Un filmgoer chinois ressemble à une affiche du film, a perdu en Thaïlande, dans un cinéma du centre-ville de Yichang, province de Hubei, Chine 30 décembre 2012. F
A Chinese filmgoer looks at a poster of the movie, Lost in Thailand, at a cinema in Yichang city, central Chinas Hubei province, 30 December 2012. For the first time in the history of Chinese cinema, a one-billion-yuan movie has been born. At 15:00 CST on January 1, 2013, the directorial debut of actor-turned-director Xu Zheng, Lost in Thailand, became the first Chinese movie to gross over 1 billion yuan (US$161 million) in box office receipts. Just 10 years ago, the entire countrys box office revenue totaled 900 million yuan. Lost in Thailand is a chase comedy of three stooges. When one man (Xu Zheng) sets out to Thailand to find the largest shareholder of his company to sponsor a new phase of his research project, his business rival (Huang Bo) pursues vigorously to stop him. Their grand business objectives and solemn personal agendas are at times thwarted and at times catalyzed by a meddling rube (Wang Baoqiang). Besides the star power of two widely loved comic actors Huang Bo and Wang Baoqiang and a cameo by Fan Bingbing, the unprecedented box office takings by Lost in Thailand tie closely with the fast growing number of screens in China. In 2012, China added an average of seven new screens a day. By the end of 2012, China had 13, 000 screens, in contrast to 1, 500 in 2002. The film was picked up for co-distribution by Huaxia Film Distribution Co, Ltd. and Enlight Pictures, the latter of which produced it with a few other companies. Given the trend that top-notch Chinese filmmakers are producing big historical dramas, such as 1942 by Feng Xiaogang in 2012 and The Flowers of War by Zhang Yimou in 2011, this small-budgeted comedy by Xu Zheng was a maverick bet that paid off in spades for Huaxia and Enlight Pictures.
