To their credit, Taiwanese are not very swayed by star power. If you have been keeping up with this blog you will know that big factors when choosing a movie are if it's a movie where they don't have to think, and if it's a popular movie. Although popular movie doesn't mean it has popular actors, but rather that they have been told that it's popular.
For the reason people don't really even have favorite actors or even favorite movies, movies here are still mainly a distraction, something to be consumed and forgotten, and definitely not any form of "art."
But the lack of star power is interesting. Yes there are some well known westerner actors and actresses here, but they do not drive people to see movies. I've never once heard here "oh I like actor X, and he/she has a new movie out, i must see it."
This makes me think that hollywood is really out of touch when it comes to the global market. You always hear them say how they want to have big stars cause big stars sell movies, especially those who are big internationally. But in Asia at least, while somebody may be a well known person, they do not drive people go to see their movie, or even buy the products they are shilling.
But that's what made this picture so peculiar to me. It is of a box set of movies that Angelina Jolie starred in. If they sell things like this, than would my hypothesis about Taiwanese not following actors (or heaven forbid directors or screenwriters) be wrong? Could I possibly for the first time in my life be wrong!?
Thankfully I snapped out of it and remembered that I was in a second hand book store, and this was in with a stack of used dvd's that were so cheap they might as well have been free. Order was once again restored to the universe.
