Honestly? I'm a huge Jackie Chan and Jet Li fan, and I've been eagerly waiting for their collaborative project for much of the 10+ years that they were talking about it. However, I've been following this film and feeling somewhat worried doing so. That the Weinstein company is behind it is one worrying sign. The plot summaries are another. To top it all, both Jet Li and Jackie Chan have given chinese-language interviews and have basically said "this movie is catered towards a western audience, they're really not worth seeing for a Chinese audience", which from past experience and reading through the lines translates into "it's a cheesy B-flick by brainless American Hollywood execs who don't care enough about the movie to take it seriously."
I can just hear the faceless Hollywood executive now: "hey, let's make a cheesy poorly plotted movie and introduce all sorts of exotic-sounding pseudo-chinese concepts and assume an American audience is too dumb to care about it! But wait, we can't have J&J be the protagonists even though this is their movie, because the dumb American audiences must have a familiar white face as a protagonist otherwise they'll never see the movie! So let's throw in some random time travel and parallel universe shifting in for the hell of it!"
I'm probably still going to see it. Maybe I'm wrong and I'll be pleasantly surprised and they'll have made a good movie. Plus even if they don't we've still been waiting like 10+ years for the Jackie Chan/Jet Li matchup so hopefully it'll turn out well.
However that's a pretty different story. See, the problem isn't that it was "designed for a western audience", as I find the whole "the audiences are vastly different mutually incompatible" argument to be bullshit anyways. A good movie is a good movie, and it doesn't take anyone with a specific cultural background to recognize that.
The thing is Steven Chow is talented enough and actually cares about the movies he makes that he generally does a good job making them, and for Kung Fu Hustle the movie was still produced by the Hong Kong studios so he retained most, if not all, of the creative rights (I shudder to think of what demands would have been placed on him if there were American backers).
In my experience, most American Hollywood types look at movies like this and think they can do a half-assed job, so I've yet to see them produce a good movie of this genre. This movie has all the hallmarks of it. Well, of course I only have the trailer/plot synopsis/vague comments by actors to go on, so maybe/hopefully I'm wrong about it.
Yeah, I'll admit, I'm a little worried, but you know... Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon (the first ones) did actually turn out to be fun movies. So maybe, just maybe.. Plus, the choreographer is good, so we can hope...
At least it doesn't star Cuba Gooding Jr. That's usually always a bad sign.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-19 05:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-19 07:26 am (UTC)I can just hear the faceless Hollywood executive now: "hey, let's make a cheesy poorly plotted movie and introduce all sorts of exotic-sounding pseudo-chinese concepts and assume an American audience is too dumb to care about it! But wait, we can't have J&J be the protagonists even though this is their movie, because the dumb American audiences must have a familiar white face as a protagonist otherwise they'll never see the movie! So let's throw in some random time travel and parallel universe shifting in for the hell of it!"
I'm probably still going to see it. Maybe I'm wrong and I'll be pleasantly surprised and they'll have made a good movie. Plus even if they don't we've still been waiting like 10+ years for the Jackie Chan/Jet Li matchup so hopefully it'll turn out well.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-19 03:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-19 05:07 pm (UTC)However that's a pretty different story. See, the problem isn't that it was "designed for a western audience", as I find the whole "the audiences are vastly different mutually incompatible" argument to be bullshit anyways. A good movie is a good movie, and it doesn't take anyone with a specific cultural background to recognize that.
The thing is Steven Chow is talented enough and actually cares about the movies he makes that he generally does a good job making them, and for Kung Fu Hustle the movie was still produced by the Hong Kong studios so he retained most, if not all, of the creative rights (I shudder to think of what demands would have been placed on him if there were American backers).
In my experience, most American Hollywood types look at movies like this and think they can do a half-assed job, so I've yet to see them produce a good movie of this genre. This movie has all the hallmarks of it. Well, of course I only have the trailer/plot synopsis/vague comments by actors to go on, so maybe/hopefully I'm wrong about it.
(do check out this while you're at it).
no subject
Date: 2008-02-19 07:13 pm (UTC)Yeah, I'll admit, I'm a little worried, but you know... Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon (the first ones) did actually turn out to be fun movies. So maybe, just maybe.. Plus, the choreographer is good, so we can hope...
At least it doesn't star Cuba Gooding Jr. That's usually always a bad sign.