International - Kinng reigns supreme

India and China are the hotspots in this week's international box office, with the former's Singh Is Kinng becoming the biggest Bollywood opener of 2008 after debuting in 21 territories, and the latter witnessing Red Cliff break Chinese box-office records - even in a week when the Olympics overshadowed the movies.

Studio 18's wide day-and-date release for Singh Is Kinng saw the film open in its home territory on more than 1,000 prints. On the back of a strong publicity campaign, the film took $4.2m in India in its first two days.

Produced by Vipul Shah and directed by Anees Bazmee, the film stars Bollywood kingpin Akshay Kumar as Happy Singh, a hapless bumpkin from a Punjabi village sent on a mission to bring a former resident - who runs a criminal gang in the Australian underworld - back to the village he has disgraced.

Singh made a noticeable impression in key international territories, particularly the UK, where the film debuted in sixth position in our UK chart, taking $948,800 from 50 screens. The film's North American release saw an opening of $232,000, just passing Om Shanti Om's previous record US opening for a Bollywood film of $227,000.

Over the three-day weekend, Singh grossed $12.96m internationally from 1,238 screens for an average of $10,469.

This week also saw the first instalment of John Woo's war epic Red Cliff become the highest-grossing Chinese-language film in China's history. Red Cliff has taken $44m (rmb302.4m) to date, surpassing 1997's Titanic, which held the previous record at $39m. Internationally the film took a further $1.9m this weekend across eight territories, with takings to date at more than $67m. The second part of the film is due for release in early 2009, around the Chinese New Year.

That success comes despite the fact box-office attendance in China is slipping due to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Box-office sales at the city's cinemas are expected to drop by up to 50% until the end of August, before starting to recover in September.

August 8 saw many in China's public and private companies take a day off work for the opening day of the Olympics. In Beijing, shopping centres were closed by 6pm and all cinemas were closed by 7pm, with other major cities following suit.

Only two films are to be released in the territory during the games: Warner Bros' Speed Racer on August 10 and Universal's The Incredible Hulk on August 20.

Universal is understood to have moved the opening of The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor twice from the planned day-and-date release in early August - the first time to avoid the games and the second to avoid Chinese-language fantasy epic Painted Skin, which is scheduled for a September 23 launch. The third Mummy film is now slated for release on September 3.

Additional reporting by Udita Jhunjhunwala and Sen-lun Yu