Protest in Guangzhou: Why would you burn garbage?
Barbie Spa: For the cosmopolitan plastic beauty in you
Obama in China: Long gone, and still headlinin'
Lot o' Hotpot: Three Travellers
Cinematheque: Mulan is finally Chinese again! (and other film news)
The Shanghai Daily has declared The Year of the Yao "a bomb" -- which means the movie has now attained that status on both sides of the globe. The story says:
Seven local theaters showing The Year of the Yao have taken in only 80,000 yuan (US$9,877) since the movie opened in the city on July 15."For each of the first three screenings, there were only several people sitting in the cinema," said Wang Tao, a manager at Stellar Cinema City. "Although the movie is actually an excellent one and has earned good reviews abroad, we had no choice but to reduce the number of scheduled screenings."
Managers at the Paradise Warner Cinema City said only 10 to 20 people have taken in each screening. Neither cinema would reveal the exact number of tickets they have sold for the movie so far.
Li Lan, a manager at Paradise Warner Cinema City attributed the movie's poor box office to a lack of promotions, and strong summer blockbuster competitors like Madagascar and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
You can blame Brad Pitt if you want to. But Shanghaiist will tell you the reason we didn't see The Year of the Yao in the theater -- we bought a perfect version of the movie on DVD for 7 kuai at our local movie shop. Haven't watched it yet, though. Been too engrossed in the first seasons of Veronica Mars and Lost -- also available at the local movie shop for 7 kuai a disc.
(Note to Shanghaiist readers: We are only up to episode nine of Lost. No spoilers in the comments section, please.)
Also on Shanghaiist:
The big man heads to the big screen
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Hi Dan, I watched Yao the Movie on DVD last night, it was alright, but be warned there are snippets cut out of this version. At the begining it starts of with a cool "Kid Stays in the Picture" kind of montage of pics that is going to give you a brief history of China. It starts off with building of the Great Wall, then *bad edit* we suddenly jump to the 70s and ping pong diplomacy. Well, maybe nothing really happened that was notable during that period of history anyway. Also, there are some segements that are in Chinese with no English subtitles, nothing too bad but you do miss out on some portions if you don't understand Mandarin.