The Farewell set to bomb in China as Awkwafina’s Golden Globe win fails to generate box office interest

Chinese film fans have already given their verdict on film starring Asian-American actress, criticising her looks and shunning advance sales for its opening day

Chinese-American Lulu Wang’s touching, personal film is set to be as big a flop in China as Crazy Rich Asians, but she says it wasn’t made for any one market

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Awkwafina celebrates her Golden Globes win for best actress in a musical or comedy – the first for an actress of Asian ancestry – with the film’s director, Lulu Wang (left), and co-star Zhao Shuzhen at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. The film is projected to have a weak opening in China this week. (Photo: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

Published: 1:00pm, 9 Jan 2020Updated: 12:43pm, 14 Jan 2020

The Farewell star Awkwafina made history by winning a best actress Golden Globe this week, but her victory hasn’t generated interest in the film among cinema-goers in China, where it is set and where it goes on general release on January 10.

According to China’s largest movie ticketing app, Maoyan, by the end of Wednesday, advance ticket sales for the opening day of The Farewell amounted to only 51,000 yuan (US$7,350). Seats have been on presale since November 14.

The film industry sees advance ticket sales for a film’s opening day on Maoyan as a credible gauge of audience response to a movie and how it will fare at the box office in China. The Farewell had a limited release in China in late November, when Awkwafina, whose real name is Nora Lum and who was born to a Chinese-American father and a Korean-American mother, was the subject of vitriolic remarks on Chinese video-streaming website Bilibili and on Weibo about her appearance, SCMP’s Abacus reported.

Directed by Lulu Wang, The Farewell tells the touching story of a Chinese-American writer, Billi (played by Awkwafina), who returns to China to spend time with her grandmother, who has been diagnosed with lung cancer.

Billi’s family travel to the grandmother’s home in Changchun, in China’s northeast, to stage a fake wedding between her cousin and his Japanese girlfriend so that the entire extended family can bid the grandmother a final farewell.