![Stephen Chow and Tsui Hark, two legendary directors, strike a kung fu pose hand in hand at a press conference in Beijing on Jan. 31, 2016 to promote Stephen Chow's new film Mermaid. [China.org.cn]](U472P886T1D197897F12DT20160201170002.jpg "Stephen Chow and Tsui Hark, two legendary directors, strike a kung fu pose hand in hand at a press conference in Beijing on Jan. 31, 2016 to promote Stephen Chow's new film Mermaid. [China.org.cn]")
Stephen Chow and Tsui Hark, two legendary directors, strike a kung fu pose hand in hand at a press conference in Beijing on Jan. 31, 2016 to promote Stephen Chow's new film "Mermaid." [China.org.cn]
There are also several things in common between the two, for example, they both love to experiment with advanced film technologies and have wild imaginations.
Tsui Hark and Stephen Chow actually have a real collaboration in the future, the sequel of "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons," which is directed by Tsui, and produced and written by Chow. Shooting has been completed and it's now in post-production.
Chow is on a 20-city roadshow to promote "Mermaid" and released a new and ultimate trailer on Sunday, which indicated his new film is a science fiction comedy with an environment protection theme. But he chose to adopt "hunger marketing" this time to keep super secrecy and mystery by not letting anyone, including theater managers and film critics, see the film in advance at any premieres until it opens in theaters.
Previous reports suggested film distributors were betting on the film producing a box office return as high as two billion yuan (US$303 million). The film's marketing team said the box office presales are enormous which made Chow very happy, but exact figures were not revealed. "Mermaid" stars Deng Chao, Kitty Zhang Yuqi, Jelly Lin Yun, Show Lo and Kris Wu.
Chow has been absent from the big screen for three years as he focused on making this new film. His previous film, "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" (2013) made box office history as the highest grossing film released during the lunar New Year holiday and remains one of the top grossing films of all time, with domestic grosses of US$189.75 million and a worldwide total of US$215 million.
Chow's film faces two big rivals -- "The Monkey King 2," the sequel to the 2014 box office hit "The Monkey King" by CheangPou-soi and "The Man from Macau III," a Chinese action comedy film directed by Andrew Lau and Wong Jing. Industry observers predict that the 7-day Chinese lunar New Year holiday alone will produce two billion yuan in total grosses as audiences crowd theaters in the world's second largest film market.
The latest animated film "Kung Fu Panda 3" hit China's theaters on Friday as it has taken in 107 million Renminbi, or 16.1 million U.S. dollars, on its official opening day.
China's 2015 box office sales hit the record high of 40 billion yuan (6.3 billion U.S. dollars) on Thursday night, growing more than 48 percent from the same period last year, official data showed Friday.
