Suspense propels film to top of charts

Lost in the Stars finds way into moviegoers' hearts, wins holiday box-office race, Xu Fan reports.

In the fall of 2021, director Cui Rui received the script for Lost in the Stars, a suspenseful crime film, from renowned producer Chen Sicheng. Chen is best known for his work on the Detective Chinatown series of comedy-mystery "buddy" films, one of the country's highest-grossing movie franchises of all time.

Quickly captivated, Cui didn't stop reading for a few hours, until he finished going through the entire script.

"This story is full of intrigue, with layer upon layer of twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat. After finishing it for the first time, I couldn't resist going back to read it again from the beginning, analyzing all the details and characters, and gaining new insights," Cui recalled in an interview with China Daily.

It was proof that a good script that hooks its director will most likely attract plenty of moviegoers. Lost in the Stars raked in 507 million yuan ($70.1 million), around 56 percent of the industry's gross ticket revenue, during the June 22-24 Dragon Boat Festival holiday.

The movie turned this year's holiday season into the second highest-grossing box-office period in history for movies released during the same time. It also became the first suspenseful thriller to earn the title of Dragon Boat Festival box-office champion.

Set in an unnamed foreign country, the story begins with a mysterious incident: He Fei, a Chinese tourist, discovers his wife is missing during their overseas trip to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. After failing to receive help from local police officers, he is astonished to wake up and find a strange woman lying beside him who claims to be his wife and surprisingly knows all the details of his personal life.