China's 2022 box office mirrors advance of domestic films

The third year since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2022 saw China's box office striving to cope with the impact of sporadic outbreaks, and in the process it managed to generate a total revenue of around 30 billion yuan (about 4.31 billion U.S. dollars) for the year.

Though much less than the previous year's 47 billion yuan, the amount still shows the advances made by domestic films in terms of improved quality and genre diversification in 2022 -- all this despite the pandemic impact, said industry observers.

Domestic titles lead the yearly box office chart, according to box office tracker Maoyan and other platforms.

Similar to the previous two years, the three top grossing films screened in China in 2022 are all domestic movies. Moreover, Chinese films account for eight of the top 10 earners at China's 2022 box office.

Domestic patriotic hit "The Battle at Lake Changjin II" is the year's top earner, raking in 4.07 billion yuan.

This achievement, in addition to a whopping 5.77 billion yuan revenue from the 2021 war blockbuster "The Battle at Lake Changjin," saw the "Changjin" films become China's top-grossing film series ever, replacing the "Detective Chinatown" comedy movie franchise.