High-budget flop bows out of the summer heat

By Zhang Rui
0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, July 17, 2018
A promotional poster for the fantasy epic "Asura" [Photo/ China.org.cn]


The fantasy epic film "Asura," which has been boasted to be one of the most expensive films ever made in China, has suspended its nationwide release since Sunday after investors saw financial disaster ahead.

"All investors agree and have decided to suspend the national release of 'Asura,' since 10 p.m. on July 15," said a statement released by the distributors of the film on Sunday afternoon. They also thanked those who supported the film, associated collaborators, the creative team and cast members, and apologized to those who wanted to see the film.

A producer of "Asura," Yang Zhenjian, told China.org.cn that the film's budget was 750 million yuan (US$112 million), one of the largest in Chinese filmmaking history. Yang added that they wanted to raise the bar for the Chinese film industry by doing this big-budget fantasy movie like no one had tried before.

Yang was also a producer of another Chinese fantasy blockbuster, Wu Ershan's "Painted Skin: The Resurrection," the second installment of the "Painted Skin" series. The film grossed 702 million yuan and became the highest-grossing domestic film in China for a short time in 2012, until the record was beaten by "Lost in Thailand" later that year.

But "Painted Skin: The Resurrection" gave Yang and his fellow investors, including Ningxia Film Group chairman Yang Hongtao, a push to do something else rather than "Painted Skin 3" – a much better fantasy based on Asian myth. 

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