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Japanese fantasy animation ‘Your Name’ continues to dominate the box office in China

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The Japanese fantasy animation “Your Name” continued to top China’s box office, adding $15.7 million to its tally this week.

Chinese entertainment group Enlight Pictures distributed the movie, which accumulated $71.4 million in 10 days, according to film industry consulting firm Artisan Gateway.

The youth animation movie, produced by Toho International Co., was released in Japan in June, grossing more than $174 million and ranking as the sixth-biggest-grossing film ever in Japan’s box office.

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The film achieved such fame elsewhere that pirated DVDs appeared on city streets before its official release in China. Chinese downloaded the online version in high-definition tens of thousands of times on Baidu cloud, a cloud-storage service provided by tech giant Baidu.

Whether they watched it legally or not, the film received an average of 9.3 out of 10 on the Chinese fan-rating site Maoyan.

Mel Gibson directed the week’s second-most-popular film, “Hacksaw Ridge,” which racked up $17.1 million. The war drama opened Thursday and tells the story of Army medic Desmond Doss, the first man in American history who received the Medal of Honor without using a gun.

The fantasy film “Suddenly Seventeen,” directed by Zhang Mo, daughter of Chinese director Zhang Yimou, ranked third, earning $10.6 million in four days. Produced by Le Vision Pictures, the film stars Ni Ni, who is also the leading actress in Zhang Yimou’s 2011 film “The Flowers of War.”

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Fourth place went to the Harry Potter spinoff “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” with $10.1 million in receipts, bringing its 17-day total to 82.5 million.

The Tim Burton-directed fantasy film “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”, a 20th Century Fox production, rounded out the top-five chart, drawing $5.6 million in its second week of running.

Despite a weaker yuan, China’s box office has racked up $6.2 billion in 2016, increasing by 6% compared with the same period a year earlier, according to Artisan Gateway.

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