There are now many regular multiplexes with a single IMAX screen attached as well. Most of these places can show a 35mm print on the IMAX screen. The image does not fill the screen but is quite large and the sound is better. (much much better) The theatre will run it’s IMAX films and then for a late or a midnight show have the most popular feature on the IMAX screen as well. The IMAX movies don’t do so well late at night and hey the theatre is open anyway so theatres use an extra print to have an extra showing or two on the weekends. I got to see Star Wars, RotJ, and Titanic on the IMAX in NYC. Pretty Sweet.
Read a review heaping most of the blame in the “not bothering to learn their Mandarin” area on Chow Yun Fat, saying he actually lapsed into another language on occasion (Cantonese?).
Where at? 'Cos if you were at the Neptune, I was there too. Pretty cool, huh?
In my review of the film (see sig), I talk a bit about the flying, and the tradition in Chinese storytelling (going back well before the advent of cinema) wherein strong devotion to martial-arts disciplines can convey extreme powers upon the practitioner. For Westerners who aren’t used to it, it certainly can seem a little odd.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t shortsighted, though. As I say in my review, denigrating the film for its flying is like making fun of Star Wars because the ships shouldn’t make noise in the vacuum of space. It’s just part of the world of the film.
Yes! I was at the Neptune! Another doper in the audience, and I didn’t know it!
It was very cool. The people there that night were the kind of people I like to watch movies with. Sophisticated enough to appreciate excellence, but not too snobbish to like a great fight scene.
Are you over-reacting? yes
Did I laugh? yes
Why? Hard to answer at first, but I realised I was laughing at the sheer joy of it. Like a child’s delighted lauigh if you will. Sure they were unrealistic by today’s Hollywood standards but that was wonderful.
Though I don’t really like your use of the word Superpowers. I think the movie reflected more that people who had attained a certain level of discipline and enlightenment were above normal beings. More a cultural belief than a talent.
My housemate says he laughed at the bamboo scene because of the ease in which the hero is fighting “almost bored, almost mocking.”
But neither of us were laughing at the perceived lack of realism. Hardly. I think you’re being a bit sensitive.
We laughed. We oohed. We aahed. We went ‘cooool’ a lot.
1980: Empire Strikes Back comes out, "O Canada" was proclaimed the national anthem of Canada, US boycotts Moscow Olympics, former actor Ronald Reagan becomes the 40th US president, Pac-Man comes out, Lindy Chamberlain claims a dingo took her baby, John Lennon murdered.I can understand mainstream audiences laughing at the first aerial flight scene, simply because it takes most of them by surprise and looks a bit hokey. But once they accept it as part of the movie, nobody laughs (except as some folks noted, during the intentionally funny bits).
I didn’t find it disrespectful, either, and I’m Chinese.
The wirework was poorly done. No question there.
But was it funny … certainly not. The film, in setting itself as a legendary tale, allows us to suspend disbelief over the observed abilities of the characters.
This is true within the Matrix as well. The plot sets us up so we can accept the abilities of the characters to bend the laws of physics around them (it is a key plot device).
This is NOT true in many movies where the wire work is added because it looks cool (see Charlie’s Angels (aka PG-13 porn) and Art of War)
About the language problems… I heard that Michelle Yeoh has the most noticeable accent, but it doesn’t really affect her performance; it’s probably her best ever. Chow, though, often looks and sounds like he’s rattling off memorized lines, and does slip briefly into Cantonese at least once: during the first fight against Jade Fox he says (forgive the romanization) “bu ji do” instead of the proper “bu zhi dao.” His “wai!” in the bamboo forest scene is a Cantonese pronunciation too, but seeing as that’s only about as much of a word as “hey” is, it’s forgiveable. I really think the overall effect wasn’t so good, though. While Chow’s presence was cool when he wasn’t speaking, I can’t help but wondering if, on the whole, the first-choice casting of Jet Li would’ve been better. Chow’s the better actor, but Li’s physical skills are obviously better, and the fact that Mandarin is his native tongue might well have obliterated Chow’s edge in the acting department. Oh well, I guess we’ll never know.
PS: Region 3 DVD, supposedly identical to the future R1 release, is out on Monday… I’ll probably own the thing before I ever get to see it in the theater!
Just saw it here in Boston and no one that I heard was laughing during the flying and such. I think most people were just in awe with what we were watching. Great movie all around.
IMO of myself and my family, the special effects got in the way. But then the whole movie was extremely poor and couldn’t get out of its own way, so at least it was consistent in that respect. The storyline couldn’t even figure out who the main character was supposed to be (and what an utterly cliched storyline it was).
My wife & son were both dying to get out after about 15 minutes. I made them sit through the rest and I sincerely regret it.
The photography was beautiful. Every other last thing about it was an utter, complete waste of time.
Short attention spans, huh?
I don’t think you are overreacting and you have ever right to be pissed. Anyone who laughed for the reasons you assume are a-holes and, as you said, probably arrogant jackasses who think they are better than some other people from another culture. I thought the fight scenes were extremely imaginative and new - for me anyway. They sure beat the tired old shit from van Damme and Seagal et al.
I do think you’re overreacting, at least in considering it a cultural slight.
I’m not Chinese, but have seen a small selection of older (and much lower budget) Chinese “kung fu” flicks involving elaborate wire work, and frankly the cheaper flicks usually did it more seamlessly. Sure, the fight scenes in CTHD were spectacular, but I found it extremely difficult to suspend disbelief through the rooftop scenes, especially as they could so easily have been blended in better. Perhaps there was a certain level of unfamiliarity with the genre, but IMHO it jarred against the flow of the movie (unlike, say, the restaurant fight scene, or even the bamboo scene).
As to why people were laughing at the guy with a knife sticking out of his forehead, it was because it “looked funny”. Not a very intelligent nor a respectful response, but there you have it. I’ve seen the same response in other action flicks, and at least, unlike Arnie’s or Sly’s films, it wasn’t accompanied by an inane quip ([Schwarzenegger] “Not tonight – you have a headache.”[/Schwarzenegger])
Plus, of course, there were a number of intentionally comic moments/lines, at which point laughter was appropriate. If some people in the audience missed the humor, hey, their loss.
I don’t understand what you’re getting all assed up about. I saw it (and am completely unfamiliar with the genre, “flying” myth, etc.) and if I laughed during the first fight scene, it was from delight and surprise. Not, “HA ha, two girls a-fightin and a-flyin, how stupid!”, but a “Wow, what an amazing scene”. I think you’re making way too many assumptions about the audience you were part of.
I was annoyed at the laughter as well. But I can understand it as being a sort of default reaction to the unexpected in a film; the movie provoked a childlike sense of wonder, and the reactions of the audience were kind of childlike.
But audiences are weird. When “Airplane!” first came out, I remember sitting through a whole screening of it in Rhode Island, where I was the only one lauging. In a packed house.
Which is why test screenings mess up so many movies that could otherwise be decent… but I digress…
I only laughed during the one scene where they were flying over the water, because I kept thinking “Look, it’s Jesus.” I know it wasn’t nice, but I couldn’t help myself.
“Jesus was Chinese.” Heh.
[sub]Yeah, I’ll go take my medication now…[/sub]
I laughed my ass off watching this movie.
I wanted to see this movie based purely on the buzz and hype surrounding it, and that’s usually a mistake. I am NOT a fan of this genre, but every review I read said something like “Even if you’re not a fan of the genre, this movie is not to be missed.” So I went, and was really let-down.
My main beef with CT,HD is that it (generally) takes itself so damn seriously. Previous posters have compared this film to The Matrix and Superman – two movies I have seen and did not laugh at. Why? Well, I don’t think ANYBODY takes a movie starring Keanu Reeves seriously, and I didn’t take Superman seriously because, geez, the man is wearing blue, skin-tight pajamas.
Make no mistake about it, I laughed at the fight scenes in CT,HD because I thought they were corny and ridiculous – not out of some uncontrolled reaction to the “wonder” or “beauty” of the scene. And it isn’t racial snobbery – I’d be laughing if the characters were Caucasian, too. Granted, that doesn’t come across as “enlightened” or “culturally aware,” but the laughter I heard in the theater (Asians included) when I saw CT,HD was totally warranted.
I saw it last Friday & don’t recall hearing anybody laugh at that scene. I did laugh at the funny parts, though. LOVED CT,HD…“I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me.”
I’ve watched so many kung fu movies that the flying didn’t seem all that unusual to me. My bubble would seriously be burst if I ever actually studied kung fu & found out that they don’t teach you that.
I wish I could have just laughed at that crap. I hate wire work in a serious movie. ‘Twin Warriors’ with Jet Li(trying to pick a fairly well seen movie) used pointless and absurd wire work to set a scene of fun, and whimsey. For a more well known example, how many people laughed in Blues Brothers when the car drove of the end of the road, and fell about 5 miles to earth. Most people I know laughed at it, becuase it was supposed to be laughed at. Humor is very much based on the absurd, and CT-HD had absurd, unexplained wire work, hence people are going to laugh.
Movies like that you are supposed to laugh at. So why are people not allowed to laugh at the same crap in CT-HD? It was never explained in the story, made a bunch of fight scenes crappy(the Yeoh-Ziyi fight scene in the temple by far the best, because they didn’t do any pointless crap), and was not done very well(they went flying over houses, then took a step on the thin air between them). And don’t start that you don’t understand the culture crap, I love Kung-Fu movies, and have watched a hell of a lot of them, the wire work in CT-HD just took away from what could have been one of the best movies of all time, as far as I and all my Kung-Fu movie loving friends were concerned.