This summer's cheerless film market has finally welcomed another domestic winner.

“Looking Up” debuted last Friday and made to the top of last week’s box office chart with 389 million yuan (56.5 million U.S. dollars) over the first weekend.

Disney’s live-action film “The Lion King” was ousted and fell to second with a box office of 298 million yuan (43.3 million U.S. dollars) in its second week.

However, though "Looking Up" won the box office, the film has failed to persuade critics in its storytelling. 

Less is more

The film focuses on the father-son relationship as well as the education system. The father, Ma Haowen, starred by Deng Chao, who is also one of the joint directors of the film, is trying to educate his son in a way different from the traditional exam-oriented system.

With a strong theme, many critics felt like it could be a good story if the plotline had been carefully organized and the characters were well developed. However, the film failed in its plotline and ended up being only “a pile of mood points and didactic slogans,” criticized many film reviews.

While trying to criticize the exam-oriented educational system, Ma didn’t manage to find a proper way of educating his son besides a number of stereotyped “encouragements.” The son's journey from an “F” student to a straight As was shallowly depicted, with no real reason behind the transformation. 

“Considering how to improve the educational system and using the flawed system as an excuse for not studying are two different issues,” a reviewer on the site Douban wrote in a film review. "Clearly, the father and son belong to the latter.”

“The producers are trying to provide more elements into the film, to make it ‘rich’,” a critic wrote, “But ‘rich’ is not about quantity. It’s about multiple layers.”

“The biggest problem is that the film is trying to put too many things into one film, but the piling up of various elements fails to give it multiple layers,” the review reads. “It’s like a 1,000-word article, and with 500 words bolded, so the focus has been blurred.”

However, even with all the criticism, the film is still said to be a “sincere piece of work.” Many said that the actors did a good job in making the characters more persuasive, despite the poor plotline.

Looking for a summer blockbuster

Following “Looking Up” and “The Lion King” was the Hong Kong film “The White Storm 2: Drug Lords”, which earned 233 million yuan (33.9 million U.S. dollars). Its total box office now stands at 1.2 billion yuan (170 million U.S. dollars).

“Spider-Man: Far From Home” came in fourth with 62.1 million yuan (9.03 million U.S. dollars), a small contribution to its total income of 1.39 billion yuan (200 million U.S. dollars).

Every one of this week’s top four have once landed on top of China’s weekly box office chart this summer, but none have stayed. There's yet to be a clear summer blockbuster in China.

Rounding out the top five was the animated film “Ne Zha”, which has been a highly-anticipated film. The film is expected to be released on Friday, and the preview score on Douban.com has already reached 8.7 out of 10.

It is expected to be a new height for the domestic animation films, both in production and script.

“Ne Zha” is a deity in a Chinese folk story, and it has been repeatedly adapted into film and television productions. It is a great challenge to adapt an ancient story with thousands of years’ history and numerous readers, while at the same time making it fit into the modern values.

Would it become the one to lead the summer vacation film market? Let’s wait and see.