly from the comics version, prior to or along with the cast annoucement; nor did they specify Awkwafina's character a love interest or a sidekick. If Awkwafina just plays a sidekick of Shang in the film, I think it would be all right for those netizens who have been critizing Marvel or claimed boycotting the film. I myself think Simu Liu is a good pick. And he certainly has taken much less fames compared with Awkwafina or MCU Mandarin. On top of that, Marvel did not in a press cut connection with Fu Manchu prior to the annoucement.

 

3. the mysterious esthetic difference on human faces between Chinese audience and Western/foreign audience. As mentioned above, Awkwafina is simply not good-looking at all to most Chinese audience. They tend to be much pickier when it comes to the feature appearances of talents. Some cultural things here that I think can be written for ten books.

Edited July 23, 2019 by firedeep

[Nero]

1 hour ago, Gavin Feng said:

Some similarity. People didn't like Mulan because Liu Yifei is seen as box office poison. Those arguments were reasonable at that time. The situation for Shang-Chi is more ridiculous because those people think they are very patriotic & will destroy the evil conspiracy of anti-China forces by boycotting it.

 

And, I didn't forget I boycotted Mulan. But those idiots will say: I knew Shang-Chi wouldn't disappoint me. Boycott? Never happened.

Gavin is on fire today. I like it 😄

[Nero]

17 minutes ago, firedeep said:

It is hard to tell. I agree that if the end product proves of excellence and absolutely free of any possible interpretation of discrimination, then it is all good. Otherwise, film would tank in China. I am confident Marvel will avoid that.

 

From the point of view of all Chinese people, the criticism on Marvel's decision to attach Mandarin into the film, among other things, is nevertheless from a tiny vocal minority. However, from the point of view of audience of Marvel in China, I would sense it is a fifty to fifty situation. Then again, Marvel's audience in total is a minority compared with 1.3 billion Chinese people.

 

I see several factors contributed to the controversy/criticism here:

 

1. the on-rising trends of nationalism/populism in China (thanks to CCP and Xi). In today's China, patriot is the no.1 political correctness above all. Anything considered insulting the past, the current and the future China or Chinese people is unacceptable [to most Chinese people]. That means, practically in Hollywood films, super villains cannot be Chinese, or ...ban...

 

2. a miscomunication between Marvel and Chinese audience/netizens. Marvel did not disclose that MCU Mandarin will differ greatly from the comics version, prior to or along with the cast annoucement; nor did they specify Awkwafina's character a love interest or a sidekick. If Awkwafina just plays a sidekick of Shang in the film, I think it would be all right for those netizens who have been critizing Marvel or claimed boycotting the film. I myself think Simu Liu is a good pick. And he certainly has taken much less fames compared with Awkwafina or MCU Mandarin. On top of that, Marvel did not in a press cut connection with Fu Manchu prior to the annoucement.

 

3. the mysterious esthetic difference on human faces between Chinese audience and Western/foreign audience. As mentioned above, Awkwafina is simply not good-looking at all to most Chinese audience. They tend to be much pickier when it comes to the feature appearances of talents. Some cultural things here that I think can be written for ten books.

But Iron Man 3 was successful and it also had Mandarin sort of. So why this much hate? Is that Mandarin different from Shang chi one?

[A Marvel Fanboy]

1 hour ago, Nero said:

But Iron Man 3 was successful and it also had Mandarin sort of. So why this much hate? Is that Mandarin different from Shang chi one?

IM3 Mandarin was fake. It was neither Chinese.

[Deja23]

1 hour ago, Nero said:

But Iron Man 3 was successful and it also had Mandarin sort of. So why this much hate? Is that Mandarin different from Shang chi one?

That Mandarin was determined to be fake...and also, not Chinese. 

 

I think the talks of boycott in this case are premature as we have very few details about this movie. Yes, given Marvel’s past choices, it’s safe to assume that they will not include racist caricatures in their movies,  but I can also understand the apprehension Chinese moviegoers might have about how the movie will portray the Chinese and possible differences between Western-raised Chinese and those in China. All we know so far is that Simu Liu is Shang-Chi and Tony Leung is The Mandarin, we don’t know who Awkwafina is playing or who else stars in the movie. I hope this blowup doesn’t prevent other Chinese stars from taking other roles or future roles in Marvel movies.

 

I do find it weird that the fact that Simu was cast recently is a point of contention for some. Clearly Marvel has been auditioning actors for a while and had yet to find the right one until him. Also, he likely had already gone through various auditions before being cast and getting to screen testing. It’s not a 1 week thing. Some actors do get roles without auditioning at all if Marvel feels strongly that they’re perfect for the role, including people like Chadwick Boseman and most recently, Mahershala Ali. And based on his social media posts, Simu has been wanting a role like this for a while and had likely been training accordingly.

 

I also think Marvel should’ve been more transparent about this movie in particular, but clearly they’re going with their secrecy bend they’ve been on for the past few years. Maybe they can make an exception to alleviate fears, but I figure they’ll just allow some things to leak and wait till the trailer to show anything significant. 

[charlie Jatinder]

Tl;DR How is Mandarin racist?

[Firepower]

On 7/21/2019 at 12:16 PM, RaidensSword said:

Mechanic Resurrection is a good example of his drawing power in China by himself with a similar kind of movie to Hobbs Shaw. I think he and The Rock's fanbases overlap a lot too so I don't see him bringing much extra to it. 

Do you seriously compare 30 mln B-movie with both 200 mln blockbuster and F&F spin-off?! The fact that M:R made 50+ mln in China actually means that Statham really has big fanbase in China, this kind of movie wouldn't have made this much without him, not even close. And The Meg wouldn't have grossed 150+ mln without him too, the shark alone can't gross this much.

On 7/21/2019 at 1:44 PM, RaidensSword said:

I still think if we go by official box office The Rock is a bigger star in China right now. We can't base their star power of pirated movies. San Andreas, Rampage, Skyscraper, Jumanji are all real signs compared to The Mechanic Resurrection and Meg.

Jeez, are you serious?! Do you realize that you compare grosses of B-movie with blockbusters? If you put The Rock in Lionsgate B-movie, it won't gross 100+ mln there, not even half of that. Jumanji, big appealing blockbuster with almost 1 bln gross worlwide, did just 27 mln more than Lionsgate B-movie with Statham and 4 times less budget in China, so 50 mln gross for a movie like M:R is actually impressive. The Meg is basically the only Statham movie you can compare with The Rock's in terms of budget, appeal and marketing.

Edited July 23, 2019 by Firepower

[Firepower]

Del

Edited July 23, 2019 by Firepower

[Gavin Feng]

Ne Zha has a chance to break the opening record of animations held by Despicable Me 3(¥444.17M / $65.28M).

 

It gained ¥2.33M from MON IMAX previews. Admission per showtime is 270.

Edited July 23, 2019 by Gavin Feng

[Somoset]

1 hour ago, Gavin Feng said:

Ne Zha has a chance to break the opening record of animations held by Despicable Me 3(¥444.17M / $65.28M).

 

It gained ¥2.33M from MON IMAX previews. Admission per showtime is 270.

Have you seen it? 

[Potomac2001]

Per Tom Holland it appears that FFH will be getting an extension in China.