“Chinese Doctors” gave a shot in the arm to a sluggish weekend at the Chinese box office, coming in first with sales of $44.4 million, according to Maoyan data.

The patriotic tear-jerked had little competition: only other patriotic films, children’s animations and youth-centric programming are currently in theaters.

The Wuhan-set pandemic film from Bona Film is the most commercial of a slew of blockbusters intended to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party, and has grossed $138 million so far. Some $5.5 million of those sales came from Imax screens, $2.2 million of which rolled in this weekend, the company said.

In comparison, earlier frontrunner “1921” has grossed $71 million since its July 1 debut and “The Pioneer” just $18.9 million.

In a slow week with no breakout new releases, the latter two films nevertheless remained in the top ten, coming in fifth and tenth this weekend, grossing $2.6 million and $593,000, respectively.

In second place this...