You may recall mention of “The Bombing,” a Chinese movie made with Bruce Willis and Adrien Brody. In Chinese. It was art directed by Mel Gibson. I’m not making this up. Directed by Xiao Feng, “The Bombing” also starred Fan Bingbing.
“The Bombing” was finished a few years ago, but nothing happened and it sort of disappeared. One reason was because it was bad. The other was that Fan Bingbing was arrested in her native China for tax evasion, vanished for three months there, then reappeared and paid — or was supposed to pay — $127 million in back taxes. (She must have resolved her problems since she’s listed in the imdb as having finished a couple of new movies. China is a very forgiving government, as we all know.)
Anyway, it turns out “The Bombing” was retitled “Airstrike” and released last summer in three countries that really dig movies: Slovenia, Mexico, and Bolivia. Total box office was $512,992. The official budget was $65 million but I’m told it went all the way up to $100 million.
Will we ever see “Airstrike”? Yes! It’s on Amazon Prime, for free. I just looked at it. Someone has dubbed the Chinese into American. Bruce is in a handful of scenes, kind of wooden, hardly keeping a straight face, not saying much. Adrien Brody is in it for a minute. Even though it’s ridiculous, the cinematography is pretty good. I’ll bet the craft services had a lot of Chinese delicacies.
Sixty five mil? One hundred mil? Who cares? It’s just money! Anyway, the Slovenians liked it.
