Wolf Warrior 2

A pact

China’s Alibaba Pictures Pacts With ‘Wolf Warrior II’ Production Company
3:02 AM PDT 8/28/2017 by Patrick Brzeski


Alibaba Pictures Group
Alibaba Pictures CEO Fan Luyuan

Jack Ma’s film studio says it will work closely with Beijing Culture on film financing, marketing and distribution after the studio’s latest release pulled in more than $800 million.

Jack Ma’s Alibaba Pictures Group has formed a strategic partnership with Beijing Culture, one of the production companies behind Wolf Warrior II, China’s biggest blockbuster of all time.

The partnership was unveiled at a press conference in central Beijing on Friday. The two companies said they would cooperate in areas spanning film financing, promotion and distribution, along with movie merchandising.

Fan Luyuan, Alibaba Pictures’ newly appointed CEO, pointed to the partners’ recent collaboration on Wolf Warriors II as an example of the scale of success that’s possible when Chinese stakeholders work together to get the formula right — while also leveraging the internet prowess of tech giants like Alibaba.

"We want to be part of the infrastructure of China’s movie industry,” Fan said.

Written by, directed by and starring Chinese martial artist Wu Jing, Wolf Warrior II has earned a colossal $810 million in China since its release on July 26. Fan said some 40 percent of all Wolf Warrior II ticket sales were transacted over Alibaba’s Taopiaopiao mobile ticketing platform. The service also was used to drive marketing and merchandising offers to filmgoers.

Beijing Culture has been amassing a powerful collection of partners. In April 2016, the company signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Anthem and Song, the Chinese studio venture set up by Joe and Anthony Russo, the Hollywood directors of Marvel’s Captain America franchise. That tie-up proved especially fruitful for Wolf Warrior II, on which the Russos consulted and provided their usual stunt team, led by veteran stunt coordinator Sam Hargrave (The Avengers, Suicide Squad, The Hunger Games), elevating its action to a Hollywood standard. The Russos also introduced the film’s villain, Frank Grillo, to their Chinese partners.

“For China’s film industry infrastructure to be improved, we need to work together,” said Alibaba’s Fan.

Beijing Culture produces and distributes films, television and internet series, as well as runs a talent agency. The studio’s next release will be Feng Xiaogang’s period drama Youth, written by popular Chinese novelist Yan Geling, out in China on Sept. 30.

I doubt Youth will do as well. But then again, I had no idea Wolf Warriors 2 would do well.

Alibaba & Wolf Warrior 2

Big Wilson Yip interview from SCMP

Hong Kong director Wilson Yip on SPL instalment Paradox, Wu Jing’s rise and Bruce Lee’s key part in the upcoming Ip Man 4
Filmmaker explains his casting of Louis Koo in a martial arts action film, says he’s not surprised SPL stars Donnie Yen and Wu Jing have become superstars, and talks about Ip Man 4’s focus on the relationship between Ip Man and Lee
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 23 August, 2017, 2:16pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 23 August, 2017, 4:58pm
Edmund Lee
edmund.lee@scmp.com

Fans of Chinese kung fu cinema will recall the deadly fight scene between Donnie Yen Ji-dan and Wu Jing in the 2005 action film SPL – Hong Kong director Wilson Yip Wai-shun’s ambitious attempt to blend the gritty narrative of crime thrillers with bone-crunching violence delivered by top martial arts actors.

“In my opinion, that scene in particular looked like it’s coming from a wuxia film – even though the characters are in contemporary clothing,” says Yip. “Some of Johnnie To’s films, like Running Out of Time, also play like wuxia movies. SPL is a bit similar to that in style.”

//youtu.be/_H-3NKj8yO8

While SPL was – even by Yip’s own account – “quite a weird movie”, it struck a chord with many movie fans, who have since seen both its main actors rise to superstardom – Yen via the Ip Man films, also directed by Yip, including Ip Man 3 , and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Wu with the record-breaking Wolf Warrior 2 .

Yip, 53, handed the directing duties to close friend and long-time work partner Soi Cheang Pou-soi (The Monkey King 2) when a sequel to SPL was made in 2015. By reshuffling its plot elements for a new story, SPL2: A Time for Consequences – on which Yip served as both producer and script consultant – provided an efficient template for future instalments to follow.
In new film Paradox – which Yip curiously refuses to call “SPL3” but is really just that in all but name – the franchise’s fixation on karma and destiny finds a new expression with the recasting of the previous chapter’s villain as the film’s hero: just as Wu Jing went from playing the protagonist’s nemesis in SPL to the hero in SPL2, Louis Koo Tin-lok has followed the same path between SPL2 and Paradox.

“It’s a coincidence,” says Yip, who reveals that his original intention was to tell the origin story of Koo’s character in SPL2 – the evil leader of an organ-trafficking syndicate – until he realised that this amoral tale was never going to get past the censors. Instead, the director turned to an idea that had been gestating since he watched the Liam Neeson vehicle Taken in 2008.
“It’s true that Taken has a considerable influence on me,” he admits. “I remember very well that I showed it to Sammo Hung Kam-bo when we were shooting the first Ip Man film; it’s a really great movie. I’ve kept the story inside me as a potential idea. … Here, I’ve used a father’s search for his daughter as the story’s starting point, but after that, our films [diverge].”

In Paradox, Koo plays a Hong Kong policeman who arrives in Thailand to look for his teenage daughter after she is abducted there. As a widower who can’t afford to see his only child in peril, Koo turns into a vengeful killing machine on his way to tracking down the organ traders responsible for his daughter’s disappearance.

The casting of Koo in the intense action film – featuring splendid action choreography by Hung – represents a statement of sorts by Yip, who explains that he wanted to show he “could still make an SPL film even without a brilliant martial arts actor in the lead”.
“I would just as comfortably label a film SPL even if it’s all gunfights. I think of this simply as an action series with strong dramatic elements,” the director says.

While it remains to be seen whether Koo will replicate the meteoric rise of Yen and Wu after their respective star turns in SPL and SPL2, Yip isn’t surprised by the subsequent success of his regular leading men.

“Actually, you could see the signs,” he says. “After Yen made SPL, people in the industry were all waiting for him [to make it big]; we all considered him a really capable veteran.

“Wu, at that time, was also doing great. He didn’t have many scenes in [Tsui Hark’s] The Legend of Zu (2001), but [as a] teenager [he] was already very eye-catching. [These actors] need time [to develop] – and 20 years after [he started his acting career], Wu Jing is taking flight. As a martial arts actor, you usually need some time [to make the next step].”

Yip will reunite with Yen on Ip Man 4, his next directorial project. The filmmaker is currently developing the script, and hopes to start shooting in 2018 and release the film by the end of that year.
“In Ip Man 4, I’m inclined to show how Ip Man views his relationship with Bruce Lee,” Yip says of the real-life teacher-student pair around which the film will be based. Danny Chan Kwok-kwan is – if his schedule allows – Ip’s preferred actor to reprise his role in Ip Man 3 as Lee, who, Yip says, will have “a very important presence” in the new film.

“[The story] won’t be just about Ip Man,” says Yip. “How in reality did Chinese martial arts practitioners live after they went overseas in the 1960s and ’70s? [The film will explore this] through Lee and his martial arts school the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute, and his relationship with Ip.”

In the meantime, the SPL series is also set to roll on for a fourth instalment, which is still in the scriptwriting stage and won’t be ready for shooting until next year at the earliest. To many people, the fact SPL2’s Soi Cheang will return to direct the fourth instalment may be less of a surprise than Yip’s decision to label that film SPL3.

“I don’t treat Paradox as SPL3,” he reiterates. “I don’t know why, but I didn’t include the name ‘SPL’ [in the Chinese film title] at first. It’s only when I wanted to tell the audience about the tone of my film that I added SPL to it.”
(From left) Tony Jaa, Louis Koo and Wu Yue in Paradox.
I tell Yip that his resolve to name the fourth instalment SPL3 is going to cause a great deal of confusion for everyone involved. “Never mind, we’ll deal with it when it’s here. That’s fate,” he says with a chuckle, before adding: “Or maybe we should call that SPL4 instead? It’s just a name.”

Paradox opens on August 25

SPL3: Paradox + Wolf Warrior 2 & Ip Man 4

Wolf Warriors TV show

Shoulda seen this one coming…

Chinese Box Office Smash Hit ‘Wolf Warriors’ Set To Become TV Show
BY FERGUS RYAN AUG 30, 2017

The jingoistic action thriller that has taken China by storm is now heading for the small screen.


Official still of ‘Wolf Warriors 2’

‘Wolf Warriors II’ (II) rode a wave of patriotic fervor to become the second film in history to reach $800 million in a single territory over the weekend, and now it’s heading for the small screen.

The 2006 military novel that inspired the Chinese box office hit will be adapted into a new TV series, the film’s executive producer Han Hao confirmed this week.

“A deal was made last year for the IP of the novel, so the show is a certainty,” Han said in an interview with the Yangtse Evening Post on Monday.

‘Dan Hen’ (), which translates as “Bullet Hole”, is a hit online novel by writer Dong Qun which he wrote under the pseudonym Fen Wu Yao Ji. Originally published on literature site Qidian Chinese, the novel has garnered a cult following since it was first published in 2006. Dong Fun later became the main scriptwriter for Wolf Warriors II, which is based on his work.

Wolf Warriors II, the second installment of the Wolf Warriors series, became the second film in history to reach US$800 million in box office in a single territory. It is the only non-English film to make it to the top 100 across the globe.

The film tells the story of a Chinese special forces operative who takes on missions around the world and finds himself in the midst of an African coup against vicious foreign mercenaries.

Han told the Yangtse Evening Post that the TV show will need to distinguish itself from simlalir shows that are already flooding the Chinese entertainment market. “It will need to be different,” he said.

Filming for the show is set to kick off next year, but casting is already under way. Wu Jing, the lead actor, and director of the Wolf Warriors movies will not take part in the TV series.

The news comes as Wolf Warriors II has been crowned as China’s top grossing film in history, an achievement made within only a month of its debut on July 27. Second-tier Chinese cities have taken the lion’s share of the sales, according to online movie tickets platform Maoyan.

Despite the outsized success of the film, reaction to the announcement it is being turned into a TV show was met with skepticism and derision online.

Many Weibo users scorned what they saw as a cynical ‘churning out’ of derivative products to capitalize on the Wolf Warriors fever – something they think will be counterproductive. “Stop the hype, people are going to lose their interest,” said one Weibo user. “Nothing can guarantee its success, the smash hit success of Wolf Warriors II can’t be copied so easily,” said another.

Additional reporting Amber Ziye Wang

rethinking

‘Wolf Warrior II’s’ Massive Success Forces Studios to Rethink China Approach
Patrick Frater
Asia Bureau Chief


COURTESY OF WEI HONG YUAN
AUGUST 31, 2017 | 10:00AM PT

As the Chinese box office sagged alarmingly for an entire year, from July 2016 to June 2017, filmmakers and studios in the Middle Kingdom began desperately searching for answers. Many concluded that bigger Chinese properties were the solution and banked on new, higher-quality franchises coming on stream in 2018.

No one was paying much attention to “Wolf Warrior II.” They are now.

Since its July 27 debut in China, the action thriller has confounded expectations to become a box office stunner. In less than two days, it surpassed the $88 million scored by the franchise’s first installment in 2015. Ten days later, it overtook last year’s sensation, “The Mermaid,” as China’s top-grossing film of all time. Now, its $810 million take after just five weekends has made “Wolf Warrior II” the second-highest-earning title in a single territory in history, behind “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” in North America.

In the process, it has sparked rethinking in both China and Hollywood over how best to approach and exploit the Chinese movie market, which is on track to become the world’s largest in the next few years. “Wolf Warrior II” shows just what a well-crafted Chinese film — made with some foreign help — can do.

The movie features a muscular, adrenaline-fueled story whose unstoppable hero is a former member of a fictitious Chinese special ops unit called the Wolf Warriors. The action takes place in an unnamed African country where China has built hospitals and provided factory jobs for the locals; the bad guys are revolutionaries and Western mercenaries. (If the politics sound jarring, just swap the nationalities.)

Chinese audiences have responded strongly to the film’s patriotism and to the relentless action provided by former martial arts star Wu Jing as both director and protagonist.

[QUOTE]“China has found its ‘Rambo.’ This is definitely an important event.”
RANCE POW, ARTISAN GATEWAY

“It is a feel-good story for the Chinese population. The hero is a military guy, and the message is that he treats everyone equally. It is very modern, there’s a touch of comedy, and some 30% is spoken in English,” says Jeff Yip, business development director at The H Collective, a new U.S.-Chinese production and distribution firm. The company owns the rights to “Wolf Warrior II” for North America, where the film has made more than $2.3 million. A gross of $1 million is considered a hit for a Chinese movie Stateside, but the unparalleled performance of “Wolf Warrior II” in China has piqued greater interest. An Imax conversion that bowed Aug. 25 was given a limited outing in the U.S.

The movie isn’t the product of one of China’s mega-studios, such as Huayi, Bona, Enlight or China Film Group, though Wanda owns a small piece. Rather, it was conceived and controlled by Beijing Century and by Wu, who started planning a sequel immediately after the first film, made for $5 million, hit pay dirt.

Hollywood talent has contributed significantly to the second film. Increasing the budget to $30 million allowed Wu to bring in Joe and Anthony Russo as consultants and to pay for better production values. With the Russos came stunt director Sam Hargrave (“Captain America: Civil War”), composer Joseph Trapanese (“Tron: Legacy”) and a largely foreign sound unit. American actor Frank Grillo stars alongside Wu.

The early signs weren’t promising. In May, a trailer launch was criticized for seemingly borrowing footage from “X-Men: First Class.” Even the film’s July 27 opening date seemed questionable, since it clashed directly with the government-backed propaganda movie “The Founding of an Army,” from director Andrew Lau. With the nationalistic plot of “Wolf Warrior II,” the two films seemed to appeal to the same constituency.

But “Wolf Warrior II” has left “The Founding of an Army” in the dust, showing that support from the Chinese government isn’t everything. “What really worked for ‘Wolf Warrior II’ was combining the best elements of action and international stars in service of something enjoyable to Chinese audiences,” says Yip.

The film was no doubt helped by being released during the summer blackout period, when major foreign movies are banned from domestic release. But that’s only part of the equation.

“The filmmakers worked really hard to make this a quality production,” says Jane Shao, co-founder of exhibition chain Lumiere Pavilions. “At base, this is a hero movie no different from a Western or a Jackie Chan or Jet Li martial arts movie of old.”

For Hollywood, the lesson is that its obsession with China’s quota on imported films, now the subject of a new round of talks by U.S. and Chinese negotiators, is potentially shortsighted. Instead, Hollywood studios looking to bolster their bottom lines might want to redouble efforts to back local filmmakers in China and invest in high-quality local content, not just in their own tentpoles.

“China has found its ‘Rambo.’ We expect more movies in this space,” says Rance Pow, founder/CEO of consultancy Artisan Gateway. “This is definitely an important event.”

Always trying to make films that work in both the U.S. and China might be a futile exercise. Many variations on the theme have been tried: overblown co-productions; Hollywood films that try to cater to Chinese tastes but still get it wrong; Chinese pictures that wrongly assume that the casting of a Western star will translate into overseas sales.

The astounding box office performance of “Wolf Warrior II” suggests that in a country of 1.3 billion people, succeeding on home turf alone can be more than enough.[/QUOTE]

At this point, is it wise to make assumptions about what China might assume?

WolfvWarrior 2 & [URL="http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57225-Chollywood-rising"Chollywood rising

Wu Jing speaks

Wu Jing on Wolf Warrior 2’s record-breaking run, his cinematic roots in Hong Kong and Wolf Warrior 3’s story direction
Actor-director pays tribute to cast and crew of his record-breaking film, and credits ‘friends and teachers’ in Hong Kong film industry, and says his happiest moment was when film broke even
PUBLISHED : Friday, 08 September, 2017, 5:00pm
UPDATED : Friday, 08 September, 2017, 9:10pm

Edmund Lee
edmund.lee@scmp.com
http://twitter.com/thatEdmundLee

“What I want to do most is to have a good night’s sleep,” says the director, co-writer, co-producer and star of action epic Wolf Warrior 2 , which, with ticket sales of 5.6 billion yuan (US$860 million) and counting, is the runaway box office champion of Chinese language cinema. For perspective, the second-highest grossing Chinese film ever made is Stephen Chow Sing-chi’s The Mermaid , which took 3.39 billion yuan.

//youtu.be/xMVozCJ62Fg

“It’s been one city per day, and 10 cinemas in every city. This tour – it’s torture; it’s unimaginable for you here,” says Wu, 43, in an interview before the film’s Hong Kong premiere on Wednesday. “But luckily today is the last stop for Wolf Warrior 2.”
Film review: Wolf Warrior 2 – Wu Jing cements Chinese action star status with record-breaking hit

While his film’s remarkable coup may leave many with mental pictures of him swimming in money, Wu is understandably keen to downplay his new fortune.

[QUOTE]In a way, Wolf Warrior 2 is my way of repaying these friends and teachers. It’s my homework assignment. Technically, these directors are a lot better than me.WU JING

“Every journalist I’ve encountered asked: Do I have a target box office figure in mind? Do I want to make it on so-and-so top-grossing charts? Do I want to break 6 billion yuan? Is that even possible? I have no idea at all,” he says. “From July 27, 8:01 am onwards [when the film opened in China], the life of Wolf Warrior 2 ceased to belong to me.
“But before that, it was priceless to me. It was something that 1,700 people had spent a huge amount of time working on. Twenty-two of us were bitten and partly paralysed by spiders in Africa. Someone got bitten on the hand by a lion. Another had a gun pointed at his head. We made so many sacrifices [for this film].”

At 5.6 billion yuan and counting, takings for Wu Jing’s film Wolf Warrior 2 have smashed the box office record for a Chinese language film.
With hindsight, Wu pinpoints the moment Wolf Warrior 2’s gross passed 800 million yuan – when the production started to break even – as his happiest memory since its release.
“So many partners and friends had come and helped me out on this project – and then I completed my mission,” he says. “I didn’t owe anyone any more; I hate to be indebted to others. So at that moment I was relieved. And after that, the box office figure kept soaring.”
Wu says he picked Hong Kong as his road tour’s final stop because his “movie dream started here”.

Then he reveals the list of people he’d like to thank, which reads like a who’s who of Hong Kong cinema.
They include Chang Hsin-yen, who gave him his first film role in 1996; Yuen Woo-ping; showbiz influencer “Uncle Ba” Chan Tat-chi, who brought him to Hong Kong; talent manager Paco Wong Pak-ko, who signed his first Hong Kong contract; and filmmakers Dennis Law Sau-yiu (“who took care of me a lot”), Wilson Yip Wai-shun (“I learned a lot chatting with him during the making of Magic to Win”), Benny Chan Muk-sing and Soi Cheang Pou-soi.

“In a way, Wolf Warrior 2 is my way of repaying these friends and teachers. It’s my homework assignment. Technically, these directors are a lot better than me. But I just happened to have had better timing.”
The pressure is now huge for Wu to replicate the success in Wolf Warrior 3, a sequel promised in the current film’s closing credits. While he had prepared the scripts for a Wolf Warrior film trilogy as early as 10 years ago, he acknowledges the challenge of adjusting those ideas for today.
“What should I do with Wolf Warrior 3? I have no idea about how to shoot it yet,” says Wu. “I wasn’t stupid – I knew that I should develop a series for myself. But could it become successful? Few people thought it would be at the time of Wolf Warrior 1.

“Now that we know, my story for the third film is already 10 years old. The world has changed, geopolitical situations have changed, [China] has changed, and some countries have even changed presidents several times already. The script doesn’t work any more. I need to reshuffle the deck.
“The main thing I want to show will still be family and national sentiments, and I owe the audience a resolution to the romance [between the two protagonists] in Wolf Warrior 1,” he adds.
Wolf Warrior 2 is in cinemas now[/QUOTE]

Paralyzed by spiders? Bitten by a lion? Held at gunpoint? WTH?

Celina Jade

Wolf Warrior 2’s Celina Jade: ‘I don’t think it was in anybody’s expectations it would do that well’
The Chinese-American daughter of the US kung fu star Roy Horan, who worked with Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, stars in China’s super successful box-office hit ‘Wolf Warrior 2’ with Wu Jing
Geoffrey Macnab @TheIndyFilm 6 days ago


Celina Jade as UN doctor Rachel in ‘Wolf Warrior 2’

If you add up the numbers for her latest film, Chinese-American movie actress Celina Jade can justifiably claim that she is currently one of the biggest movie stars in the world. You may not have seen Wolf Warrior 2 but more than a hundred million other people have. An action movie in the Rambo vein, directed by and starring Wu Jing and with the tag line “Whoever offends the Chinese will be wiped out no matter how far away,” it has grossed over $800m (£590m) in China alone. This is, by a distance, the country’s biggest grossing film ever.

Wolf Warrior 2 is an explosive yarn about a Chinese Special Forces agent Leng Feng (Wu Jing) caught in the middle of an African revolution. As if the guns weren’t enough, there’s a disease killing the locals too. Jade plays the courageous UN doctor, Rachel, desperately trying to find an antidote for the deadly virus as the Chinese soldiers take on the evil western mercenaries. Leng Feng and Rachel decide to risk their lives for the people and fight their war – naturally, she also becomes Wu Jing’s character’s love interest. After the film’s release Jade was signed up by US talent agency CAA and described in the trade press as “one of the most visible new faces in China.”

“I don’t think it was in anybody’s expectations it would do that well,” Jade reflects on the seismic impact of the film on the Chinese box office.

Wolf Warrior 2 came out in China on 27 July at 8.01pm precisely to celebrate the founding of the People’s Liberation Army in the summer of 1927. She and Wu Jing went on a road tour to promote Wolf Warrior, visiting between eight and 11 cinemas a day. As she travelled cross-country, the 32-year-old actress knew Wolf Warrior was doing well but she had no idea quite what a phenomenon it had become. That’s why she was so startled when she went back to Hong Kong (where she lives) on a two day break to relax and do her laundry. The movie hadn’t yet been released in Hong Kong and she was looking forward to rest and relaxation in blissful anonymity.


Jade and Wu Jing in ‘Wolf Warrior 2’ has grossed around $800m in China alone

Jade went to get a coffee in her flip flops, short and t-shirt when all of a sudden, she heard people calling, using her Chinese name. “I thought that’s weird because people in Hong Kong call me Celina.” She turned around to be confronted by some visitors from mainland China who’d seen the film. They asked for autographs and photos. That was unsettling enough but when she rejoined the promotional tour, there was a mob waiting for her at Beijing airport.

“People would come upon with their phones and they would shoot you without asking.” Jade remembers. She told them that she wasn’t an animal in the zoo. All they needed to do was ask politely and she would happily pose with them. They were happy with that response but the crowd around her grew and grew. “I literally went into the toilet and hid,” she says “I don’t want to say ‘no’ to photos but I needed to catch my flight and it was overwhelming. I was travelling alone.” That was the moment Jade realised that, in China at least, she was a very big star indeed. When wemet her in Venice in late August, she calculated that 140 million people had seen Wolf Warrior. That’s one in 10 of the entire Chinese population of just under 1.4 billion.

Petite and elegant, Jade nonetheless knows how to kick ass. She is the daughter of the US kung fu star Roy Horan, the so-called “lord of the super-kickers” who worked with Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan among others, and she has studied martial arts from her earliest youth.


The Chinese-American star studied at the London School of Economics before acting full-time (Lauren Engel)

Jade also excelled academically. “I had a total tiger mum. She was the mum who put me in guitar classes, dancing classes, painting, mathematics and tutoring from a very early age.” She remembers her mother once getting cross because Jade only managed 98 per cent in an exam. “Where did the other two marks go?” the mother asked.

Ironically, when Jade later found her mother’s own report cards from high school, she discovered that they were “very average”.

Jade’s father is known as a martial artist but he later became a neuroscience expert and Arctic explorer. “He basically studied the effects of meditation on the brain but also on a person’s creativity.”

Growing up in Hong Kong, she recalls being traumatised by watching her father’s films. She didn’t like seeing him being killed on screen.

At school, Jade was bullied… but not for long. She and her sister were teased because they were mixed race.

“Back in those days, we weren’t called ‘mixed.’ We were called ‘******* kids.’”


Jade as Hiu Wor with Wu Jing as Bo Tong Lam in ‘Legendary Assassin’ (2008)

When they came home crying, their mother would recommend going to see the Principal but the father’a advice was altogether more practical. “Kick them in the stomach,’ was his suggestion for the best way to deal with their tormentors. “There will be no bruising and they will never touch you again.”

Jade would also use her father’s BB gun to shoot coca cola cans which were being drunk by the bullies. Unsurprisingly, the bullying didn’t last.

When Jade was 14, she went to live with her aunt in New Jersey. “I found it extremely boring. I was in a place called Lawrenceville. There was just cows and grass. I was a very rebellious young teenager."

She didn’t take drugs herself but saw the effect they had on those around her. To alleviate the boredom, she began to study even harder.

Jade’s original ambition was to become a singer-songwriter. She studied management at the London School of Economics, where she got a first class degree. “That might not seem very logical,” she says of the decision to attend the LSE. However, having released her first album as a 15 year old, she realised quickly that music was a “business.”


Jade as Shado and Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen in the US TV series ‘Arrow’ (The CW)

“If you want to have control over your career, it’s important to have an education and understand the structure of the business and how things work,” Jade explains. That’s why she ended up living in halls in Southwark (“just across from Tate Modern”), then in a flat in Marble Arch next to the Odeon (“I remember wearing my PJs and going to watch movies”), then in Southampton Row and then Covent Garden and finally Chelsea.

After graduating from LSE, Jade went back to Hong Kong. She was talent spotted by Wu Jing, who persuaded her to take a stab at acting in Legendary Assassin. Now, a decade later, she has achieved numbers that it would take Hollywood stars an entire career to match.

She still has one foot in the East and one in the West. While Chinese audiences now know her for Wolf Warrior, she is recognised more in the US for her role in TV superhero series Arrow.

Yes, there is likely to be a Wolf Warrior 3. “Everything is up in the air. Wu Jing probably needs time to relax and feel inspired to move forward with that. It is going to be a lot of pressure for him. If it was me, I’d just say let’s end on a high point but knowing Wu Jing and his personality, he will probably go for it.”

continued next post

continued from previous post

//youtu.be/fkqGiPB2D8M

As for Jade herself, she is determined to use her “fame and recognition for a cause.”

“I think as a woman, I have a responsibility to play roles that have complexity and that can reflect the modern female,” Jade declares, making it very clear that she simply won’t accept the stereotypical roles that Hollywood tends to offer Asian actresses. “We don’t play decorative roles in society and so why should I play a decorative role in a movie. It is a time for me to challenge myself. I don’t want to be pigeonholed into being the martial arts actress … being able to fight is a skill set. Being able to sing and dance is also a skill set. I am not going to lessen the integrity of my role just to show people I can fight!”

She is soon to be seen in another ‘ass-kicking role’ in English language action movie Triple Threat and that she was cast in A Sweet Life, a Chinese drama. She also recently appeared in US indie drama April Flowers alongside Keir Dullea from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Jade’s final words are advice for the US studios as they scramble to tap into the Chinese market in a year when North American box office is dipping. “Asian audiences don’t want to see stereotypical, cliched roles. Hollywood needs to wake up and say ‘look, if we want to tap into that market, we need just as good characters and material [as in US studio pictures].’”

‘Wolf Warrior 2’ is out now

Celina Jade has tremendous potential to play to both sides of the Pacific. She’s poised and one to watch.

2017 in a nutshell for China

3 Reasons China’s Box Office Soared This Summer While the US Flopped
One hit movie and a fanbase with diverse tastes helped the Middle Kingdom get back on its double-digit growth track
Matt Pressberg | September 25, 2017 @ 5:35 PM

This summer, a high-octane action movie captivated audiences in one of the world’s largest film markets, grossing nearly $1 billion and changing the trajectory of its box office forecast. And while that seems like welcome news for the slumping U.S. box office, it wasn’t: the movie was China’s “Wolf Warrior 2.”

“Wolf Warrior 2,” directed by and starring Wu Jing, made more than $800 million in China at the same time U.S. box office was struggling through its worst summer slump in more than a decade. (New Line’s record-setting “It” helped the domestic box office bounce back in September, but it remains down nearly 5 percent year-to-date.)

At the Future of Asia Conference put on by the Los Angeles World Affairs Council in Santa Monica earlier this month, Leeding Media CEO David U. Lee said the Chinese box office could finish up as much as 20 percent this year, a welcome performance after the world’s fastest-growing movie market flatlined last year following years of double-digit growth. Jonathan Papish, a box office analyst at China Film Insider, said that growth rate is possible if including online ticketing fees, but even adjusting for those, it should still finish up by a healthy mid-teens percent.

With all the doom and gloom in Hollywood, here’s how China held strong:

Sometimes it only takes one movie

“The difference between this year and last can mainly be attributed to the success of ‘Wolf Warrior 2,'” Papish told TheWrap. “In fact, removing its current gross (5.28 billion yuan) would actually place this year’s box office behind last year’s, excluding ticketing fees.”

“Wolf Warrior 2” passed Stephen Chow’s “The Mermaid,” which was released last February, to become China’s all-time highest-grossing movie. “The Mermaid” got 2016 off to a strong start, but a combination of reduced ticket subsidies and a weak local slate turned it into a major disappointment, as the Chinese box office grew just 4 percent last year, and actually declined in dollar terms, as the Chinese yuan weakened against the U.S. currency.

But “Wolf Warrior 2’s” record-setting performance, which came during the busier summer season, almost single-handedly gave 2017 a different ending.

China isn’t as reliant on one type of film as the U.S. has become

In 2015, it took “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” to propel the domestic box office to a record high. Last year, five of the 10 highest-grossing films in North America were either “Star Wars” or superhero movies. And even this year, the industry is largely counting on “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” along with comic-book adaptations “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Justice League” to rescue a brutal 2017.

But despite China being a much less mature movie market, its audiences seem to have a diversity of tastes that make it less reliant on droids and Avengers than the U.S. is.

Hollywood continues to count heavily on caped crusaders and their ilk, with Warner Bros. “Wonder Woman,” Disney’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” and Sony’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming” making up three of the top 5 domestic films thus far this year. But it’s a different story in China, where a mix of homegrown films and non-comic book based movies have been among its strongest performers.

“If ‘War for the Planet of the Apes’ eventually surpasses ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming,’ a Hollywood superhero film will fail to rank in the top 10 highest-grossing imports of the year for the first time since 2003,” Papish wrote earlier this month.

Hollywood hits disappointed at home, but imports soared in China

“Wolf Warrior 2” was easily the major story behind China’s box office turnaround, but imports also did their duty.

Hollywood’s superhero hits didn’t do the numbers in the Middle Kingdom they did at home, but domestic disappointments like “Transformers: The Last Knight” and “xXx: Return of Xander Cage” soared in China. And Indian film “Dangal,” which made just $12.4 million domestically, hauled in a whopping $193 million in China.

“2017 has been a stronger year for imported films,” Papish said. “Can’t [just] say Hollywood because ‘Dangal’ is currently the 3rd highest-grossing import of the year.”

China still needs Hollywood films to fill its ever-expanding supply of theaters. But the good news for its filmmakers — potentially bad news for Hollywood — is that its box office no longer lives and dies with them.

Chollywood rising due to WW2

Transformers: The Last Knight
xXx: Return of Xander Cage
Dangal

Oscar nominated?

We’ll see how far this gets. I would be impressed if it makes it into the finalists.

Oscars: 92 Films Submitted in Foreign-Language Category
10:09 AM PDT 10/5/2017 by Gregg Kilday


Tim Boyle/Getty

Nominations will be announced Jan. 23.

A record 92 countries have submitted films for consideration in the foreign-language film category for the 90th Academy Awards.

Haiti, Honduras, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, Mozambique, Senegal and Syria have all submitted films for the first time.

The 2017 submissions are:
Afghanistan, A Letter to the President, Roya Sadat, director;
Albania, Daybreak, Gentian Koçi, director;
Algeria, Road to Istanbul, Rachid Bouchareb, director;
Argentina, Zama, Lucrecia Martel, director;
Armenia, Yeva, Anahit Abad, director;
Australia, The Space Between, Ruth Borgobello, director;
Austria, Happy End, Michael Haneke, director;
Azerbaijan, Pomegranate Orchard, Ilgar Najaf, director;
Bangladesh, The Cage, Akram Khan, director;
Belgium, Racer and the Jailbird, Michaël R. Roskam, director;
Bolivia, Dark Skull, Kiro Russo, director;
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Men Dont Cry, Alen Drljevi, director;
Brazil, Bingo The King of the Mornings, Daniel Rezende, director;
Bulgaria, Glory, Petar Valchanov, Kristina Grozeva, directors;
Cambodia, First They Killed My Father, Angelina Jolie, director;
Canada, Hochelaga, Land of Souls, François Girard, director;
Chile, A Fantastic Woman, Sebastián Lelio, director;
China, Wolf Warrior 2, Wu Jing, director;
Colombia, Guilty Men, Iván D. Gaona, director;
Costa Rica, The Sound of Things, Ariel Escalante, director;
Croatia, Quit Staring at My Plate, Hana Jui, director;
Czech Republic, Ice Mother, Bohdan Sláma, director;
Denmark, You Disappear, Peter Schønau Fog, director;
Dominican Republic, Wood******s, Jose Maria Cabral, director;
Ecuador, Alba, Ana Cristina Barragán, director;
Egypt, Sheikh Jackson, Amr Salama, director;
Estonia, November, Rainer Sarnet, director;
Finland, Tom of Finland, Dome Karukoski, director;
France, BPM (Beats Per Minute), Robin Campillo, director;
Georgia, Scary Mother, Ana Urushadze, director;
Germany, In the Fade, Fatih Akin, director;
Greece, Amerika Square, Yannis Sakaridis, director;
Haiti, Ayiti Mon Amour, Guetty Felin, director;
Honduras, Morazán, Hispano Durón, director;
Hong Kong, Mad World, Wong Chun, director;
Hungary, On Body and Soul, Ildikó Enyedi, director;
Iceland, Under the Tree, Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson, director;
India, Newton, Amit V Masurkar, director;
Indonesia, Turah, Wicaksono Wisnu Legowo, director;
Iran, Breath, Narges Abyar, director;
Iraq, Reseba The Dark Wind, Hussein Hassan, director;
Ireland, Song of Granite, Pat Collins, director;
Israel, Foxtrot, Samuel Maoz, director;
Italy, A Ciambra, Jonas Carpignano, director;
Japan, Her Love Boils Bathwater, Ryota Nakano, director;
Kazakhstan, The Road to Mother, Akhan Satayev, director;
Kenya, Kati Kati, Mbithi Masya, director;
Kosovo, Unwanted, Edon Rizvanolli, director;
Kyrgyzstan, Centaur, Aktan Arym Kubat, director;
Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, Dearest Sister, Mattie Do, director;
Latvia, The Chronicles of Melanie, Viestur Kairish, director;
Lebanon, The Insult, Ziad Doueiri, director;
Lithuania, Frost, Sharunas Bartas, director;
Luxembourg, Barrage, Laura Schroeder, director;
Mexico, Tempestad, Tatiana Huezo, director;
Mongolia, The Children of Genghis, Zolbayar Dorj, director;
Morocco, Razzia, Nabil Ayouch, director;
Mozambique, The Train of Salt and Sugar, Licinio Azevedo, director;
Nepal, White Sun, Deepak Rauniyar, director;
Netherlands, Layla M., Mijke de Jong, director;
New Zealand, One Thousand Ropes, Tusi Tamasese, director;
Norway, Thelma, Joachim Trier, director;
Pakistan, Saawan, Farhan Alam, director;
Palestine, Wajib, Annemarie Jacir, director;
Panama, Beyond Brotherhood, Arianne Benedetti, director;
Paraguay, Los Buscadores, Juan Carlos Maneglia, Tana Schembori, directors;
Peru, Rosa Chumbe, Jonatan Relayze, director;
Philippines, Birdshot, Mikhail Red, director;
Poland, Spoor, Agnieszka Holland, Kasia Adamik, directors;
Portugal, Saint George, Marco Martins, director;
Romania, Fixeur, Adrian Sitaru, director;
Russia, Loveless, Andrey Zvyagintsev, director;
Senegal, Félicité, Alain Gomis, director;
Serbia, Requiem for Mrs. J., Bojan Vuletic, director;
Singapore, Pop Aye, Kirsten Tan, director;
Slovakia, The Line, Peter Bebjak, director;
Slovenia, The Miner, Hanna A. W. Slak, director;
South Africa, The Wound, John Trengove, director;
South Korea, A Taxi Driver, Jang Hoon, director;
Spain, Summer 1993, Carla Simón, director;
Sweden, The Square, Ruben Östlund, director;
Switzerland, The Divine Order, Petra Volpe, director;
Syria, Little Gandhi, Sam Kadi, director;
Taiwan, Small Talk, Hui-Chen Huang, director;
Thailand, By the Time It Gets Dark, Anocha Suwichakornpong, director;
Tunisia, The Last of Us, Ala Eddine Slim, director;
Turkey, Ayla: The Daughter of War, Can Ulkay, director;
Ukraine, Black Level, Valentyn Vasyanovych, director;
United Kingdom, My Pure Land, Sarmad Masud, director;
Uruguay, Another Story of the World, Guillermo Casanova, director;
Venezuela, El Inca, Ignacio Castillo Cottin, director;
Vietnam, Father and Son, Luong Dinh Dung, director.

Nominations for the 90th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, Jan. 23.

The 90th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 4, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood, and will be televised live on ABC.

Wolf Warrior 2 & The-Academy Awards

Following up on yesterday’s announcement

Oscars: China Selects Blockbuster ‘Wolf Warrior II’ for Foreign-Language Category
1:30 AM PDT 10/6/2017 by Patrick Brzeski


Courtesy of Well Go USA
‘Wolf Warrior 2’

Written, directed by and starring Wu Jing, the film earned $852 million to become China’s biggest box-office success ever.
China has selected mega-blockbuster Wolf Warrior II as its submission for the best foreign-language film category at the 2018 Oscars.

The film is easily the most financially successful movie ever to be submitted in the Academy Awards category. Written, directed by and starring Chinese martial artist and multi-hyphenate Wu Jing, Wolf Warrior II has earned an astonishing $851.6 million in the Middle Kingdom since its release on July 27. Only one film has ever earned more from a single market — J.J. Abrams’ The Force Awakens (2015) with $936.6 million in North America.

A crowd-pleasing patriotic action flick, Wolf Warrior II follows a former Chinese special-forces operative (Wu) as he battles bloodthirsty Western mercenaries to save Chinese civilians who have gotten caught up in an African civil war. American actor Frank Grillo (Captain America: Civil War, Warrior) plays the film’s villain, while American-Hong Kong actress Celina Jade is the female heroine.

News of the film’s selection was first carried locally by China’s state-backed newspaper Global Times.

Wolf Warrior II was co-produced by emerging powerhouse studio Beijing Culture, China Film Group, Bona Films and others. While a distinctly Chinese success story, traces of Hollywood’s influence can be detected on the final product.

Marvel mainstays Joe and Anthony Russo, co-directors of the Captain America franchise, consulted on the film via their Chinese studio venture Anthem & Song, which has strategic partnership with Beijing Culture. The Russos are understood to have introduced Grillo and some of their usual stunt team, led by veteran action coordinator Sam Hargrave (Captain America: Civil War, Atomic Blonde), to boost the production values of the film’s fight scenes. Many attribute the film’s local success to this seamless combination of Hollywood production polish and rousing, authentically Chinese storytelling.

China has been nominated in the best foreign-language film category twice — for Ju Dou (1990) and Hero (2002), both directed by Zhang Yimou — but the world’s most populous country has yet to bag an Oscar.

Ah yes, we remember Hero.

Wolf Warrior 2 & The-Academy Awards

Wolf Warrior 2

I’m copying this last portion of this article continued from the previous post on the Academy Awards thread on the Wolf Warrior 2 thread.

Wolf Warrior 2: China’s propaganda smash

While Taiwan and Hong Kong’s submissions are quiet independent films, Wolf Warrior 2 is an action blockbuster that projects Beijing’s idealized vision of China on the world stage, as well as the growing nationalist sentiment among its citizens.
The film tells the story of Leng Feng, a Rambo-esque former member of the Chinese Special Forces who leaves China for an unnamed African country after being discharged from the army. There, he winds up fighting to save overseas Chinese workers and locals stuck in a civil war. There’s also a subplot involving a fictitious disease known as “Lamanla,” and a romance between Leng and Rachel Smith, a dual US-Chinese citizen who worked with a team of Chinese doctors to develop the vaccine for the disease.

//youtu.be/fkqGiPB2D8M

Of course, what appears as a generic action film on the surface is really a subversion of the white savior Hollywood trope, with Chinese characteristics. Its theatrical release came days before China opened its first-ever overseas military base in Djibouti, which also coincided with the 90th anniversary of the formation of the People’s Liberation Army.
The film’s overt politics will likely prevent it from receiving the nomination, but reviews suggest that there’s value in considering what a Hollywood-style action film would look like when the geopolitical context is flipped. Noel Murray of the Los Angeles Times writes, “There’s something bracing about its patriotic fervor, which asserts that the Chinese will act in the best interests of the world’s downtrodden, while the rest of the world just exploits them. It’s instructive to recognize the presumptions we’re used to finding in American blockbusters, but with the heroes and villains reversed.”
Chinese moviegoers have flocked to Wolf Warrior 2. The film has raked in 5.6 billion yuan ($824 million) to date at China’s box office (link in Chinese), making it the highest-grossing film ever in the country. Explosions and car chases certainly help draw viewers, but there is also a palpable sense of increasing nationalism (paywall) among Chinese citizens themselves. In Africa and elsewhere, China has asserted itself more aggressively, at times championing itself as a bastion of globalization particularly at a time when America’s leadership role is in question. Meanwhile, many Chinese individuals, whether online or in real life, are standing up for China’s interests in the face of criticism from abroad. After years of watching white men save the world, Wolf Warrior 2 gives Chinese audiences a hero of its own.

$856 m+

Headlines from China: ‘Wolf Warrior 2’ Finishes Theatrical Run in China with Over $856 M
BY CHINAFILMINSIDEROCT 26, 2017


‘Wolf Warrior 2 Finishes Theatrical Run in China with Over $856 M at Box Office

Opened on July 28, China’s highest grossing film ‘Wolf Warrior 2’ will complete its theatrical run on October 28. A specially designed poster was released this week to celebrate the completion of its theatrical release. As of October 26, the film has raked in 5.68 billion yuan ($856 million). Over the past three months, the film broke various records: exceeding 100 million yuan at box office after four hours in release, making 426 million yuan on a single day, becoming the first Chinese film that gets on the list of global box office top 100, and being viewed by the largest number of audiences (159 million viewers as of October 26) on a single territory. According to sources familiar with the matter, ‘Wolf Warrior 2’ will become available on Chinese streaming sites on November 3.

Wonder when it’ll be available for U.S. streaming…

Will Hollywood be saved by the Last Jedi?

CHINA’S ANSWER TO RAMBO
China’s box office is setting new records—with a bit of Hollywood help


The number one movie in China. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

WRITTEN BY Ashley Rodriguez
OBSESSION Glass
3 hours ago

China’s biggest movie of the year wasn’t a popular Western actioner like the Fast & Furious and Transformers films. It was Wolf Warrior 2, a homegrown action sequel about a Chinese special forces agent who comes out of retirement to fight Western mercenaries.
With $854 million at the Chinese box office, the movie is now the second highest-grossing of all-time in a single market. Only Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which earned $937 million in North America in 2015, has done better.
It also helped China’s box office cross a new threshold. On Nov. 20, the box office surpassed 50 billion yuan ($7.5 billion) for the first time in a single year, said the state authority.
This comes a year after sagging growth had filmmakers and studios worried that China’s decade of average annual box-office growth of at least 35% was over. In 2016, the total box office grew 3.7% year over year, compared to 48% the prior year. But the world’s second-largest movie market appears to be getting back on track.
After a disappointing summer, the North American box office is down 4% from last year at $9.38 billion through Nov. 19. Tickets sold are also down 7% around 1.05 billion, Box Office Mojo estimated. That’s compared to a 15% increase to 1.4 billion admissions in China. There, movies that bombed with US audiences, like Transformers: The Last Knight, still prevailed.
And while Wolf Warrior 2 is pure hyper-nationalist China, it did have a bit of help from the Americans.
How Hollywood aided “Wolf Warrior 2”
Called China’s answer to Rambo, the patriotic movie had its fair share of Western influences. The sequel’s larger, $30 million budget afforded it input from Marvel directors Joe and Anthony Russo, from Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, Variety reported. The brothers consulted on the film, US actor Frank Grillo played the villain, and it had an American stunt director and composer.
Hollywood has been collaborating more with China’s growing movie business. Hollywood studios have worked with Chinese partners to add subplots that appeal to local audiences and meet the government’s strict regulations for movies like Iron Man 3 and The Great Wall. And Chinese filmmakers are leaning on Hollywood to help them make movies with broad international appeal.
To aid its ailing box office last year, China’s government relaxed its quota on foreign films. It released 38 instead of 34 that year, the majority of which were from the US. The US and China—the biggest export market for Hollywood films—are due to re-negotiate the quota this year.
The country also imposes blackout periods during busy times like the summer months, when only local films can be screened. That propped up domestic releases like Wolf Warrior 2 and The Founding of an Army.
But the quotas and blackouts historically guaranteed that Chinese films, including co-productions with Hong Kong or American partners, accounted for 60% of the overall box office. And the government seems to be easing off that, too. So far in 2017, Chinese films made up about 52%, down from around 58% in 2016.

[QUOTE]Top-grossing 2017 films in China, through Nov. 19
Wolf Warrior 2 $854 m
The Fate of the Furious 393
Never Say Die 332
Kung Fu Yoga 255
Journey West: The Demons Strike Back 240
Transformers: The Last Knight 229
Dangal 193
Pirates Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales 172
Kong: Skull Island 168
xXx: The Return of Xander Cage 164

State regulators expect China’s box office to finish 2017 with 55 billion yuan, a 20% lift from last year. In the US, all eyes are on Star Wars: The Last Jedi to save 2017.[/QUOTE]

A good overview on Wolf Warrior 2 and the effect it’s had on on Chollywood’s rise. We’ve discussed most of the Top Grossing films listed above, except Kong & Pirates I think.

Our latest sweepstakes. Enter to WIN!

Enter to win KungFuMagazine.com’s contest for Wolf Warrior 2 on Blu-Ray™ + DVD Combo Pack! Contest ends 5:30 p.m. PST on 12/21/2017.

No Oscar nom for WW2

Oscars: Academy Unveils Foreign-Language Film Shortlist
5:12 PM PST 12/14/2017 by Gregg Kilday


Tim Boyle/Getty

The nine films include the Palme d’Or winner ‘The Square,’ but not Angelina Jolie’s ‘First They Killed My Father.’
The Academy on Thursday announced the nine films that will compete for a nomination for the best foreign-language film Oscar.

The shortlist includes a number of expected entries, like Ruben Ostlund’s Swedish art-world satire The Square, which won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and the Russian drama Loveless, about a divorcing couple searching for their missing son and directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev, which won the Cannes Jury Prize.

But it also has some striking omissions: Angelina Jolie failed to earn a nomination for her film First They Killed My Father, which was submitted by Cambodia and also has earned a Golden Globe nomination. And the list also failed to find room for France’s submission, Robin Campillo’s BPM (Beats Per Minute), about AIDS activists, which won the Grand Prix prize at Cannes.

The shortlist of films was chosen from a record 92 titles that were submitted by their respective countries. The selected films will now screen for committees in New York, Los Angeles and London, which will cast the ballots for the film nominees in the category, to be announced Jan. 23.

The films on the shortlist, and their country of origin, are:

Chile, A Fantastic Woman, Sebastián Lelio, director
Germany, In the Fade, Fatih Akin, director
Hungary, On Body and Soul, Ildikó Enyedi, director
Israel, Foxtrot, Samuel Maoz, director
Lebanon, The Insult, Ziad Doueiri, director
Russia, Loveless, Andrey Zvyagintsev, director
Senegal, Félicité, Alain Gomis, director
South Africa, The Wound, John Trengove, director
Sweden, The Square, Ruben Östlund, director

The 90th Oscars will be held Sunday, March 4, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center and will be televised live on ABC. Nominations will be announced Tuesday, Jan. 23.

Wolf Warrior 2 didn’t make the Academy Awards Foreign language cut. I had my doubts that it would.

Second forum review (or forum opinions).

WW2 is a pretty good action film. Wu Jing has definitely grown as an action star, and seems to be taking over from Donnie Yen. Ever since Kill Zone and Fatal Contact, he has been upping his penchant for extreme intensity in many of his fight scenes, and IMO in Kill Zone 2, he outshines co-star Tony Jaa. Funny; I thought I remember reading a few years ago that Wu Jing was going to retire from action films, perhaps due to injuries(?).

I had totally forgotten that Celina Jade was the daughter of Roy Horan, until I reread some of this thread. Horan appeared in some KF films in the '70s to early '80s, such as Bruce Lee’s Secret, Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, The Snuff Bottle Connection, The Ring of Death, and Tower of Death (a.k.a., Game of Death II). At the time, Horan was working with Ng See-Yuen at Hong Kong’s Seasonal Film Corp. In Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, Horan gave what is possibly the goofiest, worst performance of a death scene ever shot in a professional movie:

//youtu.be/ELBtEnDkLtI

Anyway, Celina did a fine job and has a great screen presence. Her MA training (not evident in WW2) in in TKD. If her father taught her, then that makes her a second-generation student of Hwang Jang-Lee, who is often considered the best kicker in MA movie history.

Frank Grillo is great as the arch-villain. It’s nice to see a martial artist who is actually a legitimate actor being cast as the villain in a Chinese movie. Way back in the day, many of the white foreign villains cast in the Hong Kong/Taiwan (and China?) MA films were random guys with some MA background who were found in youth hostels. Some others were foreign students who were recruited from area MA schools, or spotted in foreigner talent contests. They were not actors, and it showed. Grillo plays the type of villain that someone can easily ‘love to hate’, which means he did an excellent job.

Many people have mentioned the pro-China hyper-nationalism of the movie, but if you think about it, American action movies have done the exact same thing, especially back in the '80s and '90s. Still, I found some of those scenes a bit cringe-worthy, but chose to overlook them in favor of the action.

As far as the action goes, there was some very good stuff, but also some so-so stuff. And WW2 suffers a bit from what I call The John Woo Syndrome. There is SO MUCH action/shooting/explosions/killing that it began to feel a bit over-saturated. When it becomes “Ho-hum, another head and arm blown off,” then the action has reached a point of diminishing returns. And as for the CGI blood and exploding heads and limbs, the effect was more cartoonish than awe-inspiring. And people go flying about 20 to 30 feet from side kicks.

Back in 1995, my CLF sifu, along some classmates and I, got special tickets to see a performance held by China’s then-national Wushu team on the UCSD campus. One of those performers was a young Wu Jing. After the program, there was a meet-and-greet with the team members, including Wu Jing. Unfortunately, we didn’t stick around for that, as there were many audience members staying for that. Had I known at the time that that young standout performer would eventually go on to become The Next Big Thing in China’s MA/action cinema, mentioned in the same breath as Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Donnie Yen, I definitely would have stayed. Than I could have made the claim that I met him before he became an international star. Oh, well…

I support the anti Hollywood political aims but I fell asleep at the tank sequence

10% of Chinese theaters to show propaganda

We’d do this here but we already have sitonmyfacebook, where we propaganize ourselves. We don’t need no government regulated propaganda. :rolleyes:

China to Select 5,000 Cinemas to Show Propaganda Films
2:43 AM PST 2/13/2018 by Associated Press


Courtesy of Media Asia
Chinese propaganda film ‘The Founding of an Army’

In a throwback to language used during the era of Mao Zedong, the country’s film regulator said the policy is intended to promote propaganda films to create a “people’s theater front.”

China plans to select 5,000 movie theaters across the country to screen propaganda films and will look to boost their box office with group sales, discounted tickets and other financial backing.

The number of theaters accounts for roughly 10 percent of China’s total, with quotas issued for each major city, province and autonomous region.

A notice from the nation’s film regulator said the policy is intended to promote specific movies at special times to create a “people’s theater front,” a throwback to language used during the era of Mao Zedong.

In keeping with the ruling Communist Party’s latest initiatives, the policy intends to “guide thought and educate the people,” said the statement, which was stamped Jan. 30. Copies of it were posted Tuesday to Chinese websites that cover the entertainment industry.

China, the world’s second-biggest film market, saw movie ticket sales rise 13.5 percent last year to over $8.6 billion. Chinese-made movies accounted for 54 percent of ticket sales, with baldly nationalistic action thriller Wolf Warrior 2 topping the box office.

The ruling Communist Party is anxious to promote more productions with patriotic themes and exercises broad control over scripts and shooting permits.

It also routinely manipulates ticket sales and movie release dates, including limiting the number of foreign films that can be shown and banning them entirely for certain periods.

That helps pump up sales for domestic productions, although patriotic themes don’t always win out. Recent successes have included films glorifying materialism and complex interpersonal relationships, such as the Tiny Times series.

As part of party leader and President Xi Jinping’s ideological drive, the party has also sought to crack down on internet content deemed frivolous or immoral.

That includes online games such as the Japanese hit Travel Frog, although the denouncements appear to have done little to dampen public enthusiasm for them, and the authorities are eager to keep the internet open as a conduit for business.

Thread: Chollywood rising
Thread: Wolf Warrior 2

Chinese ‘Rambo’ is a terrible way to characterize Wu Jing

China’s ‘Rambo’ and Jackie Chan co-star Wu Jing returns to filming after leg injury
The 44-year-old Beijing-born actor and director of Wolf Warrior has been plagued by injuries since he was a boy
Jackie Chan’s co-star in Climbers has returned to the film set having spent two months in hospital
Unus Alladin
Published: 5:50pm, 24 Mar, 2019


Wu Jing in Wolf Warrior 2. Photo: Handout

China’s top martial arts star Wu Jing went straight from his hospital bed to the set of his next movie Climbers, having spent two months overseas recovering from his latest injury.
Wu, whose Wolf Warrior franchise broke all-time box office records on the mainland, is co-starring with Hong Kong martial arts legend, Jackie Chan, in the mountain epic, Climbers, which tells the story of the first Chinese mountaineers to conquer Mount Everest in 1960.
The 44-year-old Beijing-born Wu, who starred with American martial arts hero, Scott Adkins, in the patriotic war movie, Wolf Warrior, has rejoined his film crew in China to continue shooting his latest venture after being seen by netizens in a wheelchair at the airport on the mainland recently. His public relations team said he had been seriously injured during filming of Climbers and had emergency treatment abroad but went “straight back to his film crew after returning home”.


American martial arts hero Scott Adkins co-starred with Wu Jing in Wolf Warrior. Photo: Handout

Wu began shooting Climbers in January, experiencing extreme cold as he climbed the 5,254-metre Gangshika snow peak in Qinghui, China.

//youtu.be/fkqGiPB2D8M

It’s not known exactly how Wu had injured his leg but the martial arts star has been pictured in crutches or in a wheelchair more frequently over the years as he struggles with a series of injuries. He even appeared in crutches at his wedding to TV presenter Xie Nan in 2014.


Wolf Warrior poster. Photo: Handout

Since he was six years old, he has been injured either while learning martial arts in Beijing or at the film set, a similar scenario to “his older brother” martial arts superstar Jet Li, who has also been plagued by injuries and is recovering from hyperthyroidism.


Wu Jing is wheeled by airport staff after having leg surgery. Photo: Sina Weibo


Wu Jing in crutches. Photo: Weibo

And recently he talked about his misfortunes in a TV interview aired on March 8, when he revealed to the host that he can obtain a “disability certificate” in China owing to his many injuries. He talked about going through pain and suffering over the years.
Jet Li photo with daughters paints contrasting picture to Jackie Chan’s turbulent family life
He has shown absolute dedication to his craft as an actor and director, rushing back to rejoin his film crew for Climbers.


Climbers poster. Photo: Handout

“I was very determined to succeed. I grew up learning about pain and experiencing a lot of pain. If you want to continue, you need to accept [the pain] and continue,” said Wu, who also starred in the Chinese sci-fi adventure The Wandering Earth which was released last month. He said it was only through such hardship could he succeed as an actor and film director.


Wu Jing on the set of Climbers. Photo: Sina Weibo

Chinese blockbuster The Wandering Earth may break new ground worldwide, but may not go far in Hong Kong
Nicknamed China’s Rambo by his fans, Wu’s Wolf Warrior 2 released in 2017, which he also directed, became China’s biggest-ever grossing film, earning US$850 million in China alone. Wu’s The Wandering Earth was also a smash hit, becoming the second biggest grossing movie of all time in China, grossing US$600 million. Climbers is set to be released on National Day in China this year.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: China star Wu Jing back on set after injury

THREADS
Wu Jing
Climbers
The Wandering Earth
Wolf Warrior 2