Stephen Chow interview on the Onion's AV Club

[roddy]

Link

Make for interesting reading, especially as it approaches him just as a filmmaker, rather than a HK / Chinese film-maker. Some interesting bits about the casting of Kung-Fu Hustle.

Qiu Yuen is not the one who came for casting—she was accompanying a friend. She sat behind with the cigarette, and I said, "Who is that woman with the cigarette on her mouth?"

EDIT: And there's a review of Kung-Fu Hustle as well

[woodcutter]

Mr Chow says in that interview that what really drives him on is making different movies form the ones he made before.

Is it just me, or is "Kungfu hustle" just "Shaolin soccer" minus the ball?

I still enjoyed it though, even in Cantonese with Korean subtitles, which means I don't catch a great deal.........

[TSkillet]

Has anyone seen the US release yet? I want to see it badly, but I don't want to . . . if it's dubbed. If it's dubbed, I might just have to get one of my friends in HK to send me the DVD. . . so anyone know if it's dubbed?

[gougou]

so anyone know if it's dubbed?

Oh, so in the States, not all foreign movies get dubbed?

[TSkillet]

of course not. Hero wasn't dubbed. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon wasn't dubbed. Actually, I think the general rule is that foreign moveis are subtitled rather than dubbed - but with lighter fare (say, Shaolin Soccer, or Jackie Chan movies) then they tend to dub them.

In the Onion interview they do mention that the movie is subtitled though - so excellent,

[gougou]

That's so sad... I'd have never imagined that when it comes to foreign languages, there would be a single field where the US would be more advanced than Germany. The troubles you have to go through to find movies in their original version there...

[TSkillet]

That's odd. In my German movie viewing experience 100% of the foreign movies I've seen in Germany have been shown in their original language.

Of course, that was one movie (Coming to America) in 1991. But still.

Foreign movies in the US are a lot more likely to play in art house theatres instead of mass release (CT,HD and Hero were big exceptions) and those filmgoers tend to prefer subtitled movies.

[gougou]

Yeah, that's right, undubbed movies are more likely to be found in arthouse theaters in Germany, too. Yet these are getting rarer by the day, and (although I haven't had the opportunity to check since I started studying Chinese) I have never heard of films in an "exotic" language as Chinese being shown there.