Wave of national pride prompts record box-office haul

Boosted by the two blockbusters and The Climbers, a film about two separate ascents of Qomolangma by Chinese mountaineers in 1960 and 1975, the holiday week achieved new heights both in terms of box-office takings and admissions.

Between Oct 1 and 7, China bagged a whopping box-office haul of 4.38 billion yuan ($617.8 million), surging 130 percent year-on-year and setting a record for Chinese cinema for the period.

The three films accounted for nearly 97 percent of all takings during the National Day holiday week-43.8 percent to My People, My Country, 39 percent for The Captain and 13.9 percent for The Climbers respectively.

Raking in 2.65 billion yuan and still riding a wave of success to top China's daily box-office charts, My People, My Country earned over three times as much as Project Gutenberg, the highest-grossing film for the same period last year.

For most industry analysts, this year's October holiday was seen as one of the most lucrative box-office seasons since 2014, becoming a "battlefield" for big-budget films looking to hit gold.

But what sets this year's winners apart from previous seasonal offerings is that all three films received positive reviews online, demonstrating how far domestic films have improved, says Yin Hong, deputy chairman of the China Film Association and a professor at Tsinghua University.

He also says Chinese filmmakers have found an effective way to tell grandly themed stories, as witnessed in the scale and scope of the anthological My People, My Country, a film that charts seven stories about ordinary people caught up in historic moments in time.