Zhang Ziyi (right) and Takeshi Kaneshiro at a promotional event for John Woo's romance epic, The Crossing Part 2. [Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

A 16-minute program featuring interviews with stars who appear in Monster and the film's trailers has been watched 15 million times and given 9,000 reviews on iQiyi.com, a Chinese video-streaming giant.

Online anticipation for the film peaked mid-June－a month before its premiere, Zhang recalls.

Baidu searches for the film increased sixfold after its stars－Wallace Chung, Jing Boran and the monster king, Huba－appeared on the hit reality show Running Man, one of the country's most talked-about shows on the Internet.

The promotion strategy echoes that of Jian Bing Man, which was inspired by a popular series only streamed online. The movie's director and lead actor, Dong Chengpeng, was seen making and selling jianbing－a breakfast pancake－in Beijing's Zhongguancun on April 30. The video went viral online. Millions of netizens posted and reviewed the clip on the Sina Weibo micro-blog platform and the WeChat messaging system.

While such sensations are often conjured by marketers, some Internet stunners go viral "by chance".

Take Monkey King. It wasn't expected to be a blockbuster－as seen by its first-day box office revenues and small number of screens－but online praise from young fans put it above Kung Fu Panda II as the most popular animated flick among Chinese.

On Tuesday night, its makers hosted a celebration party to which it invited a dozen representatives of zilaishui, or "tap water", which refers to spontaneous flows of online adoration.

One of the representatives, Hebei Academy of Fine Arts animation student Zhao Qiang, tells China Daily the film gives heart to Chinese animators with its "quality and popularity".