Box office rallies to a ready-made hero

The Monkey King rescues the Chinese animated world? It may sound crazy, but that notion has dominated the country's movie-review forums in recent weeks.

By last Thursday night, the 3-D animated movie Monkey King: Hero Is Back exceeded the milestone 300 million yuan ($48 million) to surge as the highest-grossing animated movie in the history of Chinese cinemas. The previous record, 295 million yuan, was held by the forestry-themed, Boonie Bears: Mystical Winter, which was released in January, according to Cbooo.cn, a real-time box-office tracker.

To date, the latest film based on the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) novel Journey to the West has grossed nearly 500 million yuan.