Actor and director Xu Zheng and his wife, actress Tao Hong, who is a co-producer of the animated film, The Wind Guardians, promote the film in Beijing. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The domestic animated film, the first feature-length work on the popular franchise Hua Jiang Hu (Painting the Martial Arts World), a 250-episode animated series, had 11.2 billion "clicks" online.

In the movie, Lang Ming, a hooligan who was born blind and regains his sight accidentally, embarks on an quest to find his mother.

Cao Xiaohui, deputy head of the animation institute at the Beijing Film Academy, says the movie's potential success will be a boost for China's animators who have spent years trying to attract adult audiences, starting with the 2015 film Monkey King: Hero is Back, the 2016 blockbuster Big Fish& Begonia, and the dark cult tale Dahufa in 2017.

International film cooperation is also entering a new phase, exemplified by The Meg, a Sino-US production, which releases on Friday.

The movie directed by American Jon Turteltaub and starring English action star Jason Statham, marks the first time for Chinese A-list actress Li Bingbing to co-headline a Hollywood tentpole.

In the film, two of the major characters are Chinese scientists and the movie's key sequences take place in the sea near Sanya, South China's Hainan province.