6 Chinese blockbusters that aren’t about Kung Fu.
Project Pengyou summer intern, David Ferguson, highlights 6 recent blockbusters that show a changing Chinese film market
It is an age of growth for the Chinese blockbuster and for the international studios that want to make them. Increasingly, Chinese audiences are choosing to spend time in theaters. Chinese movie watchers are rapidly catching up to the world’s largest movie market, North America, and film producers world-wide have taken notice of this uptick. Many of the films screened in China have been the product of more than one movie-making center; many recent hits have been co-produced between mainland and Hong Kong studios. Hollywood, too, has entered the collaborative space by partnering with many mainland studios to gain access to the Chinese film market on such films as Kung-Fu Panda 3, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Iron Man 3.
In addition to these collaboration successes, Chinese-language films are beginning to stand on their own and command a very large share of audiences in China. The success of films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000 and Hero in 2002 brought Chinese-language film to the attention of international circuits and audiences. With this greater international prestige and demonstrated commercial viability, Chinese-language cinema has rocketed off into big-budget productions aimed at domestic Chinese and international audiences alike.
Let’s explore some of the film milestones in this recent box-office explosion:
1. 人再囧途之泰囧 (Lost in Thailand) – 2012
This is a road trip film about a career-minded young scientist who must travel to Thailand in order to close a major business deal while his goofball companion foils his ambitions.
This film was written, directed, and acted in by Xu Zheng, who plays Xu Lang in the film. The film’s claim of being the first film to gross over a billion yuan cemented Xu Zheng as a titan of Chinese comedy film. The enormous success of this film even caused a major rise in Chinese tourism to Thailand, prompting a personal meeting between Xu and then-PM Yingluck Shinawatra to thank him. This is a follow-up film to 2010’s Lost on Journey, about stranded travelers during the spring festival 春运 (Chunyun), when transportation is stretched thin from people visiting family. You might also notice from the film poster that Lost in Thailand was released on the auspicious date 12/12/12.
2. 港囧 (Lost in Hong Kong) -2015
The director, co-writer, and co-producer and film star, Xu Zheng created this film as a thematic sequel to Lost in Thailand. In the film, after failing to conceive a child with his wife Cai Bo (Zhao Wei) and feeling burdened with the responsibilities of adult life, Xu Lai (Xu Zheng) seeks out an old flame, Yang Yi (Du Juan), in Hong Kong. While searching for Yang, Xu’s aspiring-documentarian brother-in-law follows him with a camera, foiling his plans. Along the way, they become embroiled in several morasses involving police and filmmakers. It set an opening day box-office record of RMB 208 million (US$32.6 million) when it was released in September 2015. This film was very popular among middle-aged mainland Chinese people due to its numerous pop culture references from their youth, including a great deal of Hong Kong films from the 1990s and early 2000s.
3. 西遊記之孫悟空三打白骨精 (The Monkey King 2) – 2013
Via movie.douban.com
Based on the classic novel Journey to the West 西遊記, this film follows the events of a Buddhist monk who must go to India to retrieve documents of the Buddha, but encounters supernatural obstacles on the way. This film’s success attests to the power of both classic Chinese literature and sequels in the Chinese film market. It had an opening day box office of RMB 167 million (USD 25 million). The Ming-era novel Journey to the West has inspired many recent Chinese-language films thanks to its colorful tales and widespread appeal. The first Monkey King (2014) made RMB1.2 billion (USD181 million). Another film from another series, directed by Stephen Chow, Journey to the West: Conquering Demons (2013) was a massively successful adaptation of Journey to the West. It made RMB 1.44 billion (USD 215 million).
4. 夏洛特烦恼 (Goodbye Mr. Loser) – 2015
A unemployed musician Xia Luo (Shen Teng) wakes up in his teenage body after embarrassing his wife at a wedding and embarks upon a successful musical career by plagiarizing pop hits from his youth. This film was a major sleeper hit in China, which ended up grossing RMB 1.51 billion (USD 226.6 million) in China with marketing almost solely done through word of mouth. It featured mainly stand-up comedians who based the script on Mahua FunAge’s popular stage play of the same name. Many pop culture icons made cameos in the film, including Jay Chou performing one of the songs Xia wrote (in reality, Jay Chou wrote the song). It led to one of the more memorable lines of the film in which Jay Chou says he feels “in the shadow” of Xia.
5. 捉妖记 (Monster Hunt) – 2015
This 2015 3D animation and live action comedy adventure film is set in a distant past where humans and monsters coexisted. It follows the adventures of a rural mayor who must protect the offspring of the Queen of the monsters. Hui Raman directed the film after floating the idea to several Chinese producers who were not sure about how to produce an animated film. Hui had previously worked with Dreamworks on the Shrek franchise. He said that, while working on the Gingerbread man, he wanted to create a character from a familiar Hong Kong treat, a pineapple bun man. His dream began to take shape when he found that producer Bill Kong was willing to create a fusion live-action and animated film with Hui. They decided to create a film inspired by classic Chinese literature. Monster Hunt broke several box office records, and took the title for highest-grossing film in China in 2015 with box office receipts of RMB 2.439 billion (USD 370 million).
P.S. It’s available on Netflix in the US!
6. 美人鱼 (The Mermaid) – 2016
Via movie.douban.com
The Mermaid follows the story of a business tycoon named Liu Xuan (Deng Chao) who encounters a group of merpeople during a business venture and grows to love one of them. This film was a joint Hong Kong/Chinese production led by superstar Stephen Chow, who also directed smash hits like Kung Fu Hustle, Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons and CJ7. Stephen Chow used many familiar male actors from his previous films, but he held a talent contest specifically to find the mermaid lead. This film currently holds many box office records in China. In addition to being the highest-grossing Chinese film of all time with a gross of RMB3.69 billion (USD553.8 million), The Mermaid has the biggest opening day box office haul, the biggest single-day box office gross, and the biggest opening week of all time in China.
This growth certainly isn’t over yet! Look out for sequels to Stephen Chow’s Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons and others as potential record breakers to come. Let us know in the comments below if there are any movies you’re excited about!