run (ending on 18 November), The Big Boss had made , breaking the previous record held by The Sound of Music by more than HK$800,000. An estimated people in Hong Kong, out of a population of four million, had paid to watch the film. It remained the highest-grossing film of all time in Hong Kong until Lee's second film, Fist of Fury, was released in March 1972. Shortly after the Hong Kong run, The Big Boss was released in Singapore, and enjoyed similar success there, where it played for a total of 45 days at five theatres. There was chaos at a midnight preview screening (27 November 1971) at Cathay's Jurong Drive-in cinema; police were called as hundreds of cars caused huge jams, and the film had to be delayed for 45 minutes. It went on general release on 8 December, and by the end of its run on 21 January 1972, it had broken box office records with just over , about S$240,000 more than previous record-holder The Ten Commandments. The film also played to packed cinemas in Malaysia, the third territory to show the film. By September 1972, it had grossed in the Malaysian capital city of Kuala Lumpur. During its initial run, the film grossed more than in Southeast Asia alone and across Asia. Despite the enormous success of The Big Boss in the Far East, overseas distributors were initially reluctant as they didn't think it had potential outside Asia. It was only when the film suddenly became a surprise hit in Beirut (Lebanon) in 1972 that they began to take notice. Suddenly buyers from all over the world were arriving in Hong Kong to buy the film, which was soon opening in new markets for Chinese films such as South America, Africa and southern Europe. The film became a major box office hit in Europe between 1972 and early 1973. In the UK, however, the release of the English-dubbed version was delayed as distributors Crest Films withdrew their application for a BBFC certificate, while they waited for the current storm surrounding film censorship in Britain to pass (the Mandarin version was shown in Chinese cinema clubs in Britain in June 1972). There was also a delay in the US, as distributors National General Pictures disliked the dubbing, and spent a lot of money on a new soundtrack featuring new music and rewritten, redubbed English dialogue. This