A wealth of promising new filmmakers have emerged in
China over the last twelve months. Unlike previous generations
of post-1949 filmmakers, they have been driven
by a new force - the market. Today’s new filmmakers
are intent on appealing to the public and doing well
at the box office, although this has not dampened their
creative spirits. This philosophy has even rubbed off on
the older generations of filmmakers, who began their
careers with art, not commerce, at the forefront of their
minds. The Fifth Generation may have been overtaken
by their younger peers, but in reality they are lying low
and developing ways to meet the new challenge of market
forces. In fact, a side effect of this new, commercial
approach means that the traditional way of defining
directorial styles - by “Generations” - has started to
disappear as everyone competes for the audience.
The biggest film of the year was, in fact, by a member
of the Fifth Generation - the long-awaited Hero by
Zhang Yimou. This was a commercial film made on a
Hollywood-style budget. It brings modern techniques to
its visualisation of a classic martial arts scenario.
Further evidence of older directors working hard to fit
the new market came in the return of Blue Kite director
Tian Zhuangzhuang. Tian remade Fei Mu’s 1948 classic
Springtime in a Small Town, and the result served as a
reminder of the style and class of the older generation.
Chen Kaige made the very Chinese - and very commercial
- Together, a sentimental story about a talented
young violinist. It’s a sign that the Fifth Generation is by
no means dead and buried.
Neither are those one-time underground filmmakers, the
Sixth Generation, and the independent filmmakers who
followed in their wake. Zhang Yuan has been particularly
prolific, making I Love You, Green Tea and an adaptation
of a Peking play, Jiang Jie. Jia Zhangke’s Unknown
Pleasure, Liu Bingjian’s Cry Woman, Zhang Ming’s
Weekend Plot, Guan Wu’s Eyes of Beauty and Lu
Xuechang’s recent Cala, My Dog have all taken part in
international film festivals.
Independent Cinema - that is, films made outside of the
official studio system - has finally received official sanction.
In February 2002, the National Film Bureau
passed a law allowing independent companies to make
films on their own. Some companies, like Imar, had
received licences much earlier, although they still had to
work in tandem with a state-sanctioned studio. Xu
Jinglei’s Me and Dad, a film produced by the Supreme
Concept Cultural Development Co., was the first fully
independent Chinese film since 1949. The number of
national films in production is bound to increase now
the independent companies do not have to go through
the formality of working with a studio.
Some filmmakers still seek to get around the restrictions,
and this means that the term “underground film”
has been expanded. An underground film now need not
be controversial in terms of content. “At the beginning,
these were the films which contained elements which
would be deemed [by the state censors] either unacceptable
or unsuitable for Chinese cinemas. So the
directors didn’t even try and get approval by the censors.
They chose instead to screen their films abroad,”
explains Lu Chuan, the director of Missing Gun, a mainstream
production co-produced by Columbia Asia. “But
nowadays a film may be classified as ‘underground’ simply
when the director is forced to follow unofficial channels
to avoid bureaucratic delays in getting the film
screened”.
Controversial underground productions are still made in
China - there is a booming DV film movement, for
instance - but directors are increasingly willing to accept
the challenge of the censors and follow the lengthy
‘time and motion’ process to obtain the stamp of
approval. It’s difficult, as what the market wants is out
of step with what the conservative censors will allow.
The younger directors seem to be the ones who are
prepared to try and bridge the gap between the two
poles. Gao Xiaosong (director of Where Have All The
Flowers Gone) talks about his experiences: “My film is
completely innocuous in terms of content, but I waited
for two years to get the seal of approval from the censors.
This, however, doesn’t really worry me. Censorship
in China normally takes a long time to run its course. My
film still hasn’t been distributed to the cinemas. They
would rather show Hollywood films. To make up for this,
I released it on DVD, where it took a third of its
US$360,000 budget.”
Chen Daming, director of Manhole, is somewhat less
positive. In an attempt to arrive at a compromise with
the censors, he was forced to alter the original ending
in the screenplay, carry out extensive editing , and find
a more fitting title for the film than The Perfect Woman,
which was deemed politically incorrect. “Jokingly, I suggested
the title Manhole which has no negative connotations
when said in Chinese,”says Chen.“ But when translated
into English, you can imagine some of gay-erotic
content. In any case, it was approved!” (Of course, the
Fifth and Sixth Generations have been experiencing similar
censorship problems since their inception.)
The old censorship rules and the new laws of the market
have become powerful influences on the new directors.
There are those, like Xu Jinglei, who believe that
low budget films represent the only way for creative
filmmakers to escape from the pressures of the market.
Her Me and Dad cost only US$240,000.
Maria Ruggieri