Furious 7, the latest instalment of the popular car racing movie franchise, appears to have little direct relevance to China. Made by Universal Pictures and starring a host of American and British actors, it lacks a Chinese star or a set-piece chase through the streets of Shanghai.

Yet the film has broken all-time box-office records since its release in China in April, taking in almost $390m, underpinned by preferential distribution by state monopoly China Film Group, which put up a reported 10 per cent of the funding for the film.

This was higher than the $348m in box office revenue that the film accrued in North America, a further sign of China’s growing importance to the global film industry. Total Chinese box-office takings hit Rmb29.6bn ($4.8bn) in 2014, up 31.3 per cent on 2013, and are expected to hit Rmb40bn in 2015, according to China Confidential, a research service from the Financial Times. Should current growth trends in China and North America continue, China is on course to overtake the US to become the world’s largest movie market by 2018.