Shen Teng has driven the relevant stock to record three consecutive daily limit gains.
Disclaimer: This article contains partial spoilers of the film *Welcome to Dragon Restaurant*.
In recent days, the film *Welcome to Dragon Restaurant* starring Shen Teng and Jiang Qiming has become a smash hit. On the afternoon of August 10, its producer Ruyi Pictures hit the 10% limit-up straight away, with the maximum order volume reaching an astonishing 881,000 lots, and finally closed at 9.93 yuan per share. In addition, the film and theater sector rose, another producer of the film, Beijing Culture, recorded a full 10% limit-up, and stocks such as Happiness Blue Sea and China Film also rose accordingly.
By August 11, Beijing Culture hit another limit-up, securing two consecutive trading days of gains. Ruyi Pictures also rose by more than 7% at one point during the trading session.
It is worth noting that the film did not have its official premiere until August 11, but its screenings in the previous two days had already made it extremely popular. It is reported that on the first day of screenings on August 8, *Welcome to Dragon Restaurant* got 14.5% of the national screening arrangements, with a box office of 39.21 million yuan on that day; on August 9, the single-day box office of the film further rose to 62.63 million yuan, and the total box office of the two-day screenings had exceeded 100 million yuan.
Compared with the first day, the box office of the second-day screening did not drop but rose instead, showing extremely high enthusiasm from the audience. The film received a score of 9.8 on Maoyan and 9.7 on Taopiaopiao.
As of press time, the total box office of the film on its premiere day has exceeded 230 million yuan (including screenings). According to the AI prediction of Beacon Professional Edition, the total box office of the film is expected to exceed 3.5 billion yuan. If this box office target is achieved, it is expected to become the second highest-grossing domestic film in 2026, second only to the 4.42 billion yuan box office of *Pegasus 3*.
On August 9, the author finished watching this film. At that time, I was attracted by the label "war version of *Dying to Survive*", and my impression after watching it was that "it will definitely be a hit". In my opinion, this is another success of Wen Muye's "ordinary people narrative style".
The Dragon Restaurant Standing Amid Gunsmoke
Generally speaking, if I rank the three classic films directed by Wen Muye, I will put this one between *Dying to Survive* and *Nice View*. (This only represents the author's personal opinion, please do not criticize if you disagree)
The film tells the story of Xu Fu, a chef played by Shen Teng, who travels to a war-torn region in the Middle East to open a Chinese restaurant to pay off debts. From the initial belief that "foreigners fighting with foreigners has nothing to do with me", to witnessing war orphans being brainwashed and his best friend Ma Junsheng being killed, he finally chooses to take the restaurant as a shelter to escort children out of danger. This plot is almost identical to Cheng Yong played by Xu Zheng in *Dying to Survive*, who changed from making money by selling medicine to saving people at his own expense.
I think the core of this film is to look back at the whole war from Xu Fu's perspective. Xu Fu is not a local resident, nor a US soldier, but a complete outsider, an ordinary person who only wants to earn enough money to go home.
But precisely because he is an outsider, when you look at this war through his eyes, you will not blindly take sides, and you will empathize with the ordinary people who drag their families along in the artillery fire, the brainwashed orphans, the US soldiers who get drunk and miss their mothers, and the restaurant owner who eventually goes to the dark side.
The most touching part is the understated core idea of the film: ordinary people cannot control the war, but there are always ordinary people willing to risk their lives to protect children. The Dragon Restaurant standing in the battlefield also implies that the most precious thing in the world is the warmth of daily life, not the gunsmoke of war.
The film lasts 141 minutes in total, but the plot is compact and the emotions progress layer by layer. Although it is long, it makes people feel no fatigue while watching.
What makes a good film? I think the most important thing is character portrayal. It can make these characters "come alive", for example, with clear personalities, strong opinions, distinct desires or fears.
Take Xu Fu played by Shen Teng as an example. The restaurant owner owes debts due to an accident, and has no choice but to go abroad to work, while his mother and daughter are waiting for him to come home. He is worldly and sophisticated, and still wants to stay there to make money after paying off the debts, just as he said, "making a fortune from the war". But he also shows his kindness in a foreign land, takes care of children, accepts apprentices, and finally takes risks to save the brainwashed children, changing their fate imperceptibly.
In addition to the protagonist, the portrayal of other characters is also vivid and full.
Junsheng played by Jiang Qiming is very similar to the character setting of Wang Quanan. He grew up as an orphan, traveled around, and is capable of getting along with all kinds of people. But even so, he still retains a kind of divinity, showing sincerity and compassion to everyone. He is a knife made of water, flowing gently through everyone's life. He was about to embrace happiness, but died with unfulfilled wishes after saying "I didn't fool them".
La Zha, the restaurant boss who hired Xu Fu at first, is the director of the Water and Electricity Department, a senior government official, as well as a husband and a father.
Because his daughter's medicine needs to be imported, he is constantly extorted by the American soldier Eric. After La Zha refuses, Eric uses the same faction execution team supported by the US military to assassinate his family, which leads to La Zha losing his wife and daughter, and finally going to the dark side.
There is also Saif, represented by the children, whom the American soldiers call future terrorists. Indeed, because of the war they brought, these children may become terrorists. But the existence of Xu Fu and Junsheng also proves that with a guide, these children are just children.
There is also that American big boy Tony Wang who loves cats. He is extremely timid, but always emphasizes his identity as a private first class, as if this identity can bring him courage. In fact, he is just a poor guy who gets drunk, misses his mother and cries "I want to go home".
Moreover, this film takes Chinese food as a feature to interpret global issues. Even in the war, food is still loved by people, and the fire on the stove fights against the gunsmoke. After the gunshot, there are no winners. War is not just cold words, but a storm that crushes the whole life of ordinary people.
The Fire on the Stove Does Not Show in the Financial Statements
The film got the public screening license on August 6, and started large-scale screenings on August 8, with less than 24 hours between getting the license and the screenings. It was released nationwide on August 11. This is called "extreme scheduling" in the industry, which essentially means putting all bets on word of mouth. There is no time to distribute promotion materials, nor time to do preheating, and can only bet that the audience will recommend it voluntarily after watching.
But they won the bet.
Maoyan gave it an initial score of 9.7, and Taopiaopiao gave it an initial score of 9.8, setting the highest record of screenings in the past three years. The box office on the first day of screenings on August 8 was about 39.21 million yuan, and the real-time box office on the next day once rushed to 61 million yuan, far exceeding the market forecast of 43 million yuan, and finally settled at 62.55 million yuan. As of August 10, data from Maoyan Professional Edition shows that the total box office of screenings and pre-sales has exceeded 115 million yuan.
The reaction of the capital market is faster than that of the audience.
At the opening of the market yesterday, the producer Beijing Culture (000802.SZ) hit the 10% limit-up directly, and the co-producer Ruyi Pictures (002739.SZ) also closed the limit-up in the afternoon, with the order volume exceeding 400,000 lots. Stocks such as Happiness Blue Sea (300528.SZ) and China Film (600977.SH) rose accordingly, and the entire film and theater sector was driven by this "Chinese food craze".
Interestingly, this scene happened eight years ago.
In July 5, 2018, *Dying to Survive* was released, and the stock price speculation had already started after the screenings on June 30. From July 2 to July 8, Beijing Culture's stock price rose by 50% in five trading days. Choice data shows that after July 4, Beijing Culture recorded three consecutive limit-ups, with the highest price touching 17.18 yuan. Then? In the following month, the stock price was cut in half again.
The same director, the same producer, the same situation that the word of mouth of screenings exploded before the official release, and the same situation that capital rushed in.
Looking further back, the plot is even more familiar. After *Wolf Warrior 2* was released on July 27, 2017, Beijing Culture's stock price soared by 66% in 8 trading days, then the company announced the senior executive reduction plan, and the stock price plummeted by 59% in 10 months. During the Spring Festival in 2019, *The Wandering Earth* was released, and Beijing Culture recorded one limit-up on the first day after the festival, then went high and fell back. When the total box office of *Hi, Mom* exceeded 4 billion yuan in 2021, Beijing Culture rose by 18.13% for two consecutive trading days, and its market value peaked at only 4.8 billion yuan.
In the film industry, Beijing Culture has always been known as the "hit film engine" — *Wolf Warrior 2* with 5.6 billion yuan box office, *Dying to Survive* with 3 billion yuan, *The Wandering Earth* with 4.6 billion yuan, *My People, My Homeland* with 2.8 billion yuan, *Hi, Mom* with more than 4 billion yuan, it almost successfully bets on one hit film every year.
The success rate is surprisingly high, but its profitability is another story.
Even though it has succeeded in betting many times and caused the stock price to rise periodically, due to factors such as the formulation of film dividend distribution model and operation issues, the actual income of the company is not high. Since 2017, its net profit has continued to decline, with a huge loss of 2.306 billion yuan in 2019. Since 2015, its stock price has repeatedly hit new lows, falling by more than 80% compared with the highest point, and its market value has shrunk by nearly 26 billion yuan.
This is the most awkward part of film stocks: what rises is expectation, and what is recorded in the account is dividend distribution. The gap between the two has not been filled for eight years.
This is the most typical mismatch in the A-share film sector. It is also the fundamental reason why the primary market has become colder and colder for film content in recent years: it is not that there are no good projects, but that good projects cannot achieve exit.
China's Film Market Is in Full Boom
The film market has continued to heat up in 2026, and the annual total box office (including pre-sales) has strongly exceeded the 240 billion yuan mark, among which the summer schedule performed particularly brilliantly, with the cumulative box office exceeding 8.2 billion yuan. This data not only highlights the audience's high enthusiasm for watching movies, but also reflects the strong recovery momentum of the film market. This achievement is attributed to the concentrated release of nearly 120 Chinese and foreign films, covering history, comedy, action, animation, science fiction and other genres, providing the audience with rich choices.
From the market feedback, the audience's recognition of high-quality content continues to improve, and word-of-mouth effect has become a key factor driving box office growth. With more diverse and well-produced films being released one after another, the 2026 film market is expected to continue its prosperous trend and bring more surprises to the audience.
The description of "full boom" is not an exaggeration.
There are also concentrated favorable policies. This year, the state launched the action plan of "Film Economy Promotion Year", and the total annual consumer subsidy for movie watching will reach more than 1.2 billion yuan. The Ministry of Culture and the National Tourism Administration have launched the summer cultural leisure tourism consumption season across the country, and issued more than 45 million yuan of consumption coupons covering places such as cinemas; Beijing invested 20 million yuan in film preferential subsidies, Shandong invested 20 million yuan, and Zhejiang invested 25 million yuan across the province; the National Film Administration and the State Administration for Market Regulation jointly issued ten measures to encourage cinemas to integrate multiple business formats, and open up other income channels for cinemas besides box office.
The subsidies are real money invested. It is expected that the average ticket price of national films will drop to about 39.6 yuan, 4.3 yuan lower than last year.
According to data from the National Film Administration, every 1 yuan of box office can bring 15.77 yuan of related industry output value. This year, the total output value of the entire film industry chain has exceeded 3700 billion yuan.
However, the other side of the data is as follows: by the first half of 2026, the number of national screening sessions has reached 73.296 million, hitting a record high. There are more and more screening sessions, but fewer and fewer people come to watch. The machines in the cinema never stop, and the screens are lit up every night, but behind the hot data, the actual situation is that there are only about 5.8 people per screening on average.
The supply is sufficient, what is missing is a movie that makes people willing to go out to the cinema.
When a hit film needs to bear nearly one-tenth of the total annual box office of the whole market, it shows that there is a serious structural shortage of content supply in this industry. This is the real reason why the market reacted so strongly after the word of mouth of *Welcome to Dragon Restaurant* exploded: it is not because there is one more good film, but because there are too few good films, so that the market will rise once a good film appears.
From an investment perspective, the essence of this track has never changed.
Film is a typical non-standard asset. Investing in a single film is equivalent to a one-time bet, with a very short exit cycle but unpredictable results. Any link such as word of mouth, schedule, screening arrangement, and competitors may make the entire model collapse. Therefore, the enthusiasm of the primary market for film content has been declining in the past ten years, because it cannot meet the certainty pursued by funds.
What has really changed is the part outside the track.
The first is the cinema business format itself. The joint notice issued by the National Film Administration and the State Administration for Market Regulation mentions that cinemas should be encouraged to get rid of the single screening mode, and create multi-functional cultural spaces integrating movie watching, socializing, entertainment and shopping. After the screen is transformed from a screening terminal to an offline traffic entry, the valuation logic has changed from the original "box office dividend" to the current "sales per unit area + non-box office income". Under this logic, consumer investors have a deeper understanding than media investors.
The second is the reduction of technical cost. Alpha Group has applied domestic artificial intelligence technology to animation film painting, virtual character rendering and scene modeling, which greatly reduces the production time. It achieved a net profit of 150 million to 190 million yuan in the first half of 2026, with a year-on-year increase of 305.3% to 413.38%. In the period when the overall market dropped by half, this is one of the most outstanding report cards. Technology reduces the denominator of production cost, so the elasticity of revenue increases accordingly.
The third is the long-tail effect of IP. The life cycle of a film should not only be a 30-day screening period. The cash flow of links such as derivatives, trendy toys, theme spaces, and secondary authorization is more stable than box office.
Therefore, for capital, the answer is not "where is the next hit", but "where can we make money even without betting on a hit".
The reason why Xu Fu can keep his restaurant running is not that a big customer came suddenly one day, but that he lit the fire, cooked and stir-fried dishes normally every day. The same is true for China's film market. Data such as 8.5 billion, 242 billion, and 3700 billion are very impressive, but what really determines how far this industry can go is not whether a film gets 9.8 points, but whether