The summer movie "The Kungfu Women's Football Team" written and directed by Stephen Chow, starring actors Truong Tieu Phi, Dich Le Nhiet Ba, Truong Nghe Hung, continues to lead the Chinese box office.
After a week of screening, as of 2 pm on July 17 (China time), the film's revenue has exceeded 990 million CNY (about 3,800 billion VND), maintaining an impressive growth momentum and is almost certain to soon reach the 1 billion CNY mark in the day.
However, in parallel with box office achievements, the film is also involved in controversy related to revenue fraud.
Some viewers have reflected that many cinemas show signs of violations such as handwritten ticket distribution, blank tickets or tickets that do not go through the official distribution system when tickets are issued, raising suspicions of concealing or falsely declaring film revenue.
According to media clarification, what was stolen was not the ticket in the hands of the audience, but the ticket money of the audience was transferred directly into the cinema's pocket, ignoring the official revenue statistics system.
The tricks are very diverse: some cinemas write handwritten tickets with the reason "system problems"; some places advise customers to cancel online ticket purchases to pay in cash to buy tickets at the counter; even there are cases where audiences watch "Women's Kungfu Team" but the name of another movie with few viewers is printed on the ticket.
Faced with this situation, the film crew of "The Kungfu Women's Football Team" issued an official statement, calling on audiences to watch the film civilizedly, together oppose acts of fraud, concealment or false disclosure of box office revenue, and at the same time open a channel to receive denunciations to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the film. Violating cinemas will be immediately terminated from cooperation.
On July 16, Stephen Chow also directly spoke out about the incident. On social networks, he posted pictures of handwritten tickets for the movie, only with 3 question marks (???). Although not giving specific comments, this move quickly caused public stir.
Lawyers analyze that cinemas "embezzling box office revenue" not only directly infringes on the revenue rights of producers, but also easily constitutes tax evasion, disrupting the order of the film market and violating the law.
According to China's Cinema Promotion Act, if a cinema falsely declares or hides box office revenue, the management agency has the right to request rectification, confiscate all illegal revenue and impose penalties depending on the severity of the violation.
Specifically, if the illegal revenue is low, the theater may be fined from 50,000 to 500,000 CNY (about 190 million - 1.9 billion VND); if the illegal revenue exceeds 500,000 CNY, the fine may be 1-5 times the amount of illegal profit.
In serious cases, the cinema will be suspended from operation for rectification. If the nature of the violation is particularly serious, functional agencies may revoke the cinema business license.
In addition, if revenue fraud is identified as tax evasion, the parties involved also violate China's Law on Tax Administration.
