Starring: Shen Teng (), Jackson Yee (), Zhang Yi (), Lei Jiayin (), Yue Yunpeng (), and Wang Jiayi ().
Director: Zhang Yimou ().
CNY box office
Chinese film industry gets boost from strong showing over Lunar New Year
With takings of just under US$1 billion, this year’s holiday period beat the 2019 and 2022 performance, although it was below 2021’s record level
Full River Red by the acclaimed director Zhang Yimou and the sci-fi drama The Wandering Earth II were the most popular features over the holiday
Yuanyue Dang in Beijing
- myNEWS
Published: 9:00pm, 28 Jan, 2023
An audience settles down for a screeing of Full River Red at a cinema in Shanghai. Photo: CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images
The Chinese box office performed strongly over the Lunar New Year holiday, lifting the gloom over the country’s film industry and giving a strong boost to the country’s economic recovery.
As of Saturday, takings stood at 6.8 billion yuan (US$973 million), compared with 5.9 billion yuan during the 2019 Spring Festival and just over 6 billion last year, according to box office statistics provider Maoyan Pro.
However, the figure was still below 2021’s record figure of 7.8 billion yuan.
The most popular film was Zhang Yimou’s historical suspense film Full River Red, which accounted for 2.7 billion yuan, followed by the sci-fi movie The Wandering Earth II, which accounted for 2.2 billion.
According to Maoyan Pro, over 120 million people went to the cinema in China during this year’s Spring Festival holidays.
A total of seven new films were released in China during this year’s Spring Festival, all of which were domestic films.
Public interest in Full River Red and The Wandering Earth II, based on a story by the popular sci-fi author Liu Cixin, was boosted by online arguments by rival fans about which of the two films was better.
Other major releases have not fared so well however. Hidden Blade, a second world war spy thriller, had mixed reviews leading to the ratings website Douban, not disclosing the film’s rating for a while.
But another new release – Ping Pong: The Triumph, a drama about the men’s team’s victory in the 1995 world championships – was suddenly withdrawn from release on Wednesday because of its dismal box office ratings.
The Spring Festival has long been regarded as a barometer for the fortunes of the domestic film industry because it has become customary for people to go to the movies during the week-long holiday.
The box office suffered during the early stages of the pandemic, with many releases being cancelled in 2020 and total takings reaching just over 10 million yuan.
Although the zero-Covid restrictions in place during the 2021 and 2022 Spring Festivals did not appear to have a significant impact, with several patriotic blockbusters and high ticket prices helping to boost takings.
Ticket prices for this year’s Spring Festival season fell to 53.5 yuan, down from 56.1 yuan last year.
All the films released during the holiday were domestic ones. Photo: Getty Images
The total number of screenings was also down on previous years as the length of films was generally longer this year.
Financial media outlet 36Kr argued that although the box office total is not as high as in 2021, this year’s Spring Festival performance is already a positive one for the film market.
CONVERSATIONS (1)
Yuanyue Dang
Yuanyue joined the Post in 2022 and covers culture and society news. He graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and holds a master’s degree in anthropology from University College London. Previously, he worked as a features reporter for Esquire China, The Beijing News and Initium Media.
2023-Year-of-the-Rabbit
The Wandering Earth 2
Full-River-Red
First forum review
A major flex from Zhang Yimou, one of China’s most celebrated directors. This one is so tightly wrapped in Chinese culture that it’s hard to fully appreciate without the backstory. It’s an assassination plot, or is it? It’s twisty with lots of backstabbing and double crossing, but if you don’t know who Qin Hui is, it’s a tangled mess (hint - he is one of China’s most notorious traitors for the death of Yue Fei - and if you don’t know who he is, don’t even bother - he’s one of China’s greatest heroes).
Like Hero or Shadow, there’s outlandish levels of deception and sacrifice. These 3 flicks could be Zhang’s thematic assassin trilogy. They each have an underlying notion of long game plots filled with premeditated ruses to mislead targets, and small bands of rebel conspirators dying to pave a path to an ultimate victim that’s totally corrupt. There’s a patriotic sense where heroes play their role to the death for the greater good.
Two low ranking soldiers get stuck investigating a murder which they must solve within 2 hours or die. There’s a lot of court intrigue and they are bound by imperial rule and etiquette. Every offense is capital punishment. The investigators are merciless and torture suspects into confessing.
There’s a few fights and a lot of throat slitting and stabbing. It’s during the Song dynasty period when almost everyone is in armor and carrying a sword, or a dagger. Almost all of it takes place within an imperial fortress, akin to the forbidden city and characters are constantly navigating the labyrinthian stone alleys and hallways. The armor and costuming is sumptuous.
It’s a long film - 2.5 hours + - and it’s a slow burn but once it gets going, the treachery and trickery goes crazy, and the ultimate payout is poetic. Like really poetic (the title is a giveaway but again you gotta know Yue Fei - I didn’t put it together until the reveal at the end, but it’s beautiful, epically beautiful).