Red Cliff, reportedly Asia's most expensive ever film, gained 27 million yuan (3.91 million U.S. dollars) of box office on its first-day release, setting the highest record among homemade movies.

The first of this two-part epic motion, adapted from China's classic historic fiction Romance of the Three Kingdoms, hit cinemas in Asia on July 10.

Its first-day box office was the highest among all movies released in the mainland so far this year and higher than last year's Hollywood blockbuster Transformers whose first-day box office was 22.41 million yuan.

Weng Li, spokesman of the China Film Group Corporation, the movie's main investor, said that the group was confident of its box office later on.

"The romantic epic fits in the taste of audience of all ages and the upcoming summer vacation will bring more people to the cinema. I believe more records will be set," he said.

On its first day release, the movie also gained 17 million New Taiwan dollars in Taiwan and 2 million HK dollars in Hong Kong.

The movie directed by Hollywood-based Hong Kong director John Woo has several leading Asian stars in its cast, including award-winning Hong Kong actor Tony Leung, Taiwan supermodel Lin Chi-ling, Taiwanese-Japanese heartthrob Takeshi Kaneshiro and mainland's leading actor Zhang Fengyi.

It attracted public attention for the 80-million-US-dollar investment, said to be the most expensive of all Asian movies.

The movie revolves around the epic Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 AD in China's Three Kingdoms period. It was a famous military case of the weak winning the strong, in which a 50,000-strong allied forces of the southern warlords Liu Bei and Sun Quan defeated the powerful 800,000 troops of the northern warlord Cao Cao.

The biggest scenes in the movie involved 2,000 actors and crew, and a large amount of special effects were used, according to earlier media reports.

The movie's second episode is set to be released in December. By then, a condensed version covering both episodes will also be released outside of Asia.

(Xinhua News Agency July 12, 2008)