Huang Xiaoming's scene where he inspects Li Bingbing's body has nearly a full-movie's amount of shot footage.
What a bribe. Film company Hua Yi has said that they will release a 3 hour version of The Message on DVD if the box office exceeds 300 million yuan (this was what Hua Yi’s previous blockbuster If You Are the One got easily). I hope this means some of the more graphic scenes like the one that took place between Huang Xiaoming and Li Bingbing (above) would be unedited. Usually I’m not one for torture and blood and that sort of movie, but I really want to see this particular one it in its gory glory.The running length in theaters was 122 min, which audiences have said was too short.
Good to know! The only DVD I’ve seen listed (at YesAsia) did not include any extras.
Hua Yi released a pretty nice special edition DVD of “If You Are the One” in stores along with a bare-bones edition so I imagine that even without this 3 hour cut they’d have at least something similar for “The Message”, since they didn’t put much effort into “If You Are the One” promotions and this movie is like their baby. So in contrast to “If You Are the One” they’ve probably prepared massive behind the scenes footage and stuff. I can’t imagine them not sticking that somewhere.
That’s a bribe I’d take! Could be smart thinking, too, to combat early pirate DVD versions (which presumably would not have the extra footage). I’d also like to see HY produce a package with the type of extras the Hollywood blockbuster films include: “making of” featurettes, deleted scenes, etc. They certainly have a lot of material already available for this production!