No More Bets

No More Bets is a 2023 Chinese crime thriller film directed by Shen Ao and produced by Ning Hao. The film chronicles a story about persons being trafficked to overseas and forced to defraud online. It features Lay Zhang, Gina Jin, Yong Mei, and Eric Wang. The film premiered in China on August 8, 2023 and achieved box office success.
Plot
Programmer Pan Sheng and model Liang Anna were lured overseas by a supposed high paying job. However, it turned out that the promised employment is actually a slave camp-like fraud factory. Being imprisoned and abused by their handler, they are forced to commit cyber fraud on online victims. Through their actions, a stranger Gu Tianzhi got addicted into online gambling. After losing all his savings, Gu attempts suicide by jumping off a building. Gu's girlfriend called the police. Police Zhao Dongran started investigations and eventually cracked down the syndicate.
Cast
Lay Zhang as Pan Sheng, a programmer trapped in the fraud factory
Gina Jin as Liang Anna, a model trapped as a croupier in the fraud factory
Yong Mei as Zhao Dongran, a Chinese police officer
Eric Wang as Lu Bingkun, the manager of the fraud factory
Darren Wang as Gu Tianzhi, a stranger defrauded by Pan and Liang
Zhou Ye as Song Yu, the girlfriend of Gu
Sunny Sun as An Juncai, the second hand of Lu
Additionally, Sheren Tang and Lam Wai appear as Tianzhi's mother and father respectively.
Production
Director Shen Ao is a newcomer signed by Ning Hao's Dirty Monkey 72 Transformations Film Project. This is his second feature film, following My Dear Liar in 2019. In 2020, a friend told him a suicide case due to cyber fraud and gambling. He decided to turn it into a crime film.
Before filming, the director team, with the support of the police and the anti-fraud center, collected overseas online fraud cases in the past three years. The materials including pictures, texts, audio and videos, reached 1TB hardware size. The script writing took one year and a half. Tens of thousands of cases had been analyzed and distilled.
In June 2021, the Dirty Monkey studio revealed the film and its cast, featuring Lay Zhang and Gina Jin.
Production companies：Bad Monkey(Shanghai)Culture Communication Ltd., Shanghai Ticketmaster Film&TV culture Co., Ltd., China Film Corporation, Beijing Shanglion Culture Communication Co.
Release
The film began test screening on Aug 5, 2023 and scheduled the general release on Aug 11, 2023. It quickly became a box office hit in China. The film then changed its general release date to Aug 8, 2023.
Reception
Box office
By August 8, 2023, three days since the test screening, its box office gross was $69.3 million. This makes it the highest test screening gross in Chinese film history.
On the opening weekend after general release, the film earned $88 million gross, making it the No.1 box office in the world on that weekend.
The Japan Times stated that "Crime action film “No More Bets,” which has topped the Chinese box office since its release in early August, offers an unprecedented peek into the intricate workings of cybercrime in Southeast Asia."
Controversies
Subtitles Group controversy
Affected by the scene in which members of a subtitle group accepted gambling advertisements in the film, on August 14, 2023, one of the earliest subtitle groups in China, the Eden subtitle group, announced its disbandment. However, Zhang Wenbo, the CEO of Fang Bole Marketing, which promoted the film, clarified that the plot in question aimed to show a rational and firm attitude of the members of the subtitle team to "oppose uncertain information and suspected misleading information".
Ban by Cambodia
The film has been banned in Cambodia because official claims that it "seriously damages Cambodia's image and reputation".
Criticism by Myanmar
The Military Junta of Myanmar has criticised No More Bets as hurting its reputation, due to the similarities of Myanmar and the unnamed Southeast Asian featured in the film. No More Bets has not been shown in Myanma cinemas. Myanmar's Consul-General in Nanning, China, U Kyaw Soe Thein, met with the Director of the Foreign Office of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Lian Yin, on 26 September discussed the film's role in "hurting" Myanmar's reputation in China. A poll conducted by the Japan Times on Weibo found that 48,000 of the 54,000 polled would shun travelling to Myanmar.
References
External links
2023 films
2023 crime thriller films
2023 in Chinese cinema
Chinese crime thriller films
Films about cybercrime
2020s Mandarin-language films
2020s Cantonese-language films
Sichuanese-language films
Thai-language films
Films about fraud
Films about human trafficking