China's box office grows on back of patriotic film franchise

With soaring ticket revenue from The Battle at Lake Changjin II, since its release on Feb 1, the sequel has made the two films China's top-grossing film series, replacing the Detective Chinatown franchise.

The development mirrors the advances of patriotic Chinese films in both quality and popularity in recent years－a noticeable trend, according to film industry observers.

The Battle at Lake Changjin II, a sequel to the 2021 blockbuster The Battle at Lake Changjin, topped 3.4 billion yuan ($534 million) in total earnings by Monday, movie data platforms show.

This achievement, in addition to a whopping 5.77 billion yuan from the first film, marks a milestone in China's box-office history. It is higher than the 8.74 billion yuan generated by the three Detective Chinatown comedy movies from Wanda Pictures.

Set during the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea (1950-53), The Battle at Lake Changjin tells the story of Chinese People's Volunteers fighting bravely in freezing weather in a vital campaign at Lake Changjin, also known as Chosin Reservoir. The film moved many people to tears.

The sequel sees actors Wu Jing and Yi Yangqianxi reprise the leading roles. It follows Chinese soldiers of the same companies as they take on new tasks. And this time, their battlefield is a crucial bridge on the route of retreating US troops.

The landscape of China's box office is now much different from it was years ago－in the early 2010s and earlier－when many of the yearly top earners were Hollywood titles. With a steady improvement in quality, domestic titles now account for an overwhelming majority of China's yearly box-office revenue.

Many quality patriotic films have secured big wins over recent years, becoming what experts are labeling "new mainstream films". They not only convey the prevalent values of Chinese society, like many previous movies, but also achieve impressive box-office results.

The Battle at Lake Changjin was the indisputable superstar of 2021.It became the top earner of all time at China's box office and remained the highest-grossing title of the year globally until it was overtaken by Spider-Man: No Way Home at the end of the year.

The Chinese film's box-office market success is lauded by Yin Hong, vice-chairman of the China Film Association and a professor at Tsinghua University, as the outcomes of industrialization of China's film industry.

It also indicated just how successful a quality patriotic Chinese movie can be.

The anthology patriotic film series－My Country, My Parents; My People, My Country; and My People, My Homeland－has also been well-received by Chinese moviegoers.

Still, Yin says that, for future films with ambitions to join the "new mainstream", there will be pressure to innovate, as they need to adapt to the changing market landscape and continue to improve.

The weeklong Spring Festival holiday, which ended on Feb 6, is usually a lucrative period for China's box office.

The total for this year's holiday was 6 billion yuan, the second-highest for the same holiday season ever. The Battle at Lake Changjin II led the holiday sales chart, contributing over 40 percent of the total.

With just four months between the releases of the two films, the success of The Battle at Lake Changjin, released in September 2021, could explain the sequel's popularity.

More than 30 percent of the sequel's viewers had seen the first film, according to an analysis note from movie data platform Beacon.

An insight piece by box-office tracker Maoyan shows that 42 percent of Chinese moviegoers made their first movie theater visit of 2022 during the Spring Festival holiday, and The Battle at Lake Changjin II was the first film that 17 percent of Chinese moviegoers saw this year.

Driven by robust holiday sales growth led by the war blockbuster, China's box-office total has so far exceeded 10 billion yuan this year.

Xinhua