https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=rkn2oSs14iA
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Shoot, all of the trailer links above are broken. Let's see if I can find a fresh one.Quote:
JUNE 21, 2018 10:58pm PT by Patrick Brzeski
Netflix Acquires China's 'Animal World' Co-Starring Michael Douglas (Exclusive)
Directed by Han Yan, the gritty teen comic book adaptation is expected to be one of China's biggest releases of the summer.
China's hotly anticipated teen action film Animal World, co-starring Michael Douglas, is heading to Netflix.
The streaming giant has acquired global digital rights to the title for all territories outside of China, according to industry sources with knowledge of the deal. CMC Pictures, the international film distributor controlled by Li Ruigang’s China Media Capital Holdings, is also planning to give the film a substantial international theatrical release, making the pickup somewhat unique for Netflix (the company declined to comment).
Directed by Han Yan (Goodbye Mr. Tumor), Animal World stars Li Yifeng (Mr. Six) as an imaginative teenager who gets lured into a dangerous game of wits overseen by an icy arch-villain played by Douglas. The movie is an adaptation of the hit Japanese manga Ultimate Survivor Kaiji, which was previously adapted into two successful films in Tokyo.
Produced by Beijing-based studio Enlight Pictures, the film is expected to be one of the bigger Chinese releases of the summer. It premiered at the Shanghai International Film Festival last weekend and opens nationwide in the Middle Kingdom on June 29. THR's critic in Shanghai described the film as an "exciting if disjointed mash of ideas and emotions" that "turns into a risk-it-all gambling fantasy that is surprisingly gripping."
Netflix has been modestly boosting its collection of high-profile Chinese content. The streamer acquired global rights to blockbuster romantic drama Us and Them earlier this year, and pre-bought all non-China rights to animated feature Over the Moon, set to be directed by veteran animator Glen Keane (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast) for Shanghai's Pearl Studio (formerly Oriental DreamWorks). Netflix has also scooped up several Chinese TV dramas, including Youku's detective series Day and Night and iQiyi's remake of Sony Pictures Television’s psychological thriller Chosen.
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Enlight Media
I'm really eager to see this. It looks so out-of-the-box for Chinese cinema.
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China Box Office: Local Thriller 'Animal World' Dethrones 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom'
5:30 AM PDT 7/2/2018 by Patrick Brzeski
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Courtesy of Shanghai International Film Festival
'Animal World'
It was a competitive weekend at the world's second-biggest film market, with both Hollywood holdovers and Chinese new releases pulling in substantial earnings.
Chinese thriller Animal World officially kicked off the summer blockbuster season in the world's second-biggest film market over the weekend, opening to $38.2 million and topping the China box-office champion of the preceding two weeks, Universal's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
The youth-oriented action film is based on a popular Japanese manga and stars Li Yifeng as a young man who is induced into taking part in a violent game of chance overseen by an archvillain, played by Michael Douglas. Directed by rising talent Han Yan (Go Away Mr Tumor) and produced by Enlight Media, Animal World was boosted by strong word of mouth, scoring 8.7/10 from ticketing app Maoyan and 7.4/10 from Douban, the more fickle reviews aggregator.
Still packing some bite, Fallen Kingdom pulled in $14.7 million in its third frame, boosting its 17-day total to a healthy $232 million, according to numbers from Beijing-based EntGroup. The J. A. Bayona-directed sequel has now eclipsed the $228.7 million total of the first Jurassic World film in China.
Escape Plan 2: Hades, co-financed and produced by Lionsgate and China's Leomus Pictures launched in third place, thanks to a solid Friday start of $5.3 million. But the film was quickly savaged by critics and fan reviewers and slid down the charts, totaling just $10.7 million for the full weekend. Sylvester Stallone and Dave Bautista star in the sequel, alongside Chinese actor Huang Xiaoming. The increased Chinese involvement was a response to the $40.9 million the first Escape Plan movie earned in China back in 2013 — considerably more than the $25.1 million the movie brought in domestically. The sequel stands little chance of matching its predecessor, however.
Disney's and Pixar's The Incredibles 2 came in just a step behind in fourth place, adding $10.1 million for a two-weekend total of $40.4 million.
Chinese comedy maestro Xu Zheng's hotly anticipated comedy-drama Dying to Survive also burst onto the Chinese charts thanks to just two days of limited previews Saturday and Sunday. The sneak peeks pulled in a whopping $7.6 million ahead of the film's official opening Friday, July 6. Already, word of mouth for the movie, which is produced by Xu's fellow hitmaker and former collaborator Ning Hao (Crazy Stone), is effusive. The film is loosely based on the true story of a Chinese leukemia patient who smuggled unapproved drugs from India in order to get affordably priced medicine for himself and 1,000 others. Local fans are touting the film as China's answer to Dallas Buyers Club, and saying their version is worthy of similar Oscar consideration. The film has a sky-high score of 9.6/10 on Maoyan.
Further down the charts, the rerelease of Wong Kar-Wai's Days of Beijing Wild (2004), added just over $600,000 in its second weekend. After two frames, the Hong Kong classic has earned $2.1 million in Mainland China. That's considerably less than the $9.8 million the Asian art house classic earned during its original Hong Kong run, but not at all bad for a 14-year-old rerelease in a market traditionally known for its blockbuster leanings.
There it is again - the Warcraft Redemption.
THREADS:Quote:
JULY 22, 2018 3:48PM PT
‘Skyscraper’ Tops China Box Office With $48 Million Opening
By PATRICK FRATER
Asia Bureau Chief
https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.c...0&h=563&crop=1
CREDIT: KIMBERLEY FRENCH/UNIVERSAL/KOBAL
“Skyscraper” comfortably topped the Chinese box office on its opening weekend. It enjoyed a 50% market share and earned $48 million, according to local data tracker Ent Group.
The prospect of a burning tower block should terrify audiences in China, where so many citizens live in vertical cities. But with the hugely popular Dwayne Johnson leading the rescue, the film was able to overcome fear of heights and only modest ratings on popular ticketing and ratings sites.
Despite being produced by Wanda-owned Legendary Entertainment, the film is considered as a revenue-sharing quota import, and is distributed by state-owned China Film Group and Huaxia Distribution. The connections to Wanda, China’s largest cinema circuit, as well as a powerful marketing machine, can only have helped. The film rated 7.1 of out 10 on the Wanda-owned Mtime ticketing and merchandise site, and 6.6 on Douban. The weekend total, however, makes “Skyscraper” only the sixth best opening for a Legendary title in the Middle Kingdom.
With close to 120,000 screenings per day, “Skyscraper” enjoyed $13.4 million on Friday, having previously taken some $400,000 in previews and midnight sessions. It continued its run with $17.6 million on Saturday, and $17.0 million on Sunday. Its $48 million total included $4.4 million from 519 IMAX screens.
The $48 million in China is higher than the film’s $46 million in two weeks in North America. In China, compared to other recent Johnson vehicles, “Skyscraper” bisects “Rampage” and “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.” Earlier this year, “Rampage” opened with $55 million and went on to score $156 million. “Welcome to the Jungle” opened with $39.2 million, before scoring a cumulative $77.9 million.
China’s own box office and social phenomenon, “Dying to Survive,” took second place in its third weekend on release. It added $26.6 million, for a cumulative score of $426 million after 18 days on release.
Jiang Wen’s “Hidden Man” slipped from second to third place. It earned $10.9 million, for a 10-day cumulative of $77.9 million.
Animation films took the next five chart places. International venture, “Animal Crackers” (aka “Magical Circus”) opened on Saturday and scored $3.68 million. That was good enough for fourth place behind the top three. Chinese holdover animation “New Happy Dad and Son 3: Adventure in Russia” earned $1.21 million for a 17-day cumulative of $20.4 million.
Global Road’s “Showdogs” saw its screen count halved from Friday to Saturday, but managed $1.20 million in three days. “Sherlock Gnomes” detected $1.02 million. Chinese fantasy-animation “Wind Guardians” scored $980,000, with nearly all of that coming on Sunday, when it ranked fifth overall.
Live action, “Animal World” brought up tenth place. It earned $540,000 for a 24-day cumulative of $74.4 million.
Skyscraper
Hidden Man
Animal World
I'm intrigued by this story mostly because I've previously not considered these countries as significant movie markets, at least not significant enough to warrant Variety's attention.
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AUGUST 29, 2018 8:00PM PT
Michael Douglas’ Animal World’ Gets Central Asia Release (EXCLUSIVE)
By PATRICK FRATER
Asia Bureau Chief
https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.c...ize=1000%2C563
CREDIT: COURTESY OF CMC PICTURES
The U.K.’s Trinity Cine Asia will Thursday give a theatrical release to Chinese thriller “Animal World” across multiple territories in Central Asia. Starring Michael Douglas, alongside Li Yifeng and Zhou Dongyu, the film was released in China on June 28.
The film releases in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan Thursday. Previously in August, it had theatrical releases in Russia and Ukraine on over 800 screens through distributors Megogo and Kinomania. International rights sales are handled by CMC Pictures.
Directed by Han Yan, and adapted from a Japanese manga, “Animal World” sees a man coerced into boarding a ship which is hosting a high stakes gambling party. It was set as the opening night film of the Shanghai International Film Festival in June.
“This is a game-changer for Trinity and the Cine Asia brand, which lays the path for future expansion and marks the start of a very exciting adventure,” said Cedric Behrel, co-founder and executive director of Trinity Cine Asia.
“The world is a much smaller place now compared to when we released our first film in the UK in 2006,” said Trinity Cine Asia’s co-founder and executive director Robin Grbich. “Through an alliance of fantastic partners we have built over the years we are now in a position to be more ambitious than ever before.”
The company, which aims for day-and-date releases of Chinese and other Asian titles says that it is currently acquiring a slate of Asian martial arts and action films, across both Western and Eastern Europe countries, in late 2018 and 2019.
This finally came to Netflix as I foretold in my magazine column, thankfully while that issue is still on the newsstands (so hard to time that stuff out nowadays). And I was amused for sure, but not overwhelmed. The first half hour plus of the film totally lives up to the trailer with its freeze-frame vision, its hyperkinetic ultravi and its hallucinogenic quick cuts, but when it gets to the rock paper scissors game, it gets bogged down. That whole device is rather absurd - keep in mind this is based on some manga, and I could see it working better in the medium than with a film like this. Honestly, there's too much math (the crux of the game is card counting) and not enough action to keep the pace of the first part. Card games never quite worked for me as a tension driving device since Bond owned Baccarat, and rock paper scissors, well, it's not that complex of a game to build much intrigue, and all the calculations on stacking the deck and such, plus the obvious inevitable double-crossing, just grew tiresome. And the resolution was rather anticlimactic. But wait, there's a scene after the credits - also predictable - that teases the sequel with a fat 'to be continued'. That being said, it had its moments. The style and cinematography was engaging, especially that first part. Some of those initial clown chopping up monsters hallucinations were awesome. And there's a good car chase that goes a lot of colorful places. It owes a lot of its vision to Deadpool.
I'd recommend it with the caveat that it'll lose momentum right when it should pick up the pace, so maybe just watch the first part attentively, and then watch the rock paper scissors part while you surf the web or wash dishes or something. Even though it's Chinese with subtitles, Michael Douglas delivers all his lines in English and he's not the only one. Not sure if the filmmakers were really trying to cross the Pacific with this - actually I'm not sure who the audience was intended to be - fans of the original manga maybe? For recent Chinese cinema, it is delightfully odd, at least the beginning portion.