Chinese director FengXiaogang's $20m The Banquet had astrong four-day opening weekend across Asia, grossing $8.5m from five territories.

The lavish $20m costumedrama, loosely based on Hamlet and starring Zhang Ziyi and Daniel Wu, recentlypremiered out-of-competition at Venice and opened across Chinese-speaking territories on Sep 14.

The film has already becomethe highest-grossing local production in mainland China so far this year where it took an estimated $7.5m(RMB60m) over four days.

It also grossed $423,000 (HK$3.29m)from 36 screens in Hong Kong; an estimated $276,000 from 13 screens in Taiwan; $89,000 from 32 screens in Malaysia, and $240,000 from 26 screens over a three-dayweekend in Singapore.

Co-produced by Beijing-basedHuayi Brothers and Hong Kong's Media Asia, TheBanquet stars Zhang as an empress who marries her brother-in-law when hemurders her husband and usurps the throne.

The film has sold widelyacross Europe to territories including France (StudioCanal), Scandinavia (Source Investment) and the UK and Spain (Momentum Pictures). It's tentatively scheduled for release in Japan through Gaga in Jan or Feb next year.