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It’s a great time for Chinese cinema with homegrown productions dominating the local box office.

Action thriller “Operation Mekong” won the box office charts with $77 million in sales during the national weeklong holiday, according to the film industry-consulting firm Artisan Gateway.

In the second spot was Yibai Zhang’s romantic comedy “I Belonged to You”. Stop motion film “L.O.R.D.: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties” by Jingming Guo placed Number 3 in the box office. Jing Wong’s action comedy “Mission Milano” followed in fourth place. “The Wild Life” is the only non-Chinese movie that made the top five.

Operation Mekong conquered all these films thanks to its nationalistic theme and its action guru director Dante Lam of “Beast Stalker” and “That Demon Within” fame.

La Times praised the filmmaker saying “(Dante) Lam packs the movie with white-knuckle action sequences, set in eye-catching locations, teeming with extras.”

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Update, Writethru: The international box office got a boost this weekend, jumping 110% from last frame across the Top 10 titles, and dipping just 6% versus the similar session last year. There were two major overseas openings for Hollywood, with a raft of hot local movies in the mix around the globe — many with savvy studio participation. There are also a series of key milestones as Finding Dory finally splashed into Germany and set a new bar for 2016 as well as crossing $500M internationally — putting the $1B worldwide mark within fin’s reach. And, there are no growing pains for Bridget Jones’s Baby with a 3rd straight No. 1 in the UK as it cozies up to $100M overseas.

First up among new titles, Fox/Chernin Entertainment’s Tim Burton-directed Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children was the No. 1 offshore opener at $36.5M in 59 markets. Korea is a highlight where Miss Peregrine...

Even though Yibai Zhang (Spring Subway, Lost Indulgence) is somewhat of a critics favorite, his films clearly fail to find their way outside the confines of the Chinese borders. Some lukewarm film fest successes and fringe critical acclaim are not enough for a talent like Zhang, especially when you consider he is perfectly capable of making commercially-minded gems. Eternal Moment is Zhang's latest and even though it's a film firmly grounded in Chinese television history, it should be able to amuse an international audience.Eternal Moment sees Zhang return to one of his early TV successes, Cherish Our Love Forever (a popular Chinese soap opera). He reunites his former cast and turns the popular TV series into a flashy, deceptively simple sequel that will speak to...

MADRID -- The inaugural Ibiza and Formentera International Film Festival announced Thursday that it will screen 18 films during its May 29-June 7 run.

The films are divided between six regional sections: Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America, Africa and co-productions. The winners of each section will compete against each other for the top prize, the Eleanor Falcon.

The European section comprises Juan Carlos Falcon's La Caja from Spain, Roberto Ando's Viaggio Segreto from Italy and Cristian Nemescu's California Dreamin' from Romania.

From Asia, there will be Lee Hyung-gon's The Fox Family from Korea, Yibai Zhang's The Longest Night in Shanghai from Japan and Mani Ratnam's Guru from India.

From the U.S., there will be Steve Barron's Choking Man, Douglas McGrath's Infamous and Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation.

Latin America will offer three Argentine productions: Enrique Gabriel's co-production with Spain, Suspiros del Corazon; Santiago Otheguy's La Leon; and Ariel Winogerad's Cara de Queso.

On offer from Africa are Laura Muscardin's Billo le grand dakhaar, from Italy-Senegal, Laurent Salgues' Dreams of Dust from France-Canada-Burkina Faso and Salif Traore's Faro, la reine des eaux, from Mali-France-Burkina Faso.