The Mermaid

[Jimbo]

Thanks for the reviews. I'll skip this one.

[GeneChing]

...fraud allegations again.

China Box Office: 'Ip Man 3' Opens to $75M Amid Fraud Allegations, 'The Mermaid' First to Cross $500M
9:05 PM PST 3/6/2016 by Patrick Brzeski


'Ip Man 3'
Courtesy of Pegasus Motion Pictures

'Zootopia,' meanwhile, gave Disney Animation its highest China debut ever, pulling in $23.5 million and earning rave local reviews.

Ip Man 3, the latest installment of the hit Hong Kong martial-arts franchise starring Donnie Yen, punched its way to a massive opening weekend in mainland China.

The fight flick, which was produced by Pegasus Motion Pictures and includes the stunt casting of Mike Tyson as a bone-crunching villain, grossed $71.5 million from Friday to Sunday, according to estimates from Beijing-based box-office monitor Ent Group.

The film's high-flying rollout has been marred by widespread allegations of fraud, however.

Several major media outlets, including the state-backed China Daily, carried reports Monday alleging that Ip Man 3's Chinese distributor, Dayinmu Film Distribution, orchestrated an audacious scheme to enhance the film's perceived performance.

The distributor is accused of bulk-buying discount tickets to its own film through various cinema chains across the country. The theater chains then scheduled multiple "ghost screenings" after midnight, with ticket prices set to the highest rates to ensure that the title racked up major revenue. China Daily ran a screen grab from a Chinese mobile ticketing service showing weekend screenings for Ip Man 3 running from 5:40 p.m. to 11:25 p.m. and charging about $6 per seat (38 Chinese yuan) — a common discounted online rate for a movie ticket in much of China — followed by two additional screenings at 12:50 a.m. and 12:56 a.m. asking for a suspiciously steep $31 per seat (203 yuan).

Some cinemas are alleged to have scheduled "sold-out" Ip Man 3 screenings every 10 minutes from midnight to 2 a.m. Reports of other alleged tactics include less desirable front row and aisle seats having been mysteriously sold out in advance to many Ip Man 3 screenings, and cinema chains in smaller regional markets reporting much larger grosses for the film than they have for other recent blockbusters.

Chinese distributors have been accused of deploying such tactics in the past. Most notably, Edko Films admitted to buying some 40 million tickets to last summer's CGI fantasy blockbuster Monster Hunt, which eventually unseated Furious 7 to become China's top-grossing film ever. The studio apologized and said those involved in the activity would be reprimanded.

Although bribing cinemas and mass-buying tickets to one's own films undoubtedly makes for hefty marketing expenses, the investment is believed to pay off if the mainstream Chinese attendance begins to regard the "hit" picture as an event film not to be missed.

Last October, China's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), which oversees the country's media and entertainment sectors, said that it would introduce stricter regulation to improve oversight of ticket sales at cinemas. Wrongdoers would be blacklisted and their names made public, the regulators said.

READ MORE China Box Office Pulls in Massive $1B in February, Topping North America
Both SARFT and China Film Group, the country's dominant state-backed distributor, issued statements Monday saying they have begun investigating unspecified allegations of box-office fraud.

"We have received many complaints about box office fraud," said the SARFT statement. "We will nullify box office returns as necessary and punish the cinemas, distributors and film companies involved, depending on the seriousness of the offense."

SARFT Film Bureau head Zhang Hongsen also posted an ominously worded message via WeChat, writing: "It was not easy for the Chinese film market to get to the point where it is today. We should treat it with respect."

China Daily's report further alleges that the inflation of Ip Man 3's gross may be part of an even larger accounting scandal, whereby the distributor's parent company, Kuali Group, sought to temporarily inflate the value of one or more of its publicly listed subsidiaries.

Despite the hand-wringing and industry turmoil surrounding Ip Man 3, the Chinese film sector also had much to celebrate over the weekend. Stephen Chow's conservation-themed romantic comedy, The Mermaid, became the first-ever film to gross more than $500 million in China.

The film crossed the half-billion threshold on Saturday and pulled in $9.9 million for the full weekend, lifting its record-breaking cumulative gross to $505 million (3.29 billion Chinese yuan) after 28 days in Chinese cinemas, according to data from Ent Group.

The astounding performance gives The Mermaid membership in an elite group of just six other films that have earned more than $500 million from a single territory, not accounting for inflation. They are: Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($928.8 million), Avatar ($749.8 million), Titanic ($600.8 million), Jurassic World ($652 million), The Avengers ($623.4 million), and The Dark Knight ($533.3 million).

The Mermaid's record run comes amid rapid growth in the Chinese movie market as a whole. In February, the Chinese box office took in $1.05 billion, surpassing North America's monthly haul ($798.6 million) for the second time in history. At its current rate of growth, China's theatrical market is expected to surpass North America as the world's largest sometime in early 2017.

On Feb. 20, The Mermaid pushed past Monster Hunt, from director Raman Hui, to become the all-time top-grossing film at the Chinese box office. Monster Hunt grossed $373.7 million last summer (2.44 billion Chinese yuan), unseating prior record holder Furious 7's $371.7 (2.43 billion yuan). (Local Chinese currency is used to track box-office records, as the exchange rate to the U.S. dollar fluctuates considerably).

Blending Chow's signature brand of ribald humor with a love story and an environmentalist message, The Mermaid centers on a billionaire playboy (Deng Chao) who buys a dolphin preserve with the intention of illegally developing it. A beautiful mermaid (played by newcomer Jelly Lin) plots to protect the aquatic paradise by seducing and assassinating the tycoon — but her plans go awry after she falls in love with him. The film was produced by Beijing Enlight Pictures and China Film Group.

The Mermaid can be expected to extend its record slightly over the coming weeks. According to a statement from China Film Group released last Thursday, the film has been granted permission to screen for an additional three months in Chinese cinemas. In China's highly regulated film market, the gesture is akin to giving Chow and his producers permission to take a few victory laps.

Zootopia, meanwhile, outshone local expectations, giving Disney Animation its biggest China opening ever with a second-place weekend haul of $23.5 million, according to Ent Group. Outstanding word of mouth surrounding the title — it currently has sky high ratings of 8.8 and 9.4, the highest of any title in wide release, on reviews aggregators Mtime and Douban, respectively — bodes well for a strong hold next weekend.

[GeneChing]

Celestial Tiger Catches TV Rights to Chinese Smash ‘Mermaid’
Patrick Frater
Asia Bureau Chief


COURTESY OF BINGO MOVIE DEVELOPMENT

MARCH 22, 2016 | 04:31AM PT

Celestial Tiger Entertainment has picked up first and exclusive pay-TV rights in South East Asia to “The Mermaid,” the watery ecological fantasy film that has become the highest-grossing movie of all time at the Chinese box office.

In a licensing deal with Sony Pictures Television, CTE picked up the rights for its channels in Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Singapore.

Made on a budget of $60 million, “The Mermaid” stars newcomer Jelly Lin Yun as a mermaid who is tasked to seduce a ruthless real estate developer played by Deng Chao, in order to save her kind’s natural habitat. Its gross to date is over $525 million in China.

In North America, with Sony as the title distributor, the film currently stands at $3.15 million.

CTE has also acquired China’s two other top performing Chinese New Year titles, “The Monkey King 2” and “From Vegas to Macau.”

This article made me double-check Box Office Mojo, and sure enough, Mermaid has earned $3mil+ in the U.S. Did anyone besides me see it?

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $3,160,702 0.6%
+ Foreign: $536,100,000 99.4%
= Worldwide: $539,260,702
Domestic Summary
Opening Weekend: $985,052
(#17 rank, 35 theaters, $28,144 average)
% of Total Gross: 31.2%
> View All 5 Weekends
Widest Release: 106 theaters
In Release: 32 days / 4.6 weeks

[GeneChing]

The Mermaid goes to Chinese TV.

China's $500M Blockbuster 'The Mermaid' Getting TV Adaptation
1:58 AM PDT 6/13/2017 by Patrick Brzeski


Courtesy of Sony Pictures
'The Mermaid'

Beijing-based iQiyi has paid an historic $61.8 million for exclusive streaming rights to the show, which sources in China say will be scripted and produced by Stephen Chow.

China's biggest movie ever, Stephen Chow's blockbuster The Mermaid, which earned an astonishing $527 million in 2016, is set to be remade for television.

Chinese production company Shanghai New Culture Media Group revealed in a regulatory filing that it has sold the exclusive online streaming rights to the forthcoming show to Beijing-based SVOD company iQiyi for $61.8 million (420 million RMB) — a record for streaming video rights in the country.

Local Chinese media sources are reporting that Chow will script and produce the TV drama adaptation himself.

New Culture Media also said in a second filing that it has sold to iQiyi the exclusive broadcast and online streaming rights to another forthcoming TV drama based on a Chow blockbuster — 2017's Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back, which was released over Chinese New Year in late January and earned $240 million in China. iQiyi paid $42.4 million (288 million RMB) for those rights, the filing said. Both of the new shows will be developed and produced by New Culture Media.

A representative from iQiyi declined to comment.

In early 2017, Shanghai New Culture Media Group, whose stock is listed on the Shenzhen exchange with a market capitalization of $1.3 billion, acquired a 51 percent stake in Premium Data Associates Limited, a production and rights management company founded and owned by Chow, for $195.7 million (1.33 billion RMB). Chow retained a 49 percent stake in the entity.

iQiyi, a subsidiary of Chinese search giant Baidu, has been on a Netflix-like buying spree since raising $1.5 billion in February. While the company continues to beef up on high-value local content like the new Chow shows, it also has been buying prestige U.S. content aggressively.

In March, iQiyi acquired exclusive Chinese online rights to 2017 Oscar favorites La La Land and Moonlight (it's unclear whether the latter will be able to clear Chinese censorship, however). And in April, iQiyi inked an output agreement with Netflix, which has been barred from setting up its service within China by Beijing's regulators. iQiyi said it hopes to import such Netflix originals as Black Mirror, Stranger Things, Mindhunter, BoJack Horseman and Ultimate Beastmaster — as soon as the necessarily government approvals are granted.

[GeneChing]

Although I didn't really care for Wolf Warrior 1, I suspect I'll enjoy Wolf Warrior 2 more than I enjoyed The Mermaid.

Wolf Warrior 2 beats The Mermaid to become China’s biggest ever hit at the box office
Patriotic action movie breaks Hong Kong fantasy romance’s record for takings in mainland cinemas just 12 days after release
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 08 August, 2017, 11:36am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 08 August, 2017, 3:25pm



Mandy Zuo
mandy.zuo@scmp.com


The action movie Wolf Warrior 2, the release of which coincides with the 90th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army, had taken 3.4 billion yuan (US$505.9 million) at the mainland box office by the end of Monday, beating the 3.39 billion record set by the Hong Kong fantasy romance The Mermaid last year.
Stephen Chow’s The Mermaid set to become mainland China’s highest-grossing film ever

The film, which stars martial artist Wu Jing, who also directed and co-wrote it, has proved to be a hit since its release on July 27 thanks to a screenplay that promotes nationalism and features Hollywood-like production values, local audiences say.
It has also made history with box office takings of over 200 million yuan every single day since the release.
Wu Jing, who directed and starred in the film, said there was a market for patriotism in Chinese cinema. Photo: Handout
In previous interviews with mainland media, Wu explained its success by saying: “Patriotism has been hidden inside the audience for a long time, and this sentiment needs to be released via a film and a role.”
The Hollywood directors Joe and Anthony Russo were consultants on the film and foreign actors – including American Frank Grillo, who played the villain, and Hong Kong-American Celina Jade, playing the female lead, made it a departure from traditional patriotic movies.
Celina Jade, the female lead. Photo: Handout
Domestic films have been suffering a box drought since Lunar New Year. Some analysts argue that the high quality and crowd-pleasing film has come just in time for the industry.
Patriotic Chinese blockbuster Wolf Warrior 2 packs a Hollywood-style punch at the box office

The first Wolf Warrior, released in 2015, grossed US$89 million in China. With similar nationalistic messages, it tells the story of a special forces officer, played by Wu, fighting foreign mercenaries hired by a drug lord in Xinjiang.

[Jimbo]

Then again all movies seem to suck these days, its probably just me getting old. Seems to me like if you have seen every movie made between 1977-1986 then there is no need to watch any other movie again ever.

I'm going OT right here, but I was feeling that way, too, until my interest reignited in the animated films of Japan's Studio Ghibli. For some reason I got away from them for around 14(?) years, but have come back to them and some newer ones I hadn't seen. I love the old-school hand-drawn animation, and overall, I've been impressed with not only the craftsmanship that has gone into them, but the stories as well. They run the gamut from fantasy, comedy, steampunk sci-fi, action, even straight drama, and it's clear they've had an influence on several American filmmakers, like James Cameron, for example. Some are more directed towards families, and some more towards adults, but all are good quality, solid movies, IMO. I only watch the Japanese language with English subtitles option, even if the movie is set in Europe (Castle in the Sky, Howl's Moving Castle, Tales from Earthsea, etc.), as (IMO) the Japanese voice actors generally seem to capture the personalities, emotions (and ages) of the characters better than the Hollywood actors' English dubs.

IMO, the hand-drawn animated characters have personalities, emotions, and come to life in a way that characters in purely CGI-driven Hollywood (and elsewhere) animated films lack. And even more than the actors in many live-action films.

There is still some originality in filmmaking. I don't know if Studio Ghibli will be producing any more films or are just on hiatus/restructuring. AFAIK, their last release was When Marnie Was There, which, oddly enough, has become my favorite movie, period.

All of this rambling to say that, yes, there is still freshness and originality in filmmaking, if you look for it.

[GeneChing]

Stephen Chow to Make ‘The Mermaid 2’ and TV Drama ‘The Mermaid’
BY CHINAFILMINSIDER OCT 18, 2017



Stephen Chow to Make ‘The Mermaid 2’ and TV Drama ‘The Mermaid’

Recently, “Call For Actors” for ‘The Mermaid 2″ appeared on the internet, which indicates that Stephen Chow has started preparing for the shooting of ‘The Mermaid 2.’ In addition, ‘The Mermaid‘ has been set to become a TV show, according to an announcement made by Stephen Chow and Shanghai New Culture Media in June during the Shanghai International Film Festival. The main plot of ‘The Mermaid 2’ was revealed early this year in an announcement from China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and TV (SAPPRFT). While ‘The Mermaid’ is more of a fantasy drama, ‘The Mermaid 2’ will be closer to a sci-fi drama.

I doubt I'll split the sequel & TV show off into separate threads as I have with some other films. There's just not as much interest in this. It's influential so we'll still track it.

Did anyone else even see this beyond me?