Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable.
Hey everyone, welcome back to work.
I hope you all had an amazing spring festival.
Now as we kick off the first official day back, the year of the snake is already raising the bar.
From sky -high movie box office figures to incredible travel stats, 2024 is set to be all about new records and milestones.
And stick around for our special segment, Heart to Heart.
Your questions, our answers.
Business, tech, culture, or whatever stirs your soul.
We are ready to dive in.
Keep sending them to roundtablepodcast .qq .com.
Coming to you live from Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm He Young. For today's program, I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Yuxin in the studio.
First on today's show.
Happy Chinese New Year again.
Hope the Spring Festival treated you well and you're feeling recharged.
As we settle back into work, I wanted to start with a fun little recap of how the holiday impacted the economy.
Whether it's record -breaking spending on movies, travel, food, or digital entertainment, the Spring Festival has always been a time for folks to splurge.
Let's take a look at how the nation celebrated and spent.
And prior to the holidays on Roundtable, we made some educated guesses about which areas could see the biggest increase.
Well, we nailed it on one of them, at least, and that's the movies.
So, Yuxian, let's see how it all played out.
Of course. Have you, like, watched some of these movies?
First of all, we should say it's 2025, not 2024 as well.
Oh, it is 2025. Look who's back to work on the first Oh, really?
I think I just did a little bit of time traveling.
You had me second guessing.
I quickly checked. Wait a minute.
It is 2025. Yes. And it's the year of the graceful snake.
You are totally and completely forgiven.
It's the first day back to work.
Sorry to interrupt you.
Of course. So the movie market, we can see according to China Film Administration.
As of 9 a .m. on February 5, 2025, the box office for the spring festival period reached over 9 .5 billion yuan, or about 1 .3 billion U .S.
dollars. It is setting a new record again, as we said.
The number of moviegoers reached 187 million, surpassing the total audience from the 2024 Spring Festival and breaking the record for the highest number of viewers in Chinese film history during the Spring Festival period.
And I think some of us have already watched one or two movies of this Spring Festival period.
We talked about the big ones, right?
The ones that were expected to do very, very well before the spring festival kicked off.
And I think what we're seeing by the numbers here is that what was expected came through China's cumulative 2025 box office, including pre -sales nearly $1 .6 billion.
That's about 11 and a half billion yuan, I believe.
That's from the China movie database.
and that surpassed North America to rank first globally and that shows that the movie market potential of China during the spring festival period, as I said, was a good one.
Yeah, well, it's a good start and just also, if I may provide a caveat, this is only the first week of February and then for the North America movie box office, you know, the summer holiday, well, not holidays, summer vacation or the summer area.
Always a big time. Yeah, yeah, that's the the big time to rake in a lot of movie goers dollars so we'll still need to you know wait and see what happens later on the year but so far so good and uh you shouldn't you mentioned yeah this has become something that a lot of chinese people would do since
you've got this year it's extra special for us eight consecutive days of a long holiday and we need to work this weekend to make up for at least one day of it but anyhow and a lot of us did go to the movies um well i did partially it was for i have you know i know we're doing this show first day after the holidays
i was like i better have something to say you know being a true professional and yes i followed the footsteps of so many chinese movie goers to go see nejia the sequel uh a couple of days ago and um what were your impressions i was still pleasantly surprised despite hearing all raving reviews from people
so for this movie how spectacularly well has it done for itself and um actually the netizens are saying the same so the rating of this movie on douban which is a chinese uh imdb you can understand it um it is 8 .6 out of 10 so it's quite high right um and also um people are praising it for its visuals
and storylines um people are saying it's not only about the you know the myth it's also about friendship it's also about um different meaningful plots that you can actually enjoy with maybe alone or maybe with your family Oh, that's a really great point.
Can I just write off the coattail on that point?
If you listen to the show, you might think of me as somebody who's not particularly friendly towards children.
And that is correct.
So when I went into the movie cinema, well, actually, does everybody know this is an animation?
Yeah, it's an animated fantasy, right?
Yes, it's an animation film, so therefore you get adults like me and a bunch of kiddos too.
So the minute when I sat down and I heard these really cute little kiddo voices like, your mom, I want popcorn and stuff like that.
And I'm like, oh no.
And then, so I was like, okay.
Happy holidays. Sorry, guys.
Happy holidays indeed.
So I was like, okay, I wonder if that kid is going to kick chair, the back of my chair.
I don't know what I'm expecting here.
But anyhow, it was really sweet.
And the kids were actually surprisingly well behaved.
Although there was one kid after 30 minutes into the movie was like, Dad, I want to leave.
I want to go home. But anyway, it was all very cute.
And then it was a really special experience to be laughing at the same moments with the kids as an adult.
So actually, overall, yeah, I'm glad I went to the cinema that, you know, it reminds you of actually going back to the cinema with in this in the dark with a whole bunch of people despite its downsides potentially it's got great merits too because you're enjoying this with a whole bunch of people and laughing
at the same moments and especially for Chinese people it's such a great feeling I think oh sorry I think I mentioned or actually you shouldn't you mentioned once on the show last year when we talked about the magnificent performance of the video game Black Myth Wukong yeah for Chinese people to really
see the references come from your homegrown culture and to laugh smile cry over those things that is all from your own home culture that was just a great feeling and then i felt that for the as well because you know like if you're if you were playing those international video games or watching hollywood
movies or whatever it is and then often people are like i suppose for western people they would just immediately get all the references like oh this is from the greek mythology oh this is from like you know american history 200 years ago but here like with these homegrown franchises that have done it
really well going deep into our own culture and aesthetics oh it was such a great feeling did you notice um the movie theater we're seeing the numbers now learning about the numbers now did you notice that the movie theaters were quite busy at the time that you went oh steve don't get me started yeah
like they're okay sorry this is still about me but just as you know this firsthand investigation i was looking at like four of the cinemas near my home and all of them were packed well for for no gen i was like whoa the production company behind this and also the people behind it must be so proud not only
are they raking in huge amounts of money but also you know people are voting with their foot and their wallets to really go see this movie and okay so we've established that ngaja has done really well what about all the other movies yeah so um i i also saw some of the news saying that a lot of these
movies have so many time slots for uh one movie in one movie theater you can even take it as like like a bus stop you know like every 10 minutes you can see the movie so basically we can see you got a lot of surprises from this movie.
And another surprise is that Nezha is taking the first place in the Chinese New Year period film period.
I mean, it got like 700 million US dollars box office, which is 5 billion yuan box office during this holiday.
Also, Detective Chinatown 1900 takes the second place, which this movie is a comedy, Also, with a little bit of, you know, detective theme, and you can get, of course, get the idea from the name, It Happens in a Chinatown.
Also, it earned nearly 320 million U .S.
dollars box office, and the film is the fourth one in this Detective Chinatown series.
Oh, this is a series, is it?
Yes. Yeah, this one's set in San Francisco, correct?
It is correct. And it happened in different Chinatowns previously, like in Japan, Thailand.
Yeah, got it. So you see the Ngeja movie, it's part of a franchise.
It's the second one.
And actually, you know, this is five years since the first one came out.
And then with Detective Chinatown, it's another movie of a now proven successful franchise.
And also, we see that creation of the gods, the sequel Demon Force, that's Feng Shan.
It kind of struggled, but finally, it's managed to overcome the 1 billion yuan benchmark.
So, yeah, you should have something to say about that.
Yes, it got also 139 million U .S.
dollars. That's about 1 billion yuan of box office.
It is the second episode of its trilogy, and the movie director is saying that they're going to have, of course, three episodes of the whole series.
And I think that is also one of the reasons why people are so looking forward to the second one, because the first one got quite a good reputation back then.
And then we have this idea that, okay, people are going to a movie theater to get to see how impressive it could be.
And I think that's also one of the reasons that maybe some people didn't get something that they expect.
A lot of special effects content in that film.
Maybe part of the reason for its success is that this year's Spring Festival period, It was the one with the highest special effects content across the films, allowing cinemas, and we're talking about cinemas with special effects theaters, to really take advantage of those films.
For example, IMAX theaters during this year's Spring Festival, they earned in excess of $50 million, and that's a big increase, 80%, compared to the previous record -breaking Spring Festival for IMAX.
So theaters that have the ability to show films with great special effects, they were taking advantage of this spring festival period as well.
Oh, yes, indeed. And Noja, the obvious champion so far of this spring festival period, it comes in 3D IMAX as well.
And it does look. It looks better.
Better. Yeah. And also, you know, just with the water scenes and battle scenes, it was fantastic.
And I have to say I was a little bit disappointed for and felt a little bit bad for the legends of the Condor heroes, the gallants, because it did not perform as the top winner.
And it seems like these days with the distribution of the films and also having the film screenings in a favorable way, it's not so clear cut as, oh, as market forces determining everything.
So I guess for the distributors and also production teams behind these films, there's definitely some things to work with.
And so I guess even with the really beloved and well -known properties, intellectual properties out there, still to make it relevant, to really speak to the modern day, the contemporary audience, it's not always a win as you can see.
Not everybody can be in the top spot.
Unfortunately, no. But overall, you know, the spring festival holiday box office is kind of a key indicator, right, for the annual film market.
According to People's Daily, industry experts say that this year's performance exceeded expectations, actually, boosting the whole industry's confidence and providing a much needed morale boost for all involved.
Yeah, and it's also a sign that the domestic films, the local films being made are good.
Oh, that's true. Because if they're not good, people aren't going to go.
So this is testament to the quality of the filmmaking, too.
Yes, absolutely. And aside from the booming box office we see as people flock to the cinemas to see wonderful films, we've seen that travel indeed is a central theme during this spring festival period.
And could you please bring us up to speed on the figures?
Oh, of course. So according to a China Daily report, on February 5th, the Ministry of Transport estimates that during the eight -day period from January 28th to February 4th, more than 2 .3 billion cross -regional passenger trips were made.
And this consisted of 96 million trips by rail, 2 billion by road, 9 million by water, and 18 million by air.
Also, according to China's state rail group, the national rail operator, on February 3rd, more than 16 million passenger trips were recorded.
And that is a new high for daily rail traffic during the spring festival period.
And then on February 4th, the number reached 17 million with 2 ,196 additional trains scheduled to meet demand.
And if you're not quite, you know, get the number, you know, it's 17 million is actually three times the total population of New Zealand.
In other words, during the Spring Festival travel season, the three New Zealand people, I mean, three whole population, yes, were traveling in China.
It's kind of mind bending to think about it.
Yishun, you were traveling by train during the holiday.
What were your takeaways from the experience?
Wow. Actually, I actually traveled back to Beijing on 4th of February.
And the whole process is quite smooth, you know.
I could imagine it could be very crowded.
But actually, when I arrived in Beijing, it's fine.
And, you know, the broadcasts were notifying people the time of the subway will be extended to 2 a .m., Which is quite convenient for passengers to go through.
So I think, yeah, with all of these, I think, policies and these kind of gestures, passengers are getting more convenient and easy trip experiences.
So part of this, the big travel numbers can be attributed to folks who are going home to their hometowns to visit family and coming back to where they work and live nowadays.
And part of it is people just going out for tourism.
You know, they take advantage of this eight day holiday and want to go to places.
So could you also tell us the breakdown of, shall we call this travel consumption or basically tourism figures?
Where were people going?
Oh, yeah. So according to a recent Xinhua report data from PhiliGi, which is an online travel agency, there is a kind of a tendency showing that a surge in bookings, especially from cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, these big cities.
International travel orders increased significantly as well, with international cruise bookings up more than sixfold compared to the previous years.
One example is that China's top ski destination, Alte Prefecture in northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Tanah region, the period from January 28th to 31st saw 191 ,900 visitors, generating basically 225 million yuan in this tourism revenue and skiing has record has definitely become the most popular activity
in this area during the holiday yeah that's a record number of skiers for that area and it's uh it's making me think goodness the lines at the ski lifts the chair lifts to go up the mountain must have been really really long but anyway that's really cool that the people got to that part of the country
to enjoy a ski trip.
There are other parts of the country as well that did well.
There were parts that have a lot of natural, beautiful scenery, rich cultural activities.
I was watching the news during the holiday, and there were news reports from all over the country.
And all over the country, every news report that showed, you know, the activities happening in those regions.
And there were numerous regions.
They were all busy.
They were all filled with people enjoying delicious foods and enjoying local activities.
It really, truly is.
And remember, for me, this was my first spring festival.
So everything was brand new.
And to see all of those news reports and how it's celebrated all across the country, albeit a little bit differently, all across the country was a really kind of heartwarming thing to see.
It's really a holiday.
I said this to my wife wow, this really brings the country together, I felt.
Brings the people together, which is a nice feeling.
Yeah, and that actually reminded me of something that were mentioned or played or displayed on the Spring Festival Gala, which is my hometown Wuxi.
So this is actually one of the, I think the separated or branch revenue or avenue of a venue of this spring festival gala and you can actually see people packed a lot of these streets and going to see the actual venue of these the show were recorded that's cool of course I went to some of these streets
and I can barely walk through these crowds oh and speaking of the spring festival gala well somebody on today's show actually appeared i was so excited i couldn't believe it i couldn't believe it my wife by the way i know that you told me um before that event that people put it on but people generally
don't watch it from start to finish because it's such a long event we did we watched it from start to finished.
So four and a half hours.
Four and a half hours.
We had a wonderful time because we had never seen it before.
We wanted to take it all in.
And before that show here at work, I was asked, not just me, a lot of employees were asked to do this little snake dance and I didn't know what it was for.
And then when the part of the gala came on and the snake dance performance was there, my wife and I were watching, where am I, where am I?
And we couldn't find me.
So I thought, oh, I didn't make it onto the show.
That's okay. Five minutes later, Yushin texted me with a screenshot look at you there you are in little tiny tiny square in the upper left hand corner i was thrilled about it so excited i said to my wife the next morning when we went outside oh babe the paparazzi is probably waiting outside now yeah
it was great fun to see your dance up here on the screen on the stage and you know a familiar face on the stage of chun won isn't that fantastic it was fun and just very quickly i have to say we were blown away by that event and i understand why it's been on air for 40 years and i understand why everybody watches
it now it is from a production point of view so incredibly professionally done and the performers are all fantastic we really really really enjoyed it yeah no matter it's the event or the travel rush.
And it is all reflecting the festive mindset of people in China.
Oh, yeah. And there's a traditional way of celebrating Spring Festival.
And also, this Spring Festival, we've seen that tech has been incorporated.
I've seen so many people talk to each other, sending their best New Year's wishes via the internet and even with the help of AI or whatnot, what have you guys seen when it comes to tech empowering the celebration of Spring Festival?
Yeah, metaverse, virtual celebrations.
It's all due to the rise of VR and AR technology that allowed people, enabled people to celebrate the festival from a location that was perhaps a little bit far away.
And that means that it doesn't matter where you are geographically speaking or where you were geographically speaking, you could have a good time enjoying the festival.
Or another habit that Chinese people will have is writing the couplets and to stick it to the door.
And this year, AI has actually helped a lot of people to write their personal customized couplets so that people can have these kind of personalized couplets to really reflecting not only good wishes but also their personal interests or personal information.
Yeah, AI enhanced that.
And speaking about the virtual celebrations, they called it the cloud new year.
There was a 300 % increase in participation and that made reunion celebrations more immersive as well.
It's really cool, taking advantage of that tech.
Yeah, and that's something we've become accustomed too since the pandemic of doing so much and even reuniting with family virtually and we're really good at that and I wonder if you were like me downloaded deep seek the app the first time during spring festival and really played with it and see um you know some really smart that uh content it can generate and guess
what we're gonna feature a discussion on deep seek on tomorrow's show.
So do tune in if that's what you're interested in.
