As a long-time Hiroyuki Sanada fan, I’ve been waiting for Hollywood to “re-discover” this wonderful Japanese actor since he made his impactful presence known to American audiences in The Last Samurai. Although he’s been working non-stop since then, all of the films he’s starred in didn’t receive a whole lot of marketing oomph in the U.S. for some reason — Chen Kaige’s The Promise, James Ivory’s The White Countess, and Danny Boyle’s Sunshine – but Rush Hour 3 is totally different!
I went to a 5:00 p.m. showing today and the theater was packed! The audience laughed so hard at the jokes that I unfortunately missed most of them (Note to Self: Plan to go back at least 3-4 times at different theaters for comparison purposes) . All in all, the movie was pure, unpretentious fun which was what I expected, and it was wonderful to see the best Japanese action star showing his trademark lightening-quick reflexes and fluid martial arts moves against Jackie Chan!! (Emerald’s Note: Sanada-san deliberately walked away from his status as Japan’s top action star after starring in Kinji Fukasaku’s The Legend of the Eight Samurai because he didn’t want to be pigeonholed. Nowadays, most of the audience have absolutely no idea that he is the best action star to come out of Japan — even his mentor, Sonny Chiba, admits that Hiro’s skills are superior to his own.)
It’s also great to see Hiro and Jackie up on the silver screen for the very first time even though they’ve been friends for more than 20 years (read more about their relationship here).
Early box office reports estimate the opening day’s take at $17.8 million, beating rival The Bourne Ultimatum’s $10.7 million, and nearly $50 million for the whole weekend!
