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July 18, 2006
STEPHEN CHOW GETS A DATE
Stephen Chow, who makes movies far too slowly for my taste, has announced that KUNG FU HUSTLE 2 is on hold (thank goodness) while he goes into production on A HOPE, his sci-fi movie. The flick is set to start shooting in August in China's Ningbo and Chow has revealed the plot. He'll play an astronaut who lands on another planet and, with the help of a robot, he develops a father-son relationship with a young alien. This could be horrible, and it certainly gives me the heebie jeebies just hearing about it, but Chow has forged gold out of lesser concepts than this (although you still can't convince me that 60 MILLION DOLLAR MAN was good) so he earns the benefit of my doubt.
July 18, 2006 at 08:35 AM in News | Permalink
Comments
Why are we breathing a sigh of relief that KH2 is being pushed back? Any bad set reports, didn't like KH1, or just don't feel that a sequel is necessary?
Posted by: Simon Abrams | Jul 18, 2006 9:58:54 AM
Eh, I just don't feel like a sequel is necessary, and I wasn't a huge fan of KUNG FU HUSTLE in the first place. And, despite how much potential for going wrong there is in the idea of a Stephen Chow sci-fi film about father/son bonding with a little alien kid, I'm more interested in seeing something new from Chow rather than a sequel.
Posted by: Grady Hendrix | Jul 18, 2006 10:29:13 AM
I guess all the martial artists who starred in KH do not want to return unless they are sufficiently paid. Afterall they occupied most of the screen time and were what made the movie worked.
Posted by: anz | Jul 18, 2006 10:44:36 AM
I still have hope for this movie. After all, Stephen Chow has always had the knack for taking "almost too zany to be good" concepts and making them click. Take Shaolin Soccer for example.
Posted by: studboi69 | Jul 18, 2006 11:10:42 AM
The kid thing worries me. Offhand, I can only think of a couple of HK action-comedies with major roles for children where the kid wasn't annoying. Iron Monkey, New Legend of Shaolin, maybe a few others. More often you get a lot of scenes like in Mr. Vampire 2 or Magic Crystal. (frankly, western movies don't have all THAT much better a track record)
The HK track record with sci-fi isn't stellar either, but A Hope has at least got to be better than Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I'll give Chow the benefit of the doubt.
Posted by: David Austin | Jul 18, 2006 3:09:02 PM
"Eh, I just don't feel like a sequel is necessary, and I wasn't a huge fan of KUNG FU HUSTLE in the first place. And, despite how much potential for going wrong there is in the idea of a Stephen Chow sci-fi film about father/son bonding with a little alien kid, I'm more interested in seeing something new from Chow rather than a sequel."
And since when can't a sequel be better than the first film? Or are we still running around with the cliché that "sequels are never better than the original" crap?
For the record, while Kung Fu Hustle was good, not great, I found the English dub version of the film to be far better than the Cantonese version and gave me a better time watching it. They did a most excellent job on that.
And yeah the premise does sound pretty damn weird for his newest flick, but you can't just jump on to an opinion with just a simple premise alone. Let's wait until we at least get screenshots of the sucker. :)
Posted by: the running man | Jul 18, 2006 3:59:48 PM
I swear someone said the movie's name was [river name + number]...
Posted by: quadshock | Jul 18, 2006 8:57:55 PM
I don't think KUNG FU HUSTLE is a film that need sequel.
(BTW, I have some e-mail to you, Grady. Would you like to read it?)
Posted by: no name | Jul 19, 2006 11:30:31 AM
The movie was supposed to be called Chang Jiang 7, meaning Yangtze River 7. Its supposed to be some Chinese satellite or something
Posted by: Lee | Jan 3, 2007 2:29:34 AM
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