China box office resurrects Transformers 5 fortunes

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"Transformers 5" was on its way to being the lowest opening for any of Michael Bay's Transformers movies, with a 69-million-US-dollar domestic debut, but it seems to have been rescued by Chinese box office, where it has taken nearly 147 million US dollars in its first four days.

The stage photo of Transformers 5. /VCG Photo

"Transformers 5: The Last Knight" may have topped all the five Transformers.

The Paramount film, was given the No.1 spot ahead of "Cars 3" and "Wonder Woman" in the US and Canada, but still made a franchise low.

It has had very poor reviews but Chinese audiences are still buying it, and it's not the first time this has happened.

Back to 2014, "Transformers 4: Age of Extinctions" also got a very good response from the Chinese box office. The film earned an average score of 7.5 out of 10 on ticketing platform Weying, and 4.9 out of 10 on reviews aggregation site Douban, which is known for being more critically rigorous.

The Transformers 5 theme exhibition on show in a shopping mall. /VCG Photo

How did Transformers and its sequels stand out from the crowd of Hollywood films?

The reality is complex. Michael Bay is known for directing and producing big-budget action films, and Oscar-nominated Mark Wahlberg has headed the cast. But that's not the main reason why Chinese people are crazy about it.

With unforgettable childhood memories of playing with Transformers toys, most Chinese people born after 1970s and 1980s know the story of Transformers.