Chow's movie smashes Spring Festival box-office records (2)

The comedy, which had a budget of only 30 million yuan, became the highest-grossing domestic movie ever up to that point with 1.2 billion yuan in box-office revenue.

Valentine's Day this year brought in 190 million yuan in ticket sales, up 60 percent year-on-year. The figure was the highest for the date.

An adaptation of a popular Japanese TV series of the same name, The 101st Marriage Proposal, which features Lin Chiling and Huang Bo, has pulled in more than 100 million yuan in total. But another film also targeting the day, Together, only grossed 24 million yuan.

Meanwhile, the strong performance of Chow's blockbuster pressured other films, such as Love Retake and Better and Better, which earned 6 million yuan and 24 million yuan, respectively, over the six-day holiday period.

Hollywood blockbuster Cloud Atlas grossed 30 million yuan during the holiday, taking its cumulative total to nearly 160 million yuan since its release on Jan 31.

The latest James Bond film, Skyfall, took 2 million yuan over the holiday week and achieved ticket sales of nearly 400 million yuan. Another new film, Jack Reacher, made 17 million yuan on its opening day.

The fast-expanding Chinese film market - measured by audience figures and number of screens - has nurtured record-breaking box-office revenue this year, said Huang Qunfei, general manager of Beijing New Film Association Co Ltd, one of China's largest theater chains.

Huang said domestic box-office revenue has grown 30 percent on average each year, with more than 9,600 screens across the nation. he said he expects even higher growth this year.

But it's very hard to guess which films will make it, Huang said.

"The industry relies on good films the same way farmers rely on good weather," Huang said. "A good film will bring in the audience no matter when it is released."

He added: "The nature of motion pictures is to entertain. Chinese moviegoers, mostly young white-collar workers who work and live under massive pressure, need comedies to relax."