A golden week for Chinese movie theaters

A scene from Lost in Hong Kong

Lost in Hong Kong is backed by Enlight Media, one of the country's entertainment giants.

Months of promotion and eyecatching events such as an underwear show featuring foreign models also helped the movie.

With 12 box-office records broken in its first week, including for the opening day and single day, some industry sources say that Xu Zheng's second directorial work could dethrone Monster Hunt and become the top-grossing movie in the history of Chinese cinema.

Its biggest rival was Lu Chuan's Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe, a sci-fi adventure adapted from the best-selling novel, Ghost Blows Out the Light, or Gui Chui Deng.

The tomb-raider novel's popularity is believed to be behind the movie's success. The novel has sold more than 13 million copies.

Since opening in theaters on Sept 30, the movie starring Taiwan idol actor Mark Zhao has raked in nearly 500 million yuan.

It was second to Lost in Thailand on the box office chart from Sept 30 to Oct 3.

The midpoint of the holidays usually sees a drop in ticket sales and screenings, but on Sunday there was a change in fortune for Lost in Hong Kong.

The low-budget comedy Goodbye Mr Loser beat Lost in Hong Kong to top the box office despite the fact that the 212 million yuan grossed by Lost on its opening day was almost tenfold the 23 million yuan grossed by Goodbye at its premiere on Sept 30.