The story of global cinema in the 21st century so far is the dominance of superhero films adapted from comicbooks with the Marvel Cinematic Universe leading the charge for the past 15 years or so. But there is so much more to films adapted from comics than just the superhero fare from DC and Marvel Comics, known as the Big Two US comic publishers.
On the other side of the Atlantic, there are the Asterix & Obelix films based on the French comicbook Asterix created by Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny. The comicbook has been around for more than 60 years predating most of the Marvel superheroes that have already hit the big screen. There have been 40 albums of Asterix released so far, with the latest being Asterix and the White Iris that had an initial print run of 5 million copies. Throughout the decades, English translations of Asterix comics have found their way to local bookstores. Although they may not be household names in here compared to France, there may be some who are familiar with the adventures of Asterix, the Gaul who by the help of a magic potion, has kept his small fishing village from getting conquered by the Romans.
Now, the fifth and latest film installment, Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom has made its way to Philippine cinemas via the 26th French Film Festival.
Directed by Guillaume Canet, who also stars as Asterix and Gilles Lellouch as Obelix, Middle Kingdom sees the titular characters travel to China in aid of Princess Sass-Yi (Julie Chen) in freeing her mother, the Empress (Linh-Dan Pham), from the traitorous Prince Deng Tsin Quin (Bun Hay Mean). The rag tag band that also includes trader Grandemaïs (Jonathan Cohen) and the Princess' bodyguard Tat Han (Leanna Chea), encounters numerous adventures over land and sea as they head towards the Middle Kingdom. In China, they cross paths with Julius Caesar (Vincent Cassel) who has also set his sights on conquering China to get back at his lover, Cleopatra (Marion Cotillard).
Just like the comicbooks, the film is littered with numerous puns for names like Caius Antivirus (Swedish footballer Zlatan Ibrahimović), Titanix (Orelsan), Tabascos (French Olympic gold medalist swimmer Florent Manaudou), and the aforementioned Deng Tsin Quin.
Anachronisms also are a plenty like the vibrating messenger pigeons, Cleopatra's wardrobe, and pop songs like, Kung Fu Fighting, and Lionel Richie's Say You, Say Me which served the movie's love theme. And yes, there is the obligatory love interests of the leads.
All of these just point to how similar Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom is to the Philippine action/adventure comedies of the 1980s-1990s that parodied pop culture of the time, but with a lot better visual and special effects. Asterix humor may be juvenile at most, but it is extremely accessible even to non-readers of the comics. And with French Film Festival tickets costing just about a third of the regular cinema fare, it is worth taking a chance just to have a change of pace from the usual Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster.
Long time readers will be rewarded though in seeing come to life on the big screen Dogmatix, Getafix, Vitalstatistix, Cacofonix, Unhygienix, and the other villagers. It is a bit jarring though when the names seen at the English subtitlles do not match with the French audio revealing that a lot of the names were changed in the English translations since the original names (puns in French) would not fly at all to a non-French speaker.
RAd's Page Turners | Asterix the Gaul, Asterix and the White Iris
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After watching the Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom, viewers may be interested to check out the source the Asterix comics books. A good place to start is the first volume Asterix the Gaul, written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo.
The latest volume, Asterix and the White Iris by writer Fabcaro and illustrator Didier Conrad was just published on October 26, 2023 so it is still hot off the press, so to speak.
Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom is part of the 26th French Film Festival happening on November 25-December 3, 2023 at the SM Mall of Asia and SM Megamall Cinemas. Tickets are for P150 each with a discounted price of P100 available as well.
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