'Return of the King' the year's top movie

Lord of the Rings: Return of the Kings stands out as the favorite movie of Taiwanese audiences this year, following Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which topped the movie list last year. Although the film is still showing at cinemas, it has reached NT$100 million in total ticket sales, leading all other top-selling movies which are already off screens. It is also the only movie this year to break the NT$100 million mark.

Cinema proprietors and film distributors are looking on this year as a disappointing one. Last year there was Harry Potter II, Spiderman and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which all broke the NT$100 million threshold. But this year, films such as X Men II, Bad Boys II and Matrix Reloaded fell short of box office expectations. Total box office takings this year have dropped by about 20 percent, said Joe Chang (張中周), president of Ambassador Theater (國賓戲院).

SARS and rampant piracy are the main reasons for this, Chang said and Taiwan's distributors for Hollywood films agreed. Apart from SARS, the big threat for cinema sales is still piracy, especially Internet downloading and illegal DVDs and VCDs, according to both Buena Vista Taiwan and Fox Taiwan.

In terms of movie types, films containing sci-fi elements or special effects are still the most popular. Examples of these among the top 10 foreign movies are: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Matrix Reloaded (No. 2), Pirates of the Caribbean, Die Another Day (No. 6), Matrix Revolutions (No. 7) and The Hulk (No. 9) and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.

Disney-Pixar's Finding Nemo was an exception, proving itself to be popular among both adults and children. It was the third-favorite foreign movie this year.

As for Chinese-language films, Zhang Yi-mou's (張藝謀) martial arts flick Hero (英雄) was top, taking NT$75 million, and even outselling Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can. This may give some encouragement to local producers and distributors. As long as there is quality production and a big enough cast, Chinese-language films are popular and will sell.

The No.2 best-selling Chinese language movie was Johnny To's (杜琪鋒) romance comedy Turn Left, Turn Right (向左走向右走). Surprisingly, this romance flick was more popular than Hong Kong mega hit, crime thriller Infernal Affairs III (無間道III).

The attraction of pop idols such as Gigi Leung (梁詠琪) and Takeshi Kaneshiro in Turn Left seemed to work better for Taiwan audiences, than the all-male crime drama Infernal Affairs. The segmented horror film Three (三更) stands at fourth place, taking some NT$10 million. Infernal Affairs II came in at fifth place, taking NT$9.47 million.

A real shame for local filmmakers and producers is that all top 10 Chinese-language movies are Hong Kong films. No Taiwanese films got into the top 10, including Lin Cheng-sheng's (林正盛) Cannes entry Robinson's Crusoe (魯賓遜漂流記).

Tsai Ming-liang's (蔡明亮) Goodbye, Dragon Inn (不散) and Lee Kang-sheng's (李康生) The Missing (不見) were released just two weeks ago and it is highly unlikely that they will gross over NT$1 million.

So far, none of the eight Taiwanese films made this year grossed more than NT$1 million. Considering an average Taiwanese film costs NT$20 million, this year looks like a very bad one for Taiwanese movies.