Nostalgia fuels cool cat's success

Poster for Stand By Me Doraemon. Photo provided to China Daily

The magical gadgets from Doraemon's pocket, such as Bamboo Copter, a head accessory that allows flight, and Anywhere Door, which opens to any place you wish to go, are part of the collective memory of an entire generation of Chinese.

Alongside the familiar characters and scenes, the Chinese version is dubbed by Liu Chunyan, a famous children TV host.

Some Chinese filmmakers are startled at the unpredicted popularity of the "simple-storyline" production, but on social networking app, WeChat, hundreds of thousands moviegoers, mostly in their 30s, recount their experience of "bursting-into-tears" in theaters, thrilled to see the characters from their childhood.

"It reminds me of the people who accompanied me when I was growing up. They gave me laughter and strength, but then disappeared from my life," a netizen named Lan Shanshang wrote on Douban.com, a major movie review website.

Takashi Yamazaki, one of the directors behind the movie, told media that he hopes Chinese moviegoers will "recollect" their childhood memories in the theaters", and reveals that he may shoot a sequel, if this film grosses more than 200 million yuan.

Yamazaki's hope for the film's box office takings seems destined to come true. The popularity of Stand By Me Doraemon on its first weekend saw the film go from being shown at 25 percent of the country's cinemas to around 35 percent of China's 23,600 screens on Monday.