Making waves at the box office

Aquaman has achieved other records too.

It's now the top-grossing film in a single day and for the first weekend of December in China.

With scores up to 9.5 points on Maoyan, 9.3 on Taopiaopiao and 8.1 on Douban－all seen as barometers of popularity－most netizens say the film is a visual feast, which offers unprecedented spectacles of underwater kingdoms.

Most fans attribute the latest DC spectacle to James Wan, the Malaysia-born Australian director of Chinese heritage.

Earlier during his Beijing promotional tour, Wan said that one of his favorite Chinese novels was the 16th-century Journey to the West, in which a chapter depicts the Monkey King getting into a dragon's underwater palace to seek a powerful weapon

Some Chinese fans say they can identify with the film as the sequences about Aquaman retrieving the Trident remind them of the Monkey King story.

Before directing Aquaman－his first superhero film－Wan was best known for his horror movies such as Saw and Dead Silence, as well as the car-racing blockbusters Furious 7, the second highest-grossing imported film in China.

A question－about what they felt was Wan's main contribution to Aquaman－drew responses from 114,120 netizens on Douban, the country's most popular entertainment review site.

And one of the responses was: "It's amazing to see Wan demonstrate his talent in action sequences, where he combines various elements from various genres－including sci-fi, adventure, epic and horror－to shoot a deep-sea version of Star Wars."