Fraud at the Chinese films1 min read
Reading Time: < 1 minuteKung Fu Panda 2 hit 125 million yuan ($19.29 million) in receipts last weekend, setting a new record for both opening and weekend box office in China. But the surge in sales has seen domestic “blockbusters” fare poorly by contrast: rom-com A Beautiful Life took only 7 million yuan ($1 million) in the same weekend, for example.
With nothing in competition at Cannes, industry critics have questioned the poor performance of Chinese cinema at both the box-office and awards. Meanwhile, a deeper problem prevails: box-office fraud.
Ticket sale trickery
According to the 2011 Chinese Film Market Review, published by the China Film Distribution and Exhibition Association (CFDEA) in April, 2011 blockbuster Let The Bullets Fly made 659 million yuan ($101 million) by the end of February.
Yet its distributor had announced at the time that the film had reaped 40 million more than that.
Producer Ma Ke defended himself against allegations of fraud: “700 million yuan was evaluated data. Let The Bullets Fly was still showing after February in small cities, suburbs and the countryside. The figures for those were not completely included.”
