“THE Battle at Lake Changjin,” a Chinese war epic, earned US$73 million over the weekend, taking its China box-office total to US$768.8 million — a phenomenal sum unmatched by any Hollywood film released since the start of the pandemic.

The film is now China’s second-biggest movie of 2021, trailing only the Chinese Year comedy hit “Hi, Mom” (US$821 million). In the all-time China box office charts, the war epic now ranks third, in U.S. dollar terms, behind “Wolf Warrior 2” (US$854 million) and “Hi, Mom.” Chinese ticket app Maoyan forecasts the film to finish its run at second place in the record books with a total gross of US$843 million.

The film is co-directed by A-list Chinese filmmakers Chen Kaige, Hark Tsui and Dante Lam, and it’s believed to be China’s most expensive film ever made, with a production budget of over US$200 million. Action hero Wu Jing (“Wolf Warrior 2”) and 20-year-old rising star Jackson Yee (“Better Days”) co-star.

The film recounts Chinese sacrifices and heroism against U.S. forces during the Korean War.

“My Country, My Parents,” also released ahead of the National Day holiday, came in second place, and crossed the US$200 million mark. The film added US$14.6 million for a cumulative total of US$209.8 million, according to data from Artisan Gateway.

Arthouse director Lou Ye’s much delayed 2019 drama “Saturday Fiction,” starring Gong Li, Mark Chao and Japan’s Joe Odagiri, hit Chinese commercial screens over the weekend. The black and white art title had trouble holding its own against the tentpoles, however, opening with just US$2.3 million. Maoyan expects the title to finish with just under US$4 million.

Next weekend, attention will be directed towards Denis Villeneuve’s much-anticipated tentpole sci-fi adaptation of “Dune.”

(SD-Agencies)