Tom Cruise's sixth film of the famous Hollywood spy action franchise "Mission: Impossible - Fallout" garnered an estimated of $80 million over the weekend at the Chinese mainland box office.
The movie's tour will end on China, the second largest film market which is crucial for the global box office earnings.
To better promotion, movie director Christopher McQuarrie, including lead stars Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg and Henry Cavill attended the premiere at the Imperial Ancestral Temple in Beijing last Wednesday.
The ceremony was attended by Chinese fans who flooded both sides of rep carpet.
Tom Cruise in China
Chinese fans knew Tom Cruise and even called him Atang Ge which means Brother Tommy. Tom Cruise reciprocate the fans' support by taking selfies with them and interacting with them face-to-face.
Despite the original first movie being released 22 years before, Cruise is still regarded as the soul of the movie franchise.
"There is a certain emotional quality in the movie that goes all the way back to the first film. The sense of team and the sense of achieving the impossible resonate with people. I think there is a certain kind of wish fulfillment in this franchise that you don't get anywhere else," McQuarrie told the Global Times in an interview on Thursday. "And most importantly, Tom and the way he approaches making this movie is a way that goes back to the Silent Era; we talk about Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd - all filmmakers in their own right who performed their own stunts and did their own action scenes."
Chinese fans' response
"Mission: Impossible - Fallout" holds an 8.1/10 rating on IMDb and 97 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Fans and critics say that the movie is one of the best ever.
"Simply speaking, while the other spy series is becoming more and more simple and rustic, the Mission: Impossible franchise is putting on more courageous fight scenes and becoming more mature and serious," wrote Douban user Wei Xuehun in a review that has garnered some 2,800 likes on the platform.
While other fans gave four and above ratings for the movie, other find it cliche and less exciting than the earlier films of the franchise.
"One of the worst in the series, it parallels the second and the third movie. Many of the action scenes have been seen before, such as the car chase in Paris and bare-handed cliff climbing (which is actually lamer than the Burj Khalifa Tower scene in the fourth film)," wrote another Douban user Da Shoushou.
