by pjshimmer » Thu May 31, 2001 1:21 am
Looking at the box office grosses does help to some extend, but in the long run, it does little more than giving you a figure. Looking at Jackie Chan's movies between 1983-present, nearly ALL of them have grossed $30 million HK. Does that make ALL his movies among the best? Certainly not. A good example is thje severely hated Mr. Nice Guy. If you read the reviews for that movie here, everybody seems to dislike it. Yet in theatres it grossed more than that of Drunken Master II, no doubt 1 of the the best Jackie Chan movie in the eyes of the fan. Plus, classics like Fist of Legend, Tai-Chi Master, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Iron Monkey(1993) and God of Cookery have all earned relatively little in theaters, whereas again, nearly every Jackie Chan movie-good or bad-have grossed twice as much as those classics.<br><br>I am definitely not saying box office performances are irrelavent to determining good movies. However, it is true that most good movies perform relatively poor in theatres. Such is especially true in recent movies.<br><br>
<b>"Film will only become an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper."</b> -- Jean Cocteau
What's a good movie? <b>"You may love it; you may hate it. But let him who is not a ghost dare say that he has felt nothing."</b>