Joyeuese Fête Nationale à tout le monde!

Or is it Joyeux Fête Nationale?  Also, do I need the à or can I just go with “Joyeuese Fête Nationale tout le monde!”  Apologies to all of the francophone readers out there, it’s been a long time since I took high school French and even longer since I watched late-night movies on CBC French.  Hey, when you’re a 13 year-old boy, Fanny Ardant films can be quite, uh, intriguing even if you can barely understand what’s going on.  These days, of course, I’m sure 13 year-old boys have the ability to cast a wider net when it comes to that sort of thing.  Back in my day, the Sea of Titillation was not as vast and definitely not as bountiful.

What was I saying before I got distracted by remembrances of things past?  Oh right, Joyeuese Fête Nationale or, for the rest of us non-francophones, Happy Bastille Day!  On this day, 220 years ago, the French people stormed the Bastille and kick-started the process of turning France from a monarchy to a republic.

Let’s celebrate with some box office news and a few links.  But first, congratulations Kelly Chen:

• HK Standard: Baby brings early joy for Kelly Chen
• Channel News Asia: New mom Kelly Chen to return to work next month
  
• Straits Times: Kelly back at work in August
• Channel News Asia: Hong Kong star Kelly Chen gives birth prematurely
• Yahoo! Singapore: Kelly Chen gives birth to baby boy prematurely in HK 

FEATURES:

Simon Abrams interviews WRITTEN BY director Wai Ka-Fai

Electric New Paper on Michael Hui Kwoon-Man: ‘It’s like your chicken rice’

Carol “DoDo” Cheng Yu-Ling: Too much plastic surgery

PRODUCTION NEWS:

Chan Ho-Nam and Chicken together again, sort of:  ‘Affairs’ team to become ‘Gangsters’

Stephen Chow:

• Chow quits Green Hornet role 
• Stephen Chow Drops Out Of ‘The Green Hornet’
• ‘Green Hornet’: Chow out as Kato; Rogen stays
• Though the Jack Black superhero movie doesn’t sound much more promising, I think Stephen Chow dodged a bullet here.  I hate to be a “crow mouth” but I think a Seth Rogen backlash is brewing and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it manifests itself against this movie.

Jackie Chan, Jaden Smith start filming ‘Kid’

MY COUSIN TONY:

A Tale Of Two Tonys: The National (Abu Dhabi) on Tony Leung Chiu-Wai

My cousin Tony breaks his arm:

• Channel News Asia: Tony Leung suffers broken arm during martial arts training
• CRI English: Tony Leung suffers broken arm during kung fu training
• Associated Press: Tony Leung breaks arm in training for kung fu film

WEDDING NEWS:

Gigi Leung to wed?

RELATED: Xinhua article featuring photo of Gigi Leung with her man

Zhang Ziyi:

• Zhang Ziyi’s wedding postponed 
• Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi postpones wedding
• Ziyi-Vivi wedding postponed,says tabloid

STEFANIE SUN:

Stef’s head-over (clumsy)-heels in love

Stef Sun, Singapore’s Anita Mui

A more confident and self-assured Stefanie Sun returns to S’pore

Sun’s comeback concert

Stefanie Sun wows fans

Shiny style, subdued Sun

ASIAN FILMS IN NEW YORK CITY:

Ang Lee Heading To Lincoln Center

Asian Film Fireworks for the Fourth: Richard Corliss on the New York Asian Film Festival

BOX OFFICE RESULTS:

Weekend box office figures aren’t available yet but here are the numbers from Friday:

MURDERER, 36 screens, 2 days, HK$1.01 million total

WRITTEN BY, 32 screens, 2 days, HK$301,000 total

SHORT OF LOVE, 14 screens, 15 days, HK$3.62 million total

MURDERER is off to a fast start but it should fizzle out quickly as it’s getting killed here on LoveHKFilm (Kozo’s review, The Golden Rock blog post) and on Chinese-language discussion boards.  I’m always dispirited when I hear that a highly-hyped film looks like it’s a dud.  I believe that it’s these types of films that are killing the industry more than anything else as the casual HK film fan who only sees a handful of movies a year will pick up on the hype, watch the movie then have the notion that “HK films suck” reinforced in their minds.

In other box office news, reader Mark Shaver wrote in to report that Johnnie To’s VENGEANCE is hitting Hong Kong screens on August 20th.  It hasn’t popped up yet in the “Coming Soon” sections of various movie ticket buying sites but I’m sure it’ll show up in the near future.  In the meantime, you can console yourself with the news that THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON is coming to Hong Kong on December 17th, 2009 — just in time for the holidays!

芝麻綠豆 (SESAME SEEDS AND MUNG BEANS): 

Finally watched the Michael Jackson Memorial (hey, with my need for ten hours of beauty sleep and my two-hour, three-martini lunches, I can only devote 12 hours a day to watching TV).   A few thoughts:

• You’d have to have a very cynical mind and a very cold heart to think that the Paris Jackson speech was staged to launch a show business career.
• It’s normal to heap praise on someone upon their death but I think it went a little too far with the King of Pop.  The notion that without Michael Jackson, there would be no Tiger Woods, no Oprah Winfrey and no Barack Obama is giving Michael Jackson way too much credit.  I think Tiger’s skill has more to do with Tiger being a global icon than Michael Jackson paving the way.  I think Oprah Winfrey’s drive has more to do with her success than Michael Jackson and I think Barack Obama’s vision and ambition had more to do with his becoming President of the United States than Michael Jackson making “blacks” acceptable in the eyes of “whites”.
• It could be because I’m a big sports fan but when anyone says MJ to me, my first thought is always Michael Jordan not Michael Jackson.
• Ten to fifteen years from now — if I have the good fortune to find a lovely bride or if I finally save enough for a mail-order bride — when my kid asks me why people thought Michael Jackson was an all-time great, I think I’ll answer by playing “I Want You Back”.  Even now, forty-years after the song became a hit, it’s hard to believe that a ten year-old gave that performance.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 7:36 pm and is filed under Box Office Results, News Links, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, The Life and Opinion of the Webmaster Sanney. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.