Sci-fi's onscreen surge

Passengers, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, has recently made waves on China's big screen. [Photo provided to China Daily]

A new Hollywood blockbuster tops China's box office on opening day, but critics say such films need stronger stories. Xu Fan reports.

In a mass migration to a remote planet, a passenger accidentally wakes up 90 years earlier, discovering he will have to spend the rest of his life alone in a 120-year, nonstop journey.

The grand theme examining loneliness and humanity once made Passengers one of the most popular original screenplays on "Black List", which collects the unproduced tales by powerful Hollywood players.

Now, with a glittering cast－led by Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence and renowned actor Chris Pratt－the sci-fi epic has beaten Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to top China's box office charts on its opening day Jan 13, according to the live tracker Cbooo.cn. So far it has grossed more than 160 million yuan ($23 million) in ticket revenues.

With Wanda Pictures as one of the producers, Columbia Pictures' Passengers has a familiar formula to win local hearts: Inserting a little bit of Chinese into the dialogues.

In one scene, the engineer (Pratt) practices Mandarin to kill time. He speaks in Chinese with an android, which has a human upper half.

While domestic moviegoers have got used to seeing Chinese elements in Hollywood blockbusters thanks to China's fast expanding market, such gimmicks seemingly always resonate with locals.

Besides, the 116-minute feature has other attractions.