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GeneChing
12-08-2016, 10:38 AM
This is the threequel to Monkey King 2 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67299-Monkey-King-2), now slated for 2018 CNY, as opposed to Stephan Chow's Journey to the West: Part 2: Demon Chapter (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?65681-Stephan-Chow-s-Journey-to-the-West-Part-2-Demon-Chapter) for CNY 2017.

A barrel of monkeys - reminds me of the gang of Ip Man flicks we went through a few years ago.


Latest Monkey King Movie to Tap Female-ruled Kingdom
(http://www.womenofchina.cn/womenofchina/html1/culture/movie/1612/1425-1.htm)December 8, 2016
By Xu Fan Editor: Jane Wang

http://www.womenofchina.cn/res/womenofchina/1612/16121424.jpg
Lead actress Zhao Liying (center, in white) and supporting actresses appear at an event on December4 in Changsha to promote the upcoming The Monkey King 3. [China Daily]

Changsha's sky was dark above. But a stadium in Hunan's provincial capital glowed in the company of beautiful young women on December 4.

It was a ceremony announcing 12 winners, who'll appear in The Monkey King 3 - a film adapted from a chapter on a female-ruled place in the 16th-century Chinese classic Journey to the West.

The actresses are among 1,000 chosen from more than 30,000 hopefuls through a national campaign launched in August. The 12 will play supporting roles, while the others will serve as extras - that is, as the kingdom's subjects.

It was announced the kingdom's ruler - the main female role - will be played by A-lister Zhao Liying, whose hit TV series has received more than 100 billion views on streaming sites.

The film's Hong Kong-based director Cheang Pou-soi explains Zhao's temperament - dynamic, yet calm - makes her the perfect fit for the character description in the original work.

"She will experience an unlikely romance. I believe the emotional scenes will be the most appealing parts. But considering modern tastes, we added some comedic elements," says Cheang, who also directed the franchise's previous two installments.

The novel by Wu Cheng'en, which fictionalizes Tang Dynasty (618-907) monk Xuan Zang's travels to India - largely by giving him three powerful, but demon-like apprentices as escorts - is among China's most celebrated.

Mainland actor Feng Shaofeng plays the monk. Hong Kong megastar Aaron Kwok continues as the Monkey King. Comedian Xiao Shenyang returns as the pig apprentice.

In the third installment, the quartet stumbles upon the Kingdom of Women, where Xuan Zang is tempted by its empress.

He's torn between the monarch's proposal and monastic propriety in an almost Shakespearean dilemma.

Sacrificing personal romance for the greater good is a common trope in Chinese culture.

The theme is typical of films from the country, including Jet Li's 1982 martial arts drama The Shaolin Temple.

The question is whether it can, literally, make the journey to the West, where it doesn't have as strong a historical foundation, since the big-budget tentpole has high hopes to plant a stake overseas.

The film, slated for release during the 2018 Spring Festival, is expected to cost 500 million yuan ($73.5 million), going by the latest investment figures.

The crew is already more than 1,000 members and another 1,500 will be hired for postproduction. It will be shot in Jiangsu, Sichuan and Zhejiang provinces, and in Taiwan.

The scriptwriter, Wen Ning, revealed in an earlier interview with China Daily that the story will build upon a structure that's empathic with overseas viewers.

He says the tale, which develops multiple threads that interweave palace conspiracies and lots of action, will depict the ancient story in a new way.

Some industry watchers believe the film may prove to be another Chinese-language movie that makes a successful foray into the North American market.

"The Monkey King story is probably the ancient Chinese story that's best known in the West," says Jiang Yong, a Beijing-based film critic.

"All of its screen adaptations combined make it the one of highest-grossing franchises in Chinese cinema, despite mixed reviews."

The previous installments of the new franchise each surpassed 1 billion yuan - in 2014 and 2016, respectively - but weren't as warmly welcomed by the North American box office.

(Source: China Daily)

GeneChing
10-31-2017, 10:29 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLJqOpR0ePM

GeneChing
12-12-2017, 12:09 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5yrGPGZLwo

renewed trailer link since the previous one expired

GeneChing
01-12-2018, 11:10 AM
I'm really excited for this one. I luved Monkey King 2 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67299-Monkey-King-2)and this reunites that cast. Plus this is being distributed by WellGoUSA, so there's bound to be a theatrical release in our market.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTxAUX_hbJA

GeneChing
02-02-2018, 10:40 AM
Chinese New Year Box Office Preview: 'Monster Hunt 2' Hits $11M in Presales (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chinese-new-year-box-office-preview-monster-hunt-2-hits-11m-presales-1080843)
11:31 PM PST 2/1/2018 by Patrick Brzeski

https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2017/11/monsterhunt2_4_-_h_2017.jpg
Courtesy of Edko Films
Chris Lee in 'Monster Hunt 2'

THR takes a sneak-peak at the coming wave of Chinese blockbusters, which are already raking in major revenue.
The world's biggest box-office season — Chinese New Year, in China — is still two weeks away, but the country's unreleased blockbusters are already sucking up revenue before liftoff.

Fantasy sequel Monster Hunt 2, directed by DreamWorks Animation veteran Raman Hui, had reached $11.3 million (70.6 million RMB) in ticket presales by midday Friday. With a full 14 days before its opening on Feb. 16, the film should easily surpass the $16 million (101 million RMB) in presales raked in by Chen Kaige's Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back, last year's CNY opening-weekend winner.

In February 2016, China set a new record for the biggest box-office week ever for a single market, totaling $548 million in ticket sales over seven days. That tally cleanly eclipsed the record set in North America just weeks prior by Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($529.6 million from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1, 2016).

Whether the market can match those heights this year remains an open question. What's certain is that the field will be very crowded, with fantasy monsters, prat-falling detectives, animated bears and military propaganda all vying for a slice of the enormous pie.

The first Monster Hunt movie grossed $382 million in 2015, an all-time record at the time. Production company Edko Films has pulled out all of the stops for the sequel, more than doubling the number of visual effects shots, boosting merchandising output and marketing alliances, and adding veteran star Tony Leung to the cast. Hui's touch for family-friendly entertainment — an essential ingredient for success during the very family-focused holiday, when grandparents to kids all decamp for the multiplex — would seem the key to the film's clear frontrunner status (during his Hollywood days, Hui co-directed DWA hits like Shrek the Third).

Currently sitting in second place for holiday presales is Wanda Pictures' action comedy Detective Chinatown 2, with $6.7 million (42.3 million RMB). The first film, set in the Chinatown district of Bangkok, Thailand, earned $125 million in 2015. The sequel is again written and directed by Chen Sicheng, and stars returning leads Wang Baoqiang and Liu Haoran. But this time the action has been transplanted to Chinatown in New York City, and the cast is joined by American actor Michael Pitt.

Chinese New Year wouldn't be complete without a Monkey King movie or two, and 2018 will welcome the third of its kind from director Cheang Pou-soi. Aaron Kwok is back as the eponymous simian hero of the beloved Chinese literary classic. The film will attempt to best the $167.8 million and $185.4 million earned by The Monkey King (2014) and Monkey King 2 (2016), respectively. Thus far, the movie has brought in $5.7 million (36.2 million RMB) in advance sales.

Boonie Bears: The Big Shrink, the fifth film in China's most successful homegrown animation franchise, currently sits in fourth place with $2.9 million (18.4 million RMB). Based on a long-running China Central Television animated series of the same name, the first four Boonie Bears films have totaled an estimated $221.5 million. The new film can be expected to carve out a healthy chuck of the holiday kids market.

The final major title opening on Feb. 16, head-to-head against the other market leaders, is Hong Kong director Dante Lam's Operation Red Sea, which was designed to tap into the same upswell of Chinese patriotism that lifted Wu Jing's Wolf Warrior 2 to previously unimaginable heights last summer ($874 million from the China market alone).

The film stars Zhang Yi and Huang Jingyu, and is loosely based on the Chinese navy evacuation of 225 foreign nationals and some 600 Chinese citizens from Yemen's port of Aden during the 2015 Yemeni Civil War last March. Continuing the growing industry trend of blending propaganda with commercial filmmaking polish, Operation Red Sea is being presented as a special tribute to the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People Liberation Army (August, 1927). The film has tallied $1.4 million (9 million RMB) in presales so far.


Thread: 2018 Year of the EARTH DOG (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70579-2018-Year-of-the-EARTH-DOG)
Thread: Monster Hunt (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68878-Monster-Hunt)
Thread: Detective Chinatown 2 (唐人街探案2) (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70669-Detective-Chinatown-2-(%26%2321776%3B%26%2320154%3B%26%2334903%3B%26%232 5506%3B%26%2326696%3B2))
Thread: Monkey King 3 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69932-Monkey-King-3)

I gotta go with MK3. I doubt that will win the box office - MH2 probably will - but that's my fav of these two franchises. I haven't seen DC yet so maybe that's a premature assumption, but I've got a soft spot for anything Monkey King related, a veritable monkey on my back. ;)

GeneChing
02-09-2018, 11:08 AM
Below is the locations for next week's U.S. premiere off Well Go USA (http://wellgousa.com/theatrical/the-monkey-king-3):


US THEATER LOCATIONS
February 16, 2018
NEW YORK CITY
AMC Empire 25
234 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036

PHILADELPHIA
AMC Cherry Hill 24
2121 NJ-38
Cherry Hill, NJ 08002

LOS ANGELES
AMC Atlantic Times Square
450 N Atlantic Blvd
Monterey Park, CA 91754

AMC Puente Hills 20
1560 South Azusa Avenue
City of Industry, CA 91748

AMC Orange 30
20 City Blvd West
Orange, CA 92868

MINNEAPOLIS
AMC Inver Grove 16
5567 Bishop Ave
Inver Grove Heights, MN 55076

PHOENIX
AMC Centerpoint 11
730 South Mill Ave
Tempe, AZ 85281

ATLANTA
Regal Cinemas Hollywood 24
3265 Northeast Expy NE
Chamblee, GA 30341

PITTSBURGH
AMC Waterfront
300 West Waterfront Dr.
West Homestead, PA 15120

PORTLAND
Century Eastport 16
4040 SE 82nd Ave
Portland, OR 97266

BOSTON
AMC Loews Boston Common 19
175 Tremont St
Boston, MA 02111

RALEIGH-DURHAM
AMC Southpoint 17
8030 Renaissance Pkwy
Durham, NC 27713

CHICAGO
AMC River East 21
322 East Illinois Street
Chicago, IL 60611

SAN DIEGO
AMC Mission Valley 20
1640 Camino Del Rio N
San Diego, CA 92108

COLUMBUS
AMC Lennox Town Center 24
777 Kinnear Rd
Columbus, OH 43212

SAN FRANCISCO / BAY AREA
AMC Van Ness 14
1000 Van Ness Ave
San Francisco, CA 94109

AMC Cupertino Square 16
10123 N Wolfe Rd
Cupertino, CA 95014

Cinemark Century 20 Daly City
1901 Junipero Serra Blvd.
Daly City, CA 94015

DALLAS
Cinemark Legacy
7201 North Central Expressway
Plano, TX 75025

WASHINGTON, D.C.
AMC Loews Rio Cinemas 18
9811 Washingtonian Ctr
Gaithersburg, MD 20878

HAWAII
Pearlridge West 16
98-1005 Moanalua Road
Aiea, HI 96701

Regal Dole Cannery
735 Iwilei Rd
Honolulu, HI 96817

HOUSTON
AMC Studio 30
2949 Dunvale
Houston, TX 77063

LAS VEGAS
AMC Town Square 18
6587 Las Vegas Blvd South
Las Vegas, NV 89119

MIAMI
AMC Sunset Place 24
5701 Sunset Dr #300
South Miami, FL 33143

INDIANA
AMC Showplace Bloomington 11
1351 S College Mall Rd
Bloomington, Indiana 47401

MADISON
New Vision Fitchburg 18 + IMAX
6091 McKee Rd
Fitchburg, WI 53719

CANADA THEATER LOCATIONS
February 16, 2018
TORONTO
Cineplex Cinemas Markham & VIP
79 Enterprise Blvd #169
Markham, ON L6G 0E7, Canada

VANCOUVER
Cineplex Cinemas SilverCity Riverport
14211 Entertainment Way
Richmond, BC V6W 1K4, Canada

EDMONTON
Cinema City Movies 12
5074 130 Ave NW
Edmonton, AB T5A 5A9, Canada

MONTREAL
Cineplex Odeon Forum Cinemas
2313 Rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest #101
Montréal, QC H3H 1N2, Canada

However, this has disappeared from the AMC site (https://www.amctheatres.com/programs/independent/asian-pacific-cinema) at this posting. AMC is heavily promoting the other two major CNY releases:
Monster Hunt 3 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68878-Monster-Hunt) & Detective Chinatown 2 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70669-Detective-Chinatown-2-(%26%2321776%3B%26%2320154%3B%26%2334903%3B%26%232 5506%3B%26%2326696%3B2))

GeneChing
02-20-2018, 12:33 PM
I’m loving this take on the classic. Same cast as MK2, this wastes no time on explanation (doesn’t even resolve the cliffhanger from 2). It just dives right in, literally. Crazy visuals, so colorful, surreal, funny, touching, a tale of unrequited love that actually got me. Even the goofy musical interlude worked for me. Laughed several times, got misty, and was captivated by the Buddhist metaphors. I used to dislike JttW for its undefined magical deus ex machinas - Why don’t they just use their magic and finish the quest. But that’s the whole point of the journey. It’s not about the sutras, just like it’s not about the grail. The older I get, the more it works for me. Not sure it would work for the uninitiated - some might but a lot will confuse and distract. It made me want to read JttW again. I hope Soi Chaeng keeps making these with the same cast. So many chapters to go...

I really wish I could’ve seen this in 3D. Definitely a big screen movie.

GeneChing
02-21-2018, 01:20 PM
Detective Chinatown 2. :eek:


‘Detective Chinatown 2’ Defeats “Monster Hunt 2” On Day 3 Of Chinese New Year (http://chinafilminsider.com/headlines-china-box-office-detective-chinatown-2-defeats-monster-hunt-2/)
BY LINAN CHEN FEB 19, 2018

http://chinafilminsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/detective-chinatown-2-2-696x1024.jpg
“Detective Chinatown 2” Defeats “Monster Hunt 2” On Day 3 Of Chinese New Year

The first three days of Chinese New Year saw box office earnings reach an accumulated 3.21 billion yuan ($501 million) with the weekend box office earnings totaling at over 500 million, breaking the record for highest weekend box office in a single market. Detective Chinatown 2 overtook Monster Hunt 2 as the box office winner on the third day of Chinese New Year. Action film Red Sea Operation followed right behind in third place, bringing in 179 million yuan ($28 million) on Feb. 18; the film is also highly rated on review sites, with a rating of 7.4/10 on Mtime. Monkey King 3 and Boonie Bears: The Big Shrink each gained about 60 million yuan ($9.3 million)


Thread: 2018 Year of the EARTH DOG (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70579-2018-Year-of-the-EARTH-DOG)
Thread: Monster Hunt (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68878-Monster-Hunt)
Thread: Detective Chinatown 2 (唐人街探案2) (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70669-Detective-Chinatown-2-(%26%2321776%3B%26%2320154%3B%26%2334903%3B%26%232 5506%3B%26%2326696%3B2))
Thread: Monkey King 3 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69932-Monkey-King-3)

GeneChing
07-06-2018, 07:53 AM
Enter to win KungFuMagazine.com's contest for The Monkey King 3 Blu-Ray™+DVD Combo Pack (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/sweepstakes-the-monkey-king-3.php)! Contest ends 5:30 p.m. PST on 7/23/2018.

http://images.martialartsmart.com/promo/MATT/Monkey-King-3-Sweepstake.jpg

GeneChing
07-23-2018, 02:11 PM
See our WINNERS: Monkey King 3 Blu-Ray™+DVD Combo Pack thread (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70876-WINNERS-Monkey-King-3-Blu-Ray%99-DVD-Combo-Pack).