My People, My Homeland Budget

What Is the Budget of My People, My Homeland (2020)?

My People, My Homeland (2020), an anthology film produced by Ning Hao and Xu Zheng and presented under the chief direction of Zhang Yibai, was made on an undisclosed budget that industry sources placed in the $30,000,000 to $50,000,000 range. The film was produced by Beijing Jingxi Culture & Tourism, Huanxi Media, Beijing Enlight Pictures, Alibaba Pictures, and several other major Chinese studios as a flagship National Day theatrical release.

The budget reflected the practical needs of a five-story anthology with five separate directorial teams, distinct location work spanning multiple Chinese regions, and an ensemble cast that included most of the leading commercial talent in Chinese cinema at the time. As a state-aligned National Day patriotic-themed release timed to the October 1, 2020 holiday window, the film also benefited from broad distribution support from the China Film Administration and from major state-owned exhibition chains.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

The estimated budget was distributed across five distinct production units plus shared overhead:

• Above-the-Line Talent: The ensemble cast included Ge You, Huang Bo, Shen Teng, Xu Zheng, Liu Haoran, Wang Yuan, Wang Baoqiang, Fan Wei, Zhang Zhanyi, and Deng Chao among many others, drawing on most of the major commercial leads of contemporary Chinese cinema. Each of the five directorial teams (Ning Hao, Xu Zheng, Chen Sicheng, Yan Fei, Peng Damo, and Deng Chao with Yu Baimei) commanded fees appropriate to their respective stature in the Chinese film industry.
• Five-Region Location Shoot: The five stories were shot across regions of China including Beijing (Ning Hao's "Beijing Good Person" segment), Zhejiang and rural mountain settings (Chen Sicheng's UFO-themed "Hello, Beijing" segment), Liaoning (Xu Zheng's "The Last Lesson" segment), the northwest (Deng Chao and Yu Baimei's "Going Home" segment), and the rural Shaanxi loess plateau (Yan Fei and Peng Damo's "Magic Brush in the Northwest" segment). Multi-region production added travel, crew, and logistics costs above a single-location shoot.
• Production Design: Five distinct visual and architectural designs supported the regional storytelling, with each segment featuring its own production-design language. Rural-village reconstructions, contemporary Beijing courier-network sets, and northwestern loess-landscape exteriors required dedicated production-design teams per segment.
• Visual Effects: Several segments incorporated significant VFX work, including the UFO sequences in Chen Sicheng's segment and the rural-development before-and-after visual transformations in Yan Fei and Peng Damo's segment. Multiple Chinese VFX vendors contributed shots.
• Cinematography and Camera Equipment: Each of the five segments was shot with its own dedicated cinematography team, with five separate camera packages running in parallel through the production schedule.
• Marketing and Theatrical Launch: The film's October 1, 2020 National Day launch was supported by a substantial nationwide marketing campaign including digital, outdoor, and broadcast advertising, with cross-platform promotion through Alibaba Pictures' Tencent and Weibo partnerships.

How Does My People, My Homeland's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

Among recent Chinese National Day anthology and tentpole releases, My People, My Homeland sits in the mid-range of state-aligned theatrical productions. Useful comparison points:

• Detective Chinatown 3 (2021): Budget approximately $100,000,000 | Worldwide $686,000,000. Chen Sicheng's contemporaneous Chinese-New-Year tentpole is a useful upper-end Chinese-cinema reference at roughly two to three times the My People budget.
• The Eight Hundred (2020): Budget approximately $80,000,000 | Worldwide $471,000,000. Guan Hu's war epic is the closest contemporaneous state-aligned theatrical comparison, demonstrating the mid-tier prestige-Chinese-theatrical budget bracket.
• Ne Zha 2 (2025): Budget approximately $80,000,000 | Worldwide $2,000,000,000+. Jiaozi's blockbuster animated sequel is the upper-end reference for Chinese theatrical mass-appeal investment.
• The Wandering Earth 2 (2023): Budget approximately $100,000,000 | Worldwide $604,000,000. Frant Gwo's sci-fi prestige tentpole demonstrates the upper-bracket Chinese-cinema theatrical investment level.
• My People, My Country (2019): Budget approximately $30,000,000 to $50,000,000 | Worldwide $419,000,000. The 2019 National Day anthology predecessor is the closest direct comparison and the template for the 2020 follow-up, with comparable budget, cast, and structure.

My People, My Homeland Box Office Performance

My People, My Homeland opened theatrically in China on October 1, 2020, the National Day holiday, and ran as one of the dominant titles of the eight-day Golden Week. The film grossed approximately $419,000,000 in its domestic Chinese theatrical run, ranking as the second-highest-grossing Chinese film of 2020 behind The Eight Hundred. International theatrical runs in selected overseas Chinese-diaspora markets added a small incremental gross.

Against an estimated $30,000,000 to $50,000,000 production budget, the film delivered the strongest profitable theatrical run of any 2020 Chinese release after the pandemic-disrupted spring:

• Production Budget: estimated $30,000,000 to $50,000,000
• Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): estimated $15,000,000 to $25,000,000 in China
• Total Estimated Investment: estimated $45,000,000 to $75,000,000
• Worldwide Gross: approximately $419,000,000 (primarily Chinese domestic theatrical)
• Net Return: estimated $50,000,000 to $100,000,000 producer-share profit after exhibitor cut and taxes
• ROI: estimated 6 to 9 times return on production investment, a strong outcome for a Chinese theatrical anthology

Chinese theatrical exhibitor splits typically retain approximately 55% to 60% of gross at the exhibitor level, with distributor and producer shares lower than the Hollywood equivalent. Even after applying these splits and standard distribution and marketing deductions, the film delivered a producer-share return that placed it among the most commercially successful Chinese anthology features of the modern era.

The film's commercial success extended the National Day anthology template that My People, My Country had established in 2019, and a third film in the loose franchise, My Country, My Parents (2021), followed the same fall holiday-window release pattern.

My People, My Homeland Production History

Development of My People, My Homeland began in late 2019 immediately following the strong commercial reception of My People, My Country (2019), the predecessor anthology timed to the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Ning Hao and Xu Zheng were brought on as the lead producers, with Zhang Yibai serving as chief director coordinating across the five segments.

The five segments were assigned to five distinct directorial teams: Ning Hao directed "Beijing Good Person," Chen Sicheng directed "Hello, Beijing" (the UFO-themed segment), Xu Zheng directed "The Last Lesson," Deng Chao and Yu Baimei directed "Going Home," and Yan Fei and Peng Damo directed "Magic Brush in the Northwest." Each director worked with their own preferred technical crew within the shared production framework.

Principal photography on the five segments ran in parallel through the summer of 2020, with substantial COVID-19 protocols in place across all five units. The shoots took place across China including Beijing, Zhejiang, Liaoning, the northwest, and the rural Shaanxi loess plateau. Multi-region location work was conducted under tight quarantine protocols and with crew movement restrictions, a logistical challenge that delayed final delivery slightly but did not affect the October 1, 2020 launch date.

Post-production wrapped through September 2020 with five separate editing, sound, and color teams working in parallel. Final delivery was completed days before the National Day theatrical launch, with the China Film Administration providing distribution support and prioritized exhibitor screen allocation across the Golden Week holiday window.

Awards and Recognition

My People, My Homeland received select Chinese-industry awards recognition. The film was nominated at the 2021 Huading Awards and the Golden Rooster Awards (the Chinese equivalent of the Academy Awards), with several of the individual segments receiving recognition for screenplay and direction. The ensemble cast was widely cited in 2020 year-end Chinese-cinema critics' coverage.

Internationally, the film did not enter the major Western festival or awards circuit, in keeping with its primary positioning as a Chinese domestic theatrical release rather than as an export-targeted prestige film. Its legacy is as one of the highest-grossing and most commercially successful Chinese anthology films of the modern era.

Critical Reception

My People, My Homeland received broadly positive reviews from Chinese critics and audiences. The film holds a 7.3 out of 10 rating on Douban based on more than 800,000 user reviews, a substantial endorsement from China's most influential film-rating platform. The film also received strong reviews in major Chinese trade and general-press outlets including People's Daily, Beijing News, and the Southern Weekend.

Chinese critics singled out Ning Hao's "Beijing Good Person" segment as the strongest comedy entry, with Chen Sicheng's "Hello, Beijing" UFO segment and Xu Zheng's "The Last Lesson" segment also receiving particular praise. The overall anthology structure was praised for balancing comedic register with the patriotic-themed celebration of rural and urban Chinese contemporary life that the National Day release window required.

Western critical coverage was limited given the film's primarily domestic Chinese release, but Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and other trade outlets covered the box-office performance and acknowledged the commercial significance of the title within the Chinese theatrical market. Reviews from Western critics who saw the film praised the production scale and the Ning Hao and Xu Zheng comedic segments while noting the film's heavy reliance on contemporary Chinese cultural and political context for full audience engagement.