Hollywood pet stars hired for Chinese anthology love film

At the premiere of the film held in Beijing last Sunday, Xu Zheng described the film as having healing, touching, tear-jerking and heartwarming qualities, while director Yang hoped the audience could grasp the feeling of "adoring" and "being adored" to enter the year 2020 in a holiday atmosphere. The film also features Chinese movie stars such as William Chan, Elane Zhong, Yu Hewei, Zhang Zifeng, Leo Wu, Yang Zishan, Wallace Chung, Guo Qilin and Li Landi.

Chinese audiences, many of whom are pet owners, have shown enthusiasm for pet movies. The peak was A Dog's Purpose by Lasse Hallström, which raked in 606 million yuan ($86.6 million) in China in 2017 with marketing help by Alibaba Pictures. A sequel to the film debuted in China this year and grossed nearly 200 million yuan ($28.6 million). Chinese filmmakers also made their own pet films, such as Wing-Cheong Law's Little Q about a guide dog, which grossed 111 million yuan ($15.9 million) in September this year.

According to a Xinhua report dated on Dec 11, China's urban residents are estimated to have spent a total of 202.4 billion yuan ($28.9 billion) on their pet cats and dogs in 2019, up 18.5% year-on-year, based on research jointly undertaken by Goumin.com and Pet Fair Asia. The number of pet dogs and cats kept by urban residents is projected to reach nearly 100 million ($14.3 million), an 8.4% increase from a year ago.