Beijing keeps its film industry on a tight leash. Blockbusters like Aftershock are fine—if they toe the party’s airbrushed line.
With a star system in place, multiplexes springing up all over the country and domestically-made blockbusters on the screens, you’d be forgiven for thinking China's contemporary film industry is an unambiguously commercial affair. But like so much else here, the hand of the state casts a shadow over the neon glare of conspicuous consumption.
Yet China's Communist Party finds itself in a bind. Although it still views cinema as an ideological tool and maintains a tight leash on local productions, it also wants the domestic film industry to develop into a global commercial player.
So how can filmmakers navigate the apparently contradictory pressures of commercial success and politics, especially when the ideological position they’re expected to reflect is far from clear? One good guide could be in China’s most recent blockbuster—a homegrown movie that smashed box office records.
In financing, release strategy and content, the tear-jerking family melodrama Aftershock offers a potential guide for how a movie can be popular and politically ‘correct’ at the same time. Directed by the mainland's most popular director, Feng Xiaogang, Aftershock traces the repercussions of the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake, which killed at least 242,000 people in northern China.
The movie opened simultaneously on thousands of screens on July 22 and in less than three weeks had smashed all box office records for a domestically-made movie, with takings of RMB 532 million (US $ 78.3 million). The Tangshan City government stumped up for half the movie’s costs, while IMAX Corp. demonstrated the United States’ growing interest in the Chinese market as the other major investor.
And which movie did Aftershocksnatch the domestic box office record from? Another state-funded blockbuster, Founding of a Republic, which became the biggest domestically-produced hit in Chinese history when it was released just before the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic in September 2009. Produced by the state-owned China Film Group, the historical epic traces the final years of the Civil War that ended with the triumph of Communist forces over the Guomindang-led republican government. The film took around RMB 420 million (US $61.8 million) on the mainland.
On the surface, such figures imply a healthy domestic industry. But public popularity is only part of the reason for their success—local authorities also help to ensure healthy takings through massive levels of protectionism.
To make sure major local productions don’t have to compete directly with Hollywood, only 20 foreign titles are allowed to be released in mainland China each year under a revenue-sharing deal with state-owned distributors. Alternatively, films can be released outside this quota if they are sold to the distributors on a flat fee basis.
Either way, the arrangement guarantees only a handful of foreign titles make it to Chinese screens annually. Meanwhile, state-owned distributors have full control over their release, meaning popular Hollywood films are kept out of cinemas when key domestic works open, as well as during prime holiday periods.
Photo Credit: Walter Lim
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Locket Necklace
i like movie actors that are not only good looking but can play a lot of differient roles *.~
Andris Heks
MODERATOR please note: The film by Zhang Yiamou I referred to is called:
‘To live’
Andris Heks
Isn’t Zhang Yimou’s mainland made film still banned in China? Remember, Yimou himself was banned for making films tor 2 years bec. of making this film And his ‘crime’ was telling things as they are. How about the current paranoid arrest
of anyone connected with Liu Xiaobo? Come on Sacramento, whose legs are you trying to pull?
Of course, the West is also saturated with propaganda. But at least you can speak out agianst it freely.
Jaques
Just to point out, the 20 foreign movies per year quota has been broken nearly every year recently. 2010 is no exception.
Dan Edwards
Hi Sacramento,
Thanks for your comments and interest in my article. A couple of points I’d like to make in reply.
First of all, the article was intended as an analysis of how the mainstream Chinese industry functions in relation to the state authorities. It’s not about “judging” or somehow saying America is “better.” You’ll note that nowhere in the article do I once use the word “propaganda” – the word only appears in the headline which was provided by the Diplomat editors.
As another commenter pointed out, many countries have various protectionist measures in place to ensure local content reaches local screens. The point is that these measures in China are about ensuring the presence of a very specific type of local content – either utterly innocuous uncritical fare or works that explicitly push a certain view of history. Critical works are specifically excluded from the screen. Do you really believe a country of over a billion people is so perfect it doesn’t warrant some critical, questioning, interrogative filmmaking from it’s own filmmakers?
The point you raise about piracy is an interesting one. However, Hollywood studios, or anyone else outside China, generally don’t make films about the founding of the People’s Republic or local events like the Tangshan Earthquake, so the fact that pirate DVDs are readily available doesn’t help broaden the expression of views regarding Chinese history within China.
Finally your suggestion that China is somehow so wonderful it “has no Michael Moore” is laughable and reveals your lack of knowledge regarding contemporary Chinese filmmaking. Come to Beijing and I’ll introduce you to dozens of Chinese documentary makers who are making films about the many gross injustices occurring here on a daily basis and the blind spots in China’s history. These filmmakers are often harassed by the authorities, have their phones monitored, and their films are blocked online and unable to be shown outside small, unofficial venues to very small audiences. Names include Hu Jie, Ai Xiaoming, Zhao Liang, Ou Ning, and Wu Wenguang. China doesn’t have “a” Michael Moore – it has dozens of Michael Moores, producing incisive, moving and often very critical movies.
Regards,
Dan Edwards
Sacramento
Dan Edwards, as I said earlier your article is not the only to point out and charge propaganda but is a general critic by Westerners. So don’t take it litearally as if I’m taking about you. My criticism is valid. Just because in the West lies and exaggeration are privately done, it’s still lies and exaggeration. I don’t see the West knowing what’s better. A perfect example is decades ago in Japan when an American company wanted to sell shampoo in Japan, they would use caucasion female actors to sell their product on TV commercials. No one bought the shampoo. The American company did some research and they were told it’s because Japanese don’t identify with American caucasion women. So what did the American shampoo company do? They had a Japanese woman wearing a blond wig in their commercial and it still didn’t sell. That’s why a Westerner is in no position to judge. Hollywood doesn’t understand why China would edit the last Mission Impossible with Tom Cruise. The Chinese censors supposedly edited it the parts they did because it made Chinese people look bad. And Hollywood doesn’t understand why they would be bothered by it because to them Chinese are acceptable as looking bad as if everyone including the Chinese accept the Chinese as being bad. That’s pretty arrogant.
The Financial Times had an article back in May on the troubled sale of MGM studios. They said the sale was in jeopardy because of the remake movie Red Dawn where Chinese instead of the Russians invade the US. Someone greenlit this movie without thinking. What suddenly brought this to their attention at MGM. Avatar. Avatar made more money in China than any other market except the US. All potential buyers of MGM saw Red Dawn was about to be released and all the offers MGM received were vastly lower than expected. This also happened around the time of China calling Google’s bluff where Google thought it was so important to China the government would yield to their demands. What happened? China said adios to Google without a tear and Googles stock has sank since. No studio was going to touch MGM with a movie like Red Dawn about to be released. And what the single motivationg fator in here? Money. Just like if opening the China market to more Western movies was about free speech… those movies are already being seen because of piracy. So it can’t be about free speech but all about hiding making money behind free speech.
Also don’t take my Michael Moore comment literally. My response was to the hypocrisy of someone who obvious hates “anti-America” Michael Moore wanting to watch anti-China documentaries from a Chinese Michael Moore filmmaker. Even you admit there are Chinese Michael Moores. Then what are you complaining about China with propaganda films when they have rebel independent filmmakers just like the US? Where’s your article about American propaganda in movies?
David
Sacramento: This is an Asia-Pacific magazine, so I don’t think Mr Edwards could write about American propaganda for The Diplomat even if he wanted to. Also, by your logic, no one should ever write a piece about propaganda in any country, unless they write about propaganda in every country.
Just because someone writes something about China doesn’t mean they are saying it doesn’t happen anywhere else.
Sacramento
David, that’s called propaganda. When people read such articles it looks like only China does it. Just read the responses to my posts. They’re making a difference between how China does it with the West. So that means they see China as bad while the West is innocent little girls who can do no wrong. The reason why Aftershock is getting attention from the Western media is because they want to negate how successful it is in China. Success means a lot of Chinese watched it and Westerners simply don’t like it that there could be a success in anything without them. Every article from the West I’ve read about this movie always points to how much Avatar was more successful. So it wasn’t about free speech but a fallic contest. Just like the West would not allow a foreign company to monopolize any business in their country, it is China’s right to restrict Western entertainment in China. And it has nothing to do with preventing Chinese from seeing new ideas because again the government does nothing to stop these pirated movies from being distributed in China. It’s all about money. China’s box office within the next five to ten years will the biggest in the world. Why should the foreign monopoly of Hollywood take over China? Hollywood is fortunate the US population has been taught to hate foreign movies to which is why they don’t do so well because of prejudice. That’s an unfair advantage. So naturally with any business Hollywood should not be given a free reign monopoly until they level the playing field. When it comes down to it, it’s all about money and not about politics. Even if one looks at it from a political point of view, it’s not like China plays favoritism towards Chinese filmmakers which would in WTO terms be a case for complaint. Chinese filmmakers are put under great restrictions on content. In fact Hollywood movies that are allowed to be shown in Chinese theatres break many of the restrictions Beijing has for it’s own film industry. So Westerners can’t really complain this is about censorship based on content when Beijing is more liberal to Hollywood films than to their own filmmakers.