Credit: Xin MSN



Jay Chou loses to Vic Chou at box office
The Asian superstar’s latest movie ‘The Viral Factor’ raked in only S$23,000 on the day of its premiere

Taiwanese singer Jay Chou has been dominating the music industry since his debut. However, he did not seem to enjoy the same luck when it came to movies.

Jay purposely shed his usual image, grew a stubble and had a crew cut for his latest movie The Viral Factor, which had a production cost of NT$800 million (S$33.6 million).

While movie critics loved the film and gave it above-average reviews, The Viral Factor did not appeal to the Taiwanese masses. Two days ago, its Taipei premiere only grossed NT$540,000 (S$23,000). It was also estimated that the film would rake in only NT$810,000 (S$34,000) across the country.

The production company of The Viral Factor responded to the report, saying, "There's a longer holiday this year. The reviews so far had been generally positive, and we believe that word of mouth is useful and that there will a good result in the end."

On the other hand, Vic Chou's movie Perfect Two earned NT$1.92 million (S$80,000) on the same day. It was estimated to bring in a total of NT$4 million (S$168,000) countrywide.

Yesterday, cinemas across Taiwan began increasing the number of movie screenings for Perfect Two. The movie starred Vic, Ella Chen and Xiao Xiao Bin and had a production cost of NT$250 million (S$10.5 million).

Vic, happy with the movie's achievement thus far, encouraged those who have yet to watch the film, to watch it with their families during the festive season.

Ella also thanked everyone for their support.