[2022.09.03] CHILLI LAUGH STORY NAMES HONG KONG SUMMER FILM KING

courtesy of singtao.com

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER made over HK$ 48 million to become the summer box office champion

CHILLI LAUGH STORY with HK$ 32 million held off WARRIORS OF FUTURE for third place
courtesy of mingpao.com

The Hong Kong Motion Picture Industry Association and the Hong Kong Theater Association's Hong Kong Box Office Co. Ltd. summed up the film box office from July 1st to August 31st this year and yesterday announced the 2022 summer vacation film box office numbers. This year the entire summer vacation film box office total was HK$ 308,595,988, a rise of 21.07% from the same period last year but not yet returned to the 2019 pre pandemic levels.

As social distancing measures were loosened, Hong Kong audience strongly supported Hong Kong films. Among them the Edan Lui Cheuk On starred CHILLI LAUGH STORY (HAP GA LT) since its July 14th release made HK$ 32,100,491 during the summer vacation to become the summer vacation Hong Kong film king as well as third place in the entire summer vacation film box office. It was only behind the first place Hollywood film THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER and the second place MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU. As of September 1st CHILLI LAUGH STORY's cumulative box office already made HK$ 32,132,366.

The surging science fiction film WARRIORS OF FUTURE (MING YUT JIN GEI) opened on August 25th and after seven days in release already made HK$ 30,101,000 and landed in fourth place on the summer vacation film box office. As of September 1st its cumulative box office was HK$ 32,148,569 and overtook CHILLI LAUGH STORY. As for the Keung To, Jer Lau Ying Ting and Best Actress Teresa Mo Shun Kwan starred MAMA'S AFFAIR (AH MA YAU JOR DAI YI GOR) since its August 11th release to now made HK$ 29,630,786 in fifth place of the summer vacation box office. As of September 1st its cumulative box office was HK$ 30,079,501. In seventh place was DETECTIVE VS SLEUTHS (SUN TAM DAI JIN) and with over HK$ 800 million FAR FAR AWAY (LUEN LO SHAN KA LA) came in 10th. The May 26th release TOP GUN: MAVERICK is still in release and accumulated HK$ 105,711,061.

Speaking of WARRIORS OF FUTURE, Goo Jai earlier appeared on Carol Cheng Yui Ling's radio program and was asked whether a sequel would be made. He stated that this time the investment was enormous, the box office would have to break even before a sequel would be made and he still had to work hard on chasing it down. When Sister Do mentioned Goo Jai was the Performing Artist Guild and Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers president as well as a film company boss, promoting Hong Kong film innovation should not be too hard. Goo Jai said, "I am not promoting it, actually there is still a 'boss club'. I hope to change the production format, but to promote this I have to have the investors. My thinking doesn't represent their thinking, making money is the most important. However I feel improvement is also very important, so only I slowly do it myself and wait for them to start to believe in this, start to find people to do it or cultivate the next generation to."