From Andy Lau’s Endgame to Detective Chinatown 3, 8 films vying for box office gold in China during Lunar New Year

Detective Chinatown 3 is the latest instalment in a hugely profitable franchise, Hi, Mom is a time-travel comedy and Andy Lau plays an assassin in Endgame

Surreal thriller A Writer’s Odyssey is about a father’s quest to find his missing daughter, while historical drama Sunset is set before World War I

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Wang Baoqiang (left) and Liu Haoran play a crime-busting duo in the film Detective Chinatown 3.

Published: 2:35pm, 10 Feb 2021Updated: 2:35pm, 10 Feb 2021

With the resurgence of the Covid-19 outbreak affecting many parts of China, local governments have urged the public to avoid travel and stay put in cities for the forthcoming Lunar New Year holiday. Municipal governments like Beijing and Shanghai have rolled out shopping coupons and discounted cinema tickets for residents to encourage them to remain in the cities.

In spite of the Covid-19-prompted cap on cinema seating at 75 per cent capacity, box office analysts say such incentives are certain to boost ticket sales during Lunar New Year, the most lucrative period of the year for cinemas.

Last year, on the eve of Lunar New Year, all new film launches were scrapped after the coronavirus outbreak broke out in Wuhan. In 2019, the total box office intake for the February 4-10 Lunar New Year period was 5.83 billion yuan (US$905.6 million), an increase of 1.4 per cent year-on-year, according to data from China’s largest movie ticketing app Maoyan.

For 2021, the eight films below will battle it out for box office gold. It is worth noting that, due to the coronavirus-triggered work suspension plaguing the whole of Hollywood, no new Hollywood films will be released this year for the golden Lunar New Year week.

1. Detective Chinatown 3

One of the films whose planned launches during Lunar New Year were scrapped last year due to the Covid-19 outbreak, Detective Chinatown 3 is certain to be a box office winner. The latest instalment in a hugely profitable franchise and the film reaped over 100 million yuan in advance ticket sales 36 hours after advance tickets were released for sale on January 29.