BEYOND CULTURAL BORDERS
Coproduction is a hot topic at the ongoing Beijing International Film Festival, with Chinese studios looking to invest more. Xu Fan reports.
Feng Xiaogang’s directorial comedy Big Shot’s Funeral, a Sino-US film in 2000, marked the turning point for coproduction in Chinese cinema. Miao Xiaotian, general manager of the China Film Co-Production Group, says the movie led to the rise of Chinese filmmakers’ status in international coproduction.
It was the first time the Chinese side took major control over a joint film’s creation since China started to coproduce movies with foreign countries in 1979.
“In the past, most Chinese studios were unable to afford big-budget films and so their foreign collaborators had the final say. But that has changed a lot over the past two decades, thanks to the rapid expansion of the Chinese movie industry,” Miao tells China Daily on the sidelines of the ongoing Beijing International Film Festival.
Last year, China had 63 coproductions, including The Foreigner, a Sino-British film starring Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan that was well received both at home and in overseas markets.
With the growth in box-office figures and the increased availability of high-tech screens, Chinese filmmakers are becoming more and more confident in teaming up with foreign players.
And coproduction is a hot topic at this year’s Beijing festival, which is among the country’s top annual cultural events.
Wang Zhonglei, executive president of film company Huayi Brothers, says language barriers and cultural differences are still major hurdles for coproduced movies.
“But China is totally different from what it was 20 years ago. It has become one of the most important markets in the world,” says Wang at a forum discussing coproductions at the festival.
Huayi Brothers was a Chinese producer of Big Shot’s Funeral that also had Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia as a producer.
“European and US film companies can research what Chinese audiences would like if they want to make a movie for the global market now,” Wang adds.
According to mtime.com, China’s annual box office was merely 1.4 billion yuan ($223 million) in 1998, with around 25 percent, or 360 million yuan, earned by James Cameron’s disaster epic Titanic. But the yearly figure in 2017 rocketed to 56 billion yuan, and four of the top five grossers were Chinese movies.
The Motion Picture Association of America says seven Hollywood movies, including The Fate of the Furious and Kong: Skull Island, earned more in China than in North America in 2017.
With more young Chinese who are educated overseas working in the film industry, coproductions between China and Western countries should become easier, Wang says, but adds that it might take long before a successful formula to win markets in the country and abroad is found.
To date, the two highest-grossing Chinese films in North America are Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Zhang Yimou’s Hero (2002), both martial arts sagas.
And the highest-grossing films in China are the military-themed Wolf Warrior 2 (2017) and Operation Red Sea.
Speaking about the different tastes in genres, Wang says martial arts movies, a big attraction for the Western audience, are no longer a mainstream genre in China.
But good stories will never be outdated even though the standard for popularity has changed, as most foreign veterans at the forum point out.
Stephen Odell, the general manager of Sony Columbia International, says Indian films such as Three Idiots, PK and Dangal, have won critical acclaim and commercial success in China.
All starring Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, the films deal with social messages of one kind or another that resonate with the Chinese audience.
Odell says the audience wants familiar but also fresh stories, and advises the new generation of filmmakers in China to be creative, stay true to themselves and then “talk about the global market”.
Echoing a similar view, Hollywood director Reny Harlin says a successful coproduction “doesn’t have to be about Chinese mythology or culture, but should be related to Chinese audiences and resonate with them”.
He also suggests bilingual teams as a practical way to reduce misunderstandings in coproductions.
“If I were a young film student in Hollywood, I would study Mandarin right now,” he says.
Animation is believed to be a genre that can easily cross cultural borders.
Rob Minkoff, famous for the 1994 Disney hit The Lion King, gives the instance of Coco, Pixar’s highestgrossing film in China of all time, and says its key to success is storytelling. It isn’t a movie made for the Mexican audience, but for all those who are curious about Mexican culture, he adds.
What’s interesting about cinema is that it has a special power to bring culture from anywhere in the world and transport audiences to any culture that they want to know, Minkoff says.
In another movie event in the Chinese capital, director Matt Murphy said at the opening of the 9th New Zealand Film Festival in Beijing on Tuesday that the fundamental elements for a successful coproduction were good storytelling, relatable characters and being entertaining.