Internationally renowned actress Shu Qi invested in and starred in the movie “Finding Her,” which briefly hit the big screens in mainland China last October. However, due to extremely poor box office performance, the film was urgently pulled after only 3 hours of screening. Currently, the movie is unable to be shown in theaters and has resorted to online streaming.
“Finding Her,” which wrapped up production 4 years ago, made its debut in mainland China on October 17th last year. Unexpectedly, the film was pulled off the theaters after just three hours of runtime when box office earnings (including pre-sales) accumulated a mere 173,000 RMB. Industry professionals attribute the dismal box office performance primarily to the sensitive real-life issues depicted in the movie.
Despite the production team’s announcement of rescheduling the movie’s release to meet the audience at a later date, in the nearly one year post-pullout, the film failed to secure a distribution company to return to theaters. Consequently, on September 9, 2026, the movie made its way to online streaming platforms, downsizing to a “web film” category.
Of interest is that “Finding Her” transitioned to a streaming platform with minimal publicity. The three major streaming platforms in China, iQiyi, Youku, and Tencent, did not allocate any prominent promotion slots on their homepages or movie channels for the film, displaying a lack of confidence in its viewership potential. Shu Qi herself only reposted the film’s poster on her social media platforms.
Reportedly, in “Finding Her,” Shu Qi portrays a rural woman searching for her missing daughter. In order to embody her character, she overcame her long-standing allergy to UV rays, endured intense sun exposure during filming, and appeared on screen without makeup throughout, dedicating substantial efforts to master the Lingnan Cantonese dialect. Not only did she pour her heart into her leading role, but she also invested significantly as a producer.
While the specific investment amount in “Finding Her” and Shu Qi’s personal stake percentage remain undisclosed, Sina.com revealed that the production cost of the film exceeded 20 million RMB. Despite being categorized as an arthouse film, the inclusion of costly “storm scene special effects,” along with on-location shooting in rural Guangdong and the extensive post-production spanning 4 years, led to expenses far surpassing those of typical low-budget films. Industry insiders estimate that the rights fee or profit-sharing income from selling the film to platforms is meager, utterly insufficient to offset the production cost, amounting to tens of millions.
Consequently, the media commonly uses terms like “sunk without a trace” and “major loss” to describe Shu Qi’s commercial venture in this instance. Nevertheless, encountering a significant setback in her commercial endeavor with “Finding Her” has not shaken Shu Qi’s confidence in her creative abilities. Recently, she garnered attention for her directorial debut film “Girl,” following her nomination at the 61st Golden Bell Awards for her acting in the Netflix series “Soul Recall.”
Furthermore, Shu Qi is currently actively planning her second directorial project. According to a report from Sina.com, while attending a brand event in Dali, Yunnan last month, she revealed that she has been working on a new film titled “Woman” for most of the year. She stated: “Because the first work ‘Girl’ did quite well, and the audience response was favorable, it has given me the confidence to create the second work ‘Woman’.”