THE Mid-Autumn and National Day holiday, the first weeklong break since nearly 70,000 screens were reopened July 20, has shown a strong recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown despite seating capacity limits of 75 percent.

Boosted by two new blockbusters, “My People, My Homeland” and “Jiang Ziya: Legend of Deification,” the vacation saw box office results of around 2.94 billion yuan (US$433.1 million) as of Monday, close to the same period last year and twice as much as in the time period in 2018, according to movie information tracker Beacon.

Coupled with earlier hits, including the war epic “The Eight Hundred,” the highest-grossing film this year, and “Leap” with actress Gong Li, China saw total movie ticket revenues surpass 10 billion yuan by Oct. 3. It was another sign of the potential of the world’s second-largest movie market in terms of box office.

The films hitting big screens during the holiday offer a wide range of genres and subject matters, meeting the pent-up demand of viewers, analysts said.

Released on Oct. 1, the domestic comedy feature “My People, My Homeland” tells five stories about people’s love for their homeland. It had pocketed 1.07 billion yuan as of Oct. 4, rocketing to second place on the country’s 2020 box office chart, behind the epic war drama “The Eight Hundred,” which was released in late August, according to Maoyan.

“Leap,” a biographical film depicting the multi-generational struggle of the Chinese women’s volleyball team to secure glory for the nation, was released in late September and had raked in over 500 million yuan as of Sunday.

Other blockbusters include “Jiang Ziya: Legend of Deification,” an animation film revolving around a mythological figure Jiang Ziya, “Vanguard,” a Chinese action movie starring Jackie Chan, and “Coffee or Tea?,” a movie about young entrepreneurs starting e-commerce businesses in their underdeveloped hometown.

Mu Chen, head of Beacon’s research institution, said the China Film Administration, the country’s top sector regulator, raised the seating capacity in movie theaters from 30 percent in late July to 50 percent in mid-August and to 75 percent since Sept. 25, generating a stimulus for the market.

“The genres of films released during this year’s National Day holiday are more diversified, varying from animation to action and comedy. With more options, more audiences have been lured to theaters,” he added.

Saying that high box office figures and online praise for National Day blockbusters have sent “a positive signal,” Mu predicted their performance will encourage industry insiders to release more quality films, as shown by the announcement of several films aimed at the golden time before and during the 2021 Spring Festival.

Beijing-based Capital Cinema’s deputy general manager, Yu Chao, said the drop in overseas travel due to the pandemic has shifted a lot of customer interest to theaters, creating new box office highs during the holiday.

He said most of his fellow theater operators, especially those in downtown areas of big cities, have expressed the feeling that the domestic film industry’s recovery is going much better and more quickly than was forecast.

Most of the National Day blockbusters held test screenings in advance, accumulating popularity online. “Such strategies are useful to raise the films’ power of attraction,” he said.

Yu predicted that the next hit might be the war film “Jin Gang Chuan,” an epic jointly directed by veteran directors Guan Hu, Guo Fan and Lu Yang and set to open in late October.

Yu said he hopes the Chinese film industry will use the momentum to accelerate the recovery.

(Xinhua-China Daily)