Lunar New Year Box Office Boom Lifts Movie Sector Shares in Hong Kong

Rebecca Davis editorChina on Friday said it would revamp Hong Kong’s electoral system to tighten its grip on the city, a strong move against the region’s democratic governance and freedoms that has incited backlash from critics abroad.Beijing’s rubberstamp parliament, known as the National People’s Congress (NPC), convened for the first day of its annual week-long meetings on Friday.

Ng Man-tat, the Hong Kong actor best known for his comic collaborations with Stephen Chow, has died. He was 70.

Refresh for latest…: Warner Bros’ hybrid live-action/animated feature Tom & Jerry began offshore rollout in mid-February, and this session became the first studio title to hit China in the wake of the Lunar New Year, as well as adding a host of other new markets. The Hanna-Barbera rascals scampered off with a further $19.4M from 33 markets at the international box office in the session, which made for a global $33.1M weekend including domestic‘s strong start.

Rebecca Davis editorMore than 35,300 suspected links to pirated versions of Chinese New Year’s films and major holiday TV programs are available online, despite government directives to crack down on piracy, new data from China shows. Rampant piracy did not stop the seven new year’s blockbusters released on Feb.

Vivienne Chow Back in the heyday of Hong Kong movies, the city’s film stars and those groomed by the Hong Kong industry were among the biggest stars in Asia.Now, facing the twin pressures of coronavirus’ impact on productions and performances and, for some, a cold shoulder from mainland Chinese audiences, many Hong Kong stars are becoming digital creators and entrepreneurs.Not only have film and TV opportunities dried up, well-paid promotional gigs, such as ribbon-cutting ceremonies for shop

Chinese New Year movies continued to drive the global and international box office this weekend, after their astonishing Covid-era debuts last frame. Leaders last session, Detective Chinatown 3 and Hi Mom, both crossed the RMB 4B mark locally, with each at an estimated RMB 4.02B ($621M) cume through Sunday. This is after just 10 days of play for each film, and boosts both up the all-time charts

Rebecca Davis editorThe embattled production powerhouse Beijing Culture has emerged as the biggest publicly-listed winner of the Chinese New Year box office bonanza. Its stock price has climbed 18% since the start of the holiday thanks to the success of its hit comedy “Hi Mom.”The boost is a much needed one following two years of losses and a government investigation late last year that unveiled mismanagement and inaccurate figures in its prior financial statements.

Final exams have rarely taken a heavier toll than they do in Better Days, an arresting teen-oriented story that cranks Chinese scholastic competitiveness into the realm of murderous melodrama.

Rebecca Davis editorChina’s Lunar New Year holiday brought in a record $1.2 billion (RMB7.8 billion) in ticket sales, making a tenth of the global 2020 box office in just six days.It marked the first time in Chinese film history that the country’s single-day box office exceeded RMB1 billion ($155 million) for five consecutive days.

On Wednesday, Chinese New Year box office achieved yet another new milestone with grosses for the holiday period growing to an estimated RMB 7.78B ($1.2B). This beats the previous all-time high set during the comparable 2019 holiday (RMB 5.9B). China often outdoes itself, but the fact that 2021’s Lunar New Year frame came with Covid capacity restrictions makes the performance even more staggering.

A year after Covid raged in China, the country’s box office is all sewn up and back together with Detective Chinatown 3 besting Avengers: Endgame‘s U.S./Canada all-time opening with a $394M weekend. But here in the states, we’re still trying to get the pandemic under control, and winter storms which impacted 100 million Americans according to the National Weather Service didn’t help over a four-day Valentine’s Day/Presidents’ Day weekend which is historically a lucrative time.

Lunar New Year 2021 is today, February 12th. It’s called Lunar New Year because, as Oprah Magazine describes, “it marks the first new moon of the lunisolar calendars traditional to many East Asian countries.” 2021 is the Year of the Ox, according to the Chinese zodiac. Traditions vary depending on your family and culture.

Rebecca Davis editorHours after Beijing banned the BBC World Service, Hong Kong’s public broadcaster announced Friday that it will also drop certain BBC programs, sparking concern from foreign governments and journalist organizations.Beijing’s tit-for-tat move to block the BBC came a week after the U.K.

China's Lunar New Year box office opened with a roar Friday. Wanda Pictures' Detective Chinatown 3 was leading the pack of seven new releases as expected.

Rebecca Davis editorHugely-popular Chinese video entertainment platform Bilibili is facing an ad boycott from Chinese brands after its airing of a controversial Japanese anime series sparked user criticism that the site appears to tolerate misogynistic comments and content.The controversy comes just months ahead of an expected secondary listing of Bilibili shares in Hong Kong.

China’s box office is primed for a sparkling Lunar New Year frame as new titles start rollout on Friday. As we noted this past Sunday, pre-sales had alread begun to pop, with threequel Detective Chinatown 3 in the lead. The film from Chen Sicheng as of 11:30PM local time on Thursday had hit over RMB 673M ($104M) in advance tickets for opening day Friday and more than RMB 950M ($147M) for the first week, according to Maoyan.