Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have furiously refuted talk that they are romantically involved. But the A-list tandem looked the part of a family unit Thursday as they went to Ethiopia to pick up Jolie's newly adopted daughter.

As Hollywood action flick "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" to debut in many cities in China Friday, huge interests attached to the two stars' off-screen romance have flared up domestic movie goers.

"Audiences could detect whether the rumors are true or not through their performance," said Liu Jianzhong, chairman of the board of Huaxia Film Company, the movie's Chinese distributor.

Liu seems happy to let Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's rumour goes as China has a large amount of Pitt's fans.

"I am overwhelmed by Pitt, and I heard that Pitt's divorce with Jennifer Aniston may derived from this film, so I come and watch," Zhang Weiyan, who attended the film premiere launched in a Beijing cinema Wednesday, told Xinhua.

Though Pitt and Jolie who play husband-and-wife assassins in the movie denied their off-screen intimacy, suspicion is still accelerating.

Reports said that the movie topped the box office list by raking in 50.3 million dollars in its opening weekend since it was screened in the United States on June 10.

Huaxia Film Company estimated that the film could earn at least 50 million yuan (6 million US dollars) in domestic market, entering into the top three imported films so far this year.

However, no matter serious industry magazine and street tabloid seems concerned more on the authenticity of their scandal than the movie itself.

flare up: 突然燃燒，突然發怒，突然開始（發作）

tabloid: a newspaper of small format giving the news in condensed form, usually with illustrated, often sensational material（小報，一種小版面的報紙，以濃縮的形式來報導新聞，常常是聳人聽聞的材料）