The film “Kung Fu Women’s Soccer”, written and directed by Stephen Chow (Xing Ye), was released in mainland China on July 11th. As of July 16th, the box office has already surpassed 900 million yuan (RMB), showing strong momentum. However, numerous audience members have reported that the film is facing issues with offline theaters withholding box office earnings. Despite audiences paying real money to watch the film, the box office numbers are not being accurately recorded for the movie.
Costing 380 million yuan to produce, “Kung Fu Women’s Soccer” tells the story of the “Emei Team” making a comeback to win the championship. The film impressed on its opening day by breaking the 200 million box office mark, setting records such as “hitting 100 million in 27 minutes” and “reaching 200 million in 9.5 hours”. It also broke the record for the highest opening day box office in the past five years for summer releases. By July 16th, after being in theaters for 6 days, the total box office had reached 924 million yuan.
Despite the skyrocketing box office figures and outstanding commercial performance, many audience members have reported instances of theaters engaging in ticket fraud. Audience members from various parts of the country have shared their experiences of theaters using handwritten notes, ghost tickets, and other deceptive practices. The most common method used by theaters is to claim online system malfunctions and persuade viewers to cancel their online orders, then purchase tickets in cash or via WeChat offline. Many viewers have checked their ticket scans afterward only to find that their tickets were not valid in the system. One viewer mentioned that the 11 tickets they bought all at once were not properly registered, prompting more netizens to verify the validity of their tickets.
In addition to box office controversies, there have been reports of movies being illegally recorded and live-streamed on short video platforms for over 50 minutes. Furthermore, second-hand trading platforms have been found selling pirated copies, known as “gun versions”, for as low as 0.8 yuan, reigniting concerns about protecting film copyrights.
According to industry regulations, after a movie is released, profits from box office earnings are divided among the production company, distributor, and theater chains. However, when ticket fraud occurs, the box office profits bypass the national ticketing system, essentially redirecting viewers’ money to theaters’ private accounts. This not only results in significant losses for the production and distribution companies but also leads to artificially inflated box office numbers.
A large number of netizens have transformed into “box office supervisors” on social media, publicly exposing theaters issuing handwritten notes, blank tickets, and ghost tickets (where viewers watched “Kung Fu Women’s Soccer” but the ticket displayed a different obscure movie), criticizing theaters for unlawfully altering online refunds to cash refunds.
Some netizens boldly stated that while opinions about the movie’s quality may vary, “you can say the film is not good, but theaters absolutely cannot act like thieves,” emphasizing the importance of safeguarding the legitimate earnings of the film production company.
Some netizens believe that if theaters are found to be involved in ticket fraud during the harsh period for the film industry, it would be detrimental to the overall industry development, essentially “killing the goose that lays the golden eggs”. Others argue that if the film can still achieve remarkable box office success despite suffering from ticket fraud, it proves that Stephen Chow’s films still possess significant market appeal.
On July 15th, the production team of “Kung Fu Women’s Soccer” released a statement declaring their intention to join forces with various parties to resist and hold accountable those involved in ticket fraud. The topic of “Kung Fu Women’s Soccer changing sources” became a hot search. From July 17th onwards, the film will switch to a new digital 2D version, with IMAX and other versions to follow on July 19th, all while maintaining a runtime of 106 minutes. On the evening of July 16th, Stephen Chow shared a photo of a handwritten movie ticket for “Kung Fu Women’s Soccer” on social media, expressing his stance against theaters engaging in ticket fraud.
As of now, the box office of “Kung Fu Women’s Soccer” continues to climb, but the ongoing debate surrounding the alleged ticket fraud and whether any relevant authorities will investigate remains to be further followed up and monitored.