Donnie Yen isn't worried that "Ip Man 3" opens about the same time as "Star Wars".

29 Dec – Just when you thought that the highly-anticipated "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" would stay at the top of the chart a little longer, "Ip Man 3" comes in and knocks the American epic space opera film off from the top spot at the Malaysia and Singapore weekend box office chart for the weekend of 24 to 27 December.

Though the J.J Abrams film still maintains its reign in the U.S. and it has broken many box office records, including the highest-grossing worldwide opening of all time and the fastest movie to reach USD1 billion, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is unable to maintain its glory for long in Malaysia and Singapore.

The movie made a collection of USD149.2 million at the U.S. weekend box office chart, remaining at the top for the second week running, while the second and third place are taken up by the two newly released movies, "Daddy's Home" and "Joy" which made USD38.7 and USD17.0 million respectively, knocking down both "Sisters" and "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip" to fourth and fifth place.

Looks like The Force is not so strong in Malaysia and Singapore after all.

However, despite all the promotional activities that has been going on for the past few months for the seventh instalment of "Star Wars", in Malaysia and Singapore the movie has immediately dropped to second place during the second week of release, beaten by the martial arts film "Ip Man 3", starring Donnie Yen as the titular character.

This may come as a surprise to many, but come to think of it, Donnie Yen is a quite big name in the Chinese movie industry, plus this might be the last instalment of the series.

Also, there weren't a lot of big movies released during the last two weeks, so it is possible that non-"Star Wars" fans have chosen to watch the martial arts film instead of the space opera film during the Christmas weekend.

"Ip Man 3" has grossed RM12 million within just four days of its release in Malaysia and SGD2.56 million in its opening weekend in Singapore.

Meanwhile, the trio of lovable chipmunks from "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip" landed at third place at the Malaysia and Singapore weekend box office during its opening week.

Other new releases in Malaysia from last weekend are "Isteri Untuk Dijual", "Mat Moto", "Bhooloham" and "Pasanga 2".

Meanwhile, other new movies that opened last weekend in Singapore are "Bhooloham", "Carol" and "Pasanga 2".