Mayday to rock silver screen with new concert flick

Around two years ago, iconic Taiwan rock band Mayday launched their 18-month-long marathon world tour, titled Life, selling 4 million tickets and reaching audiences across four continents.

The runaway success of this tour has now been adapted into the upcoming film, Mayday Life, which will hit domestic theaters on Friday.

A silver screen reworking of the 2017-2018 Life world tour, the movie stars the five members of the band and features special performances by Crazy Alien actor Huang Bo and Tony Leung Ka-fai, a four-time best actor winner at the Hong Kong Film Awards.

Thanks to the band's huge fan base, Mayday Life has been dominating the presale box-office charts ahead of Friday's release. With reservation ticket revenues reaching 2.5 million yuan ($361,670) from nearly 18 percent of the country's 60,000-plus screens, Mayday Life is now outperforming Disney's live-action remake of its film, Aladdin, which has earned 1.6 million yuan in presale ticket sales for the same opening day.

A sneak preview of the film was held in Beijing on May 17, gathering director Muh Chen and the five band members, Ashin, Stone, Nasa, Guan You and Monster.

Ashin, whose real name is Chen Shin-hung, says the most difficult part of making the film was selecting the most compelling scenes from the 122 concerts they performed worldwide.

"Each concert lasts nearly three hours, and one of their most interesting characteristics is that the five of us love speaking on stage, making jokes and trash-talking to each other. We wanted these scenes to appear in the movie, which made the editing a major project in itself," he says.