Panda beats monkey as China's top-earning animation

Sino-U.S. collaboration "Kung Fu Panda 3" has beaten China's Monkey King movie to retake the crown of the country's highest-grossing animation film.

The third installment of the hit Hollywood blockbuster had raked in 964 million yuan (147 mln U.S. dollars) as of Saturday, according to the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

It beat the record of 956 mln yuan held by China's home-grown "Monkey King: Hero is Back," which overtook "Kung Fu Panda 2" last year to top China's box office chart of animation features.

It tells the story of Po, the black-and-white martial arts hero, as he reunites with his biological father and is taken to a secret paradise of pandas.

Unlike the franchise's first two films, the new release is a collaboration between American animation giant DreamWorks Animation (DWA), its sister studio Oriental DreamWorks (ODW) and China Film Co. Ltd.

ODW said the film's making featured the participation of a strong Chinese team and about one third of the film was produced in China. The film reanimated the characters' mouths and facial expressions when they speak Chinese and altered some of the jokes to suit the Chinese audience.

The film hit screens in China on Jan. 29 to tap into the movie-going fever around the Spring Festival holiday. ODW said the period of the film's screening has been extended to late March.

The Shanghai-based company said it has plans to make more animation features based on Chinese culture and stories.

China has been one of the most fast-growing film markets. Its box office reached 44 billion yuan in 2015, up 48.7 percent over that of 2014, while the number of film-goers totaled 1.26 billion throughout the year, a year-on-year increase of 51.08 percent.