Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Soccer continued its dominant run at the Chinese box office,reports The Hollywood Reporter.
It earned $73.7 million (RMB 501.1 million) in its second weekend and pushed its domestic total to $214.3 million (RMB 1.46 billion) after just nine days.
According to Artisan Gateway, the comedy added slightly more than its opening frame despite expanding from a two-day debut to a full three-day weekend.
The strong performance defied the usual trend of sharp second-weekend declines in the Chinese market.
The film crossed RMB 1 billion during its first week, prompting ticketing platform Maoyan to raise its final box office forecast from RMB 2.5 billion to RMB 3 billion ($441 million).
If it reaches that mark, the film will fall just short of Chow’s highest-grossing title, The Mermaid, which earned RMB 3.39 billion in 2016.
Written and directed by the 64-year-old filmmaker, Kung Fu Soccer marks Chow’s first directorial feature since 2019’s The New King of Comedy.
Although he stayed behind the camera, the film celebrates the 25th anniversary of Shaolin Soccer and capitalises on the excitement surrounding the FIFA World Cup.
The sports comedy follows an underdog women’s football team that combines martial arts with football in a bid to win the Supreme Invincible Cup.
Zhang Xiaofei stars as the team captain alongside Dilraba Dilmurat, while Lay Zhang plays the squad’s kung fu coach.
The cast also includes Carina Lau, Takeru Satoh and Jimmy O. Yang in guest roles.
Chow launched the film with little conventional promotion.
He announced the release date through a social media post on his birthday in June before bringing the film to cinemas less than three weeks later.
A North American release is expected later this year, although Paramount has yet to announce a date.
Singapore-based Encore Films has secured international distribution rights outside mainland China and is preparing releases across multiple territories.
The film faced fresh competition from animated fantasy All Wishes Come True, which debuted with $30.6 million (RMB 207.8 million) over two days and reached $39.6 million (RMB 269 million) including previews.
Elsewhere, A Part of Me opened in third place with $13.6 million, while Minions & Monsters collected $3.7 million in its third weekend to lift its China total to $40.3 million.
Christopher Smith’s cult thriller Triangle completed the top five with $3.7 million, 17 years after its original release.
China’s box office has generated $2.97 billion so far this year, down 35.3% from the same period last year.
However, the gap has narrowed significantly in recent months, with Kung Fu Soccer providing a major boost to the country’s summer cinema season.
