[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.6 million USD Week)North America: 0.66 million USD Taipei: 16.5 NTDTaipei: 20 million NTDSource: The official websites of the three films, www.mtime.com, www.truemovie.com, www.imdb.com, www.taipeibo.com, and other related pressreports.9780230277670_11_cha09.indd1999780230277670_11_cha09.indd1993/8/201112:413/8/201112:41199 200 In the Name of Asia film s simultaneous release in Asia and the US.More hyperbolic languageis used on the official website of A Battle of Wits, which is described as the great unity of the Asian elites. However, the so-called Asian elitesrefers to more or less the same cluster of film industry celebrities andveterans in transnational martial arts blockbusters: Seven Swords andA Battle of Wits employed the same music director, Kenji Kawai fromJapan, and the same action director, Tung Wai from Hong Kong.ThePromise obviously wanted to utilize the talent of Crouching Tiger, HiddenDragon s dream team : it employed the same cinematography director(Peter Pau) and art director (Tim Yip).The problem remains whether the revenues corresponded to sucha scale of investment and operation.Due to the difficulty of collect-ing comprehensive and precise box-office data, there is only scatteredinformation to sketch a general profile.In the most important marketfor these films, Mainland China, the box-office performance was barelysatisfactory.The box-office receipts of The Promise, having the highestbudget among three films, were about 140 million RMB, while the rev-enues of the other two were below 100 million RMB.All of them failedto go beyond the 200-million RMB record of Heroes.In South Korea andJapan, two significant markets for Seven Swords and A Battle of Wits, theirbox-office revenues were also far below expected.Both films needed tocount on adding up the returns from Europe to make even.The Promise,among others, had the biggest ambition to conquer the US market,where it only received a meager 0.7 million USD at the box-office.This was a huge difference in comparison with Crouching Tiger, HiddenDragon, which made more than 120 million USD in North America.Ingeneral, adding up the ticket sales worldwide the investors of the threefilms may not have lost money, but obviously the films did not quitelive up to their expectations.The film textsIn terms of genre, Seven Swords is a martial arts film, while The Promiseis close to a fantasy movie, and A Battle of Wits is a fictional historicalepic.However, the three films share a number of common generic ele-ments.Seven Swords, like most other martial arts films, is an adaptationof a martial arts novel set in a specific historical period (the early yearsof the Qing Dynasty).However, the film also relies on fantasy in con-structing the main action around the treasured swords and their magi-cal power.On the other hand, The Promise and A Battle of Wits rely quiteheavily on swordplay and combat choreography to advance the mainplot as in conventional martial arts movies.We can examine this topic Ti Wei 201in more detail by looking at specific plot details and action sequencesof the films.Among others, The Promise is closest to fantasy and myth: a beauti-ful Princess Qingcheng of an unknown kingdom is imprisoned byDuke Wuhuan (who murdered the King) and is eventually rescued byGeneral Guangming and his slave Kunlun.This straightforward nar-rative frame is filled by other surreal elements and characters such asthe Goddess Manshen, primitive-like barbarians, and Kunlun himself,who has extraordinary physical power, to name only a few examples.The most fantastic sequence appears in the scene where Kunlun rescuesPrincess Qingcheng and pulls her up by a rope from an iron cage; asthey try to escape, the Princess soars and becomes a human kite. The scene may have a stylish and ornate appearance but in terms ofstory-telling it looks awkward and is obviously unnecessary for thenarrative to progress.From characterization, costume, use of color, set-ting, and acting to plot and action, the film exhibits highly ornate andextremely formalist qualities; by comparison, the screenplay seemsmuch weaker.In a similar manner, in Seven Swords, two mediocre youths from theMartial Arts Village (Wu Zhuang), Han Chibang and Wu Yuanying,receive two magical swords and suddenly became skillful martial artsexperts.They then join forces with five other martial arts masters toform a group called Seven Swords to fight against the notorious GeneralFire-Wind sent by the Emperor.The change happens hastily in the nar-rative and lacks proper explanation.In addition, the fact that the mostsenior member of the Seven Swords, Chu Zhaonan, and the female slaveof the General, Green Pearl, are both from ancient Korea (which onlyhappens in the film version) lacks credibility and occasionally causesconfusion.Their ethnic identity is irrelevant to their roles in the storyand the rest of the film does not really develop this ethnic motif.Asfor A Battle of Wits, since the main story is derived from the history ofChina s Warring State era, the film is the most realistic among the threein question [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.6 million USD Week)North America: 0.66 million USD Taipei: 16.5 NTDTaipei: 20 million NTDSource: The official websites of the three films, www.mtime.com, www.truemovie.com, www.imdb.com, www.taipeibo.com, and other related pressreports.9780230277670_11_cha09.indd1999780230277670_11_cha09.indd1993/8/201112:413/8/201112:41199 200 In the Name of Asia film s simultaneous release in Asia and the US.More hyperbolic languageis used on the official website of A Battle of Wits, which is described as the great unity of the Asian elites. However, the so-called Asian elitesrefers to more or less the same cluster of film industry celebrities andveterans in transnational martial arts blockbusters: Seven Swords andA Battle of Wits employed the same music director, Kenji Kawai fromJapan, and the same action director, Tung Wai from Hong Kong.ThePromise obviously wanted to utilize the talent of Crouching Tiger, HiddenDragon s dream team : it employed the same cinematography director(Peter Pau) and art director (Tim Yip).The problem remains whether the revenues corresponded to sucha scale of investment and operation.Due to the difficulty of collect-ing comprehensive and precise box-office data, there is only scatteredinformation to sketch a general profile.In the most important marketfor these films, Mainland China, the box-office performance was barelysatisfactory.The box-office receipts of The Promise, having the highestbudget among three films, were about 140 million RMB, while the rev-enues of the other two were below 100 million RMB.All of them failedto go beyond the 200-million RMB record of Heroes.In South Korea andJapan, two significant markets for Seven Swords and A Battle of Wits, theirbox-office revenues were also far below expected.Both films needed tocount on adding up the returns from Europe to make even.The Promise,among others, had the biggest ambition to conquer the US market,where it only received a meager 0.7 million USD at the box-office.This was a huge difference in comparison with Crouching Tiger, HiddenDragon, which made more than 120 million USD in North America.Ingeneral, adding up the ticket sales worldwide the investors of the threefilms may not have lost money, but obviously the films did not quitelive up to their expectations.The film textsIn terms of genre, Seven Swords is a martial arts film, while The Promiseis close to a fantasy movie, and A Battle of Wits is a fictional historicalepic.However, the three films share a number of common generic ele-ments.Seven Swords, like most other martial arts films, is an adaptationof a martial arts novel set in a specific historical period (the early yearsof the Qing Dynasty).However, the film also relies on fantasy in con-structing the main action around the treasured swords and their magi-cal power.On the other hand, The Promise and A Battle of Wits rely quiteheavily on swordplay and combat choreography to advance the mainplot as in conventional martial arts movies.We can examine this topic Ti Wei 201in more detail by looking at specific plot details and action sequencesof the films.Among others, The Promise is closest to fantasy and myth: a beauti-ful Princess Qingcheng of an unknown kingdom is imprisoned byDuke Wuhuan (who murdered the King) and is eventually rescued byGeneral Guangming and his slave Kunlun.This straightforward nar-rative frame is filled by other surreal elements and characters such asthe Goddess Manshen, primitive-like barbarians, and Kunlun himself,who has extraordinary physical power, to name only a few examples.The most fantastic sequence appears in the scene where Kunlun rescuesPrincess Qingcheng and pulls her up by a rope from an iron cage; asthey try to escape, the Princess soars and becomes a human kite. The scene may have a stylish and ornate appearance but in terms ofstory-telling it looks awkward and is obviously unnecessary for thenarrative to progress.From characterization, costume, use of color, set-ting, and acting to plot and action, the film exhibits highly ornate andextremely formalist qualities; by comparison, the screenplay seemsmuch weaker.In a similar manner, in Seven Swords, two mediocre youths from theMartial Arts Village (Wu Zhuang), Han Chibang and Wu Yuanying,receive two magical swords and suddenly became skillful martial artsexperts.They then join forces with five other martial arts masters toform a group called Seven Swords to fight against the notorious GeneralFire-Wind sent by the Emperor.The change happens hastily in the nar-rative and lacks proper explanation.In addition, the fact that the mostsenior member of the Seven Swords, Chu Zhaonan, and the female slaveof the General, Green Pearl, are both from ancient Korea (which onlyhappens in the film version) lacks credibility and occasionally causesconfusion.Their ethnic identity is irrelevant to their roles in the storyand the rest of the film does not really develop this ethnic motif.Asfor A Battle of Wits, since the main story is derived from the history ofChina s Warring State era, the film is the most realistic among the threein question [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]