“Full River Red”, the period comedy-drama directed by Zhang Yimou and released in January this year, has won its producer Huanxi Media Beijing the 2023 Asia Pacific Box Office Achievement Award at the CineAsia convention.
The convention opens in Bangkok on Monday and runs until Thursday (4-7 December). The award will be presented at a gala luncheon on the final day.
“This popular period comedy has grossed an incredible $670 million in the APAC region and is Zhang Yimou’s biggest box office hit to date,” said Frank Perikleous, VP for APAC & Australia at data collection and analysis firm Comscore Movies. “Huanxi Media’s understanding of the Asian film industry and commitment to delivering quality content to cinemas not only in China but across the region has been instrumental in the overall health of the APAC market.”
Released in time for the Chinese New Year, the film earned $60 million on its opening day in China and $183 million in its first three days of release. In its first seven days of release, the film grossed over $430 million, with 56 million admissions. It became China’s top film of the year and the sixth highest-grossing film of all time in China.
“To be able to honour a film by legendary director Zhang Yimou, whose extensive body of work includes ‘House Of Flying Daggers’, ‘Hero’ and ‘Raise The Red Lantern’, is very exciting,” said Andrew Sunshine, President of CineAsia organiser Film Expo Group.
“Our company is dedicated to creating high-quality, entertaining films from China’s top filmmakers. The record-breaking success of Zhang Yimou’s ‘Full River Red’ is a great example of what Huanxi Media can achieve with vision and commitment, not only this year but in the years to come,” said Li Yongyi of Huanxi Media.
Having struggled to break into the film industry shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution, Zhang has had multiple roles as an actor, cinematographer, screenwriter and producer. He is now one of China’s most celebrated ‘Fifth Generation’ filmmakers and was recently honoured with a lifetime achievement award at the Tokyo International Film Festival. He recently said that he intends to concentrate on directing, making one film a year until he can no longer do so. In order to maintain this rate of output, he may reduce his screenwriting efforts.
Other awards to be presented at CineAsia include Siddhart Roy Kapur as Motion Picture Association Asia-Pacific Copyright Educator of the Year, Javier Sotomajor of Cinepolis as Exhibitor of the Year, Eugene Yang of Paramount Pictures International as Exhibitor of the Year, Benny Suherman of Indonesia’s XXI as CineAsia Icon. Wanda Films Executive President Chen Hongtao will also receive the Showmanship Award at a separate ceremony on Wednesday.
