Record holiday sales herald Chinese film market's bullish recovery

BULLISH START

Though the holiday sales, according to analysts, can't simply represent the box office trend for the whole year, it can surely be seen as a good beginning of the Lunar New Year for the movie market.

The audience has been charmed by Hi, Mom, in particular, among others, giving it the top rating in a satisfaction survey covering films screened during the holiday, which was conducted by the China Film Art Research Center.

Hi, Mom stars Jia as a devoted daughter, who, deeply saddened by her mother's death in an accident, finds herself transported back to 1981, where she meets her mother and attempts to improve the latter's life by using ideas from the future.

The buzzy comedy, which Jia described as a tribute to her real-life mother who passed away tragically around two decades ago, brought many moviegoers to tears. It also sparked conversations online contemplating mother-daughter affection, with netizens sharing old photos of their own mothers at their young age.

Liu Haibo, a professor at the Shanghai Film Academy, Shanghai University, said the record box office earnings have shown the overall progress in the quality of domestic films as well as the artistic outlook of local audiences.

Domestic productions contributed 11.2 billion yuan, or 97 percent, to China's 2021 box office. In 2020, the movie market generated 20 billion yuan, with domestic films contributing about 84 percent of the total earnings.