Local films boost Hong Kong BO

---

---

Box Office News

Four locally-made films claimed premium spots in the Hong Kong box office chart for the first half of the year. Overall box office soared by 19%.

Hong Kong's local champions included comedy drama Love in the Buff 春嬌與志明 (pictured) and drama A Simple Life 桃姐 (2011), which ranked fourth and fifth respectively ahead of (still on release) Prometheus, according to data from the Motion Picture Industry Association Ltd (MPIA) 香港電影協會.

Also charting strongly was action thriller The Viral Factor 逆戰 which beat The Hunger Games and Battleship. Filling tenth spot was local Chinese New Year comedy I Love Hong Kong 2012 ２０１２我愛ＨＫ　喜上加囍.

There was no denying the runaway winner, however, was The Avengers. It scored a colossal HK$96 million ($12.4 million), more than double the second placed (still on release) Men In Black 3 and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2011).

The MPIA data showed box office receipts climbed from HK$633 million ($81.7 million) in the first six months of last year to HK$754 million ($97 million).

The number of films on release was scarcely changed with a total of 140 new releases (compared with 144 in the first half of 2011). Of these 23 (24) were local, and 117 (119) imports.

---