There were no radical developments in Chinese cinema in 2010. That is to say, everything continued to get progressively better. Optimism has now become a habit, and almost a manner of speaking in China. Whenever China is mentioned, regardless of the sector, its unprecedented development is inevitably referred to, as is its extraordinary progress on all fronts. The predictions of an even more incredible future, of how China will soon rule the world, and so on and so forth, make your head spin. The film industry is no exception. Its statistics reveal extraordinary growth.
There were 526 films produced in 2010, an increase of 15% compared to 2009. This figure only includes films approved by the censors, and ignores underground productions.
China is now the third biggest film-producer in the world, after Bollywood and Hollywood — even if only a portion of the films made ever hit the big screen. (By contrast, back in 2000, China produced only 80 films.) The box office takings increased by 64% in a year, reaching 10.2 billion RMB. Of this, 5.73 billion RMB was for homegrown productions, the equivalent to 56.3% of the total. A good 17 films broke through the 100 million RMB ceiling in takings, a figure that, only a year earlier, would have seemed like an extraordinary achievement. Sales of Chinese films overseas also saw a boost of 27%, from 2.77 billion RMB in 2009 to 3.52 billion RMB in 2010. If we add to that TV and home video sales, the total revenue for the film industry was 15.7 billion RMB, up 47% on the previous year. So since 2003 — the year in which box office takings reached the record figure of 1 billion — takings have increased tenfold.
The fact that the cost of going to the cinema went up helped these results. A ticket that once cost 10 RMB can now cost up to 80 RMB for a normal projection and as much as 120 RMB for a 3-D screening. However, over the past decade, China has become the third biggest market worldwide in terms of tickets sold, with an increase of 150% compared to 2003 — a figure that reflects a burgeoning middle-class with elevated spending power.
The ten biggest box office hits of 2010 were: 1. Aftershock (Tang Shan Da Di Zhen) by Feng Xiaogang, 670 million RMB; 2. Let the Bullets Fly (Rang Zi Dan Fei) by Jiang Wen, 479 million (box office takings for this film reached 660 million during the festivities for the Chinese New Year); 3. If You Are the One II (Fei Cheng Wu Rao II ) by Feng Xiaogang, 350 million; 4. Detective Dee: The Mystery of the Phantom Flame (Di Ren Jie) by Tsui Hark, 292 million; 5. Ip Man 2 (Ye Wen 2) by Wilson Yip, 234 million; 6. Sacrifice (Zhao Shi Gu Er) by Chen Kaige, 191 million; 7. Little Big Soldier (Da Bing Xiao Jiang) by Ding Sheng, starring Jackie Chan, 162 million; 8. Just Call Me Nobody (Da Xiao Jiang Hu) by Kevin Chu, 153 million; 9. Under the Hawthorn Tree (Shan Zha Shu Zhi Lian) by Zhang Yimou, 146 million; 10. 14 Blades (Jin Yi Wei) by Daniel Lee, 144 million.
Running parallel to the exponential increase of box office takings is the building and management of screening theatres. In 2010, 313 new theatres were opened, housing a total of 1,533 screens which brings the total number of screens in the country to 6,200. The market for 3-D screens is developing particularly rapidly, spurred on by the takings for Avatar, which earned 205 million dollars in China alone, the equivalent to around 10% of its total worldwide takings. As the cost for setting up a screen for digital and 3-D projections is relatively modest (around 500,000 RMB), 3-D screenings have become a very lucrative business. Therefore, 80% of new screens are equipped for digital projections and 1,100 have the facilities for showing 3-D films; the phenomenon is so huge that there is talk in China of a superhighway for 3-D cinema, with a market for this format currently second only to the US market. Production companies are accelerating 3-D film productions with “Chinese characteristics,” such as a new versions of Monkey King starring Chow Yun-fat, Flying Swords of Dragon Gate by Tsui Hark with Jet Li, and the first ever 3- D animation feature, under the title of The Legend of the Rabbit, which at 120 million RMB, will be the most expensive film of its kind ever produced in China.
The latter will feature a rabbit, an expert in kung fu, who takes on a diabolical panda. It’s an obvious nod to the controversy stirred-up by the success of Kung-fu Panda in 2008, when some in China accused the US film industry of exploiting a symbol of Chinese culture. The film will be released in July 2011, the year of the Rabbit, and will contain spectacular sequences choreographed by a tai chi master, such as one in which droplets of flying sweat hit mosquitoes in mid-air. Some of these films used technicians from abroad whose previous work can be seen in Avatar and The Lord of the Rings. China still does not have experts in 3-D technology, but the market prospects are so appetising that the industry cannot wait to develop local talent. In addition, in March, the WTO will ask that China further opens its film market to international productions, thereby allowing foreign-owned companies to distribute their own films autonomously, rather than through local distributors. For this reason, the industry is forming a contingency plan to ward off the possibility of competition from foreign blockbusters.
As far as a more general overview of the film industry is concerned, with the launch of the Bona Film group on the NASDAQ stock exchange, 2010 saw confirmation of a trend towards the gradual creation of conglomerates which increasingly resemble the US majors. Founded in 1999, Bona was the first semi-private film company. It started as a distributor but went on to increase its range of activities. It is now involved in film production and the building of theatres. In 2010, they signed a strategic partnership deal with South Korean CJ Entertainment to produce high-budget films, including ones in 3-D, with an eye on the North American market. Bona is the first film group to have decided to capitalise itself on the foreign stock market, while the Huayi Brothers group already has shares available on the Shenzhen market. The China Film Group is about to transform into a new mega-company with 1.4 billion RMB capital called China Film Company. It has 14 affiliates and a stake in another 34 companies, and will enter in the Shanghai market.
It is also worth noting the recent creation of a new highprofile event, the Beijing International Film Festival, which sponsored by the capital’s city hall to “transform Beijing into the film capital of the Orient.” Although it will include a screening section, a film market, conventions for the industry and other related activities, it will not host an international competition. It will most likely be a platform for the presentation of important homegrown productions.
So is the outlook for Chinese cinema truly as positive as it looks? Well, an in-depth examination pinpoints a few problems. Generally speaking, a truly popular cinema — one which so ably embodied the collective dream of the Chinese population in a period of epic change — has recently started to give way to brazen commercialism. So it is losing itself in stylistic and narrative repetition, giving the impression that the only tales to be told, and the only ones that the public want to watch, are demented comedies or historical costume epics. Abundant martial arts sequences are thrown in for good measure. It is an unbridled quest for extravagance. It would seem that each new film must surpass the last one in terms of breathtaking settings, absurd characters, stunning costumes, high production budgets and, naturally, box office takings. It’s like city planning. Today, each new building is designed to be the tallest, the most colossal, and the most architecturally daring, with no thought for its functionality or whether it blends in with its environment.
A series of films released recently would seem to indicate the birth of a new film genre: the parody of postmodern China. They deal with the lives of the nouveau riche, or rather the nouveau super-rich. They have outlandish characters and settings that would seem more at home in a place like Las Vegas than China, a country which is still officially “developing.” But despite appearances, they are not parodies, but rather realistic representations of a minority of people that no longer have a grip on decency and self-control. Even Feng Xiaogang has fallen into the trap. His new hesuipian (New Year’s film), If You Are the One II — the sequel to one of 2009’s biggest success stories — is a bittersweet tale of marital relations. It presents such a series of stereotypes of a life spent in pursuit of luxury and excess that it is hard to imagine the director is not taking that whole thing seriously. The plethora of companies interested in product placement in the world’s biggest market helps to transform these films into quasi feature-length advertisements.
While we’re on the subject, mention should be made of a minor incident which hit the news recently, giving some idea of how the industry is reaching new heights in greed. A cinemagoer who went to see Aftershock in Xi’an reported the theatre to the police for having shown twenty minutes of adverts before screening the film. She requested that the cost of her ticket be reimbursed, plus compensation for psychological damage and a letter of apology from the theatre owners. Even the authorities that run the film industry are aware of this problem.
When asked to comment on extraordinary box office figures, the chairman of the Film Bureau, Tong Gang replied: “Chinese filmmakers must become aware of the fact that, despite their importance, box office takings do not reflect the overall situation within the industry. In China, there are still not enough films that can win over the critics while, at the same time, satisfy the cultural demands of the public. That’s because the majority of films produced are lacking in humanistic values, realism and style. It has not, so far, been possible to compete with films like Avatar or Inception.” Mention must be made of some films that did not bow to escapism, or ones that at least used it in an intelligent fashion. The first mention must go, naturally, to Aftershock, by Feng Xiaogang. This established a record that has yet to be broken by any homegrown production — it cost around 130 million RMB and earned 670. His more recent If You Are the One II, was also a first —no other Chinese film had ever been released in China and the USA simultaneously.
Feng Xiaogang alone broke through the 1 billion RMB ceiling of box office takings, confirming his position as the country’s best-loved director. With Aftershock, the Chinese candidate for the Oscars, Feng succeeded in showing the delicate matter of national reconciliation, telling the tragic tale of two earthquakes. A family was destroyed by the first and reunited by the second. Box office results were also helped by the fact that Aftershock was the first Chinese production to be distributed in 3-D.
But this only partly justifies the film’s success, which is mainly due to having accurately represented the need of the Chinese population to honor the victims of history and reconcile itself with a painful past.
Let the Bullets Fly was the true surprise of the year. It was a mid-budget film with no particular special effects. In a short time it became a cult, taking 650 million RMB at the box office, therefore equalling Aftershock’s accomplishment.
The film is a satirical western, an account of a Robin Hood-type figure battling against corruption and a rampant lack of civility in the remote western provinces at the turn of the last century. The style of the director Jiang Wen - who with this film won back the favour of critics and public after the flop of his previous film The Sun Also Rises (Tai Yang Zhao Chang Sheng Qi) — has been described as a cross between Quentin Tarantino and Sergio Leone. The success of the film is, in part, due to the subliminal messages on contemporary China which many spectators have recognized. As one screen-goes commented online, “Those who have ears to perceive will perceive.” The film’s success was so great that a future Hollywood remake is apparently on the cards, directed by Jiang Wen himself.
While we’re on the subject of remakes, What Women Want (Wo Zhi Nv Ren Xin) by Chen Daming, a remake of the American blockbuster, has just been released simultaneously in China and the USA. Set in a modern, elegant and sexy Beijing, the battle of the sexes is being fought by Andy Lau and Gong Li in the roles played in the original by Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt. With the film Under the Hawthorn Tree (Shan Zha Shu Zhi Lian), director Zhang Yimou has brought to the big screen a simple — though not simplistic- and moving love story, set during the Cultural Revolution. Buddha Mountain by director Li Yu deals with the subject of love and forgiveness in more existential terms. Director Wang Jing has continued his exploration — never sensationalised, but always determined — of the ills of contemporary China with films like Vegetate (Wo Shi Zhi Wu Ren) and Something About Kids (Hai Zi Na Xie Shi Er). Director Zhang Meng, with the film The Piano in a Factory, has given voice to the concerns of the Chinese working class once again.
The main problems for the Chinese film industry in the future will be how to satisfy the desires of an increasingly varied public in terms of cultural requirements, and how to adequately reach, in terms of distribution, the small and medium-sized towns. Exalting the failure of Hu Mei’s Confucius and the consequent dejection of those who, if the film had been a success, might have flooded China with films on historical characters, the author/public figure Han Han wrote in his blog: “Films should use imagination to create works which reflect the ideals of the people, but in China films mainly reflect the ideals of the government. Naturally, if one day the two were to become one, not only would that lead to success for films, but also for the government.”
Maria Barbieri