According to data from Maoyan, as of March 11, the martial arts action film "Tiêu nhân: Phong khởi đại mạc", directed by Vien Hoa Binh and starring actors Ngo Kinh, Ta Dinh Phong, Vu Thich, Tran Le Quan, Ton Nghe Chau, Thu Sa, Ly Van Tieu, has achieved revenue of more than 1.3 billion CNY (about 4,970 billion VND), after 23 days of screening.
Currently, the film ranks second on the 2026 box office revenue chart in China.
In a recent interview with CCTV-6, Du Bach Mi - Director and screenwriter of "Xiao Ren" - confirmed that this film project has almost recovered its capital and is not losing money.
Du Bach Mi revealed that right from the start of the project, he and Ngo Kinh clearly realized: in nearly 20 years, martial arts films have continuously declined, almost forgotten by the new generation of audiences. Both of them thought that making this film might be a loss, but they still decided "even if it's a loss, we have to do it".
Ngo Kinh used to be a professional martial arts athlete, and when he was over 50 years old, if he could not shoot another purely martial arts film, according to Du Bach Mi, he would "die without closing his eyes". This almost "haunting" creative motivation far exceeds pure commercial calculations.
After its release, thanks to its good reputation, "Xiao Ren" has come back in the second half of the Tet movie season. Currently, box office revenue has exceeded 1.3 billion CNY and is likely to exceed the 1.4 billion CNY mark.
Du Bach Mi is happy because more and more audiences are starting to pay attention to the martial arts theme again, even every day someone urges the film crew: "Make part 2!
The success of "The Catman" is not accidental, the film has solved 2 key problems in the film industry.
Catman" returns to the traditional martial arts spirit. Director Yuan Heping resolutely pursues "drama in action", rejects particularly flashy effects and returns to "empty-handed" realism.
This aesthetic compliance with traditional martial arts has been praised by experts as "a new standard for Chinese martial arts films in the new era", while awakening audience memories of true kung fu films.
After the process of making "The Catman", Du Bach Mi also pointed out that the biggest difficulty of martial arts films today is the breakdown of the generation of actors. According to him, Ngo Kinh and Ta Dinh Phong are almost the last generation of action stars that the whole country knows.
Du Bach Mi recounted that when he met Jet Li at the "Tieu Nhan" filming studio (playing a guest), he was very touched, because he had seen the movie "Shao Lan Tu" since childhood and considered Jet Li an idol.
But his assistant was still very young and completely did not know who Jet Li was.
According to Du Bach Mi, for more than 10 years, Chinese cinema has not seen a new action superstar, which is a major issue of the industry. Therefore, this time they especially emphasize the way of "taking the old to lead the new", in order to create more new action stars.
He also believes that new generation actors such as Tran Le Quan and Vu Thich have unlimited potential in the future.
According to Sohu, the fact that "Xiao Ren" is breaking even proves that audiences have never given up martial arts films, they only give up sloppy, lack of enthusiasm works.
In the screenwriting stage, Du Bach Mi has simplified the content, so that even people who have not read the original can easily follow the story. It is the respect for the audience's film viewing experience that is an important factor helping the film go against the box office trend.
