China's box office tops 1 billion yuan in 11 days

China's box office revenue hit the one-billion-yuan (about 136 million U.S. dollars) mark just 11 days into the new year, according to box office data tracker Dengta.

The data show that, including pre-sale tickets, the country's box office revenue had exceeded one billion yuan by Saturday afternoon

Domestic suspense movie Octopus with Broken Arms, domestic feature film Big World and domestic comedy Honey Money Phony dominated the top three spots on the monthly box office chart in January so far.

In 2024, China's box office revenue reached over 42.5 billion yuan (about 5.91 billion U.S. dollars), according to data from the China Film Administration.

The three astronauts of the Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceflight mission have boarded the spacecraft for a flight to China’s Tiangong space station.

The Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceship is scheduled to blast off at 23:08 Beijing Time (15:08 GMT) from northwest China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

The three Chinese astronauts, commander Zhu Yangzhu, spacecraft pilot Zhang Zhiyuan and payload specialist Lai Ka-ying, climbed aboard the spaceship with the help of technicians.

Following the launch, the astronauts will complete an in-orbit rotation with the outgoing Shenzhou-21 crew, and one of them will conduct a one-year in-orbit stay, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.

Notably, astronaut Lai Ka-ying is also the first astronaut from China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program, and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.