"Resident Evil" seeks retribution

Writer: Elaine Ewe

Alice (Milla Jovovich) being chased by a horde of zombies in the Umbrella Corporations' facility in "Resident Evil: Retribution".

19 Sep – The holiday cheer is slowly wearing off worldwide and it is back to the grind for distributors to bring out the heavy hitters, which saw moviegoers flocking back to theatres in order to catch the debut of "Resident Evil: Retribution" despite the Malaysia Day holiday weekend (13 – 16 Sep). The fifth instalment of the "Resident Evil" film franchise opened at first place in Malaysia, followed by local debutant director Teng Bee's "Kepong Gangster". The crime drama film tells the story of a group of friends known as "Five Tigers" who end up straying towards the path of gangsterism due to various reasons, and stars rising actors Melvin Sia, Henley Hii, Hero Tai, Rayz Lim and Billy Ng. Rounding up the top three is last week's box office chart topper, "The Possession".

Paul W. S. Anderson's return to the director's seat for "Resident Evil: Retribution" was met with less fanfare than expected, with the film opening to only US$21.1 million for the weekend gone by. The totals are noticeably lower than the "Afterlife" (US$26.7 million), and also off from "Extinction" (US$23.7 million) and "Apocalypse" ($23 million). Its underwhelming performance can be attributed to its status as a sequel, as most of the sequels that opened this year such as "Men In Black 3" and "The Bourne Legacy" ended up falling short of expectations, with the exception of "The Dark Knight Rises". In second place was "Finding Nemo", which is a re-release of Andrew Stanton's award-winning animated comedy-drama film back in 2003. It marked Disney's third re-release in 3D, after "The Lion King" and "Beauty And The Beast". On another related note, the new releases led two-time champion "The Possession" to fall to third place.

Alice awakens to find herself trapped in the core of Umbrella Corporation's base underwater.

Regardless of what people think of "Resident Evil: Retribution", the film also topped in Singapore's box office charts. Meanwhile, last week's champion, "Ted", fell to second place, followed by the newly released Taiwanese film, "Fierce Wife: Final Episode". The film is a feature-length sequel to the 2010 family-romance television drama, starring Sonia Sui, Wen Sheng Hao, Chris Wang and Amanda Zhu as a group of individuals caught in a battle of love and wits when Xie An Zhen (Sui), who was happily married with one daughter, finds out that her husband cheated on her with her cousin and proceeds to file for divorce.

For Malaysia, new movies that opened last week were "Halim Munan", "The Bullet Vanishes", "How I Spent My Summer Vacation", "Sundarapandian" and "Barfi!".

For Singapore, new movies that opened last week were "Vulgaria (2D)", "The Thieves", "A Gang Story (2D)", "The Chef (2D)", "Hope Springs", "Barfi!" and "To Rome With Love (2D)".