Long time no see, everyone!
I’ve been super-busy lately with work (and life in general) so have kind of neglected (albeit unwillingly) this blog the past few months. Unfortunately, there just isn’t enough time in the day to keep up with everything that goes on, which is a fact that I hate to admit but have slowly started to come to terms with in recent weeks. Because of this, I would like to take the opportunity to thank those of you who continue to follow my blog and continue to give me words of encouragement, despite the horrible job I’ve been doing with maintaining this blog. I definitely appreciate the support and will try as hard as I can to carve out more time to update this blog whenever possible!
Ok, so with that out of the way…..
I’ve been meaning to post up something about this topic for months, but just never got around to it. A few months back, I had written a post about the HK movies that I wanted to watch this year. I’m sure those who have been following my blog for a while or have been following my posts in other forums probably noticed that there was one particular movie noticeably absent from my list (which was a small list to begin with, lol) – the movie version of The Menu (HKTV’s popular TV series that is also one of my favorite HK television series of all time). At the time I wrote that particular post, the exclusion of The Menu from the list was actually deliberate on my part, as the movie was still in its filming stages and not a whole lot of information had been revealed about it yet so I didn’t want to put it on my “want to watch” list and regret it later – plus I’m not the type who will automatically like something by default of association without doing some research on it first (which means that just because I liked the TV series doesn’t necessarily mean I want to watch the movie version of the series – sometimes, it’s better not to watch so as not to be disappointed).
Well, now that the movie has already premiered in theaters (it officially debuted in HK and Macau on 8/4) and everything from plot to characters to behind-the-scenes stuff is out in the open, I can safely say that I definitely WANT TO WATCH the movie version. I’ve actually been having quite a few lengthy discussions about the movie with fellow The Menu fans over the past couple months and even though I still have reservations on the movie itself compared to the series and some unresolved questions on how certain things are going to turn out, I have more confidence now (based on all the stuff I’ve read/heard/watched related to the movie) that I likely won’t have as negative a reaction to this movie as I’ve had toward every other “movie version of TV series” out there (almost all of which I essentially hated…it got to the point where I was starting to wonder which was worse – doing a sequel to a popular TV series or filming a movie version to it…I came to the conclusion that both options are equally bad…). Ok, fine, I admit that my aversion to most of the previous ‘TV series to movie’ adaptations was partly because the movie versions were either produced by TVB (i.e. their movie arm Shaw Brothers) or those involved with the movie had nothing to do with the series originally so it was a completely different interpretation. With The Menu, neither ‘aversion factor’ exists – no TVB involvement since the original series was not a TVB production (thank God!!!) and almost everyone involved with the production of the movie behind-the-scenes (scriptwriter, producer, director, music director, even other crew such as makeup and hairstylists) was also involved with the series when it was filmed 4 years ago.
I haven’t had time to go look up box office revenue for the movie yet, but in terms of word of mouth -- in the 8 days that The Menu has been in theaters, the response to the movie has been overwhelming and so far, all the reviews have been positive (granted, most of the reviews I’ve read/seen were from regular movie-goers who hadn’t watched the TV series so they went into it without set expectations and without a comparison point). I have yet to talk to any of my fellow The Menu fans who’ve actually seen the movie (as I said earlier, been sort of in a bubble the last 2 weeks due to busy work and personal life), so not sure what their opinion is yet but I’m definitely looking forward to the discussions and am interested in seeing whether our earlier opinions of the movie still stand.
Anyway, when I get the chance later, I do hope to do a recap of some of the discussions we’ve had so far about the movie and maybe even a review after I watch the movie. For now though, here is the final trailer for the movie that was released in late July. Enjoy!
Final Trailer: The Menu