Donnie Yen sues producers behind flop ‘Frozen Hero 2’ for defamation
HONG KONG: Action star Donnie Yen is suing the backers of the critically slammed flop The Frozen Hero II for defamation.
The Frozen Hero II, headlined by Yen, debuted in China on Nov 2. It has one of the lowest ratings of this year’s releases on review aggregation website Douban, scoring 2.7 out of 10. With a budget of US$28.8 million (RM121 million), it has grossed US$4.94 million (RM20.7 million) in two weeks.
The saga unveiled some of the more unconventional film promotion tactics in China.
A post appeared in early November on the film’s official blog absolving director Raymond Yip and writer Manfred Wong of blame and accusing Yen as the culprit in the time travelling actioner’s failure at the box office and negative reviews. The post stated Yen’s three major alleged offences, claiming the Rogue One actor had interfered during filming with the script and the action direction and with the post-production, resulting in a film with a 87-minute running time and an incoherent plot. The post also maintained that Yen had refused to cooperate such as to wear a wig, and failed to participate in the contractually stipulated promotion before the film’s release. It asked, “What are the concepts of contractual obligations and professional ethics to him?” The post was deleted four hours later.
Yen, while on location in New Zealand for the Disney live-action Mulan, took action the day after the post was uploaded, writing on his own blog on China’s microblogging service Sina Weibo that he was “furious”. He also listed twenty points refuting the accusations, calling the post on the official blog “fabricated, “malicious slander”, “shameless”, and “immoral”. He noted that the film was shot in 2013, and the backers should know clearly why it took so long for it to be released. He said he was not familiar with the Chinese backers of the film, believed to be behind the blog post. He opined, “if they said an actor had such a strong power in changing the script, controlling the shooting, editing, promotion, wouldn’t he also has the power to stop a film’s release?”
Then he asked, “The financing partners of the film are experienced in presenting films before, how can you so stupidly accept the promotional partner’s despicable ‘hyping strategy’ to discredit an actor and simultaneously discredit your own film? How can you believe that by maliciously dissing an actor, you can bring a higher rating for the film and consequently better box office results?”
Yen also denied any involvement in postproduction, sarcastically declaring the backers believed he was in possession of a “god-like superpower of changing other people’s will”. In addition, he revealed that he signed the actor’s contract with the Hong Kong-listed HMV Digital China Group, and the remainder fee has not yet been paid.
HMV Digital China Group, who is responsible for the film’s overseas distribution, later also issued a statement to denounce the post, name-checking the promotional partner Beijing Qi Tai Cultural Development Group for badmouthing an actor to generate news, calling it “inappropriate behaviour and tactic”, and declaring its “strong condemnation”.
A week later, on Nov 13, Yen kept to his word of “protecting his rights”, and a letter from the Beijing-based Celera Law Firm was posted on his company’s blog to announce it was now in the process of filing a lawsuit to protect Yen’s right to his “reputation, character, and dignity”.
Meanwhile, Yen announced that he would donate any payout from the lawsuit to charity.
Although the war of words did put the film under the spotlight, it actually drew attention to how bad it was. This sequel to the 2013 Iceman, which likewise starred Donnie Yen and was rated 3.6 on Douban, grossed US$50,450 (RM211,600) during its second week of release, and only US$2,306 on Sunday.