Film Powers a 35-Year-Old Book

The hit author Yu Hua reached seven spots on China’s fiction charts thanks to a 1988 novel’s new film adaptation and its star.

Early snowfall at Changchun’s Huanglong Royal Park in northeastern China’s Jilin province. The park was built during the Manchukuo period, in 1933. Image – Getty iStockphoto: Dandelion

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

See also:
Our China Bestseller reports go back to July 2017
More on author Yu Hua, a Colleen Hoover of China’s bestseller lists

‘Only the River Flows’ Into Western Cinemas in 2024

It was good to be Yu Hua in October. In that month’s very slow-moving changes on OpenBook’s fiction bestseller charts, the author of six bestsellers in September added a seventh for October, a novel titled Only the River Flows.

Yu Hua

Publishing Perspectives readers will recall from September’s bestsellers analysis that our associates at Beijing OpenBook made the wry observation that the comedian-author Yu has built his celebrity on his popularity among “many young people with colored hair” and big book-signing events. It all seems to be working.

Only the River Flows has something we know from our years of China Bestsellers is a great predictor of success: staying power. The book first appeared in the literary magazine Zhongshan in 1988. As we know, there are perennial favorites in the Chinese marketplace that can claim “classic” status for having stood the test of that much time.

Zhu Yilong

But another very familiar driver is behind the popularity of this born-again bestseller: a film. The screen treatment by director Wei Shujun of Only the River Flows was released on October 21, with Zhu Yilong (Lighting Up the Stars, 2022) playing the lead. In the irony department? Zhu—himself a writer as well as actor—was born in the same year that Yu’s book first appeared in the magazine Zhongshan, 1988. Now he’s knocking them out in the cinemas as Ma Zhe, a criminal police captain who’s haunted by nightmarish realities and perhaps coming unhinged.

In Liz Shackleton’s write-up for Deadline on Thursday (December 14), it’s revealed that the show’s  North American rights have been bought by KimStim, with MK2 Films in Paris working on the bookings outside of North America. Referred to by Shackleton as a Chinese noir, the film reportedly has grossed US$43 million at the box office (RMB309.5 million), “an exceptional number for an independent film in that market,” Shackleton writes.

‘Only the River Flows’

In China, it won the Fei Mu at Pingyao Film Festival, and in Cannes’ it premiered in the Un Certain Regard field at Salle Debussy.

After the release of the film, author Yuo participated in a series of publicity activities with Wei and Zhu, talking up his love of film and the way that in this case the director’s and actors’ work are “supplementing” the novel’s content. He has even been reported to have said the ending of the film adaptation is one he likes better than his own book’s conclusion. The trick to that comment is that the film doesn’t provide the “final answer” that viewers want to see. (Could a series be ahead?)

Our OpenBook associates point out that Hua’s appreciation made more fans head for the film, prompted by the author’s endorsement. Meanwhile, KimStim is expected to begin releasing the film outside China in arthouse cinemas in 2024.

Film posters for Wei Shujun’s film adaptation of Yu Hua’s ‘Only the River Flows.’ In the fourth on the right, some homage to Edvard Munch is at play

One more element of the Chinese market in October is “Singles Day”—a sort of answer to Valentine’s Day. On Singles Day, unattached people treat themselves to gifts, and the retail market is hardly shy about laying on big sales to attract those highly attractive solo acts to their wares. Our OpenBook research specialists tell us that this year, four of the Top 30 fiction titles were highly ranked in the sales offerings.

So what were the bachelors and bachelorettes buying on Singles Day? In order of sales volume:

• Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha
• Lu Xun’s A Madman’s Diary
• Yan Zhen’s The Wavy Water
• Bai Cha’s The Cat Emperor and His Friends

Below, then, are OpenBook’s overall lists from October 2023 of bestsellers in fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books, followed by its lists of bestselling fiction and nonfiction in China by authors from outside the country. At the end of our article, as always, you’ll find notes on how the lists are constructed.

OpenBook’s Fiction Bestsellers, October 2023

OpenBook’s Nonfiction Bestsellers, October 2023

OpenBook’s Children’s Bestsellers, October 2023

Foreign Author Fiction Bestsellers, October 2023

Foreign Author Nonfiction Bestsellers, October 2023

Notes on the Charts

OpenBook is a privately owned industry-data research firm based in Beijing. It functions somewhat as Nielsen and NDP do from the West, and Nielsen Book Research International has worked with OpenBook in Asian operations. With authoritative data and information resources, OpenBook is able to deliver consulting service to partners who would like to explore the Chinese book market and identify suitable partners.

At last report, OpenBook monitored more than 18,000 online and offline bookstores.

The online channel includes digital retailers such as large self-operated online stores, platform stores, and small- and medium-sized stores. The offline channels include more than 4,800 bookstores. Coverage includes most of the state-owned and influential privately owned bookstores in 30 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions. Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Tibet are not included in OpenBook’s system.

In 2022, OpenBook tracked around 76.21 billion RMB in sales (US$10.62 billion).

Retail outlets include:

• Traditional bookstores
• Supermarkets
• Campus bookstores
• “Professional” stores, said to be small stores with a specific industrial or trade focus
• Airport stores

In addition, OpenBook is drawing data from online bookstores of three main types:

• The “Tmall” stores of Alibaba (Tmall is described as a marketplace of companies that create storefronts online to sell products including books)
• The “JingDong” Stores of JD.com (similar to Tmall as a marketplace of both individual companies and bookstores operated by JD.com)
• Ten independent online bookselling retailers

China has 500 or more publishers in operation today. Most of them are government-owned. Private publishers are required to generate ISBNs for their titles from a publishing company that is government-owned—which, in other words, creates a system in which all ISBNs are registered through government channels. The government approves each book published in China.

More China bestseller reports from Publishing Perspectives are here, and more on the Chinese book publishing market is here.