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Sep 12, 2018
19,846

Japanese animation Spirited Away has dominated the Chinese box office over its opening weekend, making more than twice as much as Disney's Toy Story 4.

The Studio Ghibli film grossed $27.7m (£21.8m), according to Maoyan, China's largest movie ticketing app.

Spirited Away was officially released in 2001, but only now, 18 years later, has it been released in China.

However, many Chinese viewers grew up with the film, having watched DVDs or pirated downloads.

Toy Story 4 made $13.2m on its opening weekend, said consultancy firm Artisan Gateway.

The Japanese film by famed director Hayao Miyazaki tells the story of a young girl who is transported into a fantasy world after entering an abandoned theme park with her parents.

The movie gained a cult following after it was released and still remains Studio Ghibli's highest grossing movie of all time.

It also became the first non-English language animated film to win an Academy Award.

Image copyright2001 STUDIO GHIBLI - NDDTMImage caption10-year-old Chihiro is the film's main protagonist
My Neighbour Totoro became the first Ghibli film to ever debut in theatres in China in 2018, 30 years after its original release.

China has a strict quota on the number of foreign films it shows.

One analyst told the BBC last year that political tensions between China and Japan in the past could be why some Japanese movies had not been aired in China until very recently.

Japan occupied China in 1931 and millions of Chinese people had been killed by the time the war ended in 1945. But for many, feelings of resentment towards Japan lingered.

"Right now that relationship has improved significantly and there is a lot of movement on Sino-Japanese co-productions, including in anime," Stanley Rosen from the University of Southern California said.

Spirited Away has also already outperformed Totoro which grossed $27.3m for its full run, state media outlet CGTN reports.

Wild, hard not to celebrate a pretty good movie being outgrossed by an outright classic though.
 

rude

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,812
It deserves it tbqh. It was bad outside of Gabby Gabby's heatfelt little arc.
 

Messofanego

Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,221
UK
One of the greatest films ever beating a serviceable sequel is good news. Good on you, Chinese moviegoers.
 

UltraMagnus

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
15,670
Franchises like Toy Story and Star Wars that rely heavily on pre-2005 nostalgia and pre-existing lore/plot lines tend to be at a disadvantage in China.

The Fast & Furious franchise basically dodged that problem by having fairly generic heist/action movie tropes and essentially rebooting the IP in the later 2000s.
 

Callibretto

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,498
Indonesia
The spirited away poster for chinese release are gorgeous, if I haven't watch both movies and see the posters at theatres, I'm definitely more interested in Spirited Away
 

Stinkles

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
20,459
Hot take : Spirited Away does a vastly better job of capturing the essence of dreams than Inception does, despite the former not being literally about dreams.
 

Deleted member 31092

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 5, 2017
10,783
It's okay, but is that the original music? It doesn't seem to match the mood of the character very well.

See the whole movie if you haven't.

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MilesQ

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,490
Paprika is some wild shit. I remember watching it years ago and thinking this is what it must be like to be high.
 

Durden

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
12,511
Better movie than Toy Story 4 by a long shot. Happy to see it so strong still.
 

sigma722

Member
Oct 26, 2017
687
It's okay, but is that the original music? It doesn't seem to match the mood of the character very well.

Looooove the music in Paprika. Susumu Hirasawa did it, who was a long time collaborator with Satoshi Kon. Paprika gets batshit crazy toward the end. Really sucks that Satoshi Kon died. Would have liked to see some more from him.