Filmart 2021: The hot projects 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. As of March 10, Hi, Mom had grossed $792m (RMB5.16bn) and Detective Chinatown 3 was on $681m (RMB4.44bn).

While China’s cinemas were open over Lunar New Year, albeit with some seating capacity and other Covid-19 pandemic 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 case load lowering and a vaccination programme being rolled out,…