Wu Guangqiang

    jw368@163.com

    AMIDST the chill of a sluggish economy and the stock plunge this past July, one of the few warm spots in China was the surge of the domestic film box office.

    According to EntGroup, a third-party Chinese entertainment research service provider focusing on the film industry, this past July saw a number of records in Chinese film history: the highest monthly box-office take of 5.3 billion yuan (US$853 million) — equivalent to 2009’s yearly revenue — from an audience of 159 million.

    The three chart toppers were “Monster Hunt,” “Jian Bing Man” and “The Monkey King: Hero is Back,” with “Monster Hunt,” a family fantasy epic, leading the way. The combined box office of the three Chinese blockbusters reached 3.36 billion yuan, accounting for 60 percent of July’s total box office.

    The 1.57 billion yuan in ticket sales for “Monster Hunt” through the end of July smashed previous Chinese box-office records for domestic films. That number defeated not only the previous record holder, the domestic comedy production “Lost in Thailand,” but also “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the second best-performing foreign film in China. But the performance of “Monster Hunt” is still a far cry from that of “Fast and Furious 7,” which raked in 2.46 billion yuan. “Monster Hunt” is also slightly behind “Transformers: Age of Extinction” for the time being.

    “Jian Bing Man,” a comedy film, earned 9.52 billion yuan and “Hero is Back” pocketed 7.32 billion, making it the box-office champion of animated films ever shown in China, surpassing the previous record holder “Kung Fu Panda.”

    The success of “Hero is Back” also exceeded expectations, whose 700 million yuan in revenue in 20 days in July will beat “Kung Fu Panda 2.”

    Chinese domestic films’ magnificent performance this summer is a continuation of their emergence in the previous years. Box-office returns in the world’s second-biggest film market surged 36 percent in 2014. In the face of strong competition from Hollywood, homegrown films accounted for 54.5 percent of the 29.6 billion yuan box-office take last year. As of the end of July, China’s box office of 2015 surpassed 36 billion yuan.

    The forces behind such powerful growth include China’s steady economic growth, the sharp increase in the number of theaters, screens and moviegoers, and, most importantly, considerable improvement in homegrown film quality.

    China added 1,015 cinemas and 5,397 screens last year, bringing the total number of screens to 23,600. Viewers made 830 million trips to the cinema, up 34.5 percent year on year. Earnings from 66 films surpassed the locally symbolic 100 million yuan benchmark last year, including 36 domestic productions. In 2013, 60 films surpassed that figure.

    Chinese films are also making big inroads overseas, and Chinese mainland films grossed US$300 million abroad last year, a rise of 32 percent year on year.

    While many are excited about China’s film industry’s rapid rise, some cautious observers have warned against complacency. China’s domestic films’ brilliant performance in the July/August period was achieved without foreign competitors because of the annual summer domestic film protection period, more commonly referred to as the blackout period in Hollywood circles. During this stretch of typically six to eight weeks, imported films are barred from mainland theaters in order to ensure that local films, not foreign ones, maintain at least a 50-percent annual share of box-office receipts.

    Cautious observers also pointed out that even the hit movie “Monster Hunt” isn’t a pure homegrown movie since it was directed by Raman Hui, co-director of “Shrek the Third,” and produced by Edko’s Bill Kong (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Hero”).

    Also, a movie’s high attendance doesn’t necessarily mean high quality. There remains a huge gap between Chinese and Hollywood films in terms of artistic and technical quality.

    I’m optimistic about the future of the Chinese film industry. A positive sign is that in past years, the summer blackout often saw a dip in attendance since few local Chinese films attracted moviegoers. This year has been a completely different story.

    (The author is an English tutor and freelance writer.)