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Fan Bingbing at award ceremony
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'Koseidon,''Skull Island' in Tecent's super film projects
Tencent Pictures announced on Saturday in Beijing it plans to develop 21 film and TV projects in its super brands list, including "Koseidon,""Kong: Skull Island" and "The Tibet Code."
Founded by one of China's largest internet company Tencent just one year ago, Tencent Pictures has plans for films based on books, comic books, animated series and video games.
Cheng Wu, vice president of Tencent and CEO of Tencent Pictures, said at its annual press conference that four key words had been selected to sum up the direction in which the studio plans to move.
"First, it's 'young.’ We hope our films can have young subjects and styles, fit young people's ideas and new thoughts; Second, it's 'unique.' We hope our films can have exclusive creativity and can give people surprise; Third, it's 'high-quality.' We don't make rubbish films no matter how big or small the investment involved; Fourth, it's 'connecting.' We hope to build all other elements around various intellectual property brands, including literature, comics, video games, stage drama and merchandise.
Meanwhile, we'd love to work with domatic and foreign partners."
Tencent Pictures had great success by co-developing the American action-fantasy film "Warcraft" directed by Duncan Jones with Legendary Pictures owned by the Wanda Group. The film made US$221 million in China alone this year. "Kong: Skull Island" will be its another collaboration with Legendary Pictures, a story seeking continuity between the worlds of King Kong and Godzilla. It is set for release in March 2017.
"The Grudge" producer Takashige Ichise will work with Tencent to produce a theatrical version of "Koseidon," based on a popular Japanese Tokusatsu TV series "Dinosaur Corps Koseidon" produced by Tsuburaya Productions. The TV series was once introduced in China, in 1988, and leaving deep childhood memories for China's 1970's and 1980's generations.
Tencent has also acquired the licenses to adapt "The Tibet Code" into TV series and video games.
"The Tibet Code" is a series of fantasy adventure novels written by He Ma that have sold 10 million copies in China. The novels follow an expert on Tibetan Mastiffs, and his mentor, as a mysterious letter pulls them into a convoluted search for a hoard of Buddhist treasure hidden during the persecution of the 9th century Tibetan emperor Langdarma.
Elements of Tibetan culture, geography, and mythology are prominent, alongside modern aspects of
intrigue and globetrotting.
Other eye-popping film and TV projects being developed by Tencent include "The Game of Antiques," a film based on writer Ma Boyong's novel; an animated feature "The Tuski 3D" based a highly popular cartoon emoticon of a lazy bunny created by Momo Wang; "Fighter of The Destiny," a fantasy TV series epic based on an internet novel by Mao Ni; "Asura," a film based on Tencent's popular MMORPG game; "Pathfinder," an original science fiction film by China's famous sci-fi screen writer Zhang Xiaobei; "100,000 Ways to LMAO 2," a sequel to the top grossing animated comedy based on internet cartoon series; as well as famous Chinese director Lu Chuan's new film with a working title of "20,000 Miles Plan," which will be made as a pan-entertainment project, including literature, cartoon, games and more.
Tencent Pictures CEO Cheng Wu added:"Regarding filmmaking, the biggest investment will forever be 'patience,' as you have to be patient to develop a good project. The film industry is at the new starting point, and the high-quality works ensure your future."
"The Dark Knight" trilogy screen writer David S. Goyer also attended Tencent's conference and announced he would work with the Chinese studio to explore original content in China and the domestic market. He also added that, even though there's barrier and gap in cultures and languages, worldwide audiences should have the same humanity and value to understand a good story.
Besides film and TV projects, the newly-rising Tencent Pictures will initiate projects to fund and nurture new talents, team up filmmakers to establish studio to create more original contents, as well as step into artist and repertoire business.
Source: china.org by zhang rui
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Louis Koo in “Storm”
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Chinese Writer Ba Jin's Novel to Land on Big Screen Tomorrow
(CRI) A Chinese film on some young people's experiences in the Korean War will become available in Chinese theatres tomorrow (September 15).
The film My War is directed by renowned Hong Kong ghost movie director Oxide Pang Chun, who quit directing thriller films four years ago.
"Every moment when there's a bombing, it's my design. I temporarily pushed the button and let off the explosion right behind the actors who pass certain locations. Using modern technologies, the war-genre film may get an upgrade."
The film, starring famous Chinese actor Liu Ye and actress Wang Luodan, is based off of renowned Chinese writer Ba Jin's novel Tuan Yuan.
Source: CRI
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China's holiday box office sales down to 505 mln yuan
China's Mid-Autumn Festival box office sales were down from the same period last year to 505 million yuan, or around 75.5 million US dollars, with several new releases struggling to find traction over the three-day holiday.
The biggest success during the holiday was the domestic fantasy film "A Chinese Odyssey: Part III," which has earned over 235 million yuan, around 35.2 million US dollars, since its release on September 14.
Audience favorites also include Hong Kong action movie "Z Storm II," suspense film "Cock and Bull" and the domestic romance "Soul Mate."
Source: CRI
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Eddie Peng poses for fashion magazine
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Liu Shishi covers fashion magazine
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Lin Yun poses for photo shoot
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Surplus of TV dramas leads to broadcaster corruption
Over the past five years, only 9,000 of the 15,000 to 19,000 episodes of TV dramas produced annually aired on television stations at all levels, the Nandu Daily reported Sunday.
"The overproduction of TV series is a long-existing problem in this industry, and sometimes only one in 10 TV series is able to be broadcast," Zhang Peng, an associate film professor at Nanjing Normal University, told the Global Times on Sunday.
Television stations are therefore often bribed into purchasing surplus TV series. According to Nandu Daily, provincial broadcaster Anhui TV purchased 327 TV series from 2011 to 2013 at a total cost of 2.4 billion yuan ($359.9 million). But 21 of the series - worth a combined 210 million yuan - could not be broadcast by August 2014, even if the TV station were to broadcast 10 drama episodes per day.
Zhang Suzhou, former president and Party chief of the Anhui Broadcasting Corporation, stood trial for suspected graft in November 2015, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
The former executive was accused of taking 11.4 million yuan in bribes from advertising companies, TV producers and singers while serving as the broadcaster's president and head of the Anhui provincial administrative bureau of radio, film and television from April 2006 to July 2014.
"A lack of annual purchase quotas, clear-cut purchasing procedures and standards contribute to massive corruption in this industry," said Zhang Peng. He noted that corruption, in turn, encourages the production of more and more TV series.
In 2015, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television limited the number of broadcasting platforms for a TV drama series from four to two, the Beijing Daily reported.
"The new policy aims to decrease the overstocking of TV series," Yin Hong, a professor at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times.
Zhang Peng argued that the success of video streaming websites and market pressure to pursue high audience ratings will help ease overcapacity and eventually eliminate it.
Source: Global Times
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Chinese content wins ASEAN hearts
Bao Dada is a character in a Chinese animation show called Cat's Eye Boy Bao Dada broadcast on Cambodia's National Television of Cambodia from October 2014. Translated by Guangxi People's Broadcasting Station, it was the first Chinese animation show to have been broadcast in Cambodia.
Cat's Eye Boy Bao Dada is one of a series of Chinese TV dramas and movies being exported to Cambodia as cultural cooperation between the two countries deepens.
In August 2014, GPBS and TVK signed a cooperation agreement to broadcast Chinese TV plays and movies under TVK's "Chinese TV drama" program. Since then, a number of Chinese TV series and movies have been broadcast in the country.
Cambodia is among a number of Southeast Asian countries that are cooperating actively with China in cultural industries, especially internet culture in the digital age. Many Chinese cultural works like TV drama Startling by Each Step and Empresses in the Palace, have been exported to ASEAN countries and gained wide popularity among local audiences.
"ASEAN countries and China have geographical proximity and similar cultural backgrounds. The region has become an important market for overseas development of Chinese internet cultural enterprises," said Ma Feng, deputy director of marketing department of the Ministry of Culture.
"Chinese enterprises' forays into the ASEAN market as part of their larger 'going global' strategy not only bring rich spiritual and cultural enjoyment to local people but deepen cultural exchanges between the two sides," said Ma.
The going global process of Chinese cultural products has been accelerating over recent years. Take online games, for example. Export value of Chinese online games reached $4.53 billion in 2015, up 69 percent year-on-year. More than 700 online games have been exported to other countries so far.
By comparison, the online game industry in the ASEAN region has been underdeveloped, with its market taking up only 1.4 percent of the world's total, according to a report by the Chinese Academy of Telecommunication Research. The market relies heavily on imports.
In Malaysia, the country's mobile service provider, U Mobile, has established partnership with Chinese video-streaming site Youku Tudou Inc to provide videos for local audiences to watch on their mobile devices.
"The program 'I am a Singer' has been quite popular in Malaysia. Chinese cultural content will achieve great development in the country. We will introduce more Chinese videos to our market in the future," said Lee Fook Heng, general manager of U Mobile.
The ASEAN market covers an area of 4.44 million hectares with roughly 600 million people.
Twenty-six percent of its population are aged between 15 and 30.
"There is vast space for cultural cooperation between China and ASEAN, as people of the two sides have enthusiasm and aspiration for fostering the collaboration," said Gao Dongxu, chief executive officer and chief analyst at Beijing Entbrains Consulting Co Ltd.
Source: By Zhou Mo and Zhang Li (China Daily)
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Animated 'Storks' set to hit the screen
(China Daily) Warner Bros' upcoming animated movie Storks is a new twist on the mythologic concept of storks delivering babies.
A preview screening was held in Beijing on Sept 17. Most of the viewers gave thumbs up to the innovative settings.
The film is directed by Nicholas Stoller, who is known for the 2008 comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Doug Sweetland, the lead animator of the Oscar-nominated Boundin.
The tale narrates around a fairy tale-like world where a girl accidentally activates the baby-making machine. She teams up a delivery stork to embark on a journey to send the baby to her family.
Its Chinese-dubbed cast recruits the local voice actors who dubbed Disney's hit Zootopia.
As the only Hollywood animated film introduced to China in September, Storks will be released on the Chinese mainland in the formats of 3-D, Dmax, and Imax 3-D on Sept 23.
Source: China Daily
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Bastille Day to Hit Theatres in China on September 20
(CRI) An action film on an anti-terrorist mission in France, Bastille Day, will hit theatres around China tomorrow, on September 20th.
Directed by James Watkins, known for films like Eden Lake in 2008 and The Woman in Black in 2012, Bastille Day tells a story of the collaboration between a pick-pocket and former CIA agent in exploring the truth behind a "terrorist attack".
The action thriller, starring Idris Elba, was released in France on the 13th of July.
But on July 14th, a terrorist attack rocked Nice, France, which claimed the lives of 84 people and left over 200 wounded.
This forced film distributor Studio Canal to permanently remove all digital advertising for the film in France.
The studio announced that it would not be removing the film from theaters, but would allow individual theaters to decide whether or not they wished to continue showing the film.
Recently, the China Film Group Corporation introduced the movie into China and announced the release date, September 20th.
Source: CRI
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"A Chinese Odyssey: Part III" dominates Chinese box office
(Xinhua) The domestic fantasy film "A Chinese Odyssey: Part III" topped the Chinese box office in the week ending Sept. 18, earning 250 million yuan (37.5 million U.S. dollars), China Film News reported Monday.
The film, a tribute to Hong Kong star Stephen Chow's previous two action comedies of the 1990s, has been a huge success since it debuted on Sept. 14, especially during the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday.
Hong Kong action film "Z Storm II" took second place, generating 119 million yuan in the week after its release on Sept. 14.
"Cock and Bull," a domestic suspense movie, came third with 78 million yuan in sales in its first week in Chinese theaters.
Domestic romance "Soul Mate" ranked fourth, earning 72 million yuan since hitting screens on Sept. 14.
Rounding out the top five was the U.S. science-fiction film "Star Trek Beyond," which grossed 58 million yuan during the week. It has taken 417 million yuan since its release on Sept. 2.
Source: Xinhua
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Feng Xiaogang wins int'l award but delays new film
China's top director Feng Xiaogang won an award for his new black humor satire "I Am Not Madame Bovary" at the Toronto International Film Festival, but postponed its domestic release amid much speculation about the reasons.
The film, starring Fan Bingbing, Guo Tao, Da Peng, Zhang Jiayi, Zhang Yi and Fan Wei, won FIPRESCI Award for the Special Presentations program from the international film critics' organization at the festival which concluded Sept. 18 with "La La Land" by Damien Chazelle winning the audience award and Pablo Larraín's "Jackie" taking the Platform prize.
"I'm honored, and this award is also the result of Bingbing's hardwork," Feng said in a video he sent to thank the audience after hearing the good news.
Feng and leading actress Fan are currently in Spain to promote the film at the 64th San Sebastian International Film Festival. "I Am Not Madame Bovary" is one of 17 competing for the coveted Golden Shell prize, including Ewan McGregor's directorial debut "American Pastoral" and Baltasar Kormakur's "The Oath."
Feng tried some innovative and creative techniques in making the film, "I Am Not Madame Bovary," which is based on Liu Zhenyun's novel. A major part of it will be shown in the round screen frame, which only shows limited round-shaped imagery on a normal rectangular film screen to create a keyhole effect.
It received rave reviews after premieres in Toronto and San Sebastian. Film critic David D'Arcy of Screen International wrote that the film "has a sublime visual elegance, telling its story much of the time with wondrous pictorial effects in a round frame that feels like a magnifying glass," while Hollywood Reporter's Deborah Young hailed Fan's performance, "Like the fighter she plays, Fan Bingbing holds her own against a big all-male cast who are all against her, and shows off her gifts as a comedienne in a surprisingly low-key role."
However, with all the praise and high public anticipation, the producers suddenly announced they had pushed back the China release date from Sept. 30 to Nov. 18. It will be costly for the producers and distributors, which include Beijing Sparkle Roll Media Corp., Huayi Brothers Media Corp., Beijing Skywheel Entertainment Co., Huayi Brothers Pictures and Zhejiang Dongyang Mayla Media Co., as the promotion for Sept. 30 release was far advanced. The planned China premiere will also have to be canceled.
The stunning delay has stirred much speculation. Industry insiders said it is probably due to some content that has not yet got green light from the censors and needs some adjustment and improvement. The film, about 140-minutes long, tells the story of a rural woman spending two decades fighting for her legal rights after being swindled by her ex-husband, with a focus on China's bureaucratic politics.
After the withdrawal of Feng's film, Guo Jingming's fantasy epic animation "L.O.R.D（Legend of Ravaging Dynasties," Zhang Yibai's romantic feature "Belonged To You," Dante Lam's action film "Operation Mekong" and Wong Jing's comedy "Mission Milano" will compete in the seven-day National Day holiday season starting on Oct. 1.
Source: china.org by zhang rui
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Zhang Ziyi attends awarding ceremony of Toronto Int'l Film Festival
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'I Am Not Madame Bovary' Photocall - 64th San Sebastian Film Festival
Chinese film director Feng Xiaogang, Chinese actress Fan Bingbing and Chinese producer Wang Zhonglei pose for a photocall after the screening of their film "I am not Madame Bovary" during the 64th San Sebastian Film Festival, in the northern Spanish Basque city of San Sebastian on September 18, 2016.
Source: Xinhua
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Chinese film festival pushes for end to gender inequality
(AP) — In films, women and girls are much more likely to take off their clothes than male actors and to be scantily clad in the first place, studies show. Less than a third of speaking characters are female and men outnumber women behind the camera by a ratio of five to one.
Campaigners are highlighting this gender inequality in film at the China Women's Film Festival that runs until Sunday in Beijing, arguing that the phenomenon distorts views of women and the world, and that the male-dominated film industry repeats the same mistakes out of habit.
The nine-day festival features more than 30 Chinese and international films about women's rights, women's achievements and gay women, which are then slated to be shown in more than 10 cities across China.
Festival chairman Li Dan said the aim was to increase the representation of women in film at a time when Chinese audiences have apparently accepted gender inequality in movies.
"Usually people and audiences have the idea that female characters should be pretty, be looking for a good marriage or a rich man or a Mr. Right, and if the movie follows that path it will have a good box office," said Li, who works for Crossroads Center Beijing, a nonprofit working with marginalized groups and the festival organizer. "Very few movies have strong female roles and characters."
Hollywood actresses have also spoken out about a lack of good roles for women and the gender pay gap, among them Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Lawrence and Meryl Streep, who starred in the festival's opening film "Suffragette," about British women's fight for the vote in the early 20th century.
In the last three years, a campaign has gradually been gaining ground to raise awareness of the unequal representation of men and women in movies based on the Bechdel Wallace test, which started out as a joke in a 1986 comic book. To pass the test, a film must have two female characters with names who talk to each other in the film about something other than men. Films that fail the test include "Avatar,"''Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Jungle Book."
Li said that at the end of the festival they plan to write an open letter signed by at least 50 celebrities to major Chinese film producers and cinema companies calling on them to use the test in the hope that it will affect the type of films that are produced and raise awareness of gender inequality in film and society. He also hopes to attract tens of thousands of signatures from the public.
The sponsors of the festival, which runs until Sunday, include the embassies of Holland, Norway, France, Sweden and Britain, and the European Union delegation.
Other independent film festivals have run into trouble from Chinese authorities, but Li said they did not choose films with politically sensitive topics, such as the recently loosened one-child policy.
Although China's constitution enshrines gender equality, some nongovernmental groups promoting women's rights have been closed over the last 18 months amid a more general crackdown on political activism.
Ellen Tejle, who runs an arthouse cinema in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, launched the "A-rate" campaign three years ago to encourage producers, cinemas and the public to submit a film to the Bechdel Wallace gender bias test.
At the China Women's Film Festival, Tejle said that internationally, 7 percent of directors are women and women have 30 percent of the speaking roles — and this hasn't changed since the 1940s.
Even Disney characters Mulan and Pocahontas, who are the protagonists of their respective films, speak for less than a quarter of the speaking time of all the characters, Tejle said. Women's characters are often limited to mothers, wives, girlfriends and princesses and shown without jobs, while male roles are funny, strong and heroic, affecting the dreams that children have for their own lives, she said.
In China, movies tended to portray the ruling Communist Party's ideal of gender equality up until the 1990s, when the film industry went commercial with a view to making money. "Since then, the proportion of female roles has gone down, and sometimes if you remove their roles it wouldn't affect the overall movie," said Li.
Debunking the idea that films with women in the lead role aren't bankable, a study by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in Los Angeles found that they outgrossed films with a male lead:
Among the top 100 grossing non-animated films in North America of 2015, movies with female leads made on average $90 million, while those with male leads made $76 million.
Other research by the Geena Davis Institute has found that in the 11 countries with the biggest box office, a quarter of actresses are shown partially or fully naked as opposed to just over a tenth of male actors. It also found that female teens were just as likely to be sexualized — shown in sexy attire or partially naked— in films as women aged 21 to 39.
Source: Associated Press by Louise Watt
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Rising in the East
In the remote hills of Eastern China, this is a magic kingdom that not even Walt Disney could have dreamed up. It’s called Hengdian World Studios and at over 7,000 acres, it’s the largest film lot on the planet.
A palace for every dynasty, a village for every era, where some of the biggest movies in China have been filmed over the last two decades. These sets aren’t flimsy facades but full-scale brick and mortar replicas of China’s imperial past.
And when the films wrap, a brief silence before the sets are flooded by 15 million tourists who visit every year. It’s all the domain of Xu Wenrong, a one-time farmer who realized his fields were fertile ground for a new industry.
Permission is hardly ever granted to film in the real Forbidden City, China’s iconic landmark, so he built his own.
Holly Williams: It took several hundred years to build the real Forbidden City, and it took you five years to build this one.
Holly Williams: And you made the whole thing from cement?
Xu got the idea for this place 20 years ago after a visit to Hollywood. Movies weren’t big business in China back then, but he spent a billion dollars gambling on their growth.
Holly Williams: Do you feel a bit like an emperor when you come here?
Holly Williams: No, you’re just an ordinary guy...
An ordinary guy whose empire hosts 30 different productions every day. As the film crews compete for space with tourists, who crowd the sets straining to get a glimpse of the stars.
When the cameras start rolling, “movie magic.”
The movie business is booming across China. Shopping malls have popped up everywhere, and with them, theaters. Twenty-two new movie screens open every day, that’s right, every day. In the last five years, box office receipts have grown a staggering 350 per cent!
It’s created a kind of a mass hysteria and something China’s never seen before: star culture. Li Bingbing has been described as China’s Angelina Jolie.
Holly Williams: It feels as if the movie industry here in China is getting more and more like Hollywood.
Li Bingbing: The speed of the development, you can’t imagine, even for us.
Holly Williams: It’s changing so quickly.
Li Bingbing: So quickly. You--
Holly Williams: And--
Li Bingbing: --even you don’t even react, it’s already changed.
And transformed into a multibillion dollar industry. Chinese studios produce over 600 features a year, action movies, sci-fi, thrillers.
Behind them is a group of pioneering movie moguls like Dennis Wang. He once worked as a Chinese food deliveryman in New York and is now chairman of the Huayi Bros, one of the largest studios in the country. The movie business has made him a billionaire, a capitalist with Chinese characteristics.
Last year, he spent $30 million on a Picasso which he keeps in his pocket and in one of his other homes.
Holly Williams: So that’s the Picasso and you bought it from the Goldwyn family, who owned the MGM studios in Hollywood?
Holly Williams: So it’s not so much as a passing of the torch as a passing of the Picasso.
The biggest prize isn’t Picassos, but Hollywood itself. This year, a Chinese company purchased a Hollywood studio for $3.5 billion, others have been investing in multi-movie production deals with American companies to make films for the global market.
Holly Williams: You’re gonna use Hollywood directors, Hollywood stars--
Dennis Wang: Yes.
Holly Williams: --to make English-language films to compete with Hollywood?
Dennis Wang: Yes.
Holly Williams: And make global blockbusters?
Dennis Wang: Yes. I think we’ll be doing it in the next one or two years. Maybe in five years we’ll be doing it really well.
Holly Williams: In five years you’ll be competing with Hollywood.
Dennis Wang: I think we can do it.
Even though China’s economy has slumped in the last year... Dennis’ brother James, the Huayi Bros CEO, says the movie business is recession-proof.
James Wang: When the economy is weak, the movie business does really well. When times are bad, people go to the movies and feel happy and it doesn’t cost them much money.
Holly Williams: So the bad times, actually could be good for the film industry?
James Wang: In the last 20 years, the biggest box office earners have come out when the economy is bad. It’s interesting.
The sheer size of the Chinese market has Hollywood salivating and desperate to get in on the action.
Dede Nickerson is an American film producer who’s spent the last 20 years making movies in China.
Dede Nickerson: Today, if you sit in a green light meeting in a Hollywood studio at any of the studios, at any of the major six studios, there-- China is part of every green light discussion.
Holly Williams: They’re wondering, “Will Chinese audiences--”
Dede Nickerson: Well, they have to.
Holly Williams: --”like this film?”
Dede Nickerson: They-- they have to because oftentimes the Chinese box office is larger than the U.S. box office. Especially for the big blockbuster films.
[Transformers: Whoever they are, there remains a price on my head.]
Blockbusters like Transformers 4, which made $300 million in China, was partly filmed there and co-stars Li Bingbing.
But the Chinese government has a quota system, which only allows 34 foreign films into the country every year. To get around the rule, Hollywood has been co-producing movies in China with local studios.
[Kung Fu Panda: I lost my father. I am so sorry.]
Kung Fu Panda 3 was animated in California and Shanghai at the SAME time and co-produced by DreamWorks and its spinoff, Oriental DreamWorks. Then-CEO James Fong showed us how they were tailoring the movie for both audiences.
James Fong: What we’ve done is actually we are re-animating everything around the mouth and the throat so when you look at a Chinese version of the movie you no longer have a misalignment between the voices and the lip movement
Holly Williams: So in the Chinese version they look as if they are speaking in Chinese.
James Fong: That’s correct.
Holly Williams: Whereas in the U.S. version they look as if they’re speaking English. Has this ever been done before?
James Fong: This has never been done before?
For years, the only movies anyone could watch in China were communist propaganda, revolutionary heroes, patriotic peasants and guerilla soldiers. Those who strayed too far from the party line were thrown in jail, or worse.
As a teenager filmmaker, Chen Kaige was pressured to denounce his own father, also a director, as an enemy of the state.
Chen Kaige: I felt very, very guilty.
Holly Williams: But you were forced to do that by the political situation in China. You were only 14 years old.
Chen Kaige: No, I still feel guilty. Because I had a choice. I had a choice.
In the 90s, after things had loosened up, Chen chose to make films that were critical of the regime like “Farewell My Concubine,” which earned two Oscar nominations and tells the story of opera singers who are persecuted by Communist henchmen.
That movie helped put Chinese film on the map, but today, Chen, one of China’s most venerated filmmakers finds it hard to keep up.
Holly Williams: It’s become big business?
Chen Kaige: Exactly.
Holly Williams: Chinese people want--
Chen Kaige: Chinese people--
Holly Williams: --to see popcorn movies? Want to see blockbusters--
Chen Kaige: That’s totally understandable. You know, they don’t give a s**t. They just say, “Hey, we’re here to watch a movie.”
They’re a generation that’s grown up on China’s booming consumer culture -- and on the surface their lifestyles look more and more like young peoples’ in the West.
Prosperity has transformed China. It’s no longer a closed Communist country. But amidst all this modernity the Chinese government still censors films and decides which ones can be shown in theatres. We asked to speak with the government officials who oversee the film industry here but they declined to be interviewed. Some things haven’t changed.
It’s not easy filming anything in China...those were just private security guards, but when it comes to making movies, the government’s involved in almost every step of the process from deciding which movies get made, to screening the final cut.
Censors held up this World War II epic, “City of Life and Death” for the better part of a year because the film depicted soldiers from Japan, China’s wartime enemy, in a flattering light. Lu Chuan was its director.
Lu Chuan: Because some-- some newspaper does-- put me as a traitor of--
Holly Williams: A traitor?
Lu Chuan: Yes, yes, yes.
Holly Williams: Because you dared to show a Japanese soldier as a human being?
Lu Chuan: Yes. Yeah.
He wasn’t certain his recent film, a monster movie, “Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe,” would fare any better even though it has nothing to do with politics.
Holly Williams: It’s very realistic looking. It’s very frightening--
Lu Chuan: That’s my-- that’s my goal.
Three years ago the government didn’t allow monster movies. Today it does. Navigating the whims of the censors can be treacherous and confusing.
Lu Chuan: They will determine the fate of your movie, you know?
Holly Williams: And can you argue with them?
Lu Chuan: You can talk. You can argue, yes. You--
Holly Williams: Does it work?
Lu Chuan: Sometimes. But you have to compromise.
Hollywood’s been compromising to please the censors too, cutting whole sections out of films before they’re released in China. Like scenes depicting Chinese bad guys in Men in Black 3.
[Men in Black: You arrest me, that’s a hate crime.]
But Dede Nickerson, the China-based American producer, thinks U.S. studios are learning how to avoid that kind of meddling by the government.
Dede Nickerson: You’ll see less and less of that because China is so important to Hollywood that I would say that those decisions are going to get made when a film is being green lit to be careful about what may be offensive to Chinese people or to the Chinese authorities. Because--
Holly Williams: So they won’t need to cut scenes.
Dede Nickerson: They won’t need to cut because--
Holly Williams: They just won’t make them in--
Dede Nickerson: because--
Holly Williams: --the first place.
Dede Nickerson: --they won’t make them in the first place.
Self-censorship is the cost of doing business in China and a price U.S. studios are willing to pay. But Hollywood’s biggest challenge isn’t Chinese government interference. It’s competition from a young and dynamic industry.
Dede Nickerson: They are smart. They understand storytelling. They are super well-versed in what works in their own country. They are super well-versed in what works globally. I couldn’t be more excited. So I would say-- you know, Hollywood, watch out.
Source: CBS by Holly Williams
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The China Box-Office Boom That Wasn’t
Box-office receipts during the Mid-Autumn Festival, a three-day holiday this month, fell 15% compared with last year, despite moviegoers having an additional day off this year. The poor showing follows a similarly disappointing summer. Box-office receipts from June to August fell 4% from a year ago, according to Deutsche Bank . This is an abrupt change of sentiment from just the turn of the year. Goldman Sachs said in January it expected China’s box office to grow another 30% this year to $8.6 billion, after a nearly 50% gain last year. And the year did have a promising start, too. “The Mermaid,” directed by popular Hong Kong comedian Stephen Chow, raked in $527 million in the country, becoming China’s highest-grossing movie ever.
One key reason for this year’s surprise decline is that online-ticket vendors have cut back discounts.
Major Chinese tech giants including Alibaba and Tencent have poured billions of dollars into so-called online-to-offline services, which connect users to brick-and-mortar businesses, and selling movie tickets is one of their key battlefields. Their online-ticketing platforms gave out massive subsidies so cinemagoers were getting tickets for as low as $1.50. Around 60% of people in China now buy movie tickets online, according to film-research company EntGroup.
Things have changed, however, after two state-run industry groups said last year that online-ticket vendors could be blacklisted if they sell tickets below a minimum price set by the theater operators and movie studios. Regulators have also cracked down on “ghost screenings,” a common marketing strategy in which distributors buy bulk tickets to inflate box-office figures.
Analysts that were bullish at the beginning of the year have turned more downbeat. Nomura, for example, reduced the market’s overall growth forecast this year to 8%, from 25%, earlier this month.
Stocks that rode on last year’s movie boom have gotten beaten up. IMAX China , majority owned by IMAX Corp. , has fallen 35% from its peak in December. Wanda Cinema , China’s largest cinema chain, controlled by the country’s richest man Wang Jianlin, has nearly halved over the same period.
The full-house for China’s movie industry has turned out to be not that full after all.
Source: Wall Street Journal by Jacky Wong
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Hollywood Under Pressure to Put More Chinese Actors in the Spotlight
Male or female? It didn’t matter. And what was the role, exactly? That wasn’t clear, either.
“They want to have a Chinese component. They don’t necessarily know what it is,” said one talent agent.
It was yet another example of a new Hollywood ritual—finding Chinese actors to cast in U.S. films to try to appeal to audiences in China, which is on track to become the world’s largest box office in the next couple of years.
The tactic has yielded mixed results.
Chinese audiences cheer homegrown actors who secure meaningful roles in Hollywood blockbusters, such as Shanghai-born actress and pop singer Angelababy did when she played a fighter pilot in “Independence Day: Resurgence” this summer. But quick cameos that come across as a ploy to win Chinese fans tend to fall flat.
When Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing starred in 2014’s “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” she had one line: “Time’s up.”
Beijing Daily, a state-run local newspaper, said in a 2014 article that her earlier cameo in the Chinese version of “Iron Man 3” was “quite embarrassing.” Though her part in “X-Men” was more significant, it still “triggered controversy after it is released here.”
“X-Men” studio Twentieth Century Fox declined to comment.
Chinese moviegoers even have a term to describe actresses who serve as little more than props in Western films: “flower vases.”
“That’s where people have struggled a bit—not acting like the person is product placement, like the way you would find a beer can in a movie,” said Rob Moore, vice chairman at Viacom Inc. ’s Paramount Pictures.
China is the world’s second-largest movie market, with $5 billion worth of tickets sold so far this year, according to EntGroup Inc., compared with $8.1 billion in the U.S. After years of strong growth, ticket sales in China have stalled this year, though it is still expected to overtake the U.S. in the next few years.
So far this year, nearly 57% of China’s total box-office receipts were from Chinese films. But ticket sales for the first half of 2016 show a trend that has Hollywood worried: Imported movies accounted for 46.9% of ticket sales for those six months, compared with last year’s 53.5%. More Chinese movies are driving Chinese consumers to the multiplex, ratcheting up the need for Hollywood to find new ways to get them into seats.
Tina Yu, a Beijing-based consultant, said she wouldn’t watch a film just because it featured a Chinese actor. “Most of these Chinese stars, especially actresses, simply feature in a film as a ‘flower vase’ or just as a bystander,” she said. “For me, I watch a film for its story.”
Several forthcoming titles such as “God Particle” and the next Star Wars film, “Rogue One,” feature actors who are relatively unknown to Western audiences but command massive fan bases in China.
For the actors, securing the right role in a Hollywood film “opens the door to fame in the Western world,” said Darren Boghosian, an agent at United Talent Agency who represents Chinese stars including Angelababy and Li Bingbing, who had a small role in “Transformers: Age of Extinction” and took English classes to become more appealing to U.S. casting directors.
“If you’re famous in America, you’re famous all over the world. If you’re famous in China, you’re only famous in China,” said Mr. Boghosian. UTA and other major Hollywood talent agencies have built China divisions to represent local talent.
Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. , which produced “Now You See Me 2,” began having conversations about finding a role for Jay Chou, a singer popular in China, in the movie before the script was developed. Qiu Jie, chief executive of Beijing-based Leomus Pictures International, released the movie in mainland China and suggested Mr. Chou to the studio.
“We emphasized that the added Chinese actor in this film should be meaningful and proper,” said Mr. Qiu. “We understand that a Chinese character will not be a lead role in the film. But if you can at least do that, the local audiences will not criticize it.”
The original “Now You See Me” grossed $23 million in China when it was released in 2013; the sequel collected $97 million, making it Lions Gate’s highest-grossing movie in the market.
Executives say the roles must naturally fit into the plot or else audiences in every country become disillusioned. Angelababy fends off aliens as part of a global-fighter brigade in “Independence Day.”
Mr. Chou’s character in “Now You See Me 2” runs a magic shop that the main characters visit in Macau.
“If you can work it into the story line organically, it makes the movie bigger and more global,” said Lora Kennedy, executive vice president of casting at Time Warner Inc. ’s Warner Bros., which is releasing “Kong: Skull Island” with Chinese actress Jing Tian next year.
Chinese stars also can help Hollywood navigate China’s restrictive regulations.
U.S. studios face restrictions in how they can market their movies in China that scale back the frequency of traditional methods such as billboards and television commercials. One tactic taking hold: Hiring Chinese pop stars with large social-media followings to record theme songs to the movies that play on local radio and serve as de facto advertisements.
“It gives you another way in,” said Mr. Moore at Paramount, which released “Transformers.”
The theme song for “Now You See Me 2,” sung by the film’s Mr. Chou, had a chorus that called out the film: “Now you see me ‘cause I let it be / Wanna find the key you gotta follow my beat.”
Source: Wall Street Journal by Erich Schwartzel
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