"Beauty Unrivaled" opened with a box office of 16 million on its first day, significantly lower than industry predictions. Given it was Christmas Eve, with the next three days being peak season, Lin Ning's film's initial performance of just over ten million was considered quite low.
"Uncrowned King," despite having a less favorable release window, still managed over 30 million on its opening day. With the first day's box office results in, many predicted that "Uncrowned King" would win this year's Lunar New Year box office battle.
Anning's reign as the king of Lunar New Year films seemed to have been relinquished this year.
However, despite the less-than-stellar box office, the film's reputation soared. On its first day after release, it became the top search on Baidu, reaching over 4 million searches, double that of "Uncrowned King" at its peak.
It topped trending topics on major portal websites, and its popularity on Weibo remained consistently high.