The period wuxia drama "Brotherhood of Blades 2" advanced its release date by three weeks due to its producers' confidence in its quality.
"Brotherhood of Blades II: The Infernal Battlefield," directed by Lu Yang and starring Chang Chen, Yang Mi, Zhang Yi, Lei Jiayin, Xin Zhilei and Chin Shi-chieh, is actually a prequel to the critically-acclaimed Ming dynasty period martial arts drama "Brotherhood of Blades" (2014).
It went through more than 1,000 advanced screenings last weekend and received rave reviews as some described it as a Ming Dynasty version of "House of Cards" plus "Jason Bourne."
Its wide release date was also advanced from the original Aug. 11 to July 19, a record change in Chinese film history for a scheduled summer film release, indicating the producers' great confidence during the fiercely competitive summer season as normally many Chinese films would push back the release date to avoid competition with Hollywood or other domestic blockbusters.
Audiences can rest assured of a great script, written by the first installment's writer Chen Shu, mixing genres of wuxia, secret agents, detective, political conspiracy and action elements with elaborate props and martial arts choreography, a China.org.cn film critic said.
Set in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the story follows Shen Lian (Chang Chen), who is a secret policeman of the corrupt imperial government guard and trapped by a conspiracy while on a mission. To prove his innocence, he seeks the truth with a young female artist and activist called Bei Zhai (Yang Mi) and his colleague Pei Lun (Lei Jiayin).
The previous installment "Brotherhood of Blades" cost about 30 million yuan to make in 2014 and grossed 93 million yuan eventually, which was a reasonable result. However, many movie fans and critics still believe it was downplayed at that time and the box office gross should have been bigger considering its high quality.
Director Lu Yang said he would not worry about money from investors this time since the big-name director and producer Ning Hao and his company Dirty Monkey Films are behind the project. The producers invested 80 million yuan in the film and hoped it would gross more than 400 million yuan in return. Observers predicted the box office gross for the second installment would be at least double the first film.
Now the statistics are out: it raked in 38 million yuan for the opening day on Wednesday, a quite good achievement on a normal working day in a gloomy Chinese film market, and wuxia genre films are currently at a low point of Chinese film history. Its producers announced their excitement in a news release on Thursday, saying the first day box office result was five times of what the first installment took in for the opening back in 2014.
Lu Yang attended the film's premiere in Beijing last Sunday with cast members including Chang Chen, Yang Mi and Lei Jiayin. Rather than referring the film as an actioner, actress Yang Mi called it a "pure love story."
"Brotherhood of Blades 2" will be competing with new comedy films "Father And Son" and "Our Shining Days" during the coming weekend.
Source: china.org by zhang rui
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