Hi, Mom, the maiden directorial project of a Chinese comedian-actress, has beaten the 2019 American superhero film Avengers: Endgame at China's box office.
The cumulative ticket sales of the Chinese comedy film had topped 4.27 billion yuan ($661 million) by the evening of Tuesday, its 12th screening day, surpassing 4.25 billion yuan, the total generated by Avengers: Endgame.
Hitting this milestone also meant Hi, Mom climbed one notch up to rank fourth on the all-time box office chart covering all films ever screened in China, as compiled by the China Movie Data Information Network.
The top three earners on the chart are the action-adventure film Wolf Warrior 2, the animated fantasy Ne Zha, and the sci-fi movie The Wandering Earth, all domestic productions, with a total revenue of 5.69 billion yuan, 5.03 billion yuan, and 4.68 billion yuan, respectively.
Detective Chinatown 3, the latest installment in China's well-received Detective Chinatown comedy film franchise, was released on the Spring Festival, or Feb 12, along with Hi, Mom, and ranked sixth with 4.11 billion yuan.
Hi, Mom, directed by Jia Ling, received the highest rating in an audience-satisfaction survey conducted by the China Film Art Research Center covering films screened during the week-long Spring Festival holiday starting on Feb 11.
The buzzy film stars Jia Ling as a devoted daughter, who, deeply saddened by her mother's death in an accident, finds herself transported back to 1981, where she meets her mother and attempts to improve the latter's fate by using ideas from the future.
Hi, Mom, which Jia described as a tribute to her real-life mother who passed away tragically around two decades ago, brought many moviegoers to tears. It also sparked online conversations on the topic of mother-daughter affection, with netizens sharing old photos of their own mothers at a young age.
