Wave of national pride prompts record box-office haul
When high school teacher Pan Xiaona read about a film being shot about the legendary story of Sichuan Airlines pilot Liu Chuanjian last year, it immediately caught her attention.
Liu made a miraculous emergency landing after a section of the cockpit windshields shattered at an altitude of almost 10,000 meters, making the veteran captain somewhat of the Chinese answer to Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the heroic pilot featured in Miracle on the Hudson. So when tickets for the film The
Captain went on sale in early September, Pan planned to book three tickets for her family two days ahead of the opening day, which was Sept 30.
It came as a surprise to Pan, a film buff who regularly visits the cinema, when she saw that more than 90 percent of the seats were already sold out. “It’s usually easy to purchase a good seat just a few hours in advance,” says the 39-year-old who lives in east Beijing.
Joining millions of other Chinese who chose the cinema as part of their festive entertainment, Pan also bought tickets to join her parents and 11-year-old daughter in watching My People, My Country, the highest-grossing film of this year’s weeklong National Day holiday.
“I saw many elderly couples in the theater. Some of them were even singing along to the theme song Me
and My Motherland as the credits rolled,” says Pan.
Due to the festive atmosphere as China celebrated its 70th anniversary, 116 million tickets were sold during the holiday, the highest amount for a National Day box-office season on record, according to a report by Beacon, Alibaba’s movie data tracker.
Boosted by the two blockbusters and The Climbers, a film about two separate ascents of Qomolangma by Chinese mountaineers in 1960 and 1975, the holiday week achieved new heights both in terms of box-office takings and admissions.
Between Oct 1 and 7, China bagged a whopping box-office haul of 4.38 billion yuan ($617.8 million), surging 130 percent year-on-year and setting a record for Chinese cinema for the period.
The three films accounted for nearly 97 percent of all takings during the National Day holiday week — 43.8 percent to My People, My Coun
try, 39 percent for The Captain and
13.9 percent for The Climbers respectively.
Raking in 2.65 billion yuan and still riding a wave of success to top China’s daily box-office charts, My
People, My Country earned over three times as much as Project
Gutenberg, the highest-grossing film for the same period last year.
For most industry analysts, this year’s October holiday was seen as one of the most lucrative box-office seasons since 2014, becoming a “battlefield” for big-budget films looking to hit gold.
But what sets this year’s winners apart from previous seasonal offerings is that all three films received positive reviews online, demonstrating how far domestic films have improved, says Yin Hong, deputy chairman of the China Film Association and a professor at Tsinghua University.
He also says Chinese filmmakers have found an effective way to tell grandly themed stories, as witnessed in the scale and scope of the anthological My People, My Country, a film that charts seven stories about ordinary people caught up in historic moments in time.
Beijing-based critic Tan Fei agrees that the success of these patriotic films is also related to an enhanced sense of national pride thanks to China’s rapid development, which has aroused an interest in some of the more glorious moments from the country’s history.
“I actually saw some Chinese people wave national flags when they were watching My People, My Country in a European cinema,” says Tan. Internet giants entered the film industry five years ago, and are now focusing more on promoting festive blockbusters.
Sha Dan, a researcher with the China Film Archive, says modern society’s reliance on smartphones and the internet has helped them market these seasonal blockbusters.
My People, My Country has drawn investment from 50 film companies, including internet giants Alibaba and Tencent, while other two films —
The Captain and The Climbers — both cited Alibaba as an investor.
Teaming up with major service providers such as e-commerce site Taobao, food delivery app Eleme and online payment platform Alipay, Alibaba managed to generate 210 million “clicks” related to My People, My
Country ahead of its release, according to a report by Taopiaopiao, Alibaba’s online ticketing service.
“A person’s online shopping habits make it possible for big data technology to ‘calculate’ what kind of movies you like,” says Sha.
So when the internet giants start to make forays into the film market, they offer more efficient ways of hooking up with potential theatergoers, adds Sha.
But even with these nontraditional means in film promotion, some insiders say they believe it’s still the quality of the product that decides its popularity.
“The three winners all tell excellent stories through well-developed characters. If all Chinese films could attain these heights, our industry insiders would be very optimistic about the future,” says Wang Hailin, a veteran scriptwriter.
The three winners all tell excellent stories through welldeveloped characters. If all Chinese films could attain these heights, our industry insiders would be very optimistic about the future.” Wang Hailin, veteran scriptwriter