EFM 2021: The buzz titles from Hong Kong and China | Features

China has just come off a record-breaking Lunar New Year period (February 11-17), during which box office reached $1.2bn (rmb7.8bn), up 32.5% over the same holiday period in 2019. Wanda Pictures’ Detective Chinatown 3 headed box office for most of the holiday, but Beijing Culture’s time-travel drama Hi, Mom later pulled ahead, propelled by strong word-of-mouth. By March 1, Hi, Mom had grossed $742.2m (rmb4.8bn), according to figures from Artisan Gateway, and Detective Chinatown 3 was on $664.8m (rmb4.3bn).

While China’s cinemas were open over Lunar New Year, albeit with some seating capacity and other Covid-19 restrictions, Hong Kong theatres only reopened on February 18 after closing in December 2020, due to a fourth wave of the virus, so missed the usually lucrative Christmas and Lunar New Year holiday periods. However, with the infection caseload lowering and a…