Movie industry moving forward
China’s film and cinema sectors continue to thrive despite the impact of COVID-19
From a sustained expansion between 2016 and 2019 to promising recovery in the wake of COVID-19, China’s film industry has shown strong vitality, with the country becoming the world’s largest movie market in terms of box-office sales.
Since Chinese cinemas reopened on July 20, this year’s movie-ticket revenue has reached 14.28 billion yuan ($2.13billion) as of Oct 28, exceeding that of North America and securing China’s status as the world’s largest movie market, according to movieinformation tracker Beacon.
Insiders have said the Chinese film industry is recovering better and faster than estimated, thanks to the country’s efficient control of COVID-19.
Internationally acclaimed director Jia Zhangke said: “Over the last five years, China’s annual film production has gradually increased, and the yearly box-office take has seen considerable growth from 2016 to 2019. As a sizable market, China is now very attractive to filmmakers and distributors across the world.”
Statistics from the China Film Administration show that China grossed 64.3 billion yuan in 2019, up 40 percent compared with 45.7 billion yuan in 2016.
According to the administration, China produced 772 feature-length dramas in 2016, with total output increasing to 798 features in 2017 and 902 in 2018.
Last year, the number fell slightly to 850. Coupled with other genres, including science education and documentaries, China’s annual production reached 1,037 films in 2019.
“When I started to work as a filmmaker in the late 1990s, China produced only around 100 feature films a year,” Jia said.
“The rapid growth provides a wide selection for local movie enthusiasts and lays the foundation for more international exchanges.”
Domestic films’ market share and box-office takings have also grown. In 2016, they earned a total of 26.7 billion yuan, accounting for 58.3 percent of overall box-office revenues. The two figures respectively rose to 37.9 billion and 62.2 percent in 2019.
The highest-grossing blockbusters from 2016 onward have been homegrown works, including Stephen Chow’s The Mermaid, Wu Jing’s Wolf Warrior II, Dante Lam’s Operation Red Sea, Jiao Zi’s Ne Zha and Guan Hu’s The Eight Hundred.
Despite COVID-19, Chinese films had grossed 11 billion yuan as of Oct 15, accounting for nearly 85 percent of total sales, boosted by the war epic The Eight Hundred and National Day blockbusters My People, My Homeland and Jiang Ziya: Legend of Deification.
Lu Chuan, director of City of Life and Death, said: “Statistics can tell us everything. In the early 2000s, China’s annual box-office take accounted for a small proportion of the global total. But since 2016, it has caught up (with the world’s top players).”
He predicts Chinese filmmakers will create more realistic stories following the nation’s COVID-19 battle.
“With the collective memory of the nation’s effort to rescue life and reduce death, Chinese audiences will probably want more positive stories,” Lu said.
Rao Shuguang, president of the China Film Critics Association, said Chinese cinema has diversified genres, visual effects and storytelling that have raised it to a new bar, thanks to growing viewer sophistication.
Stellar casts and heavy special effects no longer secure films’ commercial success. Instead, heartfelt and resonant stories are more likely to succeed locally, he added.
Examples include Dying to Survive, a 2018 runaway hit examining patients’ struggles with high medical costs, and the 2019 coming-of-age blockbuster Better Days, a thoughtprovoking touch on campus bullying.
More successful examples include Wolf Warrior II, China’s all- time highest-grossing film, which sparked patriotic fever, and Ne Zha, the second highest-grosser that retells a household myth from a modern parenting perspective.
While Hollywood blockbusters like Avengers 3 and 4 remain the most appealing imported content, non
Western imports such as Indian hit Dangal and Lebanese film Capernaum have also seen growth in local markets.
The Chinese film industry has sought a bigger presence within the world’s cinematic landscape, from coproduction to recruiting foreign talent and exploring overseas markets.
China has so far signed film coproduction agreements with 22 countries, including the United States, France, Russia, New Zealand, Japan and India. Nearly 250 coproductions were made between 2000 and 2019, 49 of which surpassed the 100 million box-office mark, according to China Film Co-Production Corp.
China Film’s general manager Liu Chun said it has become common to see Chinese studios shooting scenes abroad or inviting foreign filmmakers to take part in domestic projects. Notable examples include Danish two-time Palme d’Or winner Bille August, who directed the World War II film, The Chinese Widow, starring
Liu Yifei in 2017, and British director Simon West — best known in China for Lara Croft: Tomb Raider — who helmed the disaster film, Skyfire, in 2019.
More Chinese directors are filming major scenes overseas. Chen Sicheng’s Detective Chinatown franchise was shot in Bangkok, New York and Tokyo.
But because of the pandemic, Liu said the company has received applications for 41 coproductions but none have begun shooting.
Yu Dong, founder and chairman of Beijing-based studio Bona Film Group, estimates around 10,000 small and medium-sized Chinese film companies have closed due to the outbreak.
But he also pointed to a “silver lining” for Chinese films attempting to break through abroad, believing there will be a shortage of new films globally due to Hollywood’s sluggish recovery.
Yu suggested that Chinese companies expand their distribution networks overseas, with hopes that domestic filmmakers can produce more influential movies, transforming the crisis into an opportunity and helping more Chinese stories reach viewers in Europe and the US.
But for most insiders, the top obstacle for international cooperation remains a decades-long struggle over which stories can engage audiences from different cultural backgrounds.
Alongside Kung Fu Panda 3 as the two most commercially successful international coproductions in the last five years, The Meg — a sci-fi horror flick starring Jason Statham and Li Bingbing — grossed $530 million globally, with 1.05 billion yuan generated on the Chinese mainland.
Director Lu Chuan, who worked for Disneynature to direct the 2016 coproduction Born in China, said Hollywood’s success is built on its use of talent and resources all over the world.
“If China wants to realize the globalization of its domestically produced films, we need to cooperate more with international talent. Festivals can be a good way to increase such exchanges and create opportunities,” he added.
Fu Ruoqing, vice- chairman of China Film Co Ltd and chairman of Huaxia Film Distribution, said: “A good film is naturally born for a big screen,” adding that streaming cannot replace the theatergoing experience.
By the end of 2016, the country had 41,179 screens, exceeding the US at having the most globally.
The China Film Administration released a 2018 guideline encouraging enterprises to accelerate cinema construction in urban areas and financially encouraging theaters to update facilities with state-of-the-art technologies including giant screens and laser projectors.
Before COVID-19 saw Chinese theaters closed on Jan 24 and reopened on July 20, nearly 70,000 screens had been installed in more than 10,000 cinemas, with most capable of screening 3D formats.
Entertainment-technology innovator IMAX has seen its giant-screen network expand from 381 screens in 2016 to about 670 on the Chinese mainland.
Analysts believe the country’s annual theater admissions — 1.7 billion in 2019 — indicate massive potential to draw more moviegoers if more cinemas are constructed in central and western China.
Insiders have noticed that a single phenomenal hit can drive theaters to upgrade, with James Cameron’s sci-fi epic Avatar being the biggest example. With groundbreaking 3D and motion-capture technology, the film — released in China in January 2010 — spurred long lines for the limited 3D-screen tickets. China’s 3D screens increased eightfold a few months after, reported China Business News.
Oscar-winning director Ang Lee’s films Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (2016) and Gemini Man (2019) — both shot in 3D 4K at the extremely high frame rate of 120 frames per second — opened the domestic market for CINITY, a giant-screen system developed by Huaxia Film Distribution, one of the country’s largest film companies.
CINITY has so far screened more than 30 films and has been installed in around 40 Chinese theaters. In the next five years, the system is to be installed in 800 cinemas at home and 300 abroad.