Frozen potatoes vs turkey: Patriotic Chinese-made war epic tops global box office

Damai Entertainment Holdings

19/10/2021 10:22

By Sophie Yu and Tony Munroe
    BEIJING, Oct 19 (Reuters) - A Chinese-made Korean War epic
has topped the global box office, tapping a vein of rising
patriotism in China and prompting moviegoers to post videos of
themselves eating frozen potatoes to emulate the hardships
endured by soldiers in the conflict.
    "The Battle at Lake Changjin", released to coincide with
China's Oct. 1 national holiday, had grossed nearly 5 billion
yuan ($779.13 million) by Tuesday, according to data compiled by
Lighthouse, a box office tracker owned by Alibaba Pictures 
 1060.HK .
    That puts it ahead of current global blockbusters including
the latest 007 film, No Time To Die, and Marvel's Shang-Chi and
the Legend of the Ten Rings, according to IMDb-backed movie data
website Box Office Mojo, and makes it the biggest-grossing war
film ever, overtaking Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, which took in
$526.9 million.
    Having premiered 20 days ago, the three-hour-movie currently
accounts for half of all films being shown in Chinese cinemas,
according to Lighthouse. It was made with the support of the
central government's propaganda department, according to state
news agency Xinhua. 
    Starring Wu Jing, who directed and played the lead role in
Wolf Warrior, another nationalistic Chinese blockbuster, the
film depicts Chinese soldiers battling the much-better equipped
U.S. troops during the bitter cold of the 1950-1953 war.
    The conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace
treaty, leaving U.S.-led U.N. forces technically still at war
with North Korea.
    The movie, which cost $200 million, is the latest in a
series of patriotic titles China has churned out in recent
years. The film has been embraced by official media, and a
former journalist was arrested by police for suggesting on a
social media platform that the soldiers frozen to death in the
movie had been foolish.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2R42N1 
    One scene in the movie shows soldiers chewing frozen small
potatoes between battles while their U.S. counterparts feast on
Thanksgiving turkey.
    Some cinemas have distributed frozen potatoes to audiences
before the movie, according to videos on Douyin, the Chinese
version of TikTok, with many showing moviegoers eating them or
the fried flour that was also eaten by Chinese soldiers. 
    A young woman in one such video cried after the first bite,
saying it was impossible to eat. 
    "The frozen potatoes they ate give us the good life we have
today," said another Douyin user.
    Peking University professor Zhang Yiwu said the increasing
popularity of local films posed a challenge to Hollywood's
efforts to gain share in China's movie market. "Hollywood's
movie industry produced one standard product for global
audiences in the past, but they might have to learn how to cater
to the Chinese market," Zhang said.   
($1 = 6.4174 Chinese yuan renminbi)

 (Reporting by Sophie Yu; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
 ((Sophie.Yu@thomsonreuters.com; 861056692136;))