Hong Kong Actor Stephen Chow Promotes His New Film 'CJ7' (Photo : Getty Images)
Mega-hit Chinese film "The Mermaid" moved one step closer to breaking the record of “Fast & Furious 7” and “Monster Hunt” with box office of 2 billion yuan ($307 million) after nine days of exhibition in mainland China.
It is just 440 million yuan short of “Monster Hunt’s” 2.44 billion and 430 million yuan short of “Fast & Furious 7’s” 2.43 billion. However, in terms of hitting the 2 billionth-yuan benchmark, the environment-comedy film, directed by Stephen Chow, had broken the records of the two blockbuster movies since it took “Fast” 15 days and “Monster” 25 days, reported Global Times.
The huge financial success of the mermaid movie shows the fast-paced growth of the Chinese film industry – now the second-largest in the world, next to the U.S. What “The Mermaid” earned in just nine days was the equivalent of the entire Chinese movie market in 2005.
However, the monumental rise of the local movie industry is not just because of higher quality of movies but also due to the growth of China’s middle class who now have extra money to regularly watch films.
But financial success is one thing and the critics’ and moviegoers’ nod is another thing. The critics did not give the movie five stars, while watchers were divided because of violent and sex scenes in “The Mermaid.”
Among the criticisms of fans of Chow’s 11th movie are that it has a simple and illogical plot. The comment of one douban user that the movie has an awkward combination of slapstick comedy and green message was supported by over 3,500 users, reported The South China Morning Post.
Even in the U.S. which is used to those types of scenes, the movie got an “R” classification, according to Dream Movie Australia’s post on Weibo. Dream Movie, also the film’s distributor in Australia and New Zealand, said that it has recommended to Sony, the North American distributor, to remove some violent scenes so it would get a “General Patronage” rating.
