Wolverine fans in China turn out for Hugh Jackman's finale. Xu Fan reports.

On a recent windy afternoon, hundreds of Chinese fans gathered outside a building at Beijing's 798 Art Zone, where Hollywood actors Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart were promoting their film, Logan.

In nearly 20 years, Jackman has built Wolverine, aka Logan, as one of the most loved superheroes.

Logan is said to be the last time when he will be seen in the role.

Hugh Jackman attends the premiere of the film Logan in Taipei. Reuters

 

The film was released simultaneously in North America and China on Friday.

Jackman, an Australian-born actor, says he is sad to part with the character.

"I'm not a quite decisive person. But for big things, I'm usually quite clear. A couple of years ago, I knew I should pass on the character to someone else," he says.

Since Wolverine "dies" around six times in the comic books, Jackman, 48, says the character can be played by anyone from any race or of any age.

"For the role, I believe fans and actors should also have 110 percent passion," he says. "That's why I made the decision."

Media have speculated that his age and health were the reasons behind his decision.

But the Tony Award winner has said he was looking for the best way to say goodbye to the role, which he has played for the past 17 years.

Logan, which purposely doesn't use Wolverine or X-Men in the title, is a mix of genres, such as adventure, western and noir.

Set in a futuristic world where most of the mutant characters die, an aging Wolverine and Professor Charles Xavier (played by English actor Stewart) are seen struggling in a deserted location along the United States' border with Mexico.

An 11-year-old mutant then shows up, disturbing Wolverine's weary life. At the end, Logan's glorious yet tragic end comes.

"When the credits were rolling (at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival), I couldn't imagine a more perfect way to end our story," says Stewart, who also decided Logan would also be his last movie as Professor X.

At the end of Logan, all the mutants, including Wolverine, die to protect the young.

At the age of 76, Stewart injects his pondering about life philosophy into the cinema.

"Mortality is a reality. We do not live forever. We simply do the best we can, but it's important for others. That's how civilization evolves," says Stewart, speaking about his last days as Professor X.

With an ambition to be more than a popcorn hit, Logan explores humanity, death and love.

The world premiere of Logan was held during the Berlin film festival - an event usually for art-house titles - adding to its serious appeal.

"For us, it is a movie about humans more than superheroes," says Jackman.

Some critics reckon Logan, also an attractive story to moviegoers not interested in Marvel comic books, has so far been the best ever X-Men movie.

For Chinese movie fans, it acts more as a nostalgic journey, in the wake of recent news about Jackman's struggle with skin cancer as he wrote on Twitter about his treatment.

By raking in more than 400 million yuan ($58 million) in six days, Logan is now topping the country's box-office charts. On Douban, one of China's most popular movie review sites, it received 8.5 of 10 points.

Related merchandise is making money as well.

The Chinese version of the 2010 comic book Wolverine: Old Man Logan, penned by Mark Millar and painted by Steve McNiven, has quickly soared to the third-best selling book on presale charts on amazon.cn, according to the Chinese publisher World Publishing Corporation.

Jiang Yumin, editor of the book, says fans want to know more about Wolverine after watching the movie.

Unlike Star Wars and Star Trek, the enduring franchises that are less known in China than in the West, the X-Men series grabbed Chinese attention almost at the same time as in the rest of the world.

More than half of the X-Men movies have been released on the Chinese mainland.

"In cinematic history, we've seen nine Batmans, 10 Supermans, three Spider-Mans and six James Bonds, but only one Wolverine ... We cannot imagine anyone else playing Wolverine," writes the critic Yu Xiaodao on Basa Movie, a public account on phone app WeChat.

Contact the writer at xufan@chinadaily.com.cn