Source: CCTV.com

10-06-2008 09:25

The two-month long summer vacation had plenty of movies on offer for students and movie buffs alike to choose from. Hit animation movie "Kungfu Panda" split the market share with historic epic "Red Cliff". The funny panda A Bao won legions of fans in China, but so too did Tony Leung, who plays general Zhou Yu in "Red Cliff".

"Kungfu Panda" combines two distinctively Chinese elements - Kungfu and the panda bear - to tell a story full of fun and wisdom.(File photo)

Taking the Chinese symbol Panda as the main character, the hit animation swept across China and the world this summer. The movie cost 100-million US dollars to make, and featured a whole host of stars to voice the characters, including Jack Black, Jackie Chan, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie and Lucy Liu. "Kungfu Panda" tells the tale of a cumbersome panda, who wards off invaders after learning Chinese Kungfu. Previous Hollywood movies telling Chinese stories have been criticized as being not true to Chinese traditions, but in "Kungfu Panda", the characters and settings, and especially the ideas and culture behind it are authentically Chinese. It's clear in this case the production team have really understood what China is all about.

"Kungfu Panda" combines two distinctively Chinese elements - Kungfu and the panda bear - to tell a story full of fun and wisdom. The flick climbed to number one at the North American box office in its the first week of release, surpassing "Shrek" and "Madagascar"'s benchmarks, to become the best selling movie from Dreamworks during the first week release. It raked in 135-million yuan, or nearly 20-million US dollars in China, becoming the best selling foreign movie in China this year.