As Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu Women's Soccer" and Shen Teng's "Welcome to Dragon Restaurant" compete at the Chinese summer box office, a movie ticket stub has unexpectedly ignited a dispute over alleged box office fraud.
The incident originated at the Shangcai Oscar IMAX Cinema in Henan. Recently, a viewer who purchased a ticket for "Kung Fu Women's Soccer" received a ticket stub printed with the movie title "Welcome to Dragon Restaurant," and the ticket showed handwritten corrections. Stephen Chow's agent, Chen Zhenyu, later shared screenshots of the incident on social media, sparking online debate over possible irregularities in box office reporting.
In response, the cinema in question soon issued an apology and explanation, claiming the incident was due to a front desk staff member's operational error.
The cinema explained that the ticket was purchased around 20 minutes after "Kung Fu Women's Soccer" had started, at which point the system had closed ticketing for that session and could not print tickets normally. During the process, an intern, flustered by the situation, mistakenly issued a ticket stub for "Welcome to Dragon Restaurant" and then corrected it by hand to "Kung Fu Women's Soccer."
The cinema stated that the on-duty manager later corrected the box office record for "Kung Fu Women's Soccer" and processed a refund for the wrongly issued "Welcome to Dragon Restaurant" ticket, ensuring box office data accuracy. The cinema also implemented rectification measures regarding ticketing procedures.
The production team of "Welcome to Dragon Restaurant" also released a statement, emphasizing that they had never participated in or instructed any such operation, and resolutely opposed any acts of ticket fraud or disruption of the film market order.
In fact, since the release of "Kung Fu Women's Soccer," there have already been controversies regarding cinemas withholding ticket revenue through handwritten or blank tickets, so this ticket stub misprint has renewed public attention. Previously, those involved had also called for resistance against box office fraud or misreporting.
With the cinema's public explanation and admission of operational error, the matter is currently explained as an individual staff member’s ticketing issue. Whether other violations exist remains subject to further investigation.
Currently, "Welcome to Dragon Restaurant" is performing strongly at the box office, reaching approximately 530 million yuan in cumulative box office over four days. The competition between the two films has drawn even more attention to this ticket stub controversy.