"CJ7" is top pick for Chinese New Year crowd

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"CJ7" is top pick for Chinese New Year crowd

Writer: Ezekiel Lee Zhiang Yang

11 Feb – The Chinese in China may still be snowed in due to the freak weather phenomenon but Malaysians came out in droves to watch movies in the weekend just gone. The promo appearances of Stephen Chou and Jay Chou in Malaysia recently helped to fuel the Chinese New Year cinema buzz as the extra long weekend coincided with the first day of the Lunar Year Of The Rat. Extraterrestrial comedy "CJ7" and kung fu sports movie "Kung Fu Dunk" were top on most patrons' wishlists as they thronged cinemas in festive cheer.

The very long queue for tickets at TGV Tebrau City, Johor

Many Klang Valley locations reported sold out shows for the more popular "CJ7" with "Kung Fu Dunk" trailing second. "Kung Fu Dunk" probably made the most of the spillover effect as patrons who could not purchase tickets to Stephen Chow's movie saw Jay Chou's as a reasonable alternative.

A trip to GSC Mid Valley on Friday night revealed that movies sold out for the night are "CJ7", "Kung Fu Dunk", "Dunia Baru The Movie", "John Rambo" and "The Eye". The halls playing "CJ7" and "Kung Fu Dunk" were left with only front rows seats for Saturday and Sunday shows.


TGV Capsquare on the first day of Chinese New Year	GSC Mid Valley crowd queuing for the next day's show

Separate queue for 'hot' movies

Further away from the heat, some cinemagoers have decided to catch "CJ7" at the recently opened TGV CapSquare on Jalan Munshi Abdullah in Kuala Lumpur. The location is peculiar because no other business is visibly open in the mall other than the cinema and two other coffee joints. Brian Ong, 26, told Cinema Online: "I never knew that this cinema even existed. My friends and I heard from this guy who said that CapSquare was a good bet to get ‘CJ7' tickets because they're all sold out till Sunday in the popular cinemas like 1U and Mid Valley. The place isn't bad at all. There's hardly anybody here!"

Cinema Manager Mr Hardeep Singh was at hand to comment that there are two halls for simultaneous "CJ7" shows during the Chinese New Year weekend.

Further still from the centre of activity, Cinema Online paid a visit to Budimax in Taiping, Perak. The quiet spot was found to be even more so when we discovered that the management chose to forego the bumper crowd box office takings to renovate the cinema instead.


Budimax Cinema in Taiping closed for renovations over the Chinese New Year holidays	How readers voted the week before the Chinese New Year weekend