Not a bad opening weekend -- though
Fearless isn't competing against any blockbusters at the moment either. Still, taking the number 2 slot on its opening weekend is pretty respectable and hopefully it will stay strong for a few weeks before starting to lose some steam. It's a little disheartening to me that
******* Number Two is the film that beat out
Fearless, but not that suprising either -- I suppose in the pop culture we live in today, masochistic shenanigans trumps martial arts.
Gene, I still think you had the best interview with Jet that I've read so far in regards to
Fearless, but I'll link another one for everyone to check out:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/interviews/jet_li_fearless.html
It focuses on some of the key elements about
Fearless that differentiate it from most martial arts films and the aspects about the movie that I enjoyed the most:
1. There was no "villian" per se ... the true enemy was Yuanjia's own arrogance and motivations.
2. Foreigners were not demonized in an absolute sense -- yes, there were some dubious ones, but the Japanese fighter was very noble and honorable.
3. The moviations behind why people train in martial arts and how they use their training -- what is the ultimate goal of martial arts, etc.
I think alot of good discussion could be had about these various topics...
On a side note -- I'm still hoping to one day see the cut scenes with Michelle Yeoh. Also, Nathan East is sure making the rounds these days -- was strange seeing him on the screen twice in a week -- first in the Protector and now in this movie. Kung Fu/action movies have always used the "big lummox" type of characters before as villians -- Bruce Lee had Kareem and Bolo, Jackie had Billy Kiss, Takashi Miike recently used Bob Sapp, District B13 had the Yeti (Jerome Paquatte) -- I guess it makes for the classic David vs. Goliath scenario.