‘Apple of My Eye’ Sets Box-Office Record in Hong Kong
“You Are the Apple of My Eye” (????????????) over the New Year’s weekend became Hong Kong’s highest-grossing Chinese-language film, breaking a record previously held by “Kung Fu Hustle” (??). The movie from Taiwanese writer-director Giddens Ko, who goes by the pen name Nine Knives (???), has now earned 61.4 million Hong Kong dollars (US$7.9 million) since its Oct. 20 opening, according to Hong Kong’s Motion Picture Industry Association. That’s enough to overtake 2004?s action-comedy “Kung Fu Hustle,” starring Stephen Chow (???), which earned HK$61.3 million during its initial release.
“You Are the Apple of My Eye” is still in theaters and thereby sure to increase its final tally. In Taiwan, it pulled in 410 million New Taiwan dollars (US$13.5 million), according to Sony Music Entertainment Taiwan, one of the film’s producers. (It earned US$2.3 million in Singapore and US$1.4 million in Malaysia, according to Sony.) A coming-of-age comedy set in Taiwan about a group of high-school friends going through the pains of adolescence, “You Are the Apple of My Eye” struck a chord among audiences with its observations about youthful indiscretions and first love. Its success in Hong Kong is unusual because it’s a Mandarin-language movie in a Cantonese-speaking city, where action comedies with big-name stars are the mainstay.
You are the apple of my eye – Trailer #1 (with English subtitles)
Over the weekend, Mr. Ko issued a two-page letter in appreciation of the movie’s Hong Kong fans, while the film’s two stars — Ko Chen-tung (???) and Michelle Chen (???) — paid a visit to Hong Kong. They’re headed to Shanghai to promote the film in China, where it opens on Friday.
“You Are the Apple of My Eye” is the kind of sweet and romantic movie that teenagers should be going to see about coming of age and first love. Sex, violence and nudity are kept at an almost non-existent minimum.