The box office of Seven Swords was 56 millions in its first two weeks of mainland China release.
It grossed a million more for the same period of time comparing to another summer title Initial D that was released 2 weeks before it commenced thus making Seven Swords the sure winner for the summer period.
We should also observe that this same period coincided with when Typhoon Matsa hit the cities of South East China. It is inevitable that such weather bring adverse effect to box office. However, under such unfavorable circumstance, Seven Swords still performed wonder. It was clear that the strike of Matsa could not match the stroke of the swords.
The cities that took the top five places on the first two weeks were Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Hangzhou. The title that took the second place was Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Although the accumulated gross of Mr. & Mrs. Smith for the first 4 weeks was 58 millions, yet, its box office for Week Four (1st -7th of August) was only 2 millions while Seven Swords took 16.15 millions for the same week. Therefore, it is certain that the box office grand total of Seven Swords will beat that of Mr. & Mrs. Smith eventually. Meanwhile, the animated title, Madagascar, which came third in box office on that same week scored 1.8 millions.
(CRI August 15, 2005)
