‘Breakup Buddies’ tops $150 million in China

Reporting from Beijing — The road-trip comedy “Breakup Buddies” drove off with nearly $50 million at the Chinese box office last week, bringing its cumulative haul to more than $153 million after less than two weeks in theaters. The movie is now the third-highest-grossing film of the year in mainland China.

“Buddies’” tally puts it behind this year’s other smash hits, “Transformers: Age of Extinction” ($303.4 million) and “The Monkey King” ($171.5 million), according to figures from industry consulting firm Artisan Gateway.

The film by director Ning Hao, starring actors Xu Zheng and Huang Bo, benefited from a key release spot just ahead of China’s weeklong National Day holiday, which ran from Oct. 1 to Oct. 7.

Meanwhile, Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” opened to $30 million.

In third place was “Dearest,” which took in nearly $12 million. Peter Ho-Sun Chan’s melodramatic tale of a child abduction is now approaching $50 million in receipts.

“Black & White Episode 2,” an action film from Tsai Yueh-Hsun, took the fourth spot for the week ending Sunday with nearly $10 million.

Rounding out the top five was Ann Hui’s “The Golden Era,” which took in $2.6 million. The Hong Kong director’s biopic of Chinese writer Xiao Hong has now grossed about $7.3 million.

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