Hi, Mom now world's top-grossing film ever from solo female director

China's tear-jerker film Hi, Mom has overtaken American fantasy Wonder Woman to become the world's top-grossing film ever from a solo female director.

The maiden directorial project of comedian and actress Jia Ling saw its cumulative box office reach 5.396 billion yuan ($822.87 million) as of early Tuesday afternoon and surpass that of the 2017 superhero film from Patty Jenkins, according to the China Movie Data Information Network.

Hi, Mom is currently the top earner of this year in China, as well as globally. It is the second highest-grossing film ever at China's box office, outshone only by the 2017 Chinese action-adventure film Wolf Warrior 2 that raked in a total of 5.69 billion yuan.

Hi, Mom joined six other domestic titles released in China on the Spring Festival, which fell on Feb 12 this year and marked the beginning of the Chinese lunar new year.

It stars Jia as a devoted daughter who, deeply saddened by her mother's accidental death, finds herself transported back to 1981, where she meets her mother and attempts to improve her fate using ideas from the future.

The buzzy comedy, which Jia described as a tribute to her real-life mother who passed away tragically around two decades ago, brought many moviegoers to tears. It also sparked social media posts contemplating mother-daughter affection, with netizens sharing old photos of their own mothers at a young age.

The movie currently boasts a rating of 8.1 out of 10 based on more than 950,000 reviews on the review platform Douban, the highest among all the seven Spring Festival releases this year.

China's 2021 box office total hit 19.1 billion yuan as of Monday, with Hi, Mom and Wanda Pictures' comedy Detective Chinatown 3 accounting for 28 percent and roughly 24 percent, respectively, data from box office tracker Maoyan showed.