Mission: Impossible? China faces box office blues during Dragon Boat Festival

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By Leopold Chen

Published June 1, 2025

A Hollywood film topped ticket presales for China’s Dragon Boat Festival, but latest data points to a subdued box office for the holiday season as the industry grapples with a string of underwhelming performances.

The box office revenue for Saturday, the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, was estimated at 122 million yuan ($16.9 million), according to Maoyan, a Chinese film industry data platform. The figure was lower than the 177 million yuan for May 1, the first day of mainland China’s last public holiday.

The Hollywood film Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, starring legendary American actor Tom Cruise, was projected to lead the day with an estimated box office income of 54.6 million yuan.

The film outperformed home-grown animated feature Endless Journey of Love and a spin-off of Japanese anime classic Doraemon.

This came despite Beijing's announcement in April of a curb on American film imports – a move widely regarded as retaliation for US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs.

As the world’s second-largest economy struggles to stimulate domestic consumption, China’s box office revenue declined last year, totalling 42.5 billion yuan – down 22.6 per cent from 2023, and lower even than the 2015 level.

But observers said China’s film market remains resilient in the long term, partly thanks to improved domestic productions.

Subramania Bhatt, founder and CEO of marketing and tech firm China Trading Desk, attributed the dip during the Dragon Boat Festival to a lack of strong titles. However, he cautioned against making long-term forecasts based on data for the three-day holiday.

“While Hollywood faces restrictions, Chinese films like YOLO and Article 20 show local storytelling still resonates,” he said, referring to two 2024 films that grossed billions of yuan at the box office.

China’s box office surged during the 2025 Lunar New Year holiday, achieving historic highs with revenue of 9.5 billion yuan and 187 million cinema visits.

The boom was fuelled by Ne Zha 2, a home-grown animated feature that has since become the highest-grossing production in China’s history.

However, China’s film market has seen lower box office figures in subsequent holidays, with revenues shy of the previous year’s levels for both the Ching Ming Festival and Labour Day holidays.

“Hollywood films have long-established brand images and high-quality production values, which can still attract a large number of audiences, even in the face of import restrictions,” Bhatt said.

“However, the overall market share of Hollywood films in China is likely to decline due to the import restrictions and the growing competitiveness of domestic films.”

Anthony Fung Ying-him, dean of the Faculty of Social Science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said Hollywood films have trended weaker in the Chinese market despite Mission: Impossible’s stronger performance.

“As China now produces high-quality films like Hollywood, it’s natural for Chinese audiences to choose their country’s titles,” he said.

“Mission: Impossible appears to be performing better during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday only because there are no highly competitive Chinese films.”