Highest-grossing Asian Films of ALL TIME in the US

AsianPopCorn posts the top 20 highest-grossing Asian films of all time in the US. Its an interesting list as you can start to discover how each film has compared with others with respect to their ability to attract film-goers. Or simply whether some films carried a larger marketing budget.

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1. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Taiwan, 2000): $128 million.
2. Hero (China, 2004): $53.7 million.
3. Jet Li’s Fearless (China, 2006): $24.6 million.
4. Kung Fu Hustle (Hong Kong, 2005):$17.1 million.
5. Iron Monkey (Hong Kong, 2001): $14.7 million.
6. The Protector (Tom Yam Goong, Thailand, 2006) $11.9 million
7. House of Flying Daggers (China, 2004): $11 million.
8. Shall We Dance? (Japan, 1997): $9.5 million.
9. Eat Drink Man Woman (Taiwan, 1994): $7.3 million.
10. The Wedding Banquet (Taiwan, 1993): $6.9 million.
11. Curse of the Golden Flower (China, 2007): $6.6 million
12. Water (India, 2006): $5.5 million.
13. Ong-Bak (Thailand, 2005): $4.6 million.
14. Kagemusha (Japan, 1980): $4 million.
15. Ran (Japan, 1985): $3.9 million.
16. Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (India, 2006): $3.3 million.
17. Veer Zaara (India, 2004): $2.9 million.
18. Devdas (India, 2002): $2.7 million.
19. Dhoom 2 (India, 2001): $2.6 million.
20. Raise the Red Lantern (China, 1992): $2.6 million.

For instance, Crouching Tiger might have benefited from more public interest as it led the way for the high-budget, period martial arts film to reach the US audience. Curse of the Golden Flower might have suffered from a little market saturation at this point. Alternatively, we could attribute the differences simply to the quality of factors such as storyline..

However, I’m glad to see Fearless in there, but am a little surprised at Iron Monkey. Was it so popular on general release?

By the way, to put things in comparison, according to Wikipedia, the highest grossing film of all time is Titanic which raised (rather than “sunk”… sorry..) $1,845,034,188. Compare that to the paltry $128 million by Crouching Tiger…

Via AsianPopcorn.com