On May 8, the "China Film Audience Satisfaction Survey 2024 May Day" was jointly released by the China Film Art Research Center and Enlight Media. The survey results showed that the audience satisfaction score for the May Day movie was 83.2 points, a slight decrease of 0.1 points year-on-year, still ranking second in the spring and May Day period satisfaction surveys in recent years.
The five films surveyed during the period all scored over 80 points, with "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City" leading with 84.2 points, and "Peacekeepers Riot Squad", "A Journey Across the Moon" and "Thelma & Louise" all scoring over 82 points. The films during the period are diverse in genre and there are many eye-catching works with high satisfaction, providing audiences with a wealth of viewing options and helping to effectively release the potential of entertainment consumption during the short holiday.
The China Film Audience Satisfaction Survey is a comprehensive film evaluation system that is independent of the box office, ticketing platforms and social networking sites. The survey uses methods such as on-site sampling surveys in theaters, online surveys of front-line practitioners and experts, and big data capture and analysis to comprehensively evaluate domestic films based on the three major indexes of viewing, ideological and communication, and introduces the freshness index to evaluate the innovation of the film. The survey samples are divided into two groups: ordinary audiences and professional audiences, covering first-, second-, third- and fourth-tier cities across the country.
All films released during the period received satisfactory reviews, with "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City" leading the pack
The five films surveyed during this year's "May Day" period cover different genres including action, comedy, romance, suspense, etc. Some are high-energy and passionate, while others are lighthearted and healing. They have diverse styles and different contents, which have better met the viewing needs of different audiences and have received satisfactory reviews from the audience.
"Kowloon Walled City: The Besieged City" has a satisfaction rating of 84.2 points, ranking first among the five films, and is slightly higher than this year's hit "Zhou Chu Eliminates Three Evils" by 0.2 points, becoming the first in satisfaction among the 13 films surveyed after the 2024 Spring Festival. The film shows the historical features and character entanglements of Hong Kong's Kowloon Walled City. The comic-like kung fu fighting scenes are novel and fierce, and Hong Kong-style action films have presented a new look.
Wang Yibo and Huang Jingyu, who both had films released last year, co-starred in the first overseas peacekeeping film "Peacekeeping Riot Squad" (directed by Li Dachao) during the May Day holiday this year. The film's satisfaction rating was 83.7 points, ranking second during the holiday. This film and "King of the Sky" (directed by Liu Xiaoshi) released during the May Day holiday last year are both action dramas, and both are the directors' screen debuts. The film's satisfaction rating is 1 point lower than "King of the Sky".
"A Journey Through the Moon" is adapted from the novel "Andante in the Moonlight". The pure love story told in the era of green slow trains is healing. The film's satisfaction score is 82.9 points, which has certain advantages among similar themes. Among the four love films surveyed so far in 2024, "A Journey Through the Moon" is slightly lower than "Let's Rock the Sun Together" and ranks second. Compared with "So Many Years" (satisfaction score of 81.0 points) and "Countdown to Say I Love You" (satisfaction score of 80.2 points) released in the same period last year, it is 1.9 points and 2.7 points higher respectively.
"Thelma and Juliet" is a new director's big screen debut and the only pure comedy film in the schedule. Although it does not have a top comedy creative lineup, the comedy creation with the temperament of "Northeastern old iron" has also received good satisfaction ratings from the audience, scoring 82.2 points. "Nothing that can't be solved by a hot pot" combines comedy and suspense crime elements. The film attempts to innovate in expression but the story fluency is slightly insufficient, with a satisfaction rating of 80.8 points.
Audience reviews converged, with actors' performances in Kowloon Walled City and the values of Peacekeeping receiving positive reviews
The satisfaction rankings of ordinary audiences and professional audiences for the five films surveyed during the "May Day" period in 2024 are roughly the same, with the first, second and fifth ranked films remaining the same, and "The Besieged City of Kowloon" ranking first in satisfaction; there are slight differences in the evaluations, with "A Journey Across the Moon" starring popular young actors Hu Xianxu and Zhang Zifeng ranking third in the evaluations of ordinary audiences, while "Thelma and Louise" ranked third in the evaluations of professional audiences.
In the evaluation system of ordinary audiences, the high satisfaction scores of various indicators are relatively scattered. "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City" ranked first in the schedule in terms of story loveability, performance of the main actors, and freshness; "Peacekeepers Riot Squad" ranked first in terms of visual effects, wonderful dialogues, non-boringness, positive energy, profoundness of ideas, and communication methods; "A Journey Across the Moon" ranked first in terms of music effects; and "Thelma & Louise"'s wonderful dialogues, non-boringness, and communication methods also ranked among the top three in the schedule.
In the professional audience evaluation system, the high scores of satisfaction in various indicators are obviously more concentrated. "The Besieged City" ranked first in 10 of the 12 indicators, with a score of 96.7 for communication methods, and scores of more than 79 for visual effects and performances of the main actors; "Peacekeepers Riot Squad" ranked first for its healthy and positive values, and "A Trip Through the Moon" ranked first for its wonderful dialogues. At the same time, "Thelma & Louise" ranked first in four indicators, including healthy and positive values, music effects, and visual effects, and "Nothing Can't Be Solved by a Hot Pot" ranked in the top three.
The viewing experience remains stable, the popularity increases slightly, the film market remains stable with a good schedule atmosphere
Judging from the comprehensive performance of the three major indexes of satisfaction with the schedule, the 2024 "May Day" film viewing score was 83.8 points, the same as the previous year; the ideological score was 82.9 points, slightly lower than the same period last year by 0.6 points. This is related to the fact that last year's "May Day" schedule saw the release of many films that paid tribute to special professional beliefs and embodied family and country feelings ("Lord of the Sky", "The Rescue", and "Prosecution Storm"); the schedule's dissemination degree was 82.0 points, an increase of 0.2 points year-on-year, indicating that this year's "May Day" schedule maintained a good atmosphere for viewing and dissemination. Combined with the above-mentioned subdivided indicator evaluation, "Peacekeeping Riot Control Team" and "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City" are the films with the highest dissemination intentions among ordinary audiences and professional audiences respectively.
Judging from the evaluations of different audiences' movie-watching selection space, the proportion of ordinary audiences who think that the movie-watching selection space during this period is "very good" and "relatively good" has stabilized at around 90%, and the proportion of professional audiences has slightly declined but has also basically stabilized at around 63%. The "May Day" period has a relatively stable content supply to meet the movie-watching needs of diverse users during the holiday period.
Although the 2024 May Day schedule lacks blockbusters with absolute appeal, the differentiated content supply and relatively stable satisfaction make the box office performance of the schedule relatively stable, and the final box office of the schedule increased by 0.38% year-on-year. Among them, "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City", which ranked first in satisfaction, achieved three consecutive daily box office increases without first-mover advantage by virtue of its high-quality reputation; "Peacekeeping Riot Squad", which ranked second in satisfaction, also won the favor of a large number of ordinary audiences based on its relatively strong creative quality, and finally became the box office champion of the schedule; "The Last Days Spendthrift", which was recognized for its comedy creation quality, hit the demand for easy viewing during holidays by virtue of its genre advantage, and achieved a steady increase in the proportion of moviegoers. In addition, animated films such as "Spy Playing House Code: White" (Radiation Survey, satisfaction score 89.1) also performed well in reputation and box office.
As an important location for offline cultural content consumption, cinemas maintained a good viewing atmosphere and box office growth during the May Day holiday, effectively boosting the potential of holiday entertainment consumption. Despite the market enthusiasm and the not-so-booming atmosphere, the number of moviegoers during the May Day holiday still saw a slight increase, indicating that with the continuous recovery of the film market over the past year, especially the continued supply of weekend films, the stability of moviegoers is being consolidated and developed.
