The sequel to Red Cliff, a Chinese war epic by director John Woo, opens this weekend. The first installment of the two-part series, adapted from the Chinese classic novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, debuted in Asia on July 10, 2008. It made about $46.85 million within a month. The cast features Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Zhang Fengyi. With an investment of $80 million, the story revolves around the Battle of Red Cliffs in AD208. It involved a famous military victory as the 50,000-strong allied forces of southern warlords Liu Bei and Sun Quan defeated the 800,000 troops of the northern warlord Cao Cao. The largest scenes involved 2,000 actors and crew, along with a wide range of special effects.

The period from December to early February, known as the prime pre-Lunar New Year film season, is usually the busiest time of the year at China's box office.

If You Are the One, a work by famed director Feng Xiaogang, has attracted huge crowds of movie fans since the comedy was released on Dec 18. It is a humorous journey in which the lead characters begin their romance on a luxury cruise. One of the highlights is the matchmaking. And many of the cast and crew have had such an experience.

Other films showing at cinemas include:

The lovable Dreamworks sequel, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. In the sequel, all the characters are back: Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Melman the giraffe and Gloria the hippo, King Julien, Maurice and the penguins. The animals (voiced by Ben Stiller, Chris Rock and Jada Pinkett Smith) who have escaped from a zoo in New York land on the vast plains of Africa, where they come across species of their own kind for the first time.

3D animation Bolt, from Disney, is a comic coming of age story about an overconfident celebrity canine actor. Bolt is brought up believing his film set is the real world until a journey sends him out into the real world. As Bolt makes his way from New York to Hollywood, he gets a lesson in life and friendship, and learns the true meaning of being a hero.

Lady Cop-Papa Crook

Sammi Cheng stars as a police officer, investigating the kidnapping of a boy who happens to be the son of a crime kingpin. Thus begins an unlikely alliance between cops and criminals. The film marks Cheng's first feature after a 3-year absence from the Hong Kong cinema. In this one, she plays a 30-something, single cop. The role is a break from Cheng's previous roles as a white-collar urban lady.