China's box office was a hit on Valentine's day as movie ticket sales totaled 580 million yuan - a new record.

According to the figures released by China Film News on Monday, box office ticket sales have surged to over 150 percent compared with Valentine's day last year

The robust growth in sales can be most likely accounted for by the fact that the date that is close to the Spring Festival holiday, which ended on Saturday, while Valentine's day fell on Sunday. The week-long box office surge amid the Spring Festival (Feb. 8 to 13) - skyrocketing as high as 80 percent - cascaded into Valentine's day, hitting a new eye-popping record of 3.5 billion yuan ($535.4 million), up by 87.13 percent from last year. Of note, during the previous years, there were several days gap between Valentine's day and the golden week holiday.

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The high-grossing week was not only an all-time record in China, but also in any other territories - outranking North America's $529.6 million set between December 26, 2015 and January 1, 2016. While North America's week-long record was led by just one film -- Star Wars: The Force Awakens -- with a revenue of $261 million, China's was dominated by three domestic movies, which accounted for a combined 94 percent of the market share.

Over 50 percent of the sales earned were from Stephen Chow's Chinese science fiction fantasy comedy film The Mermaid. Trailing far behind in the second spot is the Hong Kong-Chinese fantasy film adaptation of the classic book Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en The Monkey King 2 with 95 million yuan. Following close in the third place is the Hong Kong-Chinese comedy action film From Vegas to Macau III, the third and last installment of the From Vegas to Macau series, at 85 million yuan.

Tagschina, Chinese box office, The Mermaid, from vegas to macau 3, From Vegas to Macau III, valentines day