The past two weeks saw a few romantic comedies being released in theaters, ableit on the lower-budgeted end. Bumped back to avoid competition from This is It, the film Wang Luodan and Wilson Chen Boli-lin starring My Air Hostess Roommate instead went head to head with Love at Seventh Sight, starring, Li Xiaolu and Mike He . Two actresses from the hit drama Fen Dou and two Taiwanese hearthrobs pairing off against each other. Who won?

Considering the title of the post, the logical answer would be My Air Hostess Roomate, who the champion amongst the new releases for the 11/2-8 week, with a 8-day gross of 8.2 million yuan. The producers said they were very satisfied with the result since it was in the middle of a sucession of new releases.

Their marketing strategy and their stars’ star power helped draw in audiences. Wang Luodan amassed  more hardcore fans in her role as “Mi Lai”  in Fen Dou than poor, talented Li Xiaolu in her lifelong acting career (having acted since age 3). And Wilson Chen Bolin has been a longtime leading man in movies, ever since Blue Gate Crossing, whereas Mike He is trying very hard to break out of his idol drama status, a status that doesn’t necessarily mean box office revenue. Love at Seventh Sight barely broke the top ten.

Unfortunately, My Air Hostess Roommate wasn’t very good – getting abysmal reviews,  and disappointing fans of the novel it was based on, while causing Wang Luodan fangirls to lament that she picked the wrong project. Wilson Chen Bolin fans lamented he had yet to act in anything as good as Blue Gate Crossing. And at douban.com, it received an atrocious 5.1 rating.

But the romantic comedy market only truly established itself last year in China, with Call for Love 2 and other films becoming hits with little effort. My Fair Gentlemen with Sun Honglei and Kelly Lin did very well over the National Holiday week, 3rd only to the blockbusters The Message and  Jian Guo Da Ye .

Much better romance movies are on the horizon as the companies start to really take advantage of the audience need for light romantic fare, and I will still be doing a romantic comedy post highlighting those  upcoming bigger-bugeted films if I have the time.  In the meantime, look at the pretty photoshoot pics they did for promotion.

Another WLD photoshoot. I have no idea what magazine this was for, or if it even was for one,