The world-devouring World Cup has failed to engulf the Chinese film market, not because of short of football nuts but the powerful movie feast for the communist party's birthday.

 

A number of densely-screened China-made films are complementing the lost box office of imported commercial movies which are bearing the brunt of the World Cup due to a big overlap between movie-goers and football fans, managers of cinema companies told Xinhua News Agency.

 

The football matches are going on in China's evenings and nights, the golden time period of movie market.

 

China has been releasing 26 China-made films between June 20 and July 10 to commemorate the 85th birthday of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which was founded on July 1, 1921, including The Forest Ranger, winner of the Jury Grand Prix at the 9th Shanghai International Film Festival.

 

The China-made movies are dominating, said Huang Ziyan, manager of the New Film Association, the biggest cinema company in Beijing.

 

Dadao Rutian (Heaven-like Thoroughfare), a detective film featuring a communist police officer, has become the box office champion among the China-made films, with close to 1,000 showings just in Beijing and Shanghai since its debut on June 22, media reported.

 

Box-office numbers are not available for the time being, but managers say, among others, The Forest Ranger, featuring a state-owned forest ranger, and The Backbone, a documentary films about the CPC, also have favorable box office.

 

Copies of some movies even fall short of demands, Huang said.

 

The overwhelming film screenings were initiated by the Chinese Film Circulation and Projection Association, China Film Producers' Association and the City Cinema Association of China, and supported by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT).

 

"Those who watch these films are team audience who usually book a whole theater at daytime, so the decrease of overall audience number affected by the World Cup is not obvious," Huang said.

 

Liu Shusen, distributor of some of those films, told Xinhua that the box offices of these movies would be guaranteed by the SARFT, which required theaters across the country to allocate time spaces and organizes officials, students and soldiers to watch.

 

Imported films, by contrast, have failed to evoke Chinese audience's favor during the past few weeks.

 

Among the foreign films which are showing in China, Ice Age 2 and Poseidon have become spent bullets over a month after release, said Jia Yingying, with the China Film Stellar Theater Chain (CFTC), another cinema powerhouse in China.

 

Three others, Sahara, Les Chevaliers Du Ciel and Cold Harvest all lack rallying point of box office, partly because they lack glorious stars or missed the world simultaneous releasing time, she said.

 

Such condition made the box office of the foreign films affected by the World Cup more adverse, she added.

 

The Stellar International Cineplex, a subordinate cineplex to the CFTC in Beijing, has opened special night shows to attract both movie-goers and football fans by playing three movies and broadcasting a live football match alternately.

 

(Xinhua News Agency July 6, 2006)