Sunday morning I got to attend an Asian Film Foundation screening of Stephen Chow's new film, Gong Fu (International English title: Kung Fu Hustle). The U.S. poster art is ridiculous and the trailer isn't all that seductive either, but ignore them both and go see this movie when it's released nation-wide in late April. I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard in a movie theater, and the kung fu was top-notch. For me, this movie cements Chow's reputation as the worthy successor to Jackie Chan. Stephen Chow has been starring in mo lei tau ("slapstick" or "makes no sense") comedies in Hong Kong since the early eighties and began directing his own successful films about a decade after that: the top four boxoffice earners in Hong Kong in 1992 were all Chow vehicles. He is arguably Hong Kong's biggest star and Asia's highest paid actor. Never heard of him? I'm not surprised. His only U.S. release was Shaolin Soccer (a.k.a. Siu lam juk kau), (2001). Here's where this blog gets nasty.
Disney-owned Miramax acquired the U.S. distribution rights to both this film and Zhang Yimou's Hero (Ying xiong) in 2002 and proceeded to sit on both films for two years. There were rumors that the Weinstein brothers delayed Hero's release because they didn't want it to compete in the Oscars with some of their own productions, such as Gangs of New York and Chicago, but they also believed the films were "too Chinese" to achieve any commercial success in the West. They tinkered with both pictures extensively: dubbing English dialogue, cutting scenes, adding western soundtracks, and holding multiple audience test screenings. Finally, Quentin Tarantino himself convinced Miramax that Hero (which by this time had broken box-office records across Asia) was actually a good film and should be released intact. Miramax still wanted a hook, so they asked Tarantino if they could attach his name to it. It was subsequently released here as "Quentin Tarantino presents Hero" even though he had nothing to do with it, and it was still cut down to 1 hour 38 minutes. Shaolin Soccer didn't fare nearly as well -- it only got a limited release as a poorly dubbed print, and was edited from 112 minutes to 80 minutes. Even so, it received positive reviews: an outstanding and extremely rare average rating of 100% on RottenTomatoes.com.
Alienated by Miramax, Stephen Chow has taken his latest offering to Sony Pictures Classics for American distribution, but that's no guarantee of non-intervention. We'll have to wait until April to find out how Sony treats Kung Fu Hustle. Until then, go rent the uncut Shaolin Soccer or any other Chow film and enjoy the mo lei tau!
After the movie/moderated discussion, Jon, Kama and I drove to Venice. We had tea and cakes in the garden at Jin Patisserie, another westside gem.
2 comments:
Jin Patisserie should have a happy hour.
Happy belated birthday.
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