Toy Story 5, Hoppers, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and The Devil Wears Prada 2 appeared in the Top 10 of almost every market. None of them dominated anywhere. India's Top 10 had no foreign film at all; Indonesia had only Toy Story 5 and Vietnam only Doraemon.

In Thailand, The Undertaker 2 alone out-grossed all five Hollywood titles in the Top 10 combined. In Korea, where Japanese animation and Hollywood drove the market in 2025, domestic films took 63.9% of revenue. Hollywood held its lead only in Taiwan (50.8%), Singapore and the Philippines.

The recovery is more fragile than the headline numbers suggest. The King's Warden took 28.2% of Korea's half-year revenue, Dhurandhar 2 about 20% of India's, and Pegasus 3 25.5% of China's. In China, the top five films took about 60% of the total and the nine-day Spring Festival 33%. In Taiwan, distributor 11CC captured 18% of the market with one film. In Malaysia, five of 34 local releases took more than 60% of local-film gross.

Meanwhile, the middle is thinning. In India, more films passed INR 2 billion, but the number passing INR 1 billion fell from 17 to 13. Indonesia's average admissions per film fell from 275,667 to 199,920. As the Korea report puts it, this is hard to read as a structural recovery of the theatrical ecosystem.

China's box office fell 40.6% year on year and admissions 34.3%. Screenings hit a record, but revenue per screening dropped 43.1%. Microdramas and other competing media, and a shift in consumer spending, lie behind the fall.

Korea (+41.9%), Taiwan (admissions +40%), Hong Kong (+24.7%), India (+11.3%) and Vietnam (+6.0%) all grew. Combined, China's decline cancels out most of the growth elsewhere. This year Asia is best read in two parts: China, and Asia beyond China.

The half-year's local hits shared less a genre than a function: they gave audiences a place to feel strongly, together. Horror was one engine. In Vietnam it took 30.6% of the half-year box office and 65.6% in June alone, prompting the Cinema Department to urge restraint. It drew 57% of domestic-film admissions in Indonesia and fills most of Thailand's domestic Top 10. In Malaysia, horror regained ground, with Polong the second-biggest local film.

The other engine was the film that moved audiences to tears. Korea's The King's Warden, the highest-grossing film in Korean box-office history, follows a village headman who shares the exile of the deposed boy king Danjong. Sunshine Women's Choir, adapted from the Korean film Harmony (2010), follows a mother in prison who wants to leave her newborn daughter a memory before adoption. Dear You traces a family divided by migration through the letters addressed to a grandmother. Indonesia's Top 10 included Jangan Buang Ibu (Don't Throw Mother Away) and Ayah, Ini Arahnya Ke Mana, Ya?, and Vietnam's Lunar New Year drama A Room Called Home centres on a father, following last year's Leaving Mom, directed by Korea's Mo Hong-jin with CJ HK Entertainment. These are stories of loyalty, sacrifice and separation between parents, grandparents and children. The China report points to audiences' growing focus on emotional and experiential value. People wanted to cry, and these films let them.

These hits grew by word of mouth, not by scale. Dear You, made for CNY 14 million with a largely non-professional cast and built on real family histories, opened fifth in its first week and climbed to No. 1. Its story of qiaopi, the letters and remittances Chinese migrants sent home, reached the diaspora across Southeast Asia. It became Malaysia's top-grossing Chinese-language film of 2026, and demand in Singapore led to 272 approved Teochew-language screenings. Sunshine Women's Choir opened with about TWD 10 million and passed TWD 100 million on its 20th day.

Public money grew: Korea's Fund of Funds film account (KRW 49 billion), Japan's IP360, Malaysia's FIMI production rebate (MYR 300 million over five years), Singapore's TAP (SGD 200 million) and TAICCA's joint funds with telecom and media companies in Taiwan, including one with Korea's CJ ENM. Dedicated film funds such as Filmoney Global began to appear in India, and capital from outside film arrived as well: Reliance in India, broadcaster joint ventures in Thailand, mining conglomerates in Mongolia, even a beverage brand in China. Streaming platforms moved from licensing buyers to co-financiers.

Public funding also grew less reliable. Thailand's THACCA stalled before it was institutionalised, Bangladesh's national film grant never reached evaluation after the election, and Japan is reviewing the future of the Cool Japan Fund. In Malaysia, producers say priorities shift whenever office-holders change, with a general election due next year. Cinemas polarised as well. Megabox filed for corporate rehabilitation in Korea, Taiwan's screen count fell to 896, film revenue at Malaysia's GSC fell 9%, and Mongolia lost its central cinema, while China opened 456 new cinemas. Japan's 173 ODS titles, China's 28,000 World Cup screenings and Thailand's BL and GL fandom programming show cinemas filling their screens with more than films.

AI has moved past experimentation and into production. In China, since Seedance 2.0 launched in February, AI has been used across the whole chain, from development to dubbing. Generative AI adoption in Korea's film sector rose from 8.7% in 2024 to 30.0% in 2025. In Thailand, as AI became woven into the production value chain, it also stirred open controversy over creative ethics and jobs.

The lines of intra-Asian co-production are visibly denser. There is a tripartite co-production between Thailand's M Studio, Japan's Toei and Korea's Showbox, a Taiwan–Indonesia horror collaboration, the Malaysian horror film Khadam with partners in Indonesia, Hong Kong and India, and Snow in June, the first true financial co-production between Korea and Mongolia. Singapore sold We Are All Strangers to more than 30 territories, confirming its role as a financing and packaging hub for Asian art-house cinema.