Watch out Hollywood, here comes Taiwan.
Legend of the Sacred Stone, a domestically produced movie featuring glove puppets, beat Hollywood's Toy Story 2 in terms of first-day box-office records in Taiwan, according to local film distributors.
Film producers here have hailed the results as "very encouraging" as this marks the first time in recent years that a locally produced film managed to beat a Hollywood production at the box office.
Legend of the Sacred Stone, which brings puppet Shu Huan-zheng's exploits to the big screen, grossed around NT$15.5 million nationwide on its first day, according to film industry sources.
In contrast, Toy Story 2, raked in a total of NT$11 million in at the box office revenues on its first day.
According to those who have seen the film, all the "charac-ters" appearing in Legend of the Sacred Stone are glove puppets. Yet they convey remarkably human-like emotions, thanks to puppeteer Huang Wen-che and his team of puppet masters.
To learn more about the popular film and its talented production team, please turn to our Features section on Page 11 in today's edition.
Monkey business
You've heard of group weddings at city halls and mass weddings at football stadiums, but have you ever heard of a zoo wedding for monkeys? It happened in Taiwan the other day.
The setting was the Shoushan Zoo (
The groom was a gift from the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (
However, there was one major glitch for the two gibbons getting hitched: neither of them was able to attend the ceremony itself. According to a zoo spokesman, "they were still adjusting themselves to their new environment."
Not to worry. Two toy monkeys stood in for the real couple and the "wedding" was a top attraction for adults and children visiting the zoo.
After pronouncing the two toy monkeys "husband and wife," the mayor gingerly pushed the two dolls together for a Kodak moment kiss -- and cameras flashed all around, according to a Chinese-language newspaper that covered the event.
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