In a period when the cinema trade is looking for good news, the Disney period drama Mulan has offered some cheer by squeaking past the $1-million mark at the Singapore box office in its opening weekend.

Its return of $1,001,935 from Friday to Sunday across 194 screens gives it the highest opening weekend take of any film here so far this year.

The figures of the live-action remake of a 1998 animated feature of the same name beat the $763,765 opening weekend take of science-fiction movie Tenet (Aug 26 to 30) and also that of South Korean zombie movie Train To Busan: Peninsula, which earned $962,000 in its opening weekend from July 16 to 19, days after the re-opening of cinemas here on July 13.

Movie halls closed from March 27 to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Mulan tells the story of fabled Chinese woman Hua Mulan, who impersonates a man to take her father's place after an imperial decree orders each household to send a man to join the army.

The strong takings for the movie, which stars Liu Yifei, Donnie Yen, Tzi Ma, Jason Scott Lee, Gong Li and Jet Li, bode well for the cinema trade, affected by lingering public fears about coronavirus infection and social distancing measures, which have limited seating capacity to 25 per cent.