The Spring Festival Box Office Battle

In recent years the Spring Festival holiday has become one of the biggest periods for Chinese cinemas as the country looks to escape all the over-eating and parental nagging that often comes with the New Year celebrations. 

In 2019, the need for escapism took audiences out into space, with The Wandering Earth blowing away the competition and leading many to talk of "the birth of Chinese sci-fi." For 2020, it seems unlikely that there'll be such a significant, globally-recognized cultural moment, but here's your guide to what to expect from the big movies showing in China this Spring Festival.

Detective Chinatown 3

Detective Chinatown 3 has done huge presale numbers and is an early leader in the projected box office charts. The slapstick action movie's figures have been so impressive (second only to Avengers: Endgame in terms of presales in Chinese cinema history) that two other major Spring Festival contenders have actually brought their releases forward by a day to try and offset its box office domination. Xu Zheng’s comedy Lost in Russia (itself the third in a series) and Leap (which has also suffered a last minute change of Chinese name) will now be released on Lunar New Year's Eve.

Directed by Peter Chan and starring Gong Li, Leap will interweave stories from different periods of China’s women’s volleyball team. The sport and team are well-loved in China, while the themes of national glory and overcoming adversity may mean it goes down well at New Year. The presence of Gong Li will hopefully give it a bit of depth.

Leap trailer

Elsewhere, Eddie Peng will be hoping to save the day in Dante Lam’s The Rescue. Lam is the director behind Operation Red Sea and this new film looks like it’ll follow a similar action-packed formula, this time focusing on China’s coast guard.

The Rescue Trailer

Oh, and there’s a new Jackie Chan flick on its way:

Moving swiftly on, animated fantasy film Legend of Deification will be hoping to emulate some of Nezha‘s runaway success, especially as it’s based on a story from the same mythological universe. And for kids, there’s another feature-length run out for the phenomenally popular Boonie Bears characters in The Wild Life.

And if none of those have piqued your interest, there's always plenty of great cinema to be streamed directly onto your device. Check out our list of 2010s films below for some inspiration.

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