City of Life and Death backdrop
City of Life and Death poster
#7,570 All-time worldwide
#226 2009 releases

Movie profile

City of Life and Death

2009 · 132 min · Media Asia Films

Drama History War
IMDb FilmDB Where to watch

Box office snapshot

Financial performance

Reference figures based on available reported data.
Worldwide gross $10.7M
Budget $12.0M
Gross minus budget -$1.3M
ROI 0.89x

Domestic gross

$5.3M

Estimated from worldwide gross

International gross

$5.3M

Estimated from worldwide gross

Opening weekend

$958,725

Estimated from worldwide gross

Ranking context

Where City of Life and Death ranks

Positioned across the all-time chart, release year, studio, franchise and genre indexes where enough mapped data exists.
Open rankings
All-time worldwide #7,570 All-time chart position of 12,922 titles Compared with every rankable movie in the current worldwide dataset. 2009 releases #226 Release-year chart position of 248 titles Ranked against movies released in 2009. Studio / company #4 Media Asia Films of 8 titles Position inside the mapped Media Asia Films movie set. Primary genre #3,156 Drama of 5,859 titles Genre context based on the first mapped genre on this profile.

Nearby worldwide ranks

Comparable titles immediately around this movie by reported worldwide gross.

#7,567 Furious 2017 · $10.7M #7,568 Win Win 2011 · $10.7M #7,569 The Savages 2007 · $10.7M #7,571 The Package 1989 · $10.6M #7,572 The Inugami Family 1976 · $10.6M #7,573 After Everything 2023 · $10.6M

Quick answer

How did City of Life and Death (2009) perform at the box office?

High confidence

City of Life and Death (2009) earned a reported $10.7M worldwide against a reported $12.0M production budget. Its gross-minus-budget figure is about -$1.3M. The current gross-to-budget multiple is 0.89x. In this database it currently ranks #7,570 in the current all-time worldwide chart set and #226 among 2009 releases.

Worldwide gross
$10,652,498
Budget
$12,000,000
Gross minus budget
-$1,347,502
ROI
0.89x
Source: TMDb. Last updated: Jul 13, 2026. View source Gross-minus-budget is not studio net profit. It excludes marketing, distribution fees, revenue splits, tax incentives and later home/streaming revenue.

Synopsis

Story

In 1937, during the height of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Imperial Japanese Army has just captured Nanjing, then-capital of the Republic of China. What followed was known as the Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, a six week period wherein tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed.

Movie facts

Production details

Release date
Apr 22, 2009
Production
Media Asia Films, Stellar Megamedia, Jiangsu Broadcasting
Countries
CN, HK

Related indexes

Browse related box office pages

Studio / production companyMedia Asia Films Release year chart2009 box office Genre chartDrama Genre chartHistory Genre chartWar

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Where to watch

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Kanopy

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AI summary

Why this movie matters

Released in 2009, City of Life and Death is positioned in this dataset as a Drama, History, War title from Media Asia Films. Its box office profile shows that available worldwide gross is $10.7M, reported production budget is $12.0M, gross-minus-budget is -$1.3M, ROI is 0.89x. For comparison, it currently sits #7,570 all-time in the current chart set and #226 among 2009 releases. Streaming availability should be checked against the selected United States region because provider rights can change.

AI-generated contextual summary based on available movie, genre, ranking and box office data. It does not replace official distributor notes or financial reporting.
Data noteGross minus budget is not studio net profit. It excludes marketing, distribution fees, revenue splits, tax incentives and downstream revenue. Domestic, international and opening weekend figures marked as estimated are modelled estimates.