Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Soccer maintained strong momentum at China’s box office during its second weekend, collecting $73.7 million across July 17-19 to bring its total to $214.3 million in nine days of release. The performance proved resilient compared to typical market patterns, where second-weekend drops typically amount to roughly half the opening weekend’s take. Instead, the film essentially matched its two-day debut frame, though this time spread across three days.
The film’s continued strength prompted ticketing platform Maoyan to revise its full-run forecast upward to $441 million, an increase from its initial projection issued during opening weekend. While this trajectory suggests the film may fall slightly short of Chow’s personal box-office record set by The Mermaid in 2016, it represents a significant commercial achievement. The picture crossed $147 million in its opening week before reaching the $200 million milestone.
Kung Fu Soccer marks Chow’s directorial return since 2019’s The New King of Comedy and features an ensemble cast including Zhang Xiaofei, Dilraba Dilmurat, and Lay Zhang. The film reimagines the original Shaolin Soccer premise with an all-female martial arts soccer team competing in a tournament. Notably, Chow announced the release date through a casual social media video on his birthday in late June, with the film arriving in theaters less than three weeks later with minimal conventional marketing.
The film faced stronger competition in its second weekend with the arrival of All Wishes Come True, an animated feature from Pearl Studio that opened with $39.6 million including previews. Other new releases included the female-friendship drama A Part of Me and the rerelease of the 2009 thriller Triangle. A North American theatrical release for Kung Fu Soccer is planned for later in the year through Encore Films, which acquired worldwide distribution rights outside mainland China.