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A new Chinese animated film has broken multiple box office records, thanks in part to a growing patriotic fervour as companies across the country subsidise tickets and organise group trips to the cinema to boost sales.
Ne Zha 2, which is based loosely on a 16th century tale of a young outcast endowed with magical, dragon-slaying powers, has raked in more than Rmb$12.4bn ($1.7bn) since its release late last month, according to Chinese ticketing platform Maoyan, making it the world’s highest grossing animated film ever and cracking the all-time global top-10 list.
The film has also sparked an outpouring of nationalist pride from Chinese companies.
In eastern Shandong province, snacks maker Weilong Food said it had paused operations to take about 900 of its staff to the cinema. Videos posted by the company on short video platform Douyin showed a line of buses leaving the factory and a banner reading “Global box office number one; Go go go!”
Li Zhiwei, Weilong Food’s head of promotion, said it wanted to “help Chinese films and animation go further”, adding: “It’s our turn — domestic brands supporting domestic animation.”
This “collective effort” amassing behind Ne Zha 2 “reflects a form of participatory nationalism — where individuals voluntarily rally behind a cultural product”, said Xiaoning Lu at Soas University of London who studies Chinese cinema and culture.
Videos on Douyin, the TikTok sister app, showed school groups and uniformed employees from food and toothpaste manufacturers heading to cinemas.
Chinese electric vehicle maker Zeekr offered employees cinema vouchers to “help Ne Zha’s box office exceed Rmb10bn”, according to a company social media post last week.
“It cost us Rmb500,000, allowing over 10,000 colleagues to enjoy the Ne Zha 2 with their families,” said Jennifer Sun, vice-president of Zeekr Group.
Wang Teng, general manager of marketing at Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, wrote on microblogging platform Weibo that he had organised a group viewing for employees.
Ne Zha 2’s surging success comes as Chinese film audiences have increasingly spurned Hollywood offerings — which previously dominated the market — in favour of domestic productions, many of them based on historical sagas or advancing nationalist themes.
Last year’s breakout Chinese video game Black Myth: Wukong also drew from classic Chinese mythology.
It has also provided a much-needed boost for China’s domestic box office, which fell almost a quarter last year, partly due to a lack of blockbuster titles and a slowing domestic economy that has weighed on domestic consumption.
“The Chinese domestic market alone has made the film the number-one [animated] box office globally,” said Ying Zhu, a film academic and author of Hollywood in China: Behind the Scenes of the World’s Largest Movie Market.
Film experts noted that China’s film industry generally relies much more heavily on its domestic audience in contrast to Hollywood, which typically draws on a wider global market.
China’s previous highest-grossing film, 2021 war epic The Battle at Lake Changjin, which was commissioned by the Chinese Communist party’s propaganda department and portrays a victory over US forces in the Korean war, earned more than 99 per cent of its sales at home, according to Maoyan.
Ne Zha 2’s North American release, meanwhile, grossed $7.2mn over the weekend, according to Comscore, landing it at fifth in the region’s box office, which was led by Captain America: Brave New World.
“The global film market [will continue to be] dominated by Hollywood,” said Stanley Rosen, director of the East Asian Studies Center at University of Southern California who specialising in Chinese society. “And the Chinese film market . . . dominated by China.”
Wu, a cinema manager in Zhenjiang in China’s eastern Jiangsu province who preferred to be identified by one name, said he had observed growing demand from companies, local government departments and schools for group screenings of Ne Zha 2.
Wu added that many movie-goers said they were boycotting Captain America to “support Ne Zha”, while theatres were responding by reducing screenings of the American blockbuster. “There’s a mindset of saving box office revenue for Ne Zha,” he said.
