Alibaba Pictures' "Coffee or Tea," a low-budget slapstick comedy about three young people starting an e-commerce business in a remote, poor village in Yunnan, earned 133 million yuan ($19.7 million) at the box office after eight days as of Sunday. It ranked fifth after domestic holiday blockbusters led by the patriotic comedy "My People, My Homeland."
Executive producer Peter Chan - "The Warlords" and "Perhaps Love" - hired director Derek Hui - "This Is Not What I Expected." The film opened midway during the national holiday - earning $4 million on its first day. Positive reviews helped double its screen share from an initial 5%. Holiday screens were dominated by domestic films because the State Agency of Radio, Film and Television kept nearly all foreign content out.
A Giant Product Placement
The story portrays three young entrepreneurs cultivating and selling Pu'er Coffee, a unique coffee bean which grows in the region known for its fermented Pu'er tea. Through three years the entrepreneurs make Pu'er Coffee a success and gain fame domestically via hot e-commerce sales and winning a global coffee award.
The movie praises China's young people's spirit of innovation and persistence in entrepreneurship in the least developed areas while featuring a variety of Alibaba apps - Taobao.com, Ju.taobao.com and Alipay. The film boasts of the critical role of Alibaba's e-commerce.
Chinese Coffee Is No Joke
To tea aficionados, Pu'er tea is famed across China - so hearing the Pu'er heritage gracing coffee is comical. The film capitalizes on this to portray Pu'er coffee as the wild, innovative genius of internet startup entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, Pu'er is the historical home of coffee in China.
Yunnan is fertile, mountainous and provides an ideal climate for tea. More than 100 years ago, French missionaries introduced coffee.
This led to successful plantations and a boom in the 1940s and 1950s after high-yielding Arabica beans were introduced. The region soon boasted several thousand hectares of the bean - mostly for export to the Soviet Union. Those coffee dreams were shelved and farmers grew other crops after China-Russia relations broke down.
The most recent wave of coffee planting and production took place when Nestlé, in the late 1980s, established itself in Yunnan. To date, nearly half of the total coffee production in Yunnan comes from Pu'er, according to public information.
This is far different from the movie where Pu'er Coffee originated as a youthful rebellion against the cultural tradition to plant Pu'er tea.
'Buy, Buy, Buy'
Jack Ma, the recently resigned chief executive and founder of Alibaba Pictures' parent company Alibaba Group, said the group should not only involve itself in e-commerce - because he recognized the demand for entertainment and health products.
In efforts to shape the China entertainment industry through e-commerce Alibaba Pictures acquired many companies - streaming video company Youku, mobile browser UCWeb, event ticketing agency Damai and cinema ticketing app Taopiaopiao.
It claims to operate across several sectors - including content investment and production, online marketing and distribution and entertainment e-commerce.
Financial Losses
Since acquiring a 60% stake of ChinaVision in 2014, Alibaba Pictures has seen departures of three presidents and more than 10 top executives. It reportedly reinvented its business strategy three times.
Despite active investment in international movies including Star Trek Beyond, Green Book and A Dog's Purpose the company has been, however, struggling.
Alibaba Pictures reported a 1.151 billion-yuan loss in March - 253% wider than the 254 million yuan reported a year ago, according to its unaudited annual financial report. Alibaba Pictures' stock on the Hong Kong market fell to HK$0.93 each share.
Additionally, Alibaba Pictures this August said it planned to delist from the Singapore Exchange's mainboard in December. The company's shares were last trading at HK$1.16 each.
