Asterix fans the world over are gearing up for the release of Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom, the fifth live-action film in the franchise, and the first since 2012’s Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia. The movie, which stars Guillaume Canet (The Siege of Jadotville) as Asterix, Marion Cotillard (The Dark Knight Rises) as Cleopatra, and Jonathan Cohen (Army of Thieves) as Graindemais, is due for release on February 1.
Earlier this month, the final trailer for the film dropped. While we already know the film will see everyone’s favorite indomitable Gauls embark on a trip to China to help princess Fu Yi (Julie Chen), the trailer also contained several snippets that reveal rather more about what to expect.
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There’ll Be Martial Arts Homages Galore
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The movie’s premise is simple. In China, the emperor has been imprisoned after a coup led by the evil Deng Tsin Qin. In order to save her father, the princess hires a Phoenician merchant to sail her to Gaul, with the idea of enlisting the Gauls - whose druid Getafix’s (Pierre Richard) famous magic potion which makes them invincible.
There’s lots of action in the typical Asterix book, but it’s usually of a more… elemental type. Simply put, an Asterix story wouldn’t be an Asterix story without the requisite quota of clueless Roman legionaries getting bashed about by Asterix and Obelix, usually in the forest that surrounds their village.
This time around, however, expect wirework, lightning-fast moves, and as many homages to the martial arts genre as you can imagine. The trailer features some Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-esque aerial ballet set aboard a ship, as Asterix and Obelix watch the princess’s bodyguard try out her moves on an unsuspecting deckhand. And with the trailer also featuring what looks like an epic battle scene featuring Chinese warriors, Romans, and Gauls, expect more when the pair arrive in the Middle Kingdom.
Panacea Makes an Appearance
Every Asterix fan knows that Asterix is a confirmed bachelor — even his mother can’t succeed in marrying him off. Obelix, on the other hand, is another matter, and over the course of several books, various female characters make eyes at him (and he at them). But Obelix’s heart is with Panacea, a former inhabitant of the Gaulish village where Asterix and Obelix live, and who appears in four of the books. Obelix’s feelings are destined to remain unfulfilled — Panacea is, after all, married — but the interplay between the pair makes for a touching dynamic, and shows that, for all his delight in bashing Romans, Obelix has a soft side.
It transpires that twenty-four years after her last appearance in the franchise, the character will star once more in the new film, this time played by Angèle, a Belgian-language pop singer with a string of top ten hits in the French music charts to her name. Since breaking into the French-language music industry in the late 2010s, Angèle has also embarked on a fledgling career in film, contributing voice work to the French-language versions of Toy Story 4 and Space Jam: A New Legacy. Her appearance as Panacea will be the second time she has appeared in a live-action film. Whether Obelix will end up tongue-tied and red with embarrassment — his usual fate whenever Panacea enters the narrative — remains to be seen.
Julius Caesar Is On a Mission… to Invade China?
Yup, that’s not a typo. While the Asterix comic books are well known for playing fast and loose with history — one book has Asterix and Obelix going on a boating trip that goes awry, after which they end up in America. Another features Normans several centuries before they actually made their appearance in history, and yet another sees the duo visit India on a flying carpet — this particular flight of fancy takes some beating. The premise is that Caesar — played as broadly as possible by Vincent Cassel (Black Swan, Jason Bourne), who is clearly having fun with the role — gathers a mighty Roman army to conquer China for the purpose of impressing his Cleopatra.
How easy this will be is not quite clear, however. At one point in the trailer, Caesar unsheathes his sword only to find it is less than a foot long. “Last time, you cut yourself,” says a subordinate in apologetic tones by way of explanation.
Whatever the outcome, Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom looks resplendent (a budget in the region of 65 million Euros has been reported), and if the story is anywhere near as engaging as the trailer, Asterix and Obelix’s latest tale of derring-do will be well worth the wait.
