Despite creating an impressive comeback at the domestic box office, the movie "Tiêu nhân: Phong khởi đại mạc" did not achieve the expected revenue in Western markets. This raises the question: Do martial arts - kungfu movies still have appeal in the West?
Released for Tet 2026, "Xiao Ren: Phong Khoi Dai Mac" directed by Yuan Heping, gathering stars such as Wu Jing, Nicholas Tse and many martial arts names, had an unfavorable start. However, thanks to the highly appreciated action quality and positive word-of-mouth effects, the film gradually accelerated, currently surpassing the 1.1 billion yuan mark in China, becoming one of the best-selling martial arts works in recent years.
In Southeast Asia - a region with a tradition of loving Chinese martial arts films - "Tiêu nhân" recorded positive results. The film topped the box office for the first week in Indonesia, second in Malaysia and Singapore, showing that the appeal of this film genre is still clear in Asian markets.
However, the picture is different when looking to the West. In North America, the film released by Well Go USA, premiered in about 220 theaters, grossed about 760,000 USD in the first week and only reached about 1.2 million USD after two weeks. In Australia, opening revenue was about 40,000 AUD, ranking 9th that week. These figures show that the film mainly serves the Chinese community, not really "crossing the line" to the local audience.
In fact, this phenomenon is not unusual. The Western film market, especially North America, is heavily dominated by Hollywood studios. Films not in English, although from major film industries, often have small distribution scale, limited promotional resources and difficult competition for screenings.
Looking back at the early 2000s, martial arts films once had a golden age in the West with works such as "Ngọa hổ tàng long", "Anh hùng", "Thập diện mai phục" or "Kungfu". "Ngọa hổ tàng long" even held the highest foreign language film revenue record in North America for more than two decades. However, that success is associated with a special context: strong promotion campaigns, a wide distribution system and international award effects such as the Oscars.
After that short period, the Chinese martial arts film genre gradually disappeared from the mainstream of the North American market. The lack of consecutive projects of sufficient stature, along with a global distribution network that was not strong enough, made the appeal of this genre not maintained sustainably.
Besides, box office revenue is not the only measure of level of interest. Many martial arts films by Jackie Chan, Jet Li, or the "Ip Man" series have low box office revenue in North America but are widely watched on television, DVDs, and online platforms. Action excerpts still regularly circulate on YouTube and TikTok, attracting millions of views.
This shows that Western audiences do not necessarily "turn their backs" on Chinese martial arts. The problem lies in the distribution and promotion system. For an Asian film to truly break through in North America, large resources, long-term strategy and continuous presence are needed to build a genre brand.
