Hu Mei self-financed a Dream of Red Mansions film that grossed under 1% of its budget

Director Hu Mei spent nearly two decades developing a feature adaptation of Dream of the Red Chamber, China's best-known classical novel, compressing the sprawling family saga into a roughly two-hour film with a cast of largely unknown leads. Jinde Films, in which Hu Mei herself holds the majority stake, financed the bulk of the production; Bona Film Group handled distribution. Chinese outlets estimated the budget at over RMB 200M.

The film opened into the crowded August 2024 slot and collapsed almost immediately: opening-day theater seat share was reported around 4.4%, falling to roughly 1% within five days. Cumulative box office at the five-day mark was reported at roughly RMB 4.2–4.5M against a budget an order of magnitude larger — one Chinese outlet's headline read 'cost RMB 37M+ [Singapore-dollar-equivalent], box office under RMB 5M.' Its Douban user score opened near 4.0 out of 10.

Hu Mei publicly blamed coordinated negative reviews and bot activity for the reception, closed comments on her social media, and retained a lawyer to pursue reviewers she characterized as defamatory — a response that drew further criticism rather than reversing the film's trajectory. Because Jinde Films' majority ownership traces back to Hu Mei personally, most of the direct financial loss fell on the director rather than outside investors.