China's new year box office sales reach record 1 billion yuan

12-28-2010 08:37 BJT

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China's new year box-office results are expected to break the record of 1 billion yuan. Spurring on the rising ticket sales are four homegrown movies. The fierce battle taking place in cinemas across China.

"Just Call Me Nobody" is the first hit of the new year movie season. The comedy has exceeded 150 million yuan at the box office since being released on December the 3rd. Director Chen Kaige's "Sacrifice", which hit the big screen one day later, has broken 200 million yuan.

At present, the biggest winner is actor-turned director Jiang Wen's "Let the Bullets Fly". The film took in over 30 million on the first day of release on December 16th when 765,000 watched the film. The number broke the record of 763,000 viewers of "Avatar". And the bullets did fly fast as it exceeded 100 million yuan in three days, the quickest of any Chinese film. It's expected to reach 300 million by the end of this week.

Wang Renyin, Film Critic, said, "'Let the Bullets Fly' showed more viewers' what a film should be. The imagination runs wild. It makes people laugh and think, especially among the young people who say they are energized by the film."

"Just Call Me Nobody"（"Da Xiao Jianghu"）, a costume comedy set in ancient times, wrapped up shooting recently and is scheduled to be released on December 3, Mtime.com reports.

The fourth big hit this season is the sequel of "If You Are the One". Over 920 thousand viewers watched the romantic comedy on the first day of its release on December 22nd, breaking the record set one week earlier by "Let the Bullets Fly". The combined box office take of the four big films might raise the entire sales of the new year season by 100 million yuan. That makes the goal of 10 billion yuan in ticket sales for 2010 attainable.