Diverse domestic film productions lead summer box office to record high

Promotional material for Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms Photo: Courtesy of Douban

The Chinese mainland's total box-office revenue for the summer movie season spanning from June to August reached 19 billion yuan ($2.64 billion) this week. This is more than twice the figure for the whole summer movie season of 2022 and also higher than the previous summer box office record of 17.78 billion yuan set in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The box office milestone this year can also be seen as a triumph for domestic movies and China's film industry. According to box-office tracker Dengta Data, the top six highest-grossing films on this year's summer box-office chart so far are all domestic productions, which represent a diverse range of genres.

Leading the chart is the suspense thriller Lost in the Stars, about a woman disappearing on an overseas trip. In second and third place, respectively, are the crime drama No More Bets and the fantasy epic Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms. These two films are followed by the sports movie Never Say Never, the animated feature Chang An, and the comedy-drama One and Only.

As a frequently used theme for domestic movies, traditional Chinese culture remains a major attraction. Kingdom of Storms is the first installment of a trilogy based on the Chinese fantasy novel Investiture of the Gods, which features mythological stories taking place in ancient China's Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC) and Western Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 BC). The film used various methods, such as prosthetic makeup and visual effects, to bring gods, monsters and other fantasy characters to life.

Now the second highest-grossing domestic animated film in the mainland, Chang An depicts the stories of poet Li Bai. Featuring dozens of well-known poems from the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the film has a 8.3/10 on review platform Douban.