By Mark Pollard | Published February 15, 2008

KUNG FU DUNK, a basketball-themed actioner starring Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou recently opened relatively strong in Chinese territories amid tough competition from Stephen Chow’s sci-fi family drama CJ7.

In its opening week in Hong Kong, DUNK came in number three at the box office with over $650,000, behind Disney’s ENCHANTED with $1.4 million and CJ7, another Chinese-language opener that unsurprisingly hit the top spot with $2.2 million.

While Chow is uncharacteristically focusing his attention largely on the mainland Chinese market with a mainland-filmed E.T. clone, that according to Variety lacks the nonsense humor and cartoon action of hits like KUNG FU HUSTLE and SHAOLIN SOCCER, Chou is attempting to fill in as Hong Kong’s latest action star. Budgeted at $10 million, DUNK appears to be well on its way to commercial success, no doubt helped greatly by Chou’s legions of fans.

In the film, Chou plays a Shaolin-trained orphan who takes up basketball and applies his kung fu skills to the game. A review over at Twitch suggests that the bulk of the action, choreographed by wire master Ching Siu-tung, is in place to largely enhance the game action, as opposed to the brief fighting that takes place off the court and that it makes for an uneasy combination. That said, the reviewer says that Jay appears “comfortable in his role as a martial artist” and that under the direction of Ching, he is “made to look really believable as he trashes countless gangsters.”

Speaking to the media prior to the film’s launch, director Kevin Chu expressed confidence in Chou’s abilities as a martial arts star. “You will get a shock from this movie because his kung fu is good,” Chu promised, adding that with Jet Li and Jackie Chan concentrating on more artistic films, now is the time for a new martial arts star to rise.

I’m going to step into editorial mode for a moment and suggest that Chou is doomed to failure if he thinks he can replace Jet Li or Jackie Chan. He has already stated that after promoting the release of KUNG FU DUNK he plans to refocus his attention on his music career for a year. Like a lot of Hong Kong’s current crop of young “actors,” Chou’s attention is too divided to develop a serious career in action filmmaking. There is a long tradition of Hong Kong actors also being pop stars but few of them have the respect among action fans that Jackie Chan and Andy Lau have earned by working hard enough to successfully pull off dual careers without compromise. Chou could make it if he applied himself but at this point I’d sooner put my money on Wu Jing, who already has the experience and training and has remained focused.

I can’t speak for Hong Kongers but Americans already have enough lightweight, pop celebrities of our own who can step into a wire harness and flap their arms around. We don’t need to import anymore. Regarding action talent, give us someone who is willing to actually work towards being an action star instead of being another part-timer.

Sources:
Asia News Network
Twitch
Variety