After China featured prominently at the weekend's Berlin International Film Festival, the box office was the star performer on the global stage this week, as the romantic comedy film "Crazy New Year's Eve" entered the world's top-20 ranking.
After premiering on Thursday of last week, the motion picture's pop-celebrity power pulled in $5.5 million, resulting in a number-five position on the domestic box-office sales charts and a 16th place globally.
The film will form part of the movie-theater menus of Chinese cinema-goers during the massive Spring Festival celebratory period, sharing the same start date of Feb. 19.
Director Eva Jin spoke with reporters at the animated premiere event, revealing that Chinese New Year was a major influence on the development of the feature-film project:
"I think the best plot for a movie during the Spring Festival movie season is having all its stories occurring on New Year's Eve, a day that is the most possible for all dramatic situations to take place."
Jin further explained that she deliberately steered away from a single-family focus so that the film could be representative of the broad range of life experiences that define everyday China. As result, Jin made "Crazy New Year's Eve" as a collection of six short stories that "depict different interesting characters." Although, some of the characters return home to reconnect with their families as part of the narrative.
According to the Guardian's Phil Hoad, Jin's film follows "the portmanteau structure of similar American and Russian projects of recent years" and has "plenty of star eye candy." The "eye candy" that Hoad describes includes Taiwanese actress Amber Kuo, actor Sun Yizhou and actress Zhao Liying.