Ticket to the top

China prepares to become world's biggest film market, but producers are being put to the test

Just as you can be sure that every Disney film has a happy ending, the final scene in the story about the rise of China's film industry seems to be ever more predictable: Within a few years, analysts say, the country will become the world's biggest film market.

How Chinese cinema manages to drag in the revenue to accomplish that is now being played out, but not everyone in the audience is happy with the way the story is unfolding.

China-foreign co-productions have been popular for several years now, seen as a neat way of taking care of financing and getting around tough Chinese limits on foreign films. However, successful films in the genre are a difficult balancing act.

Box office takings are one important gauge of such success, as is a movie's reputation in both markets.

In 2010, The Karate Kid, which starred Jaden Smith and told the story of a youngster from the US studying kung fu in China, topped North American box office takings for two weeks, bringing in about $177 million (140 million euros), but in China it was all but ignored, grossing a miserly $8.1 million.

Last year the movie Ironman 3 took in $125 million in China, one-tenth of its global total, the second-highest box office of the year in the country after Stephen Chow's Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons.

Two versions of Ironman 3 were made, one specifically for China, with Chinese actress Fan Bingbing among the stars.

Zhang Baixue, 26, a regular moviegoer in Beijing, says: "Fan Bingbing and (another Chinese actor) Wang Xueqi are embarrassing to watch. Fan's stiff character makes absolutely no contribution to the narrative. When they appeared on the screen I just wanted to edit them out."

Gan Xiaowu, 30, a teacher in Beijing, says Ironman 3's Chinese characters disgusted him.

"You can count Fan's screen time in the movie in seconds. She was almost irrelevant, and it was obvious

Hollywood simply wanted to pander to Chinese audiences."

In July, Transformers 4 hit Chinese screens and in four weeks pulled in $321 million.

In the film X-Men: Days of Future Past, which came out in China in May and took $117 million in four weeks, many a Chinese audience scoffed at the sight of Fan playing the role of Blink, and Wu Gang playing China's minister of defense.

"In Transformers 4, all the Chinese actors and actresses were good-looking, but it seemed as if none of them knew how to act," Zhang says. "They appeared exaggerated and affected. It was dreadful to see all the Chinese brands in the movie, too, and other superficial Chinese elements. Let's face it: All co-productions suck."

Many Chinese moviegoers say that one reason China-US film collaboration seems so cosmetic is that the country's stars are being given such flimsy roles.

Lora Yan Chen, president of China Media Consulting in California, and a visiting professor at the Beijing Film Academy, who has worked in Hollywood since 1997, says producers there first think about how to blend actors or actresses into a movie, no matter which country they come from.

"They sometimes first find the stars and change the story plot accordingly. To attract audiences in a certain market, they find the most popular stars for it."

However, as more Chinese investment pours into Hollywood and as box office takings in China grow about 30 percent a year, there is a general expectation that in co-productions Chinese actors will be given more than cursory roles and Chinese elements will be more than mere add-ons.

Further than that, Chinese film industry insiders foresee broader collaboration with their US counterparts, and that expectation is already evident in the multimillion-dollar film industry deals that are drawing the two together.

The biggest of these was the deal announced in May 2012 that turned AMC Entertainment, the second-largest film exhibitor in North America, into the world's largest cinema chain when Dalian Wanda Corporation, a real estate behemoth that is China's biggest film distributor, bought it for $2.6 billion.

Several weeks later National Film Capital Co Ltd, a Chinese government-backed entertainment firm, said it would invest $300 million in 10 English-language movies. One of them will star a Chinese superhero called Ming the Annihilator, created by Stan Lee, the creator of Spiderman and the Incredible Hulk.

In May last year, Legendary East, a spin-off company of Legendary Pictures, a film production company in Burbank, California, and China Film Co Ltd, majority-owned by China's largest producer and distributor of Chinese content, China Film Group, signed a multi-year agreement to co-produce big-budget films for the global market. In April, CFC made an eight-figure equity investment in two movies by Legendary Entertainment, CFC's first investment in Hollywood films.

And in September of 2012, it was announced that a joint venture led by Beijing Galloping Horse America in partnership with Reliance MediaWorks of India was buying the visual effects business and production company of US-based Digital Domain for $30.2 million.

In the latest of these deals, in March this year, Huayi Brothers, China's largest private-sector entertainment company, said it would invest between $120 million and $150 million in the new movie company Media 8 owned by former Warner Brothers' president, Jeff Robinov.

It is not only money but also prestige that lies behind deals such as these, says Stanley Rosen, director of the East Asian Studies Center of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California.

"Moves like that of (Dalian Wanda Chairman) Wang Jianlin (to buy AMC) are to get a foothold in Hollywood, and to have people know who they are. It's the first step in getting recognition that they are important people and companies. Even if they lose money at first, they regard it as a short-term loss, and in the long run they benefit."

Shi Chuan, professor of film art and technique at Shanghai University, says: "The other thing is there is simply too much money slushing around in China. Hollywood, with its mature industrial chain, can guarantee more than domestic filmmakers can and that the movies will make money."

Chen of China Media Consulting says she is aware of investors who say that putting their money into Hollywood is a way to gain know-how about the developed filmmaking industry.

"Hollywood knows the secrets of the trade. The people there know how to operate the whole filmmaking process efficiently. They take marketing into account from the very start when they plan a movie. They think about which stars to cast to guarantee box-office success. Chinese filmmakers lack experience and training in this respect, and that's what they can learn from Hollywood.

"Eventually, it is very likely that they will beat Hollywood in the Chinese market."

Hollywood's modus operandi can also shed light for Chinese investors

who wish to go global, says Ben Ji, managing director and producer of Reach Glory Communications, whose business covers investment, production and distribution of movies, drama and animation.

However, Rosen warns of the devilish complexities awaiting anyone tempted to get into the US film industry.

"If you want to invest in Hollywood, you had better have a good legal team and a smart financial team. Hollywood is very fond of taking money from other countries. They've done it for decades. There are a lot of films that never even get made, even if they have drawn a lot of investment. Or they cost more than expected, especially blockbusters. Some need hundreds of millions of dollars."

As for the hope that Chinese movie stars will eventually be given the leading roles in top-notch Hollywood films that their compatriots think they deserve, industry insiders say that this is by no means a given in an industry whose lingua franca is English.

"A movie made in a given language is usually acted by those performers who are fluent in the language," says Jason Squire, an associate professor in the School of Cinematic Arts. "It is the same with English-language movies."

Rosen says that in Hollywood, where the market rules, a lack of international recognition almost automatically rules out the vast majority of Chinese actors. That means the likes of Fan Bingbing and Li Bingbing tend to be cast in supporting roles, even in films for the Chinese market.

Even though the Chinese market is becoming increasingly important, it will continue to be very difficult for Chinese stars to land leading roles in any films in which Hollywood has a production role, Rosen says.

"Chow Yun-fat is probably one of the most successful Chinese faces. In some of the movies in which he was cast he was a leading character, but he has gone back mostly to making Chinese films now. Because the Chinese market is so big, you can do very well in China instead of taking a role like in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End as a pirate in Singapore that was completely limited."

Apart from language, stereotypes of Chinese-Americans also come into play in limiting the opportunities for Chinese stars. The cultural stereotypes are played out as Chinese are all but pressganged into performing kung fu roles, which is why many Chinese female characters in Hollywood movies are exponents of the martial art, such as Li Bingbing's character in Transformers 4 and Zhang Ziyi's in Rush Hour 2.

Also in the US, many American Chinese study hard and become doctors or scientists, the stereotype for many a character in movies or TV dramas.

Chinese stars with big pretensions may draw hope from Japan, two of whose best-known actors, Ken Watanabe (Inception) and Rinko Kikuchi (Babel), have slowly moved into more important film roles, at first as part of sheer marketing and later in recognition of their acting abilities and their popularity worldwide. What makes Watanabe stand out is that he graduated from playing specific Japanese characters such as in Memoirs of a Geisha to his character in Inception, one that could have been played by someone of any nationality.

"We still have a long way to go and a lot to learn," says Ji of Reach Glory Communications. "But if we want to have a movie star as powerful as Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise, it is still probably going to involve Chinese investment and production.

"It's clear that we have very few recognized international stars. I reckon that as we work with Hollywood, the world will get to know them, as is the case with the Bingbings."

However, there is a lot more to producing a successful movie than filling it with stars, and Chinese industry insiders say the way Chinese culture and values are presented to the world can be vastly improved. This calls for people at higher levels to work more closely together, they say.

In many cases Hollywood has been very forward in bending over backward to appeal to the sensitivities of the Chinese market, yet in many cases Hollywood's depiction of China and its people leaves many Chinese cinema-goers cold, if not angry.

"Without doubt, seeing Chinese cities in Hollywood movies is a crowd pleaser, but those feelings can easily change to embarrassment if not outright disgust when it turns out they have nothing to do with the stories," says Yang Yang, 23, a cameraman in Zhengzhou, Henan province.

Rosen says that if producers are interested in the Chinese market, "the China presented will be very positive, like that in 2012 and Kungfu Panda".

"Chinese audiences like to see China as a rising power. In movies like 2012, China saves the world. It is clear that is trying to please China."

Rosen cites the remake of Red Dawn, whose original version was made at the height of the Cold War in 1984, with, perhaps predictably, the Russians as the villains. In the original incarnation of the remake of 2012, Chinese were designated as the bad guys, until someone pointed out how unpalatable, if not offensive, that would be to audiences in the huge Chinese film market.

"As a result, millions of dollars were spent to change the bad guys into Koreans, basically to please China," Rosen says.

That move illustrates how difficult it is to please audiences with films made for more than one market.

Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War of 2011 grossed $95 million in China, but only about $310,000 in the US. On the other hand, the martial arts film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon of 2000, which was successful internationally, fared poorly in China. Last year's Man of Tai Chi, directed by Keanu Reeves, failed in both Chinese and US markets.

Markets have changed, too, and audiences understand more about each other's culture, so cultural elements in co-productions need to be brought up to date, Ji says.

"We are looking for something of universal value that transcends the cultural symbols and traditional narrative plots of the two countries, something like sci-fi, fantasies and superheroes. These are the kinds of things that cross borders."

yangyangs@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 10/17/2014 page1)