Australia's tastefor Asian action films has matured to such a point that Zhang Yimou's Hero had no trouble at all topping thebox office chart on its opening weekend. It grossed A$2,258,748 from 165screens for BVI, giving it a screen average of A$13,689, which was far ahead ofanything else in the chart.

The Forgotten came in second, despite Columbia TriStarsecuring 35 more screens for its launch into cinemas. The Julianne Moorevehicle sold A$1,484,216 worth of tickets for a screen average of A$7,421. Bothfilms ended what was a two-week reign by BVI's Shall We Dance' Rounding out the top five were the two UIP films The Manchurian Candidate, in its secondweek, followed by Collateral, whichis now in its fourth week.

The only otherforeign opener in the chart was the specialist film De-Lovely. It just scraped into the top 10, taking A$239,635 from39 screens for 20th Century Fox, giving it the third highest screen average(A$6,658) after the two box office leaders.

An Australian filmalso opened on the weekend. A Man's Gotta Do took A$65,302 for Hopscotch from46 screens to end up in sixteenth spot.