New Year Movies 2025
As well as being the biggest traditional festive celebration, Spring Festival has become the biggest season in the Chinese movie calendar, with dozens of major productions clambering for positions in the Hesuidang 贺岁档 (New Year Movie Bill). Celebrating 120 years of cinema since Ren Jingfeng’s Battle of Mount Dingjun (1905), China is offering discounted tickets to general audiences over Spring Festival, and a special programme for the rest of the year of increased screenings across the country, extending the new year box office to include the Yuandan (Roman Calendar New Year’s Day) hits. All this was topped off by a grand ceremony at the Beijing Film Museum called “See you in the Movies in 2025”, where the highlights of the entire pool were shown, and the six winners of the Hesuidang announced.
The great news for international audiences is that two of the six 2025 Hesuipian, Creation of the Gods 2 and Detective Chinatown: 1900, are in a cinema near you. The works I personally find most interesting include two from this group, but also a few more from the Yuandan box office hits, and I will be discussing my curated list of seven films here.
Jin Yong’s Condor Heroes is one of the most famous wuxia (martial arts fantasy) novel around the world. Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants, by cinematic master Tsui Hark (Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain 1983, New Dragon Inn 1992, Once Upon a Time China) is the most anticipated adaption of this timeless classic. Judging by the soundtrack and cinematography which hark back to golden-age productions of late twentieth century, this interpretation aims for grand heroic storytelling that draws on the audiences’ fondness for previous shows.
After their award-winning donghua new year hit six years ago, Chengdu Coco Animation and the director known as Dumpling, are back with Ne Zha 2, which has won another Hesuipian slot. This time the story follows the child god’s deeds after his rebirth, when he fights all four dragon kings to protect his home on earth. Much like the Monkey King, there’s something universally appealing about a powerful rebel who’ll take on anything and anyone.
For the more adventurous film watcher, the Yuandan releases offer a wider range of works. One that stood out to me is War of Light 转念花开 about a housewife who is trepidatious of being embroiled in criminal investigations, until compassion for multiple victims finally motivates her to take part in a dangerous sting operation. Directed by Jia Ling (YOLO), this film promises female-orientated story-telling and good quality drama.
Sinophone cinema has produced some of the best black comedy dramas. This is why, the 破 . 地狱 The Last Dance, directed and written by renowned screenwriter Anselm Chan, grabbed my attention straight away. A modern-day Daoist who specialises in wedding ceremonies finds himself facing a declining market, mounting debts, and the prospect of having to branch out into funeral services. This award-winning Yuandan box office hit is now available on international DVD release via CineAsia.
I’m always interested in Chinese films that aim to encourage dialogue on, present physical diversity and mental health issues in a positive light. And it’s fantastic to have more female directors in the top-grossing Yuandan films. Yang LiNa’s Big World 小小的我 centres on a young opera performer’s battles with brain cancer and the social ostracisation that occurs to sufferers. This moving drama has TF Boy’s Jackson Yee lending his fame to the challenging lead role.
Thanks for various wuxia and kungfu classics of 20th century Sinophone cinema, lion dancing is now very much associated with the indomitable Cantonese spirit. Released in 2021, the award-winning and uniquely styled donghua I Am What I Am, about a group of disaffected teens and a disillusioned former master finding self-realisation through lion dancing, became a regional favourite as well as national success. I was excited to hear Cantonese dialogue in a big animation film telling the Guangdong experience. Director Sun Haipeng (Storm Riders: Clash of Evils visual effects), is now back with a sequel and another box office hit around new year. The setting for I Am What I Am 2 changes to Shanghai, where our now adult heroes find themselves in the grinding lives of migrants; to gain a better chance of raising funds for his father’s medical treatment, Ah-Juan agrees to take part in a boxing championship and finds himself not only undergoing harsh training but having to overcome self-doubt.
Other new year movies I’d like to mention are The Prosecutor, the Donnie-Yen directed drug-busting crime film and for the action fans, Operation Leviathan, the last in Dante Lam’s blockbuster trilogy; while Rao Xiaozhi’s Made in Yiwu and Once Upon a Time in the Middle East by Wen Muye (Dying to Survive, Requiem), engage with Chinese experiences in the globalised world. I hope you do seek out some of the titles discussed and enjoy them later in the year, at least some of these will have versions with English subtitles.
Posted in Curated & Translated