Chinese national day holiday box office winners and losers: from My People, My Country to The Captain, patriotism rules
- Holiday box office takings more than doubled, to US$224 million, amid a slew of patriotic releases; two of the three biggest earners have Hong Kong directors
- American films, including animation Abominable, bagged two of 10 national day holiday release slots; another animated film, from China, flopped
China’s cinema box office takings over the national day holiday were more than double those for the same days in 2018, buoyed by a line-up of mostly patriotic new releases to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
According to China’s largest ticketing app, Maoyan, by the end of October 1 and after two days of mostly sold-out screenings, this year’s national day holiday box office takings were 1.6 billion yuan (US$224 million), more than double last year’s 600 million yuan.
The biggest box office draw was My People, My Country , an ensemble film comprising seven chapters, each by a different director and led by Cannes Palme d’Or winner Chen Kaige. By the end of October 1, the film had taken 700 million yuan.
It recounts milestone events since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, including the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from the UK to China and the staging of the Summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008.
Ranked second was The Captain, directed by Hong Kong’s Andrew Lau Wai-keung. It reaped 500 million yuan in cinema ticket sales. Based on a true-life event, the film portrays the heroic deeds of a Sichuan Airlines captain who in May 2018 landed a flight after a 20-minute struggle with the loss of cabin pressure. Flying from Chongqing to Lhasa, Tibet, a windscreen broke suddenly at 32,000 feet and the co-pilot was sucked halfway out of the window. None of the passengers was injured in the encounter.
The Captain is part of a “China pride” trilogy produced by Chinese film company Bona Film Group to celebrate the 70th anniversary, along with The Bravest and Chairman Mao 1949. The Bravest is based on a book by Mongolian writer Bao’erji which features a series of interviews of firefighters who battled to extinguish a fire caused by a pipeline explosion in 2010 in Dalian, in northeast China. Released in August, the film has taken 1.6 billion yuan at the box office.
Released on September 20, Chairman Mao 1949 focuses on the period from March 1949, when the Communist Party of China Central Committee relocated to the Fragrant Hills in northwest Beijing, to the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949. The film took in over 100 million yuan in ticket sales.
The third best holiday box office performer was The Climbers , directed by Hong Kong’s Daniel Lee Yan-Kong and starring Wu Jing and Zhang Ziyi. The film portrays the adventures of two generations of Chinese mountaineers who scaled Mount Everest by the perilous North Ridge in 1960 and 1975. The film earned 300 million yuan.
Of the three highest earning films, The Climbers received the least enthusiastic reception. Widely popular film review site Douban rated it seven out of 10, compared to 7.4 for The Captain and 8.2 for My People, My Country. Negative reviews of The Climbers said its plot was filled with loopholes and the director spent too much screen time on the romance between Wu and Zhang.
The fourth biggest box office earner over the holiday was American studio DreamWorks’ animation Abominable, which took 20 million yuan. Made in collaboration with Shanghai-based Pearl Studio, the film portrays a young Chinese girl who, with her friends, embarks on a 3,000km trek to take their big-footed yeti friend, Everest, back to the Himalayas. The youngsters live in a nameless Chinese city that closely resembles Shanghai.
The film highlights Chinese landscapes including the Leshan Giant Buddha and rippling fields of canola flowers. It topped the box office in North America when it was released there on September 27, scooping US$5.7 million in ticket sales on the first day and more than US$20 million in its opening weekend. To appeal to Chinese audiences, all the jokes in the film were rewritten for the Chinese version.
In contrast to the success of these films, another, Chinese animation Kiangnan 1894, didn’t benefit from its coveted holiday release. Having opened on September 27, it had taken only 1.6 million yuan by the end of October 1. Made to celebrate the republic’s 70th anniversary, the film glorifies China’s manufacturing prowess. Set in the late Qing dynasty (1644-1911), Kiangnan 1894 portrays how a young apprentice becomes a top military mechanic in the Jiangnan Manufacturing Factory, the most important military factory in China at the time.
Among the other films to earn one of 10 coveted holiday release slots were inspirational children’s drama A Chinese Odyssey: Growing Pains (October 2), Chinese animated food comedy Kungfood (October 2), Chinese bullfighting animation Sharp the Bull (October 3), A Journey to the Seaside (October 3), starring Yao Chen, about the unexpected bond between a hired driver and a child passenger, and American computer-animated musical UglyDolls (October 4).
Some films were initially allotted a holiday release, but then had it taken away. Among them was war film Liberation, the release of which was delayed to October 25. Liberation portrays the self-sacrificing heroics of a People’s Liberation Army artillery corps commander during the late stages of the Chinese civil war against the Nationalist government in 1949.
Another film that had its holiday release cancelled is Mojin Returns. Directed by Hong Kong’s Tsui Hark, the much anticipated sequel to 2015’s Mojin: The Lost Legend again stars Chen Kun as a treasure hunter who accidentally enters an ancient tomb with two business partners. After they take a treasure from the tomb, all hell breaks loose.
The film is based on the popular online fiction series Guichuideng, about the adventures of a group of tomb raiders. Originally scheduled to be released on October 1, it was delayed to next year.
Online media attributed the delayed release of the two movies to the packed national day holiday screening schedule.
While Mojin Returns and Liberation were pulled from release for seemingly innocuous reasons, the releases of several films were cancelled earlier this year because their content is politically sensitive. They were deemed a risk to the Chinese government in the 70th anniversary year.
Another film pulled from Berlin by Chinese censors this year was Derek Tsang Kwok-cheung’s Better Days, about disaffected youths in China; the film has yet to secure a release date.
