Movie market eyes novel approach

Real-life stories and social issues attract audiences

Chinese films are holding their own, and then some, amid longtime competition.

Last year, domestic feature films grossed nearly 38 billion yuan ($5.6 billion), a year-on-year rise of nearly 26 percent and accounting for some 62 percent of the nation's box-office revenue, with the latter rate marking the highest since the Chinese film industry started to take off in the early 2000s.