Suspense propels film to top of charts

Lost in the Stars finds way into moviegoers' hearts, wins holiday box-office race, Xu Fan reports.

In the fall of 2021, director Cui Rui received the script for Lost in the Stars, a suspenseful crime film, from renowned producer Chen Sicheng. Chen is best known for his work on the Detective Chinatown series of comedy-mystery "buddy" films, one of the country's highest-grossing movie franchises of all time.

Quickly captivated, Cui didn't stop reading for a few hours, until he finished going through the entire script.

"This story is full of intrigue, with layer upon layer of twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat. After finishing it for the first time, I couldn't resist going back to read it again from the beginning, analyzing all the details and characters, and gaining new insights," Cui recalled in an interview with China Daily.