Domestic action thriller beats "Godzilla vs Kong" at China's box office

BEIJING, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Domestic action thriller "Raging Fire" by late director Benny Chan continued to smash records, having beat U.S. movie "Godzilla vs Kong" to claim the fifth spot at China's yearly box office chart.

"Raging Fire" saw its cumulative takings exceed 1.23 billion yuan (about 190 million U.S. dollars) that was scored by the latter, by Friday, and further rise to 1.24 billion yuan as of early Saturday afternoon, showed data from box office tracker Maoyan.

Maoyan has also upgraded its forecast for the film's earnings at China's box office from more than 1.2 billion yuan to over 1.3 billion yuan.

Hitting theaters on July 30, "Raging Fire" is now the longest ruler of China's daily box office chart so far in 2021, having topped the chart for 29 days.

The typical Hong Kong-set action film tells a familiar story of an honest cop clashing with a former colleague-turned criminal and has received wide applause for outstanding set-pieces and excellent performances by Donnie Yen and Nicholas Tse.

It currently has a rating of 7.5 out of 10 based on more than 250,000 reviews on the review platform Douban.

Eight of the top 10 earners at China's box office this year are domestic productions.

The only two foreign films in the top 10 are "F9: The Fast Saga" and "Godzilla vs Kong," now ranking third and sixth with 1.39 billion yuan and 1.23 billion yuan, respectively.