The Farewell set to bomb in China as Awkwafina’s Golden Globe win fails to generate box office interest

• Chinese film fans have already given their verdict on film starring Asian-American actress, criticising her looks and shunning advance sales for its opening day
• Chinese-American Lulu Wang’s touching, personal film is set to be as big a flop in China as Crazy Rich Asians, but she says it wasn’t made for any one market

 9 Jan, 2020

Awkwafina celebrates her Golden Globes win for best actress in a musical or comedy – the first for an actress of Asian ancestry – with the film’s director, Lulu Wang (left), and co-star Zhao Shuzhen at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. The film is projected to have a weak opening in China this week. (Photo: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

The Farewell star Awkwafina made history by 

winning a best actress Golden Globe

 this week, but her victory hasn’t generated interest in the film among cinema-goers in China, where it is set and where it goes on general release on January 10.

According to China’s largest movie ticketing app, Maoyan, by the end of Wednesday, advance ticket sales for the opening day of The Farewell amounted to only 51,000 yuan (US$7,350). Seats have been on presale since November 14.

The film industry sees advance ticket sales for a film’s opening day on Maoyan as a credible gauge of audience response to a movie and how it will fare at the box office in China. The Farewell had a limited release in China in late November, when Awkwafina, whose real name is Nora Lum and who was born to a Chinese-American father and a Korean-American mother, was the subject of vitriolic remarks on Chinese video-streaming website Bilibili and on Weibo about her appearance, 

SCMP’s Abacus reported

.

Directed by Lulu Wang, The Farewell tells the touching story of a Chinese-American writer, Billi (played by Awkwafina), who returns to China to spend time with her grandmother, who has been diagnosed with lung cancer.

Billi’s family travel to the grandmother’s home in Changchun, in China’s northeast, to stage a fake wedding between her cousin and his Japanese girlfriend so that the entire extended family can bid the grandmother a final farewell.

Advance ticket sales for the opening day of a blockbuster film are always high. Disney animated feature 

Frozen II,

 which opened in China on November 22, had advance ticket sales of 25 million yuan, and went on to take 75 million yuan at the Chinese box office on its opening day – three times the advance sales total.

Diana Lin and Awkwafina in a still from The Farewell.

Another recent movie, Only Cloud Knows, directed by leading Chinese filmmaker Feng Xiaogang, chalked up 6 million yuan in first-day presales. It went on to make 30 million yuan in ticket sales – five times the presale total – on its first day in cinemas.

Citing The Farewell’s poor presales figure, online commentators in China said the film was likely to be a flop there as Hollywood romantic comedy 

Crazy Rich Asians

 , in which Awkwafina played a supporting role, was in 2018. Having grossed more than US$236 million worldwide, making it the highest grossing romantic comedy in a decade, that film made only 6 million yuan on its opening weekend in China.

Chinese tech media site 36kr, in a story in November which explored why films about Asian-Americans don’t impress audiences in China, said it would be very difficult for The Farewell to perform well in China.

Awkwafina and Zhao Shuzhen in a still from The Farewell.

“Compared to Crazy Rich Asians, The Farewell’s brand awareness is much lower. Few cinemas will screen it,” 36kr’s report said. According to Maoyan, only 1.3 per cent, or 3,057, of the available screening slots at Chinese cinemas on The Farewell’s opening day will be devoted to the film.

For all that advance ticket sales have been week, The Farewell has had a better critical reception in China than Crazy Rich Asians. While the latter scored only 6.1 out of 10 on film ratings website Douban, China’s answer to Rotten Tomatoes, The Farewell has a score of 7.6 on Douban.

There are plenty of examples of films that received a glowing critical reception and, thanks to word of mouth, performed strongly at the Chinese box office.

Awkwafina (centre) in a still from The Farewell.

One example is Indian wrestling film 

Dangal,

 which scored 9 out of 10 on Douban in 2016. Advance ticket sales for its opening day were only 1.37 million yuan, according to Maoyan, but took 15.8 million yuan on its opening day – 11.5 times the value of advance sales – and went on to make 1.3 billion yuan in China.

However, given how low advance ticket sales for The Farewell’s opening day are, it will be difficult for it to repeat the success Dangal achieved through word of mouth, even if those who do see the film rate it highly.

Jane Zheng, a China-based producer for Seesaw Productions, which co-produced The Farewell, told the Post in an earlier interview she has been studying what kinds of movies can appeal to both Chinese and American audience for years.