Archive for ‘taken’

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09/12/2019

Why a forgotten 21-year-old film flop has taken Chinese cinema by storm and made millions

  • The Legend of 1900 is taking more at the box office than the latest international and domestic blockbusters
  • An appetite for enhanced editions and 3D might have something to do with the surprise success of Giuseppe Tournatore’s forgotten flick
Tim Roth (left) stars in The Legend of 1900, the Giuseppe Tournatore that has taken Chinese cinema by storm.
Tim Roth (left) stars in The Legend of 1900, the Giuseppe Tournatore that has taken Chinese cinema by storm.
China’s consumer class is always looking for the latest, most cutting-edge smartphone app or the most talked-about viral video. Who would have predicted, then, that a 21-year-old movie would take Chinese cinema by storm over the past few weeks?
What’s incredible is that The Legend of 1900 was hardly a classic in the first place.
Revolving around a piano prodigy (played by Tim Roth) who has spent his entire life on board an ocean liner, the movie received mixed reviews on its release in 1998, with disapproving critics lambasting it as “fragile” (Variety), “overwrought” (San Francisco Chronicle), schmaltz that “drowns in its own treacle” (Salon.com). The first English-language feature by Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore faded fast into obscur­ity, never reaching the heights of his revered Cinema Paradiso(1988).
And then Chinese audiences came to its rescue. Having never been released in China, Legend finally unspooled in main­land cinemas on November 15, along­side local romantic drama Somewhere Winter and Hollywood’s latest reboot, Charlie’s Angels.
Rather than becoming a sideshow to these two headlining block­busters, the film broke out of the arthouse scene and crossed over to the mainstream: its opening weekend gross of 63.1 million yuan (HK$70.2 million) topped that of Angels, and its average of 13 viewers for each screening was higher than both Winter (11 viewers per screening) and Angels, which crashed with a mere eight.
A fortnight into its run, Legend had generated more than 130 million yuan, eclipsing its total takings of the past two decades. To put this into context, the film took in US$167,435 during its month-long release in the United States, in 1999. Adjusted for inflation, this figure would be about US$258,635 today, or 1.8 million yuan – that’s just 1.3 per cent of its gross during the first two weeks of its China run.
And it’s not just tills that are ringing: the rave online reviews must be music to Tornatore’s ears. On douban.com, China’s equivalent to Internet Movie Database, Legend secured an average rating of 9.3, far above those of current imports such as Knives Out
(8.5), Frozen II (7.3) and Midway (7.7), local blockbusters such as Better Days (8.4), or any of the flag-waving tub-thumpers that dominated Chinese cineplexes for weeks before and after National Day.
So the question is: why? One advantage Legend has over its box-office rivals is that it is a state-of-the-art 4K restoration of the original film. Chinese audiences have long been susceptible to enhanced editions of films: the 3D version of Titanic sailed into the record books with total takings of 946 million yuan during its two-month run in the country from April to June 2012.

The success of Legend could in part be attributed to young mainlanders’ pursuit of novelty: China is one of the few markets where 3D films, complete with their marked-up ticket prices, remain popular.

Chinese audiences have also embraced old films like never before, flocking to movies they could only hear or read about, or watch on pirated discs while the country lagged behind the rest of the world in the number of screens and foreign titles that could be shown on them.

There has also been a surge of interest in re-evaluating film heritage with festivals placing emphasis on introducing pains­takingly restored films to viewers. In October, for example, the Pingyao Inter­national Film Festival hosted a programme of rarely seen titles from India’s socially conscious Parallel Cinema movement. The recent Hainan International Film Festival presented a more diverse offering, including classics such as Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (1925), Agnès Varda’s La Pointe Courte(1955) and Marc Webb’s (500) Days of Summer (2009).

It is in such programmes that legends are made and the old becomes the new.

Source: SCMP

Posted in 21-year-old, box office, Chinese cinema, domestic blockbusters, Film, flop, forgotten, Giuseppe Tournatore, international blockbusters, latest, made, millions, storm, taken, The Legend of 1900, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

26/09/2019

Crocodile shock for security guard at Chinese beauty spot

  • Police investigation reveals animal had escaped from a nearby restaurant
The escaped crocodile was captured by police officers and taken to the local station. Photo: Handout
The escaped crocodile was captured by police officers and taken to the local station. Photo: Handout

A security guard at a beauty spot in eastern China was shocked to discover a 2-metre (6ft 6in) crocodile while on his rounds in the early hours of Monday morning.

The animal was lying motionless on a road at Xinlonghu Park in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, with its jaws tied by a strip of cloth, when it was spotted by the security guard, who immediately called the police, according to the Modern Express newspaper.

It took a number of officers to capture the crocodile and take it to the local police station, where an investigation revealed the animal had escaped from a nearby restaurant. The animal was returned and the restaurant owner was “criticised” by police, who urged that a close eye be kept on the animal, the report said.

“They bought it from a farm somewhere as a food material to attract customers. It has been killed for crocodile meat dishes,” an officer told the South China Morning Post on Wednesday.

Crocodiles were once vegetarians – but it was just a phase
Police said it was fortunate that the crocodile had been caught before it had entered the park’s lake or caused any danger to people.

It is unclear what species the crocodile belonged to but China permits the commercial breeding and use of the critically endangered Siamese crocodile, as well as saltwater and Nile crocodiles, which are listed as least concern species.

A staff member of the restaurant, called No. 1 Lakeside, told the Post stewed crocodile meat was on the menu for 168 yuan (US$23.60) a serving, while stewed crocodile claw was also available at 258 yuan.

Crocodile appears in ancient Chinese medicine books as a treatment for respiratory illnesses and the meat has long been regarded as a delicacy, especially in southern China, such as Guangdong province. Crocodile skin also remains a popular material for luxury handbags and other leather goods.

In June, another crocodile, measuring about 1.5 metres, was found in a road puddle during a heavy rain in Wuhan, in the central province of Hubei, where many restaurants have crocodile meat on their menus, the Chutian Metropolis Daily reported.

In that incident it took three officers to capture the animal which was sent to a wildlife centre where a physical check-up showed it had been bred in captivity, most likely for food.

Source: SCMP

Posted in ancient Chinese medicine books, beauty spot, bred, captivity, captured, Changzhou, Chinese, critically endangered, Crocodile shock, danger, delicacy, escaped crocodile, Food, guangdong province, heavy rain, hubei province, jiangsu province, leather goods, local station, luxury handbags, newspaper, Nile crocodiles, No. 1 Lakeside, park’s lake, People, physical check-up, police officers, popular material, Restaurant, road puddle, Security guard, Siamese crocodile, south china morning post, stewed crocodile claw, stewed crocodile meat, taken, treatment for respiratory illnesses, Uncategorized, vegetarians, wildlife centre, Wuhan | Leave a Comment »

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