To Chinese people, the Spring Festival is an occasion for family reunions much like Christmas is in the West. No matter how far away they live or work, people traditionally hurry back to their hometowns to see parents, relatives and old friends. The holiday is filled with feasts, conversations over mahjong tables and visits to temple fairs.

In recent years, however, families have discovered yet another way to spend the festive days — going to the movies. Statistics from the National Film Administration show that during the eight-day Spring Festival from Feb 16 to 23, about 120 million viewers went to cinemas, generating a box office income of 5.7 billion yuan ($830 million). More than a quarter of the viewers watched movies as families, indicating that cinema outings have become an important part of the traditional festival.

People of my generation carry fond memories of going to the movies 40 or 50 years ago, when television was beyond the reach of ordinary people. At that time, China had only about five film studios, each producing two or three movies a year. This also meant that movie fans watched the same movies again and again, sometimes so many times that we could repeat the lines of many of the films. One good thing about those days was that tickets were very cheap. With 1 yuan, you could buy five tickets. Today, going to a movie costs between 30 and 50 yuan.

China's film industry has also changed. Now, about 500 films are produced every year and seen in 15,438 cinemas with 92,566 screens across the country. With a few dozen foreign movies imported each year, movies have become an increasingly important part of the country's service industry.

Last year, the output value of China's movie industry chain reached 817 billion yuan. Though the box office income was 51.8 billion yuan, the film industry benefited other related sectors such as movie production, advertising, transportation, technical renovation, catering and even tourism.

Many film shooting locations — cities, towns, mountains and grasslands — have become popular tourist destinations and boosted the local catering and hotel business. This trend has encouraged many local governments to support films that tell local historical or modern stories.

Unlike in the past, when film production relied on government investment and produced just a handful of titles in a year, investment now comes mostly from sponsors and private funds which target commercial returns. Exact figures of the annual investment are not available, but producing a movie in China usually costs about a billion yuan. While a few successful works rake in handsome profits, countless others quietly absorb losses. Every year, about 10 movies also fail to get approvals from the movie administration for different reasons, while many more hardly get onto the screen because of poor quality or negative public response.

Though I am no longer an ardent movie fan, I still go to the cinema three or four times a year to watch highly recommended works. Even when watching well-received movies, I often have to persuade myself not to get up midway and walk out. There are hardly any movies, foreign or homemade, that impress or shock me. I am not sure if I have become too critical with age, or the movies are simply not very good. I suspect the lavish marketing campaigns sometimes lure innocent viewers into a trap — one we willingly pay to enter.

Still, the appetite for movies remains enormous. It is reported that 1.2 billion cinema visits were recorded last year in China. One can only hope the viewers felt entertained rather than disappointed.

What is encouraging is that unlike in the past when foreign movies, especially those from Hollywood, dominated the Chinese market, now homemade works account for the lion's share. The market share of foreign movies has declined to around 20 percent in China. The phenomenon can be partially explained by China's restriction on the number of foreign movies. No more than 30 foreign productions are allowed to be shown in a year. But it also speaks of the improving quality of domestic productions, the audience's disappointment over the values that foreign movies try to convey and the rising confidence in China's own culture and storytelling.

I only hope the moviemakers will live up to the expectations of their audiences.

The author is former deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily.

kangbing@chinadaily.com.cn