Stephen Chow‘s perfectly timed return to soccer comedy kept on kicking in its second weekend at China‘s box office. Kung Fu Soccer, the comedy legend’s Shaolin Soccer spinoff, added $73.7 million (RMB 501.1 million) over the July 17-19 frame, lifting its total to $214.3 million (RMB 1.46 billion) in just nine days, according to data from Artisan Gateway.
In a market where second weekends routinely shed half their opening business, the film instead topped its two-day debut frame of $73.6 million (RMB 500.3 million), albeit spread across three days this time. Having crossed $147 million (RMB 1 billion) in its first week, the film has prompted ticketing giant Maoyan to raise its full-run forecast to $441 million (RMB 3 billion), up from the RMB 2.5 billion it projected on opening weekend. The film looks likely to finish just short of Chow’s personal box-office record of RMB 3.39 billion ($500 million-plus), set by the fantasy comedy The Mermaid in 2016.
Chow, 64, wrote and directed Kung Fu Soccer — his first feature behind the camera since 2019’s The New King of Comedy — but does not appear onscreen, having stepped away from acting after 2008’s CJ7. Released to mark the 25th anniversary of Shaolin Soccer, and to ride this summer’s FIFA World Cup fever, the film reworks the beloved original’s premise around an underdog, all-female squad whose players integrate martial arts into their game to make an improbable run at a tournament dubbed the Supreme Invincible Cup. Zhang Xiaofei (Hi, Mom) leads the cast as the team’s captain, with Dilraba Dilmurat as its star striker and Lay Zhang as its kung fu coach, plus guest turns from Hong Kong screen icon Carina Lau, Japanese star Takeru Satoh and U.S. comedian Jimmy O. Yang.
Chow’s singular blockbuster prowess has been demonstrated — yet again — by the way he released the movie with little to no conventional marketing campaign. He set the release date via a casual social media video on his birthday in late June, and the film hit theaters less than three weeks later with minimal advance marketing.
A North American theatrical release is expected later this year but remains undated. Singapore’s Encore Films, which handled the international rollout of China’s record-setting animation Ne Zha 2 last year, acquired worldwide rights to Kung Fu Soccer outside the mainland and is lining up territory-by-territory deals.
Kung Fu Soccer faced markedly stiffer competition in its sophomore weekend than its first in the form of All Wishes Come True, an animated tentpole from state-backed Pearl Studio, the Beijing outfit formerly known as Oriental DreamWorks, whose credits include Kung Fu Panda 3, Abominable and the Oscar-nominated Over the Moon. Written and directed by Mu Zhengyang, the comic fantasy reimagines the classic folk tale of the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, following a group of ordinary individuals who outwit the gods to earn their legendary titles. It opened Saturday and brought in $30.6 million (RMB 207.8 million) over two days — a solid start — for an early total of $39.6 million (RMB 269 million) including previews. Pearl and partner CMC Pictures have set a global rollout beginning Aug. 13 in Australia and New Zealand, with the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and other markets to follow from Aug. 14.
The rest of the weekend’s top titles trailed the two blockbusters from afar. Enlight Pictures’ A Part of Me, a female-friendship tearjerker starring Zhang Ruonan and Jin Jing — a remake of the 2015 Toni Collette-Drew Barrymore dramedy Miss You Already — opened third with $13.6 million (RMB 92.4 million). Universal and Illumination’s Minions & Monsters held fourth in its third frame with $3.7 million (RMB 25.1 million), nudging its China total to $40.3 million (RMB 274 million). And Triangle, Christopher Smith’s 2009 time-loop thriller starring Melissa George — a curious cult favorite among Chinese movie lovers — took fifth with $3.7 million (RMB 25 million) after arriving in mainland theaters Friday, 17 years after its original release.
China’s 2026 box office now stands at $2.97 billion, down 35.3 percent from the same point last year — a comparison skewed by animated mega-blockbuster Ne Zha 2, which earned over $2 billion in China alone during the first half of 2025. The gap has nonetheless narrowed considerably from the nearly 56 percent deficit of early March, as Chow’s comeback hit has given the country’s summer moviegoing season a healthy kick-start.
Curry Barker’s horror phenomenon Obsession, which has grossed more than $400 million worldwide since its mid-May debut, opens in the country on Friday. The film will pose an interesting test of whether the wave of young, internet-bred filmmakers taking Hollywood by storm can help revive the studios’ fortunes in China, where filmgoers have long grown tired of U.S. franchise fare.
