The film achieved this success after 37 days of screening, becoming the highest-grossing martial arts action film in domestic Chinese box office history.
Regarding global revenue, "Tiêu nhân" is currently the runner-up of the martial arts film genre, second only to the classic work "Ngọa hổ tàng long" with 214 million USD.
Notably, "Xiao Ren" is the first martial arts film in China in the past 15 years that can recover capital and generate profits, helping to revive the long-slow box office film market.
Xiao Ren's 1.4 billion RMB milestone did not come easily, but was the result of a strong word-of-mouth effect. As a movie released during the 2026 Lunar New Year, the work started not very smoothly: the first-day screening rate was only about 13.8% - 16.8%, the first-day revenue was 108 million RMB, ranking 4th in the same period.
In many cinemas in small cities, "Tiêu nhân" is shown less than 4 times a day, once not being rated positively by the market.
However, thanks to high scores on platforms (7.5 points on Douban and 9.4 points on Maoyan), from the 3rd day of Tet, the film began to create a rare "comeback" growth streak.
Daily revenue continuously increased even after the peak period, even on working days it still maintained stable momentum. On March 24, "Tiêu nhân"'s daily revenue reached 3.49 million CNY, still higher than the previous day, showing a very strong "long-tailed" effect.
Currently, the screening time of "Tiêu nhân" has been extended to April 16, with average daily revenue still at tens of millions of CNY, and is likely to continue to aim for the milestone of 1.5 billion CNY.
In the role of director and male lead, Wu Jing is considered the core box office guarantee for "Xiao Ren". The action and martial arts films he has starred in so far have extremely strong box office appeal, high recognition and are trusted by audiences.
To suit the character Dao Ma, he lost 7.5kg, performing all difficult combat scenes such as fighting in sandstorms without using stuntmen. Ngo Kinh's professional spirit and national reputation helped attract a large number of general audiences, becoming the foundation for the film's box office success.
Nicholas Tse plays the villain Emperor Sheng, despite suffering a fractured bone injury, he still persistently performs the scene himself.
In addition, veteran actors such as Jet Li, Tony Leung Ka-fai, and Zhang Jin made special contributions, awakening the feelings of audiences who love martial arts films, helping to expand the audience.
Besides the cast, the core factor that helped the film "reverse the tide" is the quality of production and character building.
The film was filmed on-site for 185 days in the Xinjiang desert, directed by Yuan Heping, with all actors not using stunt doubles. The 13 big fight scenes are considered by experts as "the best martial arts films in the past 10 years".
The female character also made a breakthrough. Tran Le Quan performed the dangerous "riding a horse and breaking its back 90 degrees to shoot an bow" scene herself, the line "I am a big sandstorm" became a search trend. Ly Van Tieu combined hike movements to build the character Yen Tu Nuong, completely breaking the traditional female heroic image.
The success of "Xiao Ren" does not stop at the film itself. It has filled the 5-year gap of theatrical martial arts films, and at the same time became the first Chinese manga adaptation film to surpass the 1 billion CNY mark, strengthening industry confidence in IP adaptations of comics.
Experts believe that if the film reaches a revenue milestone of 1.5 billion CNY, the producer may officially launch the "Tieu Nhan universe", promoting large-scale martial arts projects such as "Don Hoang", bringing new vitality to Chinese martial arts cinema.
