{"id":940868,"date":"2026-05-06T05:30:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T05:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/940868\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T05:30:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T05:30:20","slug":"chinas-labour-day-box-office-underwhelms-as-consumer-spending-stays-cautious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/940868\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s Labour Day box office underwhelms as consumer spending stays cautious"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>China\u2019s <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/economy\/china-economy\/article\/3351841\/china-braces-record-labour-day-travel-surge-tourism-demand-remains-robust?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"noopener\">Labour Day<\/a> holiday box office has posted sluggish results despite a wave of new releases, as <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/economy\/china-economy\/article\/3341435\/chinas-consumer-spending-push-faces-major-challenge-debt-averse-households?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"noopener\">cautious consumer spending<\/a> continued to weigh on the world\u2019s second-largest film market.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Cinemas had raked in 759 million yuan (US$111.1 million) over the five-day holiday, which ended on Tuesday, according to Chinese box office data tracker Beacon Pro, up slightly from 2025\u2019s 748 million yuan but about half the levels recorded in both the two preceding years and the pre-pandemic period.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The lacklustre showing came despite a more crowded release window, with about a dozen new titles debuting compared with nine last year.<\/p>\n<p>Among the high-profile releases were Hong Kong crime thriller <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/lifestyle\/entertainment\/article\/3351833\/cold-war-1994-movie-review-hong-kong-crime-thriller-prequel-star-studded-blast?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"noopener\">Cold War 1994<\/a>, featuring a star-studded cast led by Chow Yun-fat and Tony Leung Ka-fai, and <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/lifestyle\/entertainment\/article\/3351636\/devil-wears-prada-2-movie-review-iconic-fashion-comedy-gets-slick-muted-update?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"noopener\">The Devil Wears Prada 2<\/a>, which topped several pre-holiday polls as the most anticipated title of the season.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The Hollywood sequel, however, drew a disappointing turnout following backlash over its portrayal of the minor Asian character Jin Chao, taking in only 58 million yuan and ranking third at the box office.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Critics on social media had accused the film of reinforcing \u201cnerdy\u201d Asian stereotypes and giving the character a name phonetically similar to a racial slur, dampening audience interest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China\u2019s Labour Day holiday box office has posted sluggish results despite a wave of new releases, as cautious&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":940869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[1395,142928,16536,42315,14787,77,498,3749,33795,3985,221640,3943,6767,11820,86611,56531,16,15,262796],"class_list":{"0":"post-940868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-china-securities","10":"tag-chinese","11":"tag-christopher-nolan","12":"tag-cold-war","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-hollywood","15":"tag-hong-kong","16":"tag-labour-day","17":"tag-marvel","18":"tag-minions","19":"tag-movies","20":"tag-spider-man","21":"tag-steven-spielberg","22":"tag-the-devil-wears-prada","23":"tag-the-odyssey","24":"tag-uk","25":"tag-united-kingdom","26":"tag-vanishing-point"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116525991805445451","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=940868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/940869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}