Stephen Chow's CJ7 had huge opening weekends in Malaysia and Singapore during Chinese New Year after scoring a mega opening across China, Hong Kong and Taiwan the previous week.

In Malaysia, Chow's boy-meets-alien comedy set a new record with $1.91m (RM6.2m) on a massive 90 prints over four days. It was the biggest opening weekend in the country's history.

In Singapore, it grossed $1.41m (S$2.00m) on 50 prints, making it the biggest opening weekend for a Chinese film ever - with 6% more than Chow's Kung Fu Hustle.

It was the first non-English-language film with a S$2m opening weekend, as well as the fourth best opening weekend for Sony Pictures Releasing International (SPRI), behind the three Spider-Man films.

With CJ7 topping the box office in both territories, Jay Chou-starrer Kung Fu Dunk could only trail behind. It opened at second place with $0.62m (RM2m) on 51 prints in Malaysia through distributor Ram, and took the third spot in Singapore.

Competition was tougher in Singapore with homegrown director Jack Neo's Ah Long Pte Ltd, which took the second spot with $1.05m (S$1.48m) from 50 prints - the biggest opening weekend for a Neo film - while Kung Fu Dunk followed closely with $0.99m (S$1.40m), also on 50 prints.

Kung Fu Dunk 's opening weekend already surpassed the final box office of Chou's Secret which grossed $0.83m (S$1.18m) last year.

Chinese New Year is always a box office goldmine. For the past four-day weekend, which started Feb 7, totals were 2.5 times higher than the previous, normal trading week in Malaysia and four times higher in Singapore.

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