Hi, Mom tops $825m at China's box office

BEIJING - China's tear-jerker film Hi, Mom saw its cumulative box office revenue top 5.4 billion yuan ($825 million) as of Saturday, the 58th day of its screening.

This came only days after the maiden directorial project of comedian and actress Jia Ling had overtaken American fantasy Wonder Woman to become the world's top-grossing film ever from a solo female director, according to box office tracker Maoyan.

Hi, Mom is currently the top earner of this year in China, as well as globally. It is the second highest-grossing film ever at China's box office, outshone only by the 2017 Chinese action-adventure film Wolf Warrior 2 that raked in a total of 5.69 billion yuan.

Released on Feb 12, the film stars Jia as a devoted daughter who, deeply saddened by her mother's accidental death, finds herself transported back to 1981, where she meets her mother and attempts to improve her fate using ideas from the future.

The buzzy comedy, which Jia described as a tribute to her real-life mother who passed away tragically around two decades ago, brought many moviegoers to tears.

The movie currently boasts a rating of 8.1 out of 10 based on more than 960,000 reviews on the review platform Douban.

China's box office total since the beginning of this year had hit 19.47 billion yuan as of Saturday, with Hi, Mom and Wanda Pictures' comedy Detective Chinatown 3 accounting for about 28 percent and 23 percent, respectively, data from Maoyan showed.