China, greeting 2021 as the world’s number one film market, ushered in the New Year with even more impressive numbers to bolster that reputation on the first day of 2021.

Chinese box office figures for January 1 stood at $92 million, a record haul for that holiday date. A Little Red Flower, a drama directed by Yan Han and starring Yalin Gao, Haocun Liu and Yu Xia, significantly contributed to the record take with $113.3 million weekend earnings.

Also boosting China’s robust ticket sales are Shock Wave 2, an action-adventure, which took in $124.3 million, and Warm Hug, director Yuan Chang’s comedy, which racked up $78 million. Disney/Pixar’s Soul is also doing well in that top movie market with $25.7 million so far after 10 days.

After being one of the first movie markets to close its movie houses early last year when the coronavirus pandemic began, China’s movie attendance has rebounded spectacularly. The Asian country surpassed the United States as the world’s largest film market in October, with box office revenue of $1.99 billion.

China also has bragging rights to having the world’s no. 1 movie worldwide for 2020, The Eight Hundred. Director Hu Guan’s drama, with a cast that includes Zhi-zhong Huang, Zhang Junyi and Hao Ou, has grossed $461 million.

In the United States, with 60 percent of cineplexes still closed, the box office figures are nowhere near China’s spectacular numbers. Wonder Woman 1984, with Gal Gadot returning as the golden lasso-wielding super heroine, clung to the top spot with $5.5 million but that’s a steep decline from the previous opening weekend figures of $16.7 million.

The animated film The Croods: A New Age, showing impressive staying power, placed second with $2.18 million.

Tom Hanks’ News of the World, in which he travels from town to town reading newspapers to the public and takes an extra responsibility of transporting a girl (Helena Zengel) back to her family, took the third spot with $1.69 million. Paul Greengrass directed and co-wrote this Western.

Taking the fourth berth was Milla Jovovich’s Monster Hunter, which raked in $1.25 million.

Rounding out the top 6 were Hilary Swank’s thriller Fatale, which earned $700,000, and Carey Mulligan’s revenge tale, Promising Young Woman, which drew $660,000.

In the overseas box office action, Wonder Woman 1984 also stayed on top  and scored $10.1 million. But as in the domestic market, those figures signaled a steep fall from the previous opening weekend’s $36 million.

Contributing to the Patty Jenkins-directed sequel’s international box office overall figures of $90 million so far are China ($25 million), Australia ($11.5 million) and Taiwan ($8.1 million).

The Croods 2, the pandemic year 2020’s success story, also continued to perform well overseas. The animated sequel from Universal Pictures/DreamWorks took in $7.62 million. So far, the film voiced by Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone and Ryan Reynolds has earned $80.44 million internationally.

Again, China is largely behind the family movie’s earnings. The Chinese market accounted for $52.5 million of the film’s worldwide take.

In Japan, director Haruo Sotozaki’s Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train keeps vigorously rolling along. The anime adaptation, blended with action and adventure, stayed on top of the Japanese box office charts. It eclipsed Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away as Japan’s highest-grossing film last week.