2015...The year that was

2 Hot tickets

It does not really matter whether the annual box-office total reaches 45 billion yuan ($7 billion) this year. (Last year it was a tad short of the magical 30 billion.)

What is beyond doubt is that China's film market is on a roll. Records are being smashed on a monthly basis. Monster Hunt, a domestic family-oriented fantasy flick, has taken the lead for the time being and comedies still dominate the domestic film industry that holds Hollywood juggernauts at bay in the mainland market.

Meanwhile, the real Goliaths have turned out to be a quartet that has excelled in high technology and related businesses. Wanda, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, with their long-reaching tentacles, have enveloped traditional film production into their more unconventional empires. A negative corollary, as seen by most traditionalists, is the blind hype of so-called hot IPs, usually online fiction with a proven audience. It remains to be seen whether big money is a Trojan horse or a blessing in disguise for filmmaking.