“Cyber Heist,” the Hong Kong-based crime thriller directed by Wong Hing-fan (I’m Livin’ It) and written by Soi Cheang (aka Cheang Pou Soi), took first place at the box office in mainland China on weekend.
She earned a very modest $6.2 million, according to data from Artisan Gateway, a consulting firm. But that was enough to win the quietest weekend since the Lunar New Year holiday season in January.
“Cyber Heist” stars Aaron Kwok as a cyber security engineer who develops a sophisticated firewall capable of blocking online attacks against the global financial system. But he does not realize that in doing so he has entered a more dangerous minefield. The picture also stars Lam Ka Tun and Simon Yam.
It surpassed the previous weekend’s winning film, “A Guilty Conscience,” which took $5.1 million in its second frame. The courtroom drama, which is now the highest-grossing Hong Kong film in the domestic market, also now has a cumulative collection of $17.8 million from the mainland, after ten days.
The arrival of “Cyber Heist” also meant that two Hong Kong-produced pictures topped the mainland box office charts in consecutive sessions. This seems to continue the trend that Hong Kong’s more commercial and stylish titles continue to outperform in mainland China, but the reverse does not hold. Mainland Chinese films are struggling to make a huge impact at the Hong Kong box office, where a whole host of domestic, Chinese and imported titles are available to viewers.
Cheang is a prolific and versatile filmmaker who recently saw the premiere of “Mad Fate” at the Berlin Film Festival. It will be the subject of a retrospective at the upcoming Hong Kong International Film Festival, which kicks off at the end of this month.
“Cyber Heist” was produced by Entertaining Power, Media Asia, and Sil-Metropole, a Hong Kong-China co-production company. The international rights sale is being handled by Hong Kong-based Edko Films, which next week’s FilMart premieres three of the top four films currently showing in China: Cyber Heist, A Guilty Conscience, and Zhang Yimou’s formerly chart-topping Full River Red. . . “
During its final weekend, “Full River Red” finished fourth with $3.1 million, its seventh weekend of release. Her cumulative net worth is now $654 million. The Wandering Earth 2 was third, with $4.4 million. Its cumulative total is now $575 million.
“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” dropped from third to fifth. It earned $3.0 million, a cumulative increase that increased it to $37 million after three weekends upon release. While the number pales in comparison to its film franchise predecessor, Artisan Gateway notes that it was the top import title in China in February and the sixth highest performing of the month.
China’s year-to-date box office total is $2.06 billion, nearly 7% up before 2022, and just 9% below the same point in 2019. But back to pre-pandemic levels (enjoy 2019) with a full year’s theatrical gross $9.1 billion in mainland China) On a consistent level, China’s box office needs to deliver an average weekly gross of over $170 million. The current performance is still long.
