Raymond Wong complains about illegal downloads of "Ip Man 2"

Since it’s Hong Kong theatrical release 11 days ago, the film "Ip Man 2" starring Donnie Yen has garnered HKD$28 million at the box office, with an unprecedented single day earnings (for 5/9) of HKD$3 million. With this type of box office revenue, not only is the film #1 in terms of single day earnings, it also #1 overall this year – currently leading "Iron Man 2" (box office revenue HKD$21.88 million), which premiered in Hong Kong theatres 1 day later. The box office revenue for "Ip Man 2" has also exceeded the HKD$25 million box office revenue that the original "Ip Man" film garnered 2 years ago.

"Ip Man 2" was also a box office success in mainland China, bringing in 100 million Yuan (RMB) in revenue in just 5 days. However, the film’s owner and executive producer Raymond Wong Bak Ming has indicated that the rampant illegal downloading of the film is a huge problem and has caused a potential loss in revenue of several hundred million. On his micro-blog, Raymond Wong wrote: “Someone has done something truly harmful by illegally recording the film and placing it on the internet for others to download for free. My understanding is that there have been over 10 million ‘hits’ to the illegal web version of the film, which has caused the box office revenue to fall by about half. I am afraid that the revenue won’t reach the 300 million Yuan originally anticipated – we’ll be happy if it ends up surpassing the 200 million Yuan mark slightly.” He has expressed that he will be pursuing legal action against the originator of the illegal download.

At the same time, some people are unhappy that the upcoming film "Grand Master" directed by Wong Kar Wei and starring Tony Leung Chiu Wai has been overshadowed by the "Ip Man" franchise, since both movies are the same subject matter, but because Wong Kar Wei’s film is still in production, it has not yet been released. A netizen by the name of Tonyleslie expressed that his favorite actor is Tony Leung (Chiu Wai), his favorite director is Wong Kar Wei, and the person he hates the most is Raymond Wong (Bak Ming), so he is planning on [illegally] downloading "Ip Man 2" for all his classmates to watch. In response to this, Raymond indicated: “I don’t understand this type of mentality…to be honest, I’m actually looking forward to Wong Kar Wei’s film myself. I don’t care if people hate me, but illegal downloading is against the law – and the person boasting about illegally downloading for all his classmates to watch? That’s the part that makes me shake my head in wonder!”

Source: MingPao
Translation: llwy12 @ AsianFanatics