Six of the best for Spring Festival cinemas

With a diverse range of genres and stellar casts, this year's Spring Festival — the country's biggest box office season — has set a record for reaching 100 million yuan in presale revenues in the history of all Spring Festival releases.

Operation Hadal, the first film of its kind to feature deep-sea battles involving submarines, was revealed by its creators to have been shot on soundstages in Qingdao, Shandong province, with the total area of the facilities spanning 46,000 square meters.

The event also highlighted policies for movie ticket subsidies during Chinese New Year, with a project launched in December that has scheduled to invest no less than 600 million yuan to attract more theatergoers.

Lai Li, an analyst with Maoyan Pro, said that the current lineup is being widely recognized as the most appealing in recent years for the Spring Festival box-office season. With five out of the six movies being sequels of commercially successful franchises, Lai predicted that the upcoming New Year holiday could potentially break a record in ticket sales.