A poster for the home-grown thriller, Painted Skin (Photo: ent.qq.com)

China's box office revenue in the first half of 2008 hit a record high, surpassing more than 1.6 billion yuan (about $235 million), according to figures released on Friday by the Chinese Film Bureau in Beijing.

The revenue was 45 percent higher than in the same period in 2007, the film bureau said. Domestic movies accounted for more than 900 million yuan of total revenue for the first six months of 2008, or 50 percent more than in the same period last year, the local Beijing Times newspaper reported on Saturday.

Tong Gang, head of the film bureau, told reporters that box office revenue is expected to set a new record in the second half of 2008 with the debuts of several domestic films such as Painted Skin and Mei Lanfang.

The first is a thriller adapted from the ancient novel Liaozhai Zhiyi, or Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, written by Pu Songling in the Qing Dynasty.

The latter is a biopic of the late Peking opera master, Mei Lanfang, which is directed by veteran director Chen Kaige.

(CRIENGLISH.com July 20, 2008)