The Chinese film market recession has been a burning topic among
industry insiders. Since the mid-1990s China has been importing
movies from abroad, and the impact they are having has been a
constant focus of serious attention.
Over the past decade the United States has replaced the former
Soviet Union, Japan and France to become the largest movie exporter
to China. Hollywood blockbusters such as Speed,
Titanic, Saving Private Ryan and the recent Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and The Lord of Rings
attracted massive market share in urban and rural China, reaping
remarkable box office takings with their hi-tech effects,
attractive plots and great artistic flare.
"Films know no boundaries. Foreign films are irresistible to local
audiences," said Vice Chairman Li Guomin of the China Film
Association. "Economic and cultural globalization has set an
historic trend. As long as we maintain certain criteria on
importing films, we can use them to our advantage and develop our
own local industry."
Li
said each year China imported 50-60 films. Superior quality films
with huge box office revenues are called "dapian" in
Chinese. Up to now, China has imported over 100 dapian.
These films offer the Chinese a window to the status quo of world's
film industry. The Chinese film business can observe what their US
counterparts are doing and learn up-to-date film production
technologies, distribution techniques and promotional and marketing
operations to develop the local industry which is still in its
infancy.
Hollywood blockbusters lure more movie-goers and increase box
office takings for domestic cinemas. Actually getting copies of
dapian has become one of the most important means available
for theaters to maintain their box office revenues. Suppose a
cinema has a copy of an imported film for a week, its box office
takings have then been secured for the rest of the month. The
cinema can rest assured and screen domestic films in the rest of
the period.
Imported films have vigorously propelled the production of
home-grown films. By encountering the challenges of foreign films
and the audience's increased discrimination, Chinese film producers
have had to transform their production concepts, enrich their film
subjects and reform the film business from distribution through to
marketing and screening. The Chinese government has accelerated
reforms in the administration of the film and TV industry and
worked out relevant economic policies and regulations.
Chinese filmmakers have been urged to create more films that cater
to audience's tastes. Actually many excellent domestic films, with
huge box office takings, have been made in recent years such as
Zhou Enlai and Choice of Life and Death. The concept
of domestic blockbusters has gradually been accepted by Chinese
audience with domestic films like Opium War and The Red
Cherry have receiving good reviews.
In
addition, entertainment-oriented films have also made progress in
China. The Happy-New-Year comic flick made by Director Feng
Xiaogang saw strong box office takings.
Film imports have pushed the implementation of a Chinese film
production line system, composed of a central film distribution
body and a few dispersed cinemas. The system adopts a structure of
uniform and centralized management. So far, over 20 provinces in
China have established 34 cross-regional film production lines,
which control nearly 1,000 cinemas and secure some 90 percent of
total box office takings in the country.
Insiders believe the film production line system, can effectively
regulate the film distribution market and prevent the screening of
bootlegged films, box office cover ups and pirated VCDs. What's
more, important cinemas within the system will be fortunate enough
to have their facilities upgraded to multi-screen digital audio and
video theaters with luxury seating, which will in turn generate
even more profits for the organizations. Many cinemas in Shanghai
and Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong provinces have already seen
larger audiences after their upgrades.
(China.org.cn by Guo Xiaohong, November 2, 2002)