'China's answer to Barbie': feminist movie Her Story on track to be year's biggest hit

It has been described as China's answer to Barbie: a film about women, directed by a woman, that examines the female experience with a cast of female leads.

- Minyue Ding

Her Story, a comedy about a newly unemployed single mother with a daughter and their young female neighbour in Shanghai, has taken the country by storm.

In less than two weeks, the movie has grossed more than 300m yuan (£32.5m) and is predicted to double that this month, a total that would make it the highest-grossing film of the year in China.

That slot is currently taken by Yolo, another female-led comedy that was also directed by a woman.

Commentators say their success reveals a growing trend in China, where films directed by women, centred on female experiences, are finding greater commercial success.

"I had a similar feeling watching it as I did when watching Barbie," said Luo Xinran, a 32-year-old woman in Zhejiang province. The accessible representations of feminism were particularly refreshing, she said, as they had been absent in Chinese cinema until recently.