Beijing Film Academy Yearbook 2015 [1 ed.] 9781783206063, 9781783206056

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Beijing Film Academy 2015 Yearbook

Beijing Film Academy Yearbook

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WhyAcademy We MakeYearbook: Art Beijing Film at why it is taught 2015

by Richard Hickman

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First published in the UK in 2016 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK First published in the USA in 2016 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA Copyright © 2016 Intellect Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Copy-editor: MPS Technologies Language editor: Mike Grimshaw Cover designer: Gabriel Solomons Production manager: Jessica Lovett Intellect China Library Series Editor: Hiu M. Chan Typesetting: John Teehan ISBN 978-1-78320-605-6 ePDF ISBN 978-1-78320-606-3 ePUB ISBN 978-1-78320-607-0 Printed and bound by Gomer Press Ltd, UK

Contents Acknowledgement vii Foreword WU Guangping (Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Beijing Film Academy)

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Chapter 1: An Analysis of Educational Characteristics and Developments of Beijing Film Academy: A Reflection of Film Education on the 120th Anniversary of Film 1 HOU Guangming Chapter 2: Annual Report on the Development of China’s Film Industry 2013 LIU Jing, WEI Jinru Chapter 3: On Cinema Operation and Management in the Context of the Cyber-Era ZHANG Huijun, LU Yang, ZHU Tao Chapter 4: The Present State and the Problems of Chinese Cinema LIU Fan Chapter 5: How Will Art Film Make a Real Breakthrough: An Analysis of Several Trends in China’s Art Film Promotion PENG Ke Chapter 6: An Emic Study of the Impact of Jun’ichiro¯ Tanizaki ZHANG Chong Chapter 7: The Lens of an Intertextual Era: Reinterpretation of the Film A Twig of Plum Blossoms QI Xian’gu

11

43

59

83

97

111

Chapter 8: Surpass Stereotypes: Study on Li Wei’s Seventeen-Year Villain Performance 127 DING Ning Chapter 9: Cut-throat Rivalry, Who Will Be the Winner? SHAO Bocong

141

Notes on Contributors

153

Editorial Board Information

155

Acknowledgements The idea of publishing the translated materials of the Journal of Beijing Film Academy arose from a visit to China in 2011, during which Intellect director Mark Lewis met with Professor Wu Guanping, Editor-in-Chief of the journal. The meeting would not have been possible without Dr John Berra’s connections, a regular author of Intellect, and currently a lecturer in Film Studies at Renmin University of China. Furthermore, Professor Sun Hongyun was a great help in ensuring that the conversation was continued after the project’s initial idea was generated; without her determination and ambition, the project would have been just another one of those lost ideas that never materialized.

vii

Foreword Wu Guanping Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Beijing Film Academy Beijing Film Academy (BFA) welcomed its 65th birthday in 2015. Consisting of nineteen departments, BFA has gradually shaped its unique features in the fields of practical teaching and film-making, and has become the biggest higher education film institution in Asia. BFA graduates have produced many important works in Chinese film history. As the foundation of China’s film talent, BFA has also discovered and cultivated numerous Chinese heavyweight film auteurs and actors. In terms of film studies, BFA has successfully carried out a great deal of prominent research in the areas of film ontology, Chinese film history, Chinese film aesthetics, and occidental modern film studies since the 1980s. In recent years, within the realms of the Chinese film industry, film education, motion picture techniques and film culture, faculties and students of BFA have also published a multitude of influential research papers. The nine articles that are included in this issue are representative of scholarships selected from The Journal of Beijing Film Academy of 2014. Each paper contributes to different perspectives and angles within the study of Chinese cinema. The collection of papers discusses the educational philosophy and tradition of BFA, and also dissects and analyzes, in a structured manner, a number of crucial questions about contemporary Chinese cinema, including: the solution for art-house cinema; problems of mainstream commercial cinema; market structure and theatre management in the context of new media. In addition, there are also three papers that contribute particular findings on the topic of historical studies. These papers are, to a certain extent, embodiments of contemporary scholarly research horizons and approaches to studying Chinese cinema. This book aims to fill the gaps with empirical findings and domestic perspectives that are perhaps not often widely articulated within English academia. Wu Guanping Beijing, China

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Chapter 1 An Analysis of Education Characteristics and Developments of Beijing Film Academy: A Reflection of Film Education on the 120th Anniversary of Film HOU Guangming1

F

ilm schools and institutions around the world have their own characteristics and advantages, while the necessity to innovate and develop further always remains the same. In this sense, experiences of other film schools are valuable in promoting the development of higher education film theory and practice. Since its establishment in 1950, Beijing Film Academy (BFA) has gradually formed a unique academic characteristic of film education by means of learning from other film schools. After more than 60 years of development, BFA demonstrates the highest of achievements for Chinese higher film education. This paper aims to share BFA’s experiences with its international counterparts in order to promote film education developments worldwide. A Wide Range of Academic Settings There are a total of sixteen departments (schools) in BFA: screenwriting, directing, cinematography, sound, fine arts, management, film studies, academic foundations, schools of performing arts, animation, photography, film and TV technology, continuing education, institutes of digital media and audio-visual media as well as the international school. The ten bachelor’s programs are screenwriting, directing, performing arts, photography, art design for film and television, sound recording, management for film business, animation, advertising and film studies. In terms of master’s and doctoral degree programs, there are art theory, drama and film studies and fine arts as the first-level disciplines, under which there are art theory, film studies, radio and television arts, film production, performing arts, management, animation and fine arts. Meanwhile, BFA also provides Master of Fine Arts (MFA) and Master of Public Administration (MPA) programs, recruiting graduate candidates in film, radio and television, fine arts, drama, music and art design areas. Founded in 1950 with only three majors at the time, BFA had experienced the expanding of academic settings from very early screenwriting, directing and performing arts to cinematography, sound recording, fine arts, and later management, film studies, film and TV technology and animation. Covering the whole process of film-making, the knowledge and expertise of BFA’s academic subjects are becoming increasingly extensive and specialized. The academic settings of BFA have the following three features. Firstly, the majors are designed according to the film production process, with subjects relating not only to film production but also to film history and theory, film technology and film management. In this way, BFA gradually formed five positively interactive discipline groups of creation, 3

Beijing Film Academy Yearbook: 2015

production, management, audio-visual technology and film studies. The second feature is the specialized disciplines; by 2014, there were a total of 28 specialized orientations under the ten bachelor’s programs. Thirdly, the school simultaneously combines theory with practice in film education, demonstrating a different approach to other film schools that prefer to focus on academic and practical areas separately. Presently, BFA is implementing a reform of academic setting from ‘film-productionprocess-based’ to ‘film-industry-chain-based’, trying to push the boundaries among every single discipline and consequently form multidisciplinary setups. According to the Smiling Curve Theory, BFA will strengthen the ‘creation’ majors that are at the forefront of the industrial chain, and the ‘market’ majors that at the other end. The school will build a comprehensive system of drama, film and art disciplines to support its sustainable development. The year 2014 saw the foundation of the institutes of digital media, audiovisual media and social studies; now two first-level disciplines of music and dance and fine arts and design are also under construction. A Rich and Solid Talent Cultivation System BFA creates a multi-layered film talent training system, which takes both undergraduate and graduate education as the main body, covering degree education levels of bachelor, master, doctoral, post-doctoral, higher vocational education, continuing education, overseas student education and also film business training. Within BFA, there is the High Vocational College (training junior college students), the School of Continuing Education (training college students and non-degree students) and the International School (training international students). Vocational students’ education concentrates primarily on skills, while undergraduates focus on creation, graduates (post graduates) on both creation and research and doctors (post-doctors) on research only, while the focus for non-degree students is on ability to adapt to the film industry. It is in this way that BFA has formed skill-based, creationbased, production-based, research-based and also elites-based talent training programs. Before 1956, BFA was only a technical school, after which it became an undergraduate school. Postgraduates were recruited from 1984, doctoral students from 2006, and postdoctoral researchers from 2014, with the level of talent training constantly improving. In order to adapt to the market, BFA established the School of Continuing Education in 1987, High Vocational College in 2003 and the School of Creative Media in 2010 following the economic reform in China. For film practitioners, BFA established training centres in other parts of China, as well as in the United States and Europe, offering a variety of training courses. The steady improvement of talent training levels and forms of training has the realistic target of meeting the development needs of higher education and film production in China. Focusing on the future, gaining experience from international film schools and combining them with its self-reality, BFA develops its own conception of talent training. This is achieved through reinforcing the scale, structure, quality and features of undergraduate 4

An Analysis of Education Characteristics and Developments of Beijing Film Academy

education; developing post-graduate education; focusing on MFA and academic doctoral programs; supporting continuing education, vocational college education and distance education; and finally combining academic with non-academic education. Based on a win–win cooperation, BFA supports the Institute of Creative Media to become a well-known film education institution for the public. Meanwhile, BFA is exploring ways in which to build affiliated middle and elementary schools. It is undertaking the project of launching ‘the affiliated high school – undergraduate school’, a kind of training lasting for seven years, with the aim of training film-reserved personnel. Additionally, high-level training for various levels will be run in order to meet the evolving needs of the film industry. The academy eventually hopes to achieve a newly-cultivated structure for five different kinds of potential: skilled, creative, productive, academic and high-end. An Interactive Academic Pattern of Teaching, Research and Creation Based on different discipline groups, BFA has set up the China Film Culture Institute, China Film Industry Institute, China Film High-Tech Institute and China Film Education Research Center, each dedicated to film innovation and applied research. The Journal of Beijing Film Academy is one of the most influential film journals in China, while the department of film studies is a department engaging specifically in film theory. In fact, China’s theoretical film system is based on the efforts of generations of film-makers from BFA. Furthermore, the school strongly encourages film research, through which teachers can nurture their research into teaching. BFA attaches great importance to the construction of a creative environment. As early as 1953, the internship office, responsible for teaching internships and practice, had been set up based on the performance section. In 1958, the internship office was renamed the Experimental Film Studio of BFA with a more expansive scale and scope of teaching practice. Invested in by BFA in 1979, the Youth Film Studio was established with independent legal qualifications. It is a state-owned, school-run enterprise based on the former Experimental Film Studio, combining film production, teaching practice and artistic practice. The school hosts a regular ‘creating holiday’ to encourage teachers to create, and to include their creative achievements in the evaluation system. In this way, teachers are also able to incorporate their many practical experiences into their teaching. Research uses creativity as a basis, while creative practice follows research as guidance, thus forming an ethos that aims to create a positive teaching–research–creative interaction pattern. In the 1980s, BFA exercised a ‘Triangular System’ in teachers’ work, which comprises three years of teaching, three years of production and three years of research. In terms of the general international paradigm, film schools are responsible for the task of teaching, industries are responsible for the task of production, and universities are responsible for research. However, BFA is responsible for all three functions, demonstrating a unique exception to the traditional framework. 5

Beijing Film Academy Yearbook: 2015

Similar to that of America, current Chinese film education has formed the all-round structure that takes one or several professional film institutions as the core (BFA in China). As a discipline, China’s film education has been carried out in more than 700 colleges and universities since the 1990s, 76 percent of which have set up professional film majors, while middle and elementary schools also have begun to offer film lessons. In the fiercely competitive surroundings of higher film education, it is important that film schools look to the future, not only concentrating on production and research, but also on the positive interaction of teaching, research and production, of which teaching is the core, scientific research is the foundation and production is the supporting strength. Therefore, BFA positions itself as a comprehensive school for teaching, research and production. To further improve the discipline’s ecosystem, and to enhance the original innovation ability, BFA proposed to transform from a single-discipline construction to multidiscipline one, from undergraduate-education based to both undergraduate- and graduate-based, which, in turn, consolidates and expands the school’s academic strengths. A Specialized and Versatile Training Mode BFA’s utilizes the ‘multi-skill’ training mode, which means students specialize in one major, while simultaneously including other subjects. On the one hand, subjects are refined according to the film-making process so as to meet the needs of different degrees. On the other hand, the subjects have been fully integrated and thus support one another, forming a curricular system of public fundamental courses, professional fundamental courses, professional orientation courses, graduation co-work and exhibitions. The school is always committed to the professional fundamental courses, while continuing to provide general education with the possibility of film study as an implementation. Students, when studying their own professional courses, are therefore also able to use the influence of various other professional courses. There are two fundamental kinds of film teaching systems in the world: (1) the professional education system common in Europe and Asia which, similar to the Moscow Film Academy (VGIK), primarily cultivates professional training; and (2) the general education system, mainly adopted by schools in the United States such as the Film & Television School of New York University (NYU). BFA’s system progressed through the Soviet Union’s political and artistic influence before China’s economic reform, as well as learning from Europe and the United States. By absorbing the experiences of both Soviet and Western education systems, it has developed its own unique style; it is not just the American way, nor the Russian way, but rather a combination of the two. With the goal of reaching an excellent level, the school will continue to put more emphasis on enhancing students’ qualities in humanities, international communication, and ability to adapt to the market on the basis of solid film-producing techniques. To this end, the school will provide more humanities and management courses, creating more 6

An Analysis of Education Characteristics and Developments of Beijing Film Academy

internship opportunities and furthering the reform of the credit system. This measure will also make it possible for students of varying backgrounds, levels, schools and even countries to communicate with one another. A Standardized and Effective ‘Double Practice’ (Social and Art Practice) System The general consensus of film schools worldwide is that film education has to orientate itself to life and society. In terms of practice, each film school has its own features, such as the School of Theatre, Film & Television of the University of California, LA (UCLA), which attaches great importance to the practice of training, building its curricular system in accordance with the market. The teaching staff, especially teachers of practical courses, are also front-line experts within the film industry. Many teaching sections and teaching facilities are integrated into the Hollywood industrial system, allowing students access to practical training throughout the film industry and subsequently arming them with excellent hands-on skills. BFA is one of the film schools worldwide that possesses its own unique set of characteristics in practice. It has its own practice bases on campus – the Youth Film Studio and the television laboratory, both of which are equipped with advanced facilities – in addition to a selection of off-campus practice bases. The Youth Film Studio not only acts as an organizing and guiding unit for students’ film-making practice, but also as a production unit for BFA teachers’ innovative practices. The studio is available for regular commercial film production, having already produced a large number of outstanding films as well as many graduate students’ works, comprising different variations of 35-mm Dolby digital productions that form a new kind of short film in China’s film market. In recent years, HD digital feature films, HD documentaries, HD digital experimental films and the practice of converting digital animation to film in the Youth Film Studio have all increased significantly. From 2010 to 2013, the Youth Film Studio produced a total of 67 graduate works, 34 of which participated in international film festivals and exhibitions, winning a combined total of 58 awards. Furthermore, more than twenty feature films won awards both at home and abroad. Students have their in-class practice as well - by taking advantage of school equipment as well as their own resources, most of the students have opportunities to produce their own works during school hours. BFA places equal value on art and social practice, again differing from the approach of many other more art-centred film schools, through building a two-level social practice system of school and department, and taking September as the ‘social practice month’. In the future, BFA plans to further combine education with industry. Based on China’s ‘2011 Plan’, and in conjunction with a number of film-related enterprises, the school will carry out a school-enterprise co-production project and a scholarship program to encourage active practice for students. The Youth Film Studio has also made a three-step ‘start by number, fight by quality, win by reputation’ plan, with the goal of laying a solid foundation for the future cultivation of talent. 7

Beijing Film Academy Yearbook: 2015

A Comprehensive and High-level Platform for International Exchange BFA is a member of Centre International de Liaison des Ecoles de Cinema de Television (CILECT), establishing a relationship of cooperation and exchange in professional film education, academic research and academic visiting schemes with 40 film institutions across more than ten countries and regions. The International Students Film and Video Festival (ISFVF) has become the largest and most influential student film festival in Asia. Every year, students from more than 40 film and television institutions in 30 or more countries and regions participate in ISFVF, which has received high evaluation and active participation from all around the world. Before China’s reform, BFA learned primarily from the Soviet Union. In the 1950s, in order to meet the needs of teaching, the school sent students to the German Democratic Republic to study screenwriting, cinematography, fine arts and other film projects, as well as sending specialists to the Soviet Union to study film education and inviting Soviet experts to give lectures in China. In the 1960s, the department of cinematography accepted students from Vietnam, Cambodia, Algeria and Indonesia, and the department of directing accepted students from Algeria. World-famous film-makers and theorists such as Joris Even, Georges Sadoul, Thira Philips and Yamamoto Sarver have visited and given lectures at BFA. Following the reform, the school inceasingly gained influence from Western film schools, gradually building up a world-class film education system with Chinese characteristics and establishing a network of international exchanges. BFA is committed to a transition of the way in which the school is run, from an open education system to an internationalized education system. It has formulated an internationalization development strategy, encouraging teachers and students to study abroad, inviting international film-makers to China and promoting the ‘2+2’ and ‘2+3’ cooperation of education, research and film-making. The branch school in Singapore has been established and the construction of the Confucius Institute is currently being planned. Based on the China Film Education Research Center, the school carries out research and evaluation of the top film schools across the globe, with plans to create an official ranking of international film schools. BFA hosted an International Film Educational Forum in 2014, and will also host the International Film Schools Chancellor Forum in 2015 to discuss the establishment of an alliance between the world’s top film schools. Strong Guarantee of Elite Education Conditions Most film schools implement elite training programs, recruit a small number of students, and teach in small classes, all of which are features of BFA. The student–teacher ratio in BFA is about 10:1, and each major has an average number of eighteen students. Teachers at BFA all have a rich creative background, and both domestic and international film-makers 8

An Analysis of Education Characteristics and Developments of Beijing Film Academy

are invited to give lectures as adjunct professors, ensuring that the quality of teaching remains as high as possible. Furthermore, BFA has a number of excellent advantages, one of which is the system funding advantage. The vast majority of colleges and universities in the world are private, such as UCLA and NYU, and either charge exorbitant tuition fees to ensure the upgrading of equipment, or depend on donations and funds from graduates and leading film-makers to maintain the highest standards of teaching conditions. In Europe, film schools are generally funded by the government or industry associations, while BFA is co-funded by the Beijing Municipal Government, the Ministry of Education, and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT). Not only is it backed by social funding, but it also has its own council and alumni association. With the growth of China’s economy, the number of art candidates has grown to around one million. BFA calls for a national enrolment. In 2014, the school enrolled 512 students across ten disciplines which, with the total number of applicants approaching 19,000, represented an admission rate of just 2.7%. Most of those applying had strong abilities, ensuring that those who were eventually selected were exceptionally talented students. By 2014, the fixed assets of the school amounted to 676,021,900 RMB, of which teaching and research equipment make up 408,002,200 RMB, accounting for 60.35% of the total assets of the school. These figures leave the average value of research equipment per student as high as 120,000 RMB (including higher vocational students). The average cost to train a student was around 80,000 RMB, with the number rising as high as 280,000 RMB per student in the department of cinematography. To ensure the development strategy, the school proposes that education development should be a dialectical unity of connotation and extension. A new campus is under construction, covering an area of 500 acres and accommodating 4,000 students, officially making BFA the world’s largest and most powerful film school. Excellent Campus Culture BFA has a beautiful campus. The design and construction is vivid and harmonious, full of historical and cultural connotations. There are statues of Chinese film education pioneers including Chen Boer, Zhang Min, Zhong Jingzhi and Wu Yinxian, as well as many other on-campus art sculptures and ancient architecture models, such as the artistic pyramid. In addition, posters, LED displays and stone mottos can be seen everywhere, with each department possessing its own distinctive style of decoration. These features combine to present a rich film atmosphere with professional characteristics. The school has its own visual branding design, including a standardized school badge and flag, as well as colours, names and both Chinese and English standard fonts. There is also a unified series of signs, business cards, PowerPoint templates, office supplies, 9

Beijing Film Academy Yearbook: 2015

promotional materials and souvenirs. The School History Room (China Film Museum), which comprehensively exhibits the history of film education development in China, has a distinctive official website, an album to introduce the school’s cultural attractions, and books explaining the history of the school, such as BFA History, Interviews with Professors, and Old Photos of BFA. BFA exhibits a harmonious academic atmosphere that promotes creation and exploration. In contrast to many other international film schools, undergraduates in the school live and study at the campus together. The close relationship between the students and the faculty facilitates a greater access to cross-disciplinary knowledge. The school screens two Chinese and two foreign films every week for students. During the undergraduate period, a student will watch around 160 to 180 movies per year, and a total of 650 to 800 over the four-year period. Based on the number of movies screened both during and outside of class, this figure may even increase in the future. BFA hosts various student activities, such as BFA TV, BFA Troupe, Youth Volunteer Association and many other communities, among which ISFVF is the pinnacle. Furthermore, the schools organize a series of guest lectures such as the School Forum, Screening of Masters, the Management Forum, Paradise Theatre, Liberal Arts Classes, Alumni Communication, Retrospective of Film Masters Pieces, and the Sino-US Film Master Seminar. There are also a number of award ceremonies, including the Xianli Award, the Golden Character Award, the Animation Academy Award, the Ding Run Award and the Director Award, as well as a series of film weeks, such as World Cinema Week, Ethnic Film Week and Film Concerts. In this way, BFA has been able to build a cultural feast of art over the years. In BFA, you can learn about, discuss and make films. You can communicate with excellent alumni and have opportunities for international communication. You may also have contact with the industry, or even be lucky enough to communicate with wellknown Chinese and international film-makers. Conclusion Two of the fundamental characteristics of BFA are its self-recognition and its selfpositioning. With the development of China’s economy and film industry, BFA will surely continue to thrive in the coming years. In the future, it will become increasingly necessary to learn from other film schools worldwide. On the 120th anniversary of film, let us come together and enjoy the next 120 years of film, for a greater contribution to film education. Endnote 1. 侯光明

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Chapter 2 Annual Report on the Development of China's Film Industry 2013 LIU Jing, Wei Jinru1

Part I. Market Performance 1. High-Speed Growth of National Box Office for Domestic Films There were a total 638 drama films produced by mainland China in 2013, an amount which, although slightly reduced in comparison to 2012, illustrates the general tendency of increasing production quantity and the growing number of films released year by year (Figure 2.1). Sixty films were imported from other countries, with the gross box office revenue of China’s film market in 2013 reaching 21.769 billion RMB (an increase of 27.51% from the previous year) highlighting the ever-rapid growth of the film industry (Figure 2.2). China’s share of the global market increased from 7.8% to 12% in 2013 (Figure 2.3), making the country an important driving force in expanding the global film market.

Figure 2.1. The output and the release of domestic productions (2009–2013).

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Beijing Film Academy Yearbook: 2015

Figure 2.2. Comparison of box office performance for local productions and imported films (2004–2012).

Figure 2.3. China’s share of the global film market in 2013.

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Annual Report on the Development of China's Film Industry 2013

Figure 2.4. Comparison of local and imported films.

Of the 4.7 billion box office growth in the Chinese film market, 96% was contributed by domestically produced movies, which proved to be the primary reason for the increase of China’s share of the global film market. Of the overall box office revenue, domestic productions accounted for 12.767 billion RMB, with imported films responsible for 9.002 billion RMB, a respective annual increase of 54.32% and 2.30% (Figure 2.2). To compare the box office shares within specific groups, six of the top ten and eight of the top twenty grossing production were domestic, occupying 71% and 49% of the market, respectively (Figure 2.4). Thus it can be seen that the individual capacity of domestic blockbusters in terms of ticket sales rose significantly, giving a strong lift to the developmental momentum of national cinema. There remains, however, the issue of the limited number of blockbusters, suggesting that a number of those films produced may have performed below expectations. 2. The Rapid Growth in Number of Screens Led to an Increase of Box Office Revenue At the beginning of 2013 there were 903 newly established multiplexes nationally, a figure which, by the end of the year, had risen to 18,195 screens in total. Combined, all the cinemas screened 18.85 million times throughout the year – an increase of 8.21 million from the previous year. In total, there were 613.4 million moviegoers, representing an 15

Beijing Film Academy Yearbook: 2015

Figure 2.5. Comparison of growing numbers of screens and box office figures (2006–2013).

increase of 32% from the previous year. Looking at the growth-rate curves of the moviegoing population, the total number of screens and the annual box office figures (Figure 2.5), it appears that there has been a steady decrease in the moviegoer population since 2012. The growth percentage of number of screens, on the other hand, is slightly higher than that of the box office. Simultaneously, in 2013, the nationwide average attendance rate of all cinemas barely hit 15%, suggesting that the growth of box office revenue in China relied principally on the expansion of exhibition channels that was represented by the fast-increasing number of screens. The entire industry was still at the primary stage of extensive development, where the potential for growth and the risks of the market continued to coexist. Regional distribution of box office portrays a somewhat unbalanced picture; among the cities examined, the top four generated a gross revenue of 5.2 billion RMB, accounting for 24% of national ticket sales. Most of the high box office figures were created within 16

Annual Report on the Development of China's Film Industry 2013

the first- and second-tier cities, particularly those located in South China, suggesting an uneven distribution of revenue. In the meantime, the box office income of the secondand third-tier cities grew rapidly, and some of the third- and fourth-tier cities showed an increase of up to a hundred times the previous figures (Meng 2014). The rapid growth of the urban box office resulted from the vigorous demands of audiences for movie-going that had forcefully driven China’s film market, becoming a defining characteristic of annual development. With audiences generally becoming younger, and the rise of the non-first-tier urban box office, the ‘small-town youth’– young people from non-first-tier cities – became an emerging force among China’s moviegoers. The ‘small-town youth’ are currently characterized by a number of factors. First of all, there is their huge population and the

Table 2.1. Top 10 rankings of urban box offices in China in 2013. Source: EBOT, Daily Box Office Think Tank of Entgroup, www.entgroup.cn.

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Beijing Film Academy Yearbook: 2015

fact that they are used to watching films with families, which creates a radiation effect that can significantly expand box office earnings. Second, there is the intention of consuming movies. They see the cinema as a symbol of fashionable urban life, with their increasing consumption highlighted by a general rise in income. Although they may have more free time, their cultural and entertainment lifestyles cannot truly compare to those of first-tier city residents, which only serves to intensify their desire for consuming films. Thirdly, there is applicability to seasonal and regional schedules. Most ‘small-town youths’ are migrant workers who would return home during the Spring Festival holidays – traditionally a period of intensive film consumption – thus balancing urban and rural regional box office variation. Last of all, there is the predilection towards domestic films, and the accompanying identification with local stars. The ‘small-town youth’ tend to show a bias against Hollywood blockbusters, and are consequently less critical of domestic productions. Although some of these features may be gradually changing, it is in the interest of contemporary domestic film development to target non-first-tier cities as the strategic central regions for competing with American blockbusters. 3. Imported Movies Performed Poorly, and Domestic Films Were Unprivileged in the Overseas Market There were 34 imported movies conforming to the profit-share model in 2013, comprising twenty regularly-released and fourteen specially-released productions in the format of IMAX/3D. Combined with the so-called foreign ‘batched films’ whose copyright was bought out by domestic film companies to import to China, there were 60 imported films in total screened in China that year. In terms of genre, action films made up a dominant 38%, followed by sci-fi, animation and fantasy. The use of special visual effects, particularly 3D, remained the primary reason for domestic audiences to choose imported movies; imported art cinema typically performed poorly in the market, although its continued praise from the public left it trapped in an awkward situation. It could be argued that the ‘Chinese elements’ that appear in the Hollywood blockbusters are generally strong in terms of asthetics, suggesting a successful investment by Hollywood studios particularly for the Chinese market. The persistent expansion of the Chinese film market caused an upset in the market of imported films. For example, box office figures for the film Escape Plan in China surpassed those in North America, while, in contrast to the rapid growth of the film market in China, imported movies obtained an unsatisfactory increase of just 2.3%. Factors including limited seasons, delayed introduction time, insufficient screening time and clashes between films combined to restrict the box office revenue of imported films. Nonetheless, the individual taste of Chinese audiences for cinema is very diverse, and this is manifested in both the regional and age differences of its members. Futhermore, importing overseas productions has become increasingly expensive, leading to global film studios requiring a more nichetargeting market strategy. 18

Annual Report on the Development of China's Film Industry 2013

Figure 2.6. Overseas distribution of domestic films (2009–2013).

China sold 45 films 247 times in the overseas market in 2013, with average revenues of box office and copyright sales reaching 1.414 billion RMB – an increase of 33.02% from the previous year (Figure 2.6). Until recent years, Chinese films had never caused any huge upsets at international film festivals. The fact that China has been increasingly gaining global attention provides something of an advantageous environment for potential overseas development (Li 2013). Taking a look at the most popular genres of Chinese cinema, there are two kinds of films in particular that are favoured by the international market: one is action movies, particularly those featuring international superstars like Jackie Chan and Jet Li; the other is art films with Chinese cultural features, such as those produced by internationallyrecognized film-makers such as Zhang Yimou and Jia Zhangke. The fact that the middle- and low-budget films achieved success domestically this year, yet flopped on an international level, demonstrates that realist films were not suitable for exportation to overseas markets. In terms of the business operation, overseas distribution of Chinese films depended more on the work of overseas companies; however, those companies are generally uncommon and tend to be small in stature, therefore highlighting the need for specifically-targeted marketing strategies.

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Beijing Film Academy Yearbook: 2015

4. More Evenly-Distributed Seasonal Box Offices The box office of the New Year season showed a surprising decrease in growth, whereas the major seasons, namely the Spring Festival holiday, May Day holiday, summer holiday and National Day holiday all showed huge year-on-year increases (Table 2.2). In addition, Valentine’s Day, Tomb-sweeping Day, the Graduation Period and Singles’ Day have been showing a steady upward trend. Through examining the seasonal box-office performances in 2013 (Table 2.2) and the grossing of domestic blockbusters with yearly variations (Figure 2.7), the seasonal distribution of films in 2013 can be characterized by a selection of defining points. Some of the key factors are the expansion of the Spring Festival holiday season, the negative growth during the New Year season and, over the course of the year, the rise and subsequent fall of box office revenue. The film Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons took advantage of the non-first-tier cities and made a notable contribution to the Spring Festival holiday season. Following that, several qualitative ‘light films’ appeared

Table 2.2. Seasonal box office figures 2013. Source: EBOT Entgroup Daily Box-office Think Tank, http://news.entgroup.cn/movie/1118873.shtml; http://data.entgroup.cn/boxoffice/season.

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Annual Report on the Development of China's Film Industry 2013

Figure 2.7. Comparison between seasonal distributions of domestic blockbusters (2011-2013).

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on the scene, contributing some magnificent performances during the first half of the year. Nonetheless, there was a discernible lack of high-quality comedies in the New Year season, which instead depended heavily on the performance of crime action movies, which do not typically suit the theme of the New Year season, leading to a somewhat unprecedented fall in box office income. The Spring Festival holiday season is traditionally a time of leisure for Chinese people, during which box office revenues grow continuously as a result of the steady cinema-going habits of audiences of all age groups, as well as the rapid rise of the non-first-tier cities. The summer holiday season was exposed the ‘fake height’ status of domestic films. In 2013, the season earned over 5.8 billion RMB at the box office, with eighteen films, ten of which were domestic productions, exceeding 1,000 million. The summer holiday season spans over a longer period of time, therefore allowing sufficient time for the word-ofmouth marketing of qualitative films. This season is also less affected by local cultures, less complicated compared to the other seasons and offers a better chance to examine the holistic strength of the film industry. Although domestic films did fairly well during the summer holiday season, those that made it into the top ten also received some of the harshest criticism, with their general feedback contradicting their high box office return. In contrast, five of the top ten imported films were from the summer holiday season, with imported films occupying around 60 percent of the overall summer holiday box office. 3D blockbusters were dominated by popular films from the May Day and National Day holiday seasons, both of which fall within the ‘Spring Festival–Summer vacation–New Year’ peak-period span, giving them a clear advantage. Subsequent to the loss of many of China’s young film-makers to Hollywood during the May Day season, dominant imported movies such as Iron Man 3 (2013) and The Croods (2013) provided stiff competition for popular domestic productions such as So Young. The National Day season was mostly prepared for domestic films, which in turn led to a number of clashes between them. Overall this year, domestic 3D productions such as the Young Detective Dee: Rise and the Sea Dragon led the film market, marking an excellent achievement for Chinese cinema. Many movies underperformed during the Singles’ Day and Tomb-sweeping holiday seasons, suggesting that efforts are still needed to cultivate the culture-consuming climate of specialist productions. The Tomb-sweeping holiday season was intended to mimic Halloween; however, there was a lack of thriller and horror films with which to fill it. Singles’ Day achieved success in 2011 due to the film Love is not Blind yet, when twelve similar romantic movies arrived on the market on Singles’ Day 2013, they were eclipsed by The Dark World and Escape Plan, which dominated 76% of the day’s box office with total figures across China dropping by 22% and 33% from the previous two years respectively. What e-commerce achieved on that day illustrated the success of the ‘Twin11 Shopping Day’ beyond film consumption, leaving a noticeable gap to be filled by the specialty seasons.

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Annual Report on the Development of China's Film Industry 2013

5. Film-Making Emphasized Technologies, Details and Trans-Boundary Formal Explorations In the world of film-making, the 3D film market became ‘stabilized’, leading to a more regular and skillful application of technology in comparison to previous years. The underwater 3D cinematography in Young Detective Dee, the 3D special-effect explosion in Central in the Firestorm and the 3D special-effect blaze seen in Out of the Inferno were some of the most impressive examples of technology. Details such as the trailer and the shock at the end of the film highlight the level creativity, astonishment and insight, in addition to motivating audiences to go to cinema. These features are seen as good strategies with which to warm up the market, alerting audiences and rival film-makers alike to new and emerging productions. Typically, domestically produced comedies and suspense movies possess a greater tendency to surprise the viewer, exemplified by Young Detective Dee, in which director Tsui Hark creates three breathtaking bombshells that gave the film a powerful advantage in the market following its release. The year 2013 saw various experiments in the film-making and industrial operations of many trans-boundary forms, such as the self-produced drama series by websites, microfilm and reality-show movies. For their cost efficiency, self-produced drama series aroused the interest of several video websites, including Le Vision and Tencent, and a variety of entertainment stars participated in film-making, resulting in over 1,000 million hits. Microfilm, because of its synchronization with the rapid development of multimedia terminals, maintained high-speed growth. Additionally, there were several hundred nationally-held competitions and events this year, engaging industries and generations, covering a variety of topics and greatly exploring the narrative patterns of contemporary film-making. The frantic concerns of academia about microfilm also helped to generate professional discussions surrounding the subject. In terms of the combination of film and television, there were many large-scale variety shows that had been leading the trend; particularly popular were domestic reality shows that had been adapted into featurelength movies. The sequels of the film Tiny Times once again aroused heated discussions surrounding literary adaptations, with its fan-culture management and trans-border marketing strategies characterizing it as a most unusual case. Trans-boundary models possess a definite marketing advantage due to the fact that they are open to various different contributions from a range of topics. Nonetheless, different distinct models may be received among various audiences and expectations; ultimately, the success of a new model depends on the artistic ability to adapt, and it would be futile to make the transition from one form to another with the sole purpose of opportunism, and without at least a degree of sincerity.

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6. Film Marketing Was More Locally-Grounded, and the Over-Emphasis on Marketing Triggered Debates The total input to film marketing in 2013 is estimated to have reached an around 2.8 billion RMB, representing an increase of 17% from the previous year and occupying 13% of total box office revenue (Wang 2014). Following the growth of a number of film distributors, such as Beijing Enlight Media and the Le Vision Company, film publicity and distribution became more carefully planned and generally more predictable. The interactivity and controllability of convergence media on information management greatly increased the direction and effectiveness of marketing, allowing creative marketing to become a competitive new industrial sector alongside film itself. Increasingly disciplined and professional, film marketing had been growing into a fourth subdivided service procedure; the frontline of the film market had been activated by a number of professional film marketing companies. Film marketing in 2013 was highlighted by the practices of locally-catered marketing strategies that specifically targeted third- and fourth-tier cities. For example, the Le Vision Company expanded the audience-viewing event for the film Tiny Times into a grand gathering of fans, thus channeling Internet-based social energies into box office performances. The movie Say Yes launched a dating agency of its namesake, devising proposals for the cinephiles. These practices, combined with many others, formed an integral part of a year in which marketing projects were of particular interest. Films such as Tiny Times and Switch marked themselves on the list of the top-ranking box office performances; however, they achieved this through the notorious strategies of ‘bad comments that raise popularity’, ‘counter marketing’ and ‘monopolized screening-arrangement’. These strategies provoked a wave of criticism from audiences due to their ferocity on market competition principles, their coherence between content and dissemination of the cultural product, and their dramatization of marketing. Film criticism was unable to counterbalance the highlyexaggerated status of their marketing campaigns, suggesting a severe disadvantage. Part II. Film-Making The year 2013 was ‘the year of small-budget films’ in China – a transitional period during which new models of big-budget genres were yet to be born, with a palpable divide between mainland directors who preferred the genres of youth film, romance and comedy, and the Hong Kong film-makers who leaned heavily towards crime action movies. 1. Locally Produced ‘Light Films’ Overcame Hollywood Blockbusters, Thrillers Entered the Adjustment Phase While Animations Continued to Enjoy Popularity A number of middle- and low-budget films by new directors marked a lively period of the Chinese film industry in 2013. Contemporary life began mobilizing sympathy, and 24

Annual Report on the Development of China's Film Industry 2013

the victories of local films against big-budget imports stimulated enthusiasm among local audiences towards domestic productions (Table 2.3). From this period, there emerged a new generalized concept of ‘light films’. ‘Light films’ were examined in terms of their film-making, marketing and consumption and it became apparent this year that, in comparison to ‘blockbusters’, ‘light films’ were predominantly middle- and low-budget productions. Despite this, ‘light films’ were fiercely competitive on the market, becoming the primary contributor to the box office profits of domestic films in 2013. Of the nineteen local productions whose individual box office exceeded 2,000 million RMB, seven cost less than 60 million RMB. The total

Table 2.3. Box office ranking of domestic/imported films in 2013. Source: Douban Movie, ‘The Annual Ranking of the Domestic Box-office’ [EB/OL]. http://movie.douban.com/doul ist/1765813/?start=150&filter=.

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investment of So Young, American Dreams in China and Finding Mr. Right amounted to around 1,700 million RMB; however, the total output reached 1.75 billion RMB, meaning that box office revenue was eleven times bigger than the invested capital. In addition to these three productions, there were also a number of similar relatively low-budget films that performed well both in terms of box office performance and in the reviews. Contemporary realist films were dominant, including youth films and romantic movies which were seen as both inspiring and heartwarming. Within a market occupied by influential IMAX and 3D films, ‘light films’, characterized by their beautiful imagery and light humour, were able to configure a new path. Their patiently recounted stories were embedded with empathy and respect towards the contemporary Chinese who, despite suffering from ongoing development transformations, still always managed to welcome happiness and dreams. Those films were mostly made by newly-emerging young directors who brought the Chinese film industry a new trend of conformity towards commercial film-making conventions, from content production right through to marketing campaigns. Following the decreasing age of audience groups, and the structural changes to film content and modes of marketing in the time of convergence media, ‘light films’ featured by a ‘small-budget structure and big-budget operation’ became widely regarded as valuable projects. As Wang Yichuan once said, in terms of the return to film’s primary quality of trendiness and commercial character, China’s national cinema had been turning towards the present rising of groups of young directors, from the former one characterized by only a selection of film-makers. (Wang 2014: 110-112) During the year 2014, domestic thrillers were generally subject to negative criticism, stable box office returns and a high number of Internet downloads. In 2013, 29 domestically produced thrillers were screened, occupying approximately 10% of the total number of screenings and earning 2,700 million RMB (9.32 million RMB per film) at the box office, though just three breached the 20 million RMB mark (Mi 2013). Because of their specialized aesthetic appeal, thrillers demonstrated relatively stable market demands; however, the speculative mentality had limited the development of local thrillers in terms of their quality. The present moment has seen an adjustment period for local thrillers; their qualities and market potential have been gaining greater recognition, and there has already been more significant investment, leading to the creation of more comprehensive projects. Thirty-six animation movies were screened in 2013 (Table 2.4), which generated a total box office collection of 1.631 billion RMB – 19% more than that of the previous year. Among those, 28 were domestic productions, five more than the previous year, generating a total of 6,600 million RMB at the box office (40% more than the previous year). Although locally-produced animations still trailed the imported ones by quite a distance, they maintained a position of strength based on their comprehensive tendency 26

Annual Report on the Development of China's Film Industry 2013

Table 2.4. Box office ranking of animation films in 2013. Source: Zhu, Yuqing, ‘The Film Youth Year: Seven Huge Phenomena of the Film Industry in 2013; Variety, 13 January 2014, http://news.entgroup.cn/movie/ 0319113.shtml.

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to develop. Initially, new titles emerged gradually. In addition to the Pleasant Goat series, neonatal productions including Seer, I Love Wolffy, Roco Kingdom and Qian Ting Zong Dong Yuan all performed very well. However, there was a subsequent transformation to an era of big-budget productions, during which the overall quality of films improved significantly. For example, the 3D animation Fantastic Adventure won Best Animation at the 29th Golden Rooster Awards, further highlighting the rise of locally-produced animation films. Large-scale professional media conglomerates then began to participate in the distribution of animation films, greatly improving the professionalization and marketization of domestic productions. 2. Hong Kong Film-Makers Turned to Crime Actions, While Taiwanese Cinema Remained Trapped According to the Overall Market Status of Hong Kong Cinema in 2013, released by the Hong Kong Motion Picture Industry Association (MPIA), 42 Hong Kong films were screened locally in 2013 – a significant decline compared to the average of 50 releases during previous years. The ambition of the ‘Hong Kong cinema renaissance’ remained unfulfilled, due to the reduction of living space and a noticeable decrease in talent. However, by turning to the mainland, Hong Kong film-makers enjoyed continued success in the Chinese film market, with fourteen films by Hong Kong directors among the top 30 local films in 2013. Contrary to the perception that new-generation film-makers dominated the mainland market, significant contributions were made by a variety of generations of film-makers from Hong Kong, with a substantial variation in age range. In addition to high-quality auteur cinema such as The Grandmaster and Drug War, topgrossing films such as Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons and Young Detective Dee 2 dominated the top-ranking box office lists, while most other films by Hong Kong directors scored highly in terms of quality. Throughout 2013, crime genre exports from Hong Kong consistently received positive feedback from the mainland film market. In particular, within the New Year season, The White Storm, Firestorm, Control and Police Story 2013 were released one-by-one, dominating the mainland market ahead of the domestic comedies, all of which greatly underperformed at box office level. Following the introduction of new regulations, Taiwanese film-makers’ access to the mainland market was no longer restricted by the quota system, and co-productions between mainland China and Taiwan would be treated equally to China’s local productions, demonstrating optimistic signs for the development of Taiwanese cinema. The market in Taiwan was still dominated by Hollywood movies in 2013 (Table 2.5). With the rise of audiences across southern Taiwan, the box office share of the north compared to the other regions fell to approximately 1:1.5 to 1:2. These figures represented a significant increase compared to the previous ratio of 1:1, and the taste of the south ‘Taike’ began to take 28

Annual Report on the Development of China's Film Industry 2013

over the urban preference of the north. Nine Taiwanese films were released in mainland theatres in 2013, although they each underperformed greatly with the exception of Mayday Nowhere, which earned 20.83 million RMB. The scenario brought by Cape No. 7, Monga, You Are the Apple of My Eye and similar qualitative films was not sustained by the later productions. Meanwhile, changing film-viewing ecology further gripped the already trapped Taiwanese cinema with the ‘Taiwan mentality’, resulting in a far narrower niche in terms of both the film-making prospects and the potential market.

Table 2.5. Box office rankings of the Taiwanese film market in 2013. Source: ‘The Annual Film Box Office of Taiwan Came Out: Stephen Chow and Wong Kar Wei Were Defeated by Taike’, http://news.mtime.com/2013/12/11/1521611.html; http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2775498917.

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3. The Limited Development of Documentary Film and the Art Cinema Television documentaries boomed in 2013, with documentary film-making and the general documentary market encouraged to grow further following incentive policies successively put forward by the government. These included the public notice system on subject matters, special funding for documentary film-making, and the 30-minute policy concerning domestic documentary productions. At the time there was nothing particularly exceptional about the handful of domestic documentary films: the top two films in terms of box office performance were imported 3D live concert films, Mayday 3DNA and Mayday Nowhere, both of which brought in over 20 million RMB, while the domestic 3D documentary film Transcendence made just 372,800 RMB. On the other hand, China Heavyweight – directed by Zhang Qiaoyong, winner of the 49th Taiwan Golden Horse Best Documentary Award – was subject to an initial limited release across thirteen cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu prior its large-scale distribution in 200 multiplexes of Lumière Pavilions and Wanda Cinemas. This eventually resulted in the largest-scale documentary film release in history. In terms of art cinema, there were no critical changes in 2013, a year during which the general box trend showed both a lack of new releases and a disappointing level of performance. Touch of the Light, a ‘zero bad-comment’ film that had represented Taiwanese cinema at the Oscar Awards, obtained a meagre box office collection of 7.72 million RMB. Meanwhile, Apart Together, which had won the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival, only hit 320,000 RMB at the box office, with the highly-rated new historical film Fall of Ming bringing in just 4.25 million RMB. Many other productions that year, despite their high-profile directors, fell short at the box office, including: Falling Flowers, a bibliographic film directed by Huo Jianqi which earned 1.95 million RMB; Beijing Flickers by Zhang Yuan who won the Best Director Award at the Venice Film Festival and The Love Songs of Tiedan by young film-maker Hao Jie, neither of which was able to generate more than 500,000 RMB. Perhaps the biggest flop was A Cherry on a Pomegranate Tree, a film that depicts the grassroots election of contemporary rural society, characterizing a vivid and complicated image of the contemporary rural female, which brought in a hugely disappointing 50,000 RMB (Ha 2013). In regards to the contribution of documentary film and art cinema to commercial film-making and the general ecology of the film industry, it is important to consider filmviewing demands, and to establish suitable distribution and exhibition methods for each industry. Particular emphasis has been placed on the construction of professional theatre chains. There is currently a selection of art cinema exhibition models around Beijing and the Yangtze River Delta Region; however, they have continued to face problems relating to insufficient supply of films, low rate of return on investment, difficulty of operation and management and even a basic lack of talent. Whether they will be able to overcome these hurdles remains very much in question, highlighting an urgent need for appropriate supportive policies. 30

Annual Report on the Development of China's Film Industry 2013

Part III. The Dynamics of Film Enterprises and Industrial Management 1. Huayi Bros and Beijing Enlight Media Led the Development of Private Film Companies, While State-Owned Enterprises Funded the Private Companies Although new film companies continued to emerge, the ten big distribution companies in China maintained an 80% to 90% market share, illustrating the stability of the business on the whole. On top of the two state-owned film companies, China Film Group Corporation and Huaxia Film Company, there are private enterprises led by mainland companies including Huayi Bros, Beijing Enlight Media and Bona, as well as Hong Kong companies such as Edko, Emperor and Media Asia (Figure 2.8). The six films that were produced and distributed by Huayi Bros hit a total of three billion RMB at the box office (25% of the gross box office income in China that year), ensuring the status of Huayi Bros as the leader of all the private film companies. In addition to high box office revenues (Figure 2.9), the company also benefited from the earnings of the Ourpalm Company. Beijing Enlight Media, meanwhile, was rewarded as a result of its exploration of new film directors and cultivation strategy for the new generation. The company produced and released nine films (Figure 2.10) that earned

Figure 2.8. Film output and total box office of domestic mainstream film companies (2013).

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Beijing Film Academy Yearbook: 2015

Figure 2.9. Box office of films produced by Enlight (2013).

Figure 2.10. Box office of films produced by Huayi Brothers (2013).

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a total of 2.387 billion RMB, a 46% increase from the previous year that led to it occupying 19% of the national cinema gross. The share price of Beijing Enlight Media remained high, hitting the 10% limit several times and thus soaring into the top three film companies in China. In addition to this, Bona, characterized by its insistence on making big-budget co-productions with Hong Kong companies, established a strategic cooperative relationship with US heavyweights 20th Century Fox, one of Hollywood Studios’ ‘big six’. The Le Vision Company, which branded itself as ‘a film company with Internet genes’, achieved its position by distributing the film Tiny Times, accompanied by its sequels, as well as establishing a contract with film director Zhang Yimou. The Fujian Hengye Film Distribution Firm, which swore to be China’s Lions Gate and was labeled a ‘specialized household of horror films’, persevered with its custom of genre filmmaking by producing Mysterious Face, which ranked second in the thriller film listings. Subsequent to its acquisition of the American company AMC, Wanda Group completed nineteen overseas investment projects in 2013. The Qingdao Oriental Cinema, which cost 50 billion RMB to build, was launched in September. The company was also responsible for the investment and production of Police Story 2013, The Palace and Man of Tai Chi, as well as co-distributing films such as Pleasant Goat and Big Wolf 5 and Amazing, among others. In terms of the Hong Kong capital, Edko, Emperor and Media Asia ascended into the top five co-producers, joining Huayi Bros and Beijing Enlight Media. As far as state-owned companies go, the former Beijing Shengshi Huarui Film Investment Company held a renaming ceremony in Beijing in December 2013, rebranding itself as Guosheng Pictures with the help of an injection of state-owned capital. This signified the beginning of the road for the screen cultural industry for integration between state-owned and private capitals. China Film Group Corporation’s final decision to pay Hollywood Studios a 200 million share of box office revenues suggests, on one hand, an adjustment of the rules regarding a ‘new policy’ which would see an increase of the profit-sharing ratio from 13% to 25%. On the other hand, however, it also highlights the contradiction between the administrative responsibility and the commercial conduct that CFGC bears as the practitioner of state policies. Other state-owned film corporations were still in the laborious process of exploring marketization following reforms, desperately needing transformation in terms of relocating the huge number of retired people and connecting to the capital market. 2. Media Shares Performed Exceedingly Well in the Stock Market, and Big Companies Started a New Round of Strategic Layout Against the background of the continuously expanding box office and the active investments and acquisitions of film companies, movie and TV media companies driven by the film business and supplemented by the new media commerce began to show a constant and accelerated growth (Table 2.6). In particular, Huayi Bros saw a significant 33

Beijing Film Academy Yearbook: 2015

increase, with an estimated growth of around 160% to 180%. Although many members of the market were worried about the stock price of media shares, traders remained optimistic based on the trend of industrial integration and development. In the stock market, the short-term stock investment for arbitrage became a more regular occurrence through institutional movie viewing. This meant that, before a film was officially released, it would be arranged for related fund managers to watch the film, with the share prices of corresponding companies gaining a subsequent increase. Some members of the private equity highlighted that film viewings provided institutions an opportunity to directly survey the listed companies, and that the top films, in particular those that could arouse sympathy, could have a positive impact on the share price of the public company. In comparison to short-term operations, media shares were more dynamized by regular acquisition. Internally motivated by the rise of industrial awareness, the media industry was at a stage where horizontal concentration had been rapidly lifted, vertical integration had just been just activated, and the trans-industrial chain had gradually been taking shape within the subdivided industry. This subdivided industry had been further adapting towards the industrial chain of mega-media, mega-entertainment, and megaculture, as well as intensive overseas acquisitions. It is evident that the announced or implemented acquisitions of listed media companies were varied in regard to type and motivation, with big companies beginning a new cycle of strategic layout (Table 2.7).

Table 2.6. The release time and the advance notice of some listed movie and TV media companies. Source: Entgroup, http://news.entgroup.cn/movie/1819456.shtml.

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Table 2.7. Merger and acquisition deals within the film & TV industry in 2013. Source: Regional industrial and commercial administration departments all around the country, media reports and other online information, www.entgroup.com.cn.

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The principal mode of capital reorganization for theatre chains was the associate operation that combined the capitals of the private enterprises with those of small theatre chains. The Orange Sky Entertainment Group purchased 49% equity from the Shenzhen Shenying Theater Chain in April, and the two companies merged to form the new Shenzhen Shenying Orange Sky Cinema Circuit, all-the-while steadily maintaining its ranking on the top twenty list of theatre box office performers that year. Other notable cases of stake-purchasing include the Shanghai Shimao Company, which became a shareholder of the Beijing Yida Jiuzhou Film & Culture Company, and Broadway Circuit, which acquired a majority stake in the Beijing Red Carp Digital Cinema Group. In the coming years, market expansion and resource reorganization will remain two important factors for theatre chains to continue to develop and to coexist, which is no truer than for theatre construction in third- and fourth-tier cities. Those middle- and small-scale theatres who are struggling face a difficult choice of either being annexed and restructured, or withdrawing from the market completely. 3. Theatre Management Appeared to be Polarized, and the Convergence of Online Ticket-Selling and e-Commerce Brought New Challenges There were six theatre chains that hit the box office record of a billion RMB in 2013 (Table 2.8), including the Wanda theatre chain which possessed 140 multiplexes and over 1,200 screens, maintaining its role as the market superpower with a box office collection of 3.1 billion RMB (approximately 15% of the national market). In the field of individual cinema, the top ten multiplexes in terms of box office profit were found predominantly in first-tier cities and were most concentrated in Beijing, which accounted for 50% of the total figures. Generally, theatre management appeared to be polarized, facing numerous challenges. According to the statistics of Entgroup, there were 24 multiplexes whose box office income reached over 50 million RMB in 2013, constituting just 0.6% of the gross number of multiplexes. Fewer than 700 cinemas were able reach a box office revenue over 10 million RMB, making up 17% of the total number of cinemas. However, those cinemas that did not exceed 5 million RMB accounted for 70% of the total number of cinemas, of which 60% received an annual box office revenue of under one million RMB (Zhu 2013). Subsequently, theatre management became significantly more difficult. This was, first of all, due to the rise of rental fees, with some cinemas’ rental outlay costing as much 50% of their box office earnings. Another reason for this increase in difficulty had to do with low attendances, with the rapid growth of screens affected by the films themselves, viewing habits and underdevelopment of supporting services. As a result of this, cinema attendance figures fell by around 15%. From a more subjective standpoint, one could highlight a completely different set of reasons for the increasing challenge faced by those in theatre management. Firstly, there is the somewhat rash pursuit of the ‘large scale’: expansion based on the ‘enclosure of territory’ flooded regional cinema distribution, while 36

Annual Report on the Development of China's Film Industry 2013

Table 2.8. Box office rankings of theatre chains and cinemas (2013). Source: EBOT, www.entgroup.com.cn ©2014.1 EntGrouplnc.

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‘improper competition’, such as the promotion of growth through ‘group buying’, led to subsequent poor management. Secondly, there is the irrational pursuit of ‘wholeness’ – or ‘whole industrial coverage’. In other words, in order to balance the report for company earnings, profits of better-managed cinemas would be transferred to sectors that lost money or to other cinemas, making it difficult to calculate their own development figures. Thirdly, there is the over-simplicity of the income structure, which is too dependent on box office revenue. Developments in relation to location rental, selling of goods (popcorn, soft drinks, toys), pre-film advertising and personalized small-scale cinema services all fell short of financial targets. As a result, the cinema industry turned to China’s local leisure and dining industries, to explore diverse profit-making methods and product development. In China, the non-box-office income of an average cinema was just 10% of the total revenue in 2013, compared to the vastly superior average of 50% in North America at that same time. Cinemas in non-first-tier cities suffered significant financial setbacks as a result of a comprehensive lack of ‘expertise’ within management structures, as well as having to deal with external issues such as ticket theft. Ticket pricing structures in 2013 were rarely adjusted. In relation to contemporary structures of income and consumption, the reasonable reduction of film ticket prices followed a macroscopic trend. However, there is a comprehensive scope for analysis of ‘group buying and price discount’ opportunities, and related e-commercial enhancement services launched by cinemas. Very little can compete with the convenience of online ticket services, particularly considering the increasing popularity and availability of smart phones and other portable devices. With additional support such as balance topup, car-parking directories, discounts for restaurant dining and many more, audiences are provided a more diverse service with a greater ease-of-use. A box office boost can be directly attributed to the advancement of services provided by online systems and mobile apps, which represent a huge development compared to the traditional structure of ticket-buying services. However, it could be argued that improper low-priced ‘group buying’ should be unavailable on e-commercial ticket-purchasing services, as failure to create more professional and comprehensive rules and regulations will continue to lead to unreasonable ‘package consumption’ and illegal behaviour. The strategy of ‘group buying and discounts’ could focus more on activating consumption trends in order to expand the viewing population and increase attendance figures, rather than on competing to offer the lowest possible prices. It is therefore essential to adapt appropriate marketing strategies to modify and enhance the movie-going experience. 4. The Market Size of Film Advertising Reached 2.8 Billion RMB, While Non-BoxOffice Income Strategies Stipulated Further Exploration At present, the box office income remains the principal source of profit for China’s film companies. However, following the development of new media, market operations are 38

Annual Report on the Development of China's Film Industry 2013

gradually maturing, triggering an increase of revenue from a variety of different sources. The selling of copyright to television and new media companies, advertising and byproducts all became important sources of income. Entgroup’s statistics suggest that the market size of China’s film advertisements hit a staggering 2.8 billion RMB in 2013, an increase of 30% from the previous year. Product placement showed a particularly rapid increase in growth, with figures exceeding 1.02 billion RMB – its share increasing from 28% in 2012 to 36% in 2013. It was also the first time that preview film advertisements broke the 1.1 billion RMB mark, which marked a historic achievement by generating a revenue of 1.18 billion RMB. While this represented an important growth, the relative increase of pre-movie adverts was considerably slower (Yang and Jing 2013). It became widely-viewed within the film industry that product placement would become an important method to counter the risks of investment. Among projects that had successfully attracted investments, the income generated by product placement could potentially recover around a third of the film’s overall expenses. This demonstrated just how vital it had become for the progression of film and TV production, and led to the emergence of a number of agencies that specialized in managing product placement. At the same time, there had been a large-scale acceleration of integral planning and production of branding in China, resulting in branding schemes all year round being designed in accordance with the demands of enterprises, and implemented through the inter-coordination of various sources of media. Related brands show different targeting and marketing methods within different screening periods, integrating the self-promotion of productions to shape a collective power within the market. In addition, ‘preview ads’ and ‘pre-movie ads’ had also begun to attract more and more attention. Nonetheless, at the time there were rarely any specific evaluation standards or corresponding assessment systems for product placement within film and TV, so despite a number of instances of big-budget and well-known directors obtaining a huge amount of funding for product placement, many companies became cautious toward this issue. In terms of the extended industry, the construction of the film production base was still playing catch-up; although movie-induced tourism possesses a certain market potential, its development remains uneven. There are currently thousands of film production bases across cities in China whose invested capital exceed 50 billion RMB, yet 70% to 80% of them are losing money (Ni 2013). Very few succeeded in obtaining an eight-figure annual income, with the majority of the film production bases too homogeneous, lacking core competence, or simply too basic in terms of financial structure. Production bases incur high maintenance costs and a long cycle duration; if there were problems with follow-up maintenance funds and new project development, the film production base would lose market attention and could risk being pulled into an awkward predicament.

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5. Related Financial Instruments Continued to Trail the Developmental Demand of the Industry, and Crowd-Funding Projects Attracted Attention The domestic real estate market peaked in 2013, leaving a large amount of capital to be invested. Therefore, the newly-emerged film industry became an obvious and attractive prospect to investors, though the entire system of finance, band credits and loans required upgrading in the face of pressure. In addition to the tragedy of the unfortunate death of the leading actor from the film Fast and Furious, there was a growing need for China’s film industry to pay more attention to Hollywood’s completion bonds, and to the effect of related financial tools on reducing production risks. Presently in China, Hollywood models such as that of pre-sales are becoming widely accepted and applied. Additionally, strategies such as the ‘by-product authorization antedates film release’ investment model can be a beneficial tool for warming up the market and reducing general film-making risks. The crowd-funding model has also begun to gain increasing momentum in the film industry. For example, the animation film Da Hai attracted an investment of 1.6 million RMB through crowd-funding; One Hundred Thousand Bad Jokes raised over 1.37 million RMB; and EE-Media launched a crowd-funding project on its website for the movie Super Boy (2013), raising an impressive 5.01 million RMB in just twenty days following the launch of the project. However, it is a common view that the impact of the crowd-funding model within the film industry will never be subversive, as crowd-funding revenues are limited. This suggests that the strategy may be of greater benefit to independent cinemas and small-budget films, while for larger-scale media corporations and film and TV companies, the use of crowd-funding is restricted primarily to publicity campaigns and market surveys (Lu 2013). Part IV. Conclusion The Chinese film market has been undergoing intensive expansion and high-speed development, with urbanization acting as the driving force. There will, however, inevitably be some challenges, ranging from film-making and operation, to cinema site construction and business management. In terms of content production, locally-made commercial genre films have entered the brand-building phase of development, ‘keeping what is valuable and rejecting what is worthless’, with ‘blockbusters’ surely not set for an extended absence. Against a backdrop of the high-speed growth of screens becoming the leading cause of box office increase, expansion and management of theatres became the benchmark with which to test strategic mentality and integrated management, as well as the balance between the two. For large theatre chains, investing within second- and third-tier cities became a specific and important strategy at the current stage of development; however, there remains a demand for a rational balance between various factors, including individual strength, regional 40

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consumption standards, movie-viewing habits, correspondent facilities and competition with rival companies. Building mechanisms and implementing specialized policies will be important factors for realistically and progressively carrying forward the development of the film industry, including the specialized theatre chains of art cinema and documentary film. The mechanism of film criticism is beneficial in correcting the unbalanced correlation between box office statistics and public feedback, and there is an increasing need for the development of financial instruments in order to raise additional funds. Developing a diverse range of income sources from production management to the theatrical operation, as well as providing overseas Chinese film distribution agencies with specific focuses, will continue to be an important strategy deployed within the film industry. References Ha, M. (2013), ‘Why Independent Quality-films lost at Box Office? The Movie-goers Love to Dream in the Theater’, Entgroup.cn, http://news.entgroup.cn/movie/0118384. shtml. Accessed on 5 February 2014. Li, Y. (2013), ‘Where is the International Frame of Reference for China’s Cinema?’, China XWCB.com, http://data.chinaxwcb.com/epaper2013/epaper/d5634/ d8b/201310/37973. html. Accessed on 5 February 2014. Lu, Y. (2013), ‘Revealing the Secrets of Fund Raise for Movies’, Entgroup, http://news. entgroup.cn/movie/2118240.shtml. Accessed on 5 February 2014. Meng, J. (2014), ‘The Rapid Growth Pace in the Third- and Fourth-tier Cities, Some of Which Reached 100-time Increase’ [EB/OL]. Available from: http://news.entgroup. cn/movie/1019183.shtml. Accessed on 5 February 2014. Mi, L. (2013), ‘The Gross Revenue of 28 Thriller Movies of 2013 Hit About 270 Million’, Entgroup. available from: http://news.entgroup.cn/movie/2918738.shtml. Accessed on 5 February 2014. Ni, Z. F. (2013), ‘70% Percent Gross Loss of the Domestic Cinema Chains’, Entgroup. available from: http://news.entgroup.cn/movie/1517816.shtml. Accessed on 5 February 2014. Wang, Y. C. (2014), ‘When Films Regressed to Its Initial Meaning: Reflections in Relation to the Concept of the “Phenomenal Cinema’’’, Contemporary Cinema, Vol. 2. Yang, Y. and Jing, Y. (2013), ‘Film Advertising 3.0: The Product Placement of the Feng’s Style as Expensive as that of the Hollywood’, Entgroup.cn, http://news.entgroup.cn/ movie/3119093.shtml. Accessed on 5 February 2014. Zhang, J. W. (2013), ‘Deconstructing China’s Film Industrial Chain: How Domestic Films Made the Successful Counterattack’, Entgroup.cn, http://news.entgroup.cn/ movie/1517821.shtml. Accessed on 5 February 2014. Zhu, W. (2014), ‘The Year-end Inventory of the Film Exhibition Market of 2013’, Entgroup. cn, http://www.entgroup.cn/views/a/19157.shtml. Accessed on 5 February 2014. 41

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Note 1. 刘静，魏晋茹

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Chapter 3 Cinema Operation and Management in the Context of the Cyber-Era ZHANG Huijun, LU Yang, ZHU Tao1

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fter the success of the box office during the National Day business season (1–7 October), the Chinese movie market of 2014 appeared ready to prosper once more during the New Year season. It is a golden age for the growth of the movie industry. Chinese films have established a good position in the competition with their American counterparts, with e-commercial magnates gaining significant benefits during the National Day season, therefore continuing to compete for market share. In addition, theatre chains and cinemas have been witnessing capital operations and mergers, with the industry undergoing some important changes. Such a prosperous and variable era is a blessing for all practitioners. In order to seize opportunities in the ever-changing business climate, cinema operators need to concentrate efforts on planning the crucial strategy of integrating cinema with continuously developing Internet technology. In 2014, China’s movie industry had an intimate relationship with the capital market, and cinema exhibition had a trans-boundary integration with the Internet industry. Much of China’s financial capital has entered the movie industry and market; e-commercial entrepreneurs have gradually gained a greater market share of the movie industry. This has led to a complete submergence in the Internet era in terms of capital operation, movie production and launch, cinema administration, publicity and mobile payment. Due to the lack of anti-monopoly mechanisms within the national industry, movie production is not considered of paramount importance, and mobile terminals have yet to occupy the largest market share in cinemas and theatre chains. Therefore, the majority of competent practitioners choose to spread capital across the entire industrial chain. Only those who take control of the terminal of the economic chain can ultimately influence the level of domination on the market. Under such circumstances, the payment methods for movie tickets, which are dominated by cyber-enterprises, are able to influence viewers’ buying habits as well as the flow of cash within the industry, making them of great value to both the macrostructure of the industry and specific cinema operation strategies. The changes to the business mode brought about by the Internet led to profound linking effects, essentially renewing the industrial structure completely. It is not unlikely that competition and mutual benefits between movie and Internet enterprises may become heated during the next phase of development. It would therefore appear, in the present Internet era, that cinema operators and managers need to centre themselves around the Internet platform, renew their values, change their perspectives, give thorough consideration to the traits of the Internet era and 45

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media, focus on research for the improvement of film production quality and consider how to produce movies and explore cinema management strategies in the present context. Cinema Construction, Operation and Management Generally, the Chinese movie industry has a number of weaknesses: (1) high-quality movies constitute a disproportionate minority of all products; (2) the per capita number of cinemas is small, and their distribution is uneven; (3) there is a lack of positive policies supporting and aiding cinemas; (4) cinemas are run in a traditional way, featuring monotonous methods and narrow vision; and (5) decision makers seldom take into account the characteristics of the Internet era prior to formulating strategies. Currently undergoing a golden growth period, cinema and theatre construction is generally facing similar problems: (1) there is a huge waste in film production – many Chinese movies cannot adapt themselves to market demand, leading to a disproportion between screening frequency and box office revenue; (2) there is a high-potential yet improperly distributed cinema construction market, with an excess in first- and secondtier cities resulting in stiff competition; (3) a new round of cinema-promoting policies has yet to be fully put into effect; and (4) cinema administrators’ thinking pattern should be adapted to competition in the context. Recently, commercial real estate (either newly-built, or currently under construction) has shown increasing optimism regarding the prospect of incorporating a cinema in order to attract more customers. The expected ‘win-win’ situation, however, cannot be achieved by the cinema alone. The location and facilities of shopping malls are other important factors to be considered, as the box office cannot only depend on cinemas’ own marketing and promotion. Although the rapid growth of e-commerce places great pressure on the traditional marketplace and draws a number of customers away from shops, it will eventually increase the number of cinema goers. In light of that, commercial real estate should perhaps pair up with successful restaurants and actively promote boutique theatres, enhancing its function of socializing and forming a solid ground from which to drive its overall operation. As the cinema construction market is expanded by many experienced businessmen, it becomes increasingly difficult to ensure great benefits while maintaining a cost-effective location. Meanwhile, competition in the upgrading of hardware (screening facilities and cinema surroundings) is beginning to heat up. Of the two aforementioned factors, the ‘soft power’ of administrators is of greater significance. The business team should have a good knowledge of Internet marketing approaches, stimulating the box office, giving a wider publicity to the brand and designing a team suitable for developing the system. As for decision-makers, they ought to acquaint themselves with industrial trends, grow accustomed to e-commercial trends, weigh up the short- and long-term benefits of cooperating with e-businesses and stand by their decision-making power without being swayed by other factors in competition. The 46

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business team is supposed to offer reasonable schemes from which decision-makers can choose. In terms of empowering and trusting competent business teams, it is important for decision-makers to ‘determine’ rather than ‘plan’ a precise and rational orientation. Three years ago, there was a noticeable trend of group-buying movie tickets, due to ‘online seat reservation’. The regional uniform ticket sales system developed by theatre chains served as the basis for ‘online seat reservation’, which before long would begin to dominate. Nowadays, 40% of the urban box office gross comes from online reservations, with online interaction (combined with ticket discounts) seemingly accelerating the popularization of online seat reservation among young mainstream audiences. Despite its rapid and irreversible rise, offline ticket sales will always continue to serve a purpose. Therefore, cinemas are facing a challenge to strike a balance between the two modes. The Impact of e-Commercial Strategies on Cinema China’s box office saw an unprecedented increase from 10 billion RMB in 2011 to a staggering 30 billion RMB in 2014. Such significant economic revenue, however, is overshadowed by the profound influence exerted by the film on social ideology and public mentality. Yet, over the years, the extraordinary energy and driving force fused into the movie industry by the cyber industry have simply exceeded all expectations. Since the beginning of 2010, group-shopping websites have initiated e-commercial involvement in the movie industry. After three years of development, group buying is now considered a huge business opportunity provided by e-commerce for the box office, with the higher-ranking websites, which tend to be favoured by capital, ready for the next round of competition. As a result of this, significant changes have taken place in the cinema pricing system: discounts offered to VIP and group viewers are facing strong competition from the discounts offered to online shoppers. The comparatively reasonable pricing leads to an increase in audience numbers, leading to a substantial rise in the number of people buying online. Thus, ‘online seat reservation’, in offering a combination of low-cost payment and convenient ticket collection services, has increasingly come into being. As the number of sales channels increases, it is the customers who are benefiting more and more. Originally, ‘online seat reservation’ cost a little more than a half-price ticket, and far more than a group-purchased ticket, as it offered a markedly better quality of service. Later, a new dimension was added, changing the nature of its position in terms of market share. The recently-emerged phenomenon of mobile payment offers a new investment space for which all Internet companies compete. Small as it is, a mobile phone covers almost every social activity and behaviour of its user. Because mainstream consumers have rigid demands regarding the watching of movies, ‘online seat reservation’ has become the key for Internet tycoons to target the market of smart phone users. Similar to online shopping, taxi calling services and the ‘red envelope’, what lies beneath the seemingly simple service of movie-ticket selling is number of careful strategies devised to draw users in. 47

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During the National Day holiday this year, the launch of Breakup Buddies set a milestone in the market of ‘online seat reservation’. Maoyan, a mobile phone application company, participated in the movie promotion as a producer, offering cinemas financial compensation to schedule the screening two weeks ahead of the premiere date. Meanwhile, it offered a fairly reasonable ticket price online as a promotional strategy, consequently providing significant help to scheduling, publicity and advance sales. As a result, the movie achieved a high attendance rate and screening ratio. Its box office of 1.2 billion left it leading all other National Day season productions, as well as demonstrating an exceptional example of how an e-commercial company can finance a cinema to gain market share. For cinemas, the pricing and rescheduling of rights provides a business opportunity, as lower costs can have a very favourable effect on attendance figures. Maoyan has substantial experience of manipulating attendance figures, regularly setting aside substantial funds to benefit ticket buyers, promote the movie and direct viewers to choose certain cinemas. Examples of the kind of promotion techniques used by Maoyan can be seen in Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2, screened on Bachelor’s Day, as well as Gone with the Bullets, a movie screened at the end of the year, both of which illustrate the in-depth involvement of e-commercial companies in the movie industry. This strategy is one that yields almost instant results and, following Maoyan’s success, other platforms such as Gewara, Baidu Nuomi and Wechat have invested themselves in the business, as well as Taobao – which is also about to enter the competition after succeeding in its IPO. When e-commercial companies contend for market share, price wars become inevitable. It is almost certain that film producers will continue to collaborate with e-companies in the future – particularly during the more important seasons – to initiate fund-fueled promotions. Nonetheless, the e-commercial ticket sales revenue (in 2014 there were over 4,500 cinemas, 22,000 screens and 30 billion RMB of box office revenue), however profitable, can barely hold a candle to the sheer financial power of the e-commercial industry. This coinciding of development periods of both Internet-based mobile payments and cinema construction, which has never happened in the United States, has given China’s movie market the potential to become the greatest in the world. The online launch of Breakup Buddies led to significant repercussions both in the film production field and among cinemas themselves. Many argue that the strategy used would leave traditional movie releasers in a position of jeopardy, with a number of people holding the view that, as the Internet continues to develop, cinemas will gradually become deprived of their managerial authority and eventually face extinction. Opinions of all kinds have been magnified and spread widely, triggering a heated discussion on the issue. However, the involvement of Internet-based mobile payment services in the sales channels of cinema tickets is an irrevocable and necessary feature of the contemporary movie industry. It is important that one views the issue in perspective, rather than forming rash opinions or jumping to conclusions. It is a universal rule that science and technology develop rapidly, leaving future industrial structures subject to constant change. Therefore, 48

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it can be argued that the issue should not be narrowed down into any one specific area, such as exaggeration being placed on the assumed threat of e-commercial companies. Cinemas should not only make full use of the Internet, but also orientate themselves for long-term development, exert their full strengths and find a way to establish a win-win scenario with Internet enterprises. Competition Between Cinemas and Internet Enterprises Even before the rise of Internet enterprises, cinemas collaborated with ticket companies to broaden the sales channel of movie tickets. Such companies contributed a great deal to the box office, in addition to cash, VIP and group sales. The prevailing group shopping and ‘online seat reservation’ modes of today’s cyber-companies have swayed the traditional sales system to quite an extent, with numerous customers now buying their tickets online rather than through conventional channels provided by cinemas. E-commercial companies under development try to cooperate with cinemas, all of which, for various reasons, have taken part in the ‘online seat reservation’ service. The shift of initiative is a result of the qualitative change of accumulated user resources as well as the growing power of the industry as a whole. Considering that several e-commercial companies are able to occupy a large market share in China, and given the assistance of capital and the participation of Internet magnates, the ‘online seat reservation’ platform is bound to be shared by several major powers. As for cinema systems that are capable of opening chain stores, linking assets, and effectively controlling subordinate cinemas, they occupy a scattered share of the national box office. Many independently run cinemas and old state-owned theatres also still play a role in the competition, which is effectively determined by their market share. Those traits held in common by e-commerce and traditional industries can also be applied to the gaming between e-commercial companies and cinemas. In terms of the management team, Internet companies have fewer employees; they tend to be young, unrestrained by the existing system, quick to renew their knowledge structure, and highly creative. Theatre chains and cinemas are in an altogether quite different situation; various problems can be highlighted regarding the practitioners’ age, educational background and salary. Currently, Internet enterprises are learning the rules of the film industry by recruiting experienced practitioners in order to gain a better understanding of cinema. In contrast, it is hard for cinemas to bring in top talents from Internet companies and even more challenging to have a top-down re-design of the cinema eco-system. Many young professionals cultivated by the system have obtained the experience of running a cinema and are of a similar age to the mainstream audience, therefore giving them the potential to cooperate successfully with the Internet industry. It could be argued that, due to their great value to cinema companies, professionals should try to figure out the thinking pattern of cyber-companies, learn from their strengths and become 49

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cinema specialists who are equally well-adapted to the development of the Internet era. For this reason, decision-makers face the challenge of putting employees to good use, appropriately adopting the suggestions of business teams, and facilitating industrial transformation. For them, the key is to ‘determine’ rather than to ‘plan’. In the time of ‘big data’, Internet enterprises have distinctive advantages: according to membership statistics, their database, coverage and effectiveness are far superior to those of cinema companies. In other words, without chain stores, cinema companies are essentially put at a disadvantage with regards to big data. Nonetheless, it is futile striving for the data volume alone. The advantage of cinema practitioners is their experienceforged ability to comprehend and analyze data, though the extent to which big data can be precisely analyzed depends largely on practitioners’ long-term experience. The twelveyear revolution of theatre chain progresses every year, so the acquired data can vary greatly, and may subsequently fail to provide a comprehensive answer. Because film is a cultural product, it is heavily influenced by the social state, the viewer’s mindset, economic level and screening schedules, and can never be assessed by quantitative factors such as an individual actor’s level of fame. Hence, although e-commercial companies expected ‘The Golden Era’ to gain a box office income of around 200 to 300 million RMB, it actually brought in less than 50 million RMB. Such events are likely to occur, as many cinema practitioners have a greater ability to predict than the so-called ‘expectation model’. When it comes to data collection, cinemas have their own advantage: not only do they have a VIP system characterized by high customer loyalty and high per-customer transaction figures, but they can also develop self-service ticket machines connected with various e-commercial companies to capitalize on the data of the ‘online seat reservation’ service. To cope with Internet enterprises, cinemas should first and foremost have an appropriate understanding of the development of e-commerce. They should never allow their ideas to become pessimistic, but rather ought to realize that the fashionable economic revolution of the Internet represents a chance for every industry to reshuffle. No company is absolutely safe in dealing with capital and the Internet. Success and bankruptcy are both possible outcomes of the gamble, so those running cinema businesses need to work very hard in order to avoid the latter. Specifically, they need to predict box office revenues, average screening and attendance, duration and profitability, as they each bear a direct relation to the amount of resources cinemas should invest in e-commercial events. The tendency of e-companies to offer lower prices in order to acquire users presents cinema managers with a growing challenge in maintaining a certain level of profitability. Paying Attention to the Popular Mobile Payment Service The emergence of mobile payment services has increasingly infiltrated people’s social lives, enabling consumers to pay their bills in a way that is quicker, more accessible and has greater flexibility. As China franchises more non-financial third-party payment agencies, 50

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their development is inevitably expected to accelerate. It is important that cinema practitioners keep a close eye on the latest news in the mobile payment industry in the context of the Internet era, in order the optimize the services they provide to audiences. Mobile e-commerce integrates mobile communication devices of various kinds with digital mobile businesses such as e-wallet, mobile payment, bank, and securities, in order to form an e-commercial system. Being immediate, timely and convenient, mobile payment has recently become a major and novel mode of e-payment in the business (retail) payment system, as well as becoming a focus of the spotlight within the industry. Additionally, non-cyber payment modes can also offer assistance to cinemas. For instance, offline payment services can be used in the form of phone-call transactions, self-service payments, terminal services and public offline payment devices such as Lakala and Jiaofeiyi, all of which are provided by third-party payment agencies. Enhancing mobile payment does not have the purpose of replacing traditional onthe-spot ticket selling methods, but is rather to provide viewers with the best possible services. Taking advantage of cyber channels and mobile payment platforms can help to expand the number of regular cinema customers. As Alipay Wallet forces its way into the offline market, its mobile users are beginning to form a huge customer flow for cinemas. As a result, many theatre chains have cooperated with Alipay Wallet and initiated the new service of offline self-service machines for purchasing tickets by sound wave. The so-called ‘sound wave purchase’ is a novel technique based on the application of Alipay Wallet. Users select the ticket on the cinema’s self-service ticket machine, before using Alipay’s ‘face-to-face payment’ service to complete the transaction. In order to actively exploit online payment terminals, cinemas should first of all consider and conduct cooperation with branded payment systems. The online cinema payments referred to here are generally e-bank and Alipay. Cinemas ought to find common grounds with third parties, exploiting them as platforms for merchant and customer payments, and take the initiative to bridge users with banks via third-party payment agencies. If these actions are taken, it could be of great benefit to the future of China’s financial industry. Diversify the Function of the Cinema Business Model Nowadays, cinemas all around the world tend to target cultural commercial entertainment consumption. As cinemas keep growing in number and competition heats up, there is increasing focus on the importance of service, as well as overall arrangement and brand effect, of operation and management within the industry. Those who offer more creative, considerate, cost-effective, comfortable and convenient services are far more likely to be presented with opportunities in the future. Regardless of the manner in which they are operated, cinemas should focus on theatrical themes, cultures and brands, as well as holding multi-functional commercial activities, 51

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and highlighting their own features. In short, they should do what is related to film, but they should not do everything. Otherwise, despite the short-term market and benefit, they would begin to lose the heart of cinema, along with their unique characteristics and brand charm. In truth, Chinese movies tend to be fairly profitable in terms of production and publicity. If the rental fees of the cinema are not too high, it is all but guaranteed to make money. The marketing scope of cinema is expanded as a result of cyber media’s ability to bring individual consumers together. Although group shopping undermines many traditional marketing approaches, the belief that it restricts cinemas is less common than the acknowledgement of the opportunities and possibilities it brings. It goes without saying that the defining characteristic of a cinema is small-scale retailing. In terms of a cinema’s running philosophy, it is suggested that administrators operate their cinemas for the sake of making a contribution to the movie industry as a whole. For that purpose, they should pay close attention to the audience’s consumer psychology in order to satisfy their rational need for watching movies, as well as the perhaps slightly less rational need for shopping. The standard cinema income composition comprises ticket sales, soft drinks, popcorn and other snacks, other commodities, movie souvenirs and post-movie products. The majority of movies screened today receive a purchase rate of less than 30%, and the revenue of other commodities accounts for less than 10% of the box office. Yet, some theatre chains gain more revenue from snacks (cola and popcorn) than at the box office. Generally, the hardware (rent and manpower) cost is fixed and fairly high. In the present situation, cinemas should further exploit the retail business to expand consumption space and increase the rate of consumption, providing that specifications for fire protection and cinema operation are met. Furthermore, sales of film-related literature should be implemented, and cooperation should be conducted with magazines and other publishing houses. A sales mode similar to that of airport books can be adopted to sell publications related to movies, directors, actors, biographies, journals, posters, feature articles and pictorials, as a way of expanding the cinema business model. Moreover, theatre chains should consider establishing classified ‘higher-end’ cinema, genre cinema and feature cinema. The key is to innovate the business mode and to increase the competitiveness of consumption behaviours. Higher-end cinema and feature cinema are the trend of future development, involving such factors as operation, business philosophy, rent, location, environment and audience. A more fundamental task is to ensure that cinemas remain distinctive, characteristic, electronic and Internet-orientated. Due to the importance of services, details and ticket prices, cinemas must make efforts to attract both lower- and higher-end customers by constantly improving their services. Additionally, they should consider offering fast access to movies as required by the key account – the general public. Even if a cinema adopts diverse business models, it should have a target and always be willing to adapt. As for higher-end customers such as ‘white collars’, cinemas need to consider their needs 52

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on multiple levels, add proper items and improve the quality so as to offer user-friendly services. Such diversified services will surely be well-received by a larger audience with varying purposes and of different social standings. Pay Attention to the Audience’s Pre-Movie Consumer Psychology and Timing Whether the ticket is purchased in the theatre or by other means, having decided on the film and payed for the tickets, viewers usually tend to arrive at the cinema around 30 minutes before the movie starts. The 30-minute wait requires cinemas to provide a place for customers to relax until the screening begins. At this point, audiences have the opportunity to purchase target merchandise, particularly around ten minutes prior to the movie starting. On the one hand, cinema operators need to increase their efforts to study methods of promoting movie tickets online, and faciliate secure online as well as on-site ticket transactions. On the other hand, they should also focus on the huge attraction and impact that cinema merchandise exerts on different age groups, in order to closely examine the audience’s impulsive buying behaviours. Even more importantly, cinemas must make it convenient to buy tickets over-the-counter, in order to minimize the time spent by customers on choosing and buying tickets, therefore improving purchase rates and promoting sales of other commodities. Generally, customers at the cinema have a specific consumer psychology of watching the movie without rashly spending money on additional merchandise. The increasing number of young viewers, however, has given way to some less predictable consumer behaviours – even though they come with the intention to see the movie, they may buy related merchandise due to their group mentality and enhanced fan psychology. In terms of operation, it is critical for cinemas to create an open shopping environment that stimulates consumption and ignites viewers’ shopping impulses before and after they see the movie. It is important to figure out the statistics and quantities of different periods, to precisely calculate audience numbers, actual and concessionary ticket prices, prices of snacks such as popcorn and cola, audience’s consumer psychology, price psychology and irrational consumer psychology. In carefully considering these factors, cinema managers can conduct a successful all-round retail business. Attract More Young Participants with Cinema Activities Our surveys revealed that young groups are more interested in fan movies and movie stars. Apart from holding promotion campaigns such as producer meetings, premieres and press conferences, operators should explore the potential of movie screening and marketing as well as the reform of management methodologies. 53

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When it comes to actual operation, the following strategies can be adopted: 1. Use theatre resources when appropriate to organize online reservations, targeted previews and group-purchases, and use lectures and gifts when necessary to compete with big theatres by demonstrating specialty and diversity. 2. On the basis of a thorough market investigation, screen movies throughout the night during weekends and summer and winter holidays, or even carry out marketing and sales campaigns (like lotteries, or selling and giving away books with movie stars’ autographs) via websites and third-party platforms. 3. Theatre is a typical case of retailing. The key is adapting to consumer psychology, satisfying the audience’s rational and irrational shopping psychology, meeting various customer needs, allocating space for different showrooms, and screening genre and art movies according to online statistics and reservations. Given the status quo, strategies to ‘befriend’ young audiences are one the primary focuses of theatre companies. Self-service payment machines can be set up to provide traditional payment services inside the theatres for youths to pay bills (mobile phones, metro cards, water, electricity, Internet) prior to watching the movie. It goes without saying that there should be numerous kinds of discounts in the form of online purchases, seat reservations, gifts for big buyers and free delivery, to mention but a few. Apply Diverse Operations and Promotion Modes Cinemas and theatre chains nowadays tend to place value on hardware construction over software management, box office over marketing, and box office statistics over branding. Marketing and promotion are core factors in the running of a cinema. The ultimate goals of existing cinemas are: (1) amplifying influence; (2) increasing the number of screenings for each movie; (3) effectively controlling and increasing attendances; and (4) extending and increasing box office and other revenues. In terms of the management, operation, marketing and promotion, they ought to try to reach the target from every possible angle and in an unrestricted manner. This can be achieved using the strategies discussed below. Exclusive Screening for Media Producers have to hold screenings exclusively for mass media prior to launching a movie, which can incur either praise or criticism. Even though producers have developed a long, stable and friendly relationship with cinemas, and have invested heavily in the media, there is still a possibility of negative criticism, ‘different voices’ and other unexpected 54

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situations. Besides, according to existing regulations and conventions, only one cinema in every city is allowed to apply for an exclusive mass-media screening before the release of a new movie (blockbuster). Bearing all this in mind, every producer and issuer needs to carefully conduct substantial research on how to fully communicate with the media, and how to gain control of media resources in order to sway the pendulum of public opinion. Press Conferences The best choice available to a cinema is to attract and contact producers, and even to hold press conferences through combining efforts. At the earliest possible opportunity, cinema operators should communicate in depth with event sponsors about the form and content of their press conference, taking advantage of the event as a marketing solution according to the specific arrangement. This particular kind of press conference can also help to build a favourable environment for screening, owing to the presence of celebrities, media reports and trailers. Admittedly, it is not uncommon for publicity and launching ceremonies to produce the opposite results to those anticipated. Premieres and Meetings Premieres, meetings and other occasions involving movie stars are the most common and effective kind of cinema marketing events. The problem is that there is a general lack of celebrities: more often than not, movie stars are unable to attend events. In collaboration, producers, agencies and cinemas should emphasize the significance of premieres and meetings by virtue of the Internet, fans, directors and media teams. The key is placing significant value on the power that can be held by the fans. Online Marketing and Publicity When publicizing movies, cinemas should make use of any available outdoor publicity resources and online social media to encourage viewing and to make cyber-marketing a communicative mode of development and efficiency. Marketing can be conducted in accurately targeted microblogs, QQ, MSN and Wechat groups. They are both practical and fairly effective, and can reach the target group with low costs, capturing the attention of those who have never seen the movie. In this way, a small investment can lead to a significant reward. In summary, all the cinema operation and marketing modes focus on business and user-friendliness, taking a number of opportunities for varied cooperation.

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Co-Promotion with Producers The Internet makes cinema marketing infinitely convenient. Cyber-marketing is, to quote the audience, doing business without spending a dime. That is the highest level of marketing. For example, the marketer of Love is Not Blind publicized it via microblogs, Renren and Kaixin (social websites) and video clips as early as eight months before the movie came out. The news went viral among fan groups, and the trailer was increasingly discussed among audiences, ultimately attracting more than 1.5 million loyal fans. According to official statistics, the box office exceeded 100 million on the first day, 200 million in the first week and 300 million in just three weeks. The Internet is a leading social platform, the users of which rarely care about publicity. For this reason, their expressions and feelings are naturally taken as sincere and true. This is perhaps what makes the Internet seem more trustworthy and objective than traditional public media. At a time when microblogs were yet to gain any recognized popularity, enterprises often used online forums, blogs, QQ and social websites as socialized marketing solutions. Nowadays, it is of critical importance for cyber-marketing events to maintain a high level of accuracy. The Internet has become an essential part of people’s everyday lives. Fast and convenient access has made it more than just a platform for requesting personal information, expressing emotion or announcing political affairs. With the show business and entertainment industry full of fans, it provides by far the best marketing solution, as well as a channel for participation in public welfare. Therefore, cinema administrators should consider how to incorporate it in every step of the operation, taking into account title sponsorship or other forms of sponsorship including gifts, publicity, advertisements and signs, in order to reduce marketing expenditure and strengthen the influence of movies and cinemas. Specifically, they should attach importance to the beginning, middle and end of the marketing process. In the beginning, they can coordinate with promoters and releasers to carry out ‘warm-up’ promotions and receive accurate market feedback. In the intermediate phase, it is suggested that they can observe and collect audience reactions, fully communicating with them and consequently increasing media exposure. Alternatively, they may conduct a survey on the audience experience so as to evaluate publicity tactics and adjust the subsequent promotion plan and session schedule. At the final stage, they are supposed to carry out various launching measures and previews, ensuring that the movie is precisely targeted at the audience and can fully arouse their appetite and interest. Future Operation and Development Nowadays, cinemas and theatre chains in China are not in a real competition, judging by the total audience and cinema figures. Most cinemas screen the same movies and are thus lacking features that make them unique. Driven by short-term benefits, they follow 56

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the general trend of offering average services, wasting resources and having a jumbled schedule. The best thing to do in launching a movie is to analyse the market, adopt certain marketing solutions and seize the right opportunities. In an era characterized by new media and the Internet, fundamental changes have taken place in cinema functions, attributes, tasks and services. The ‘two-eight pattern’ still holds true in the Chinese movie market, meaning 20% of the screening seasons contribute to 80% of the box office. On the whole, only 200 movies are shown in cinemas every year. Cinema operators should look into cinema development carefully and logically. It is time to think about the operation, business, management and profiting modes, which are not matters of top-level design or business structure, but matters of method and detail. This is of great practical importance to cinemas. The American movie industry is relatively prosperous. Americans have a strong habit of consuming movie products, so retail revenues can account for up to 50% of the total box office income. Chinese moviemakers often speak admiringly of that figure, but the truth is that China’s retail revenues can only account 10% to 15% of the box office income, leaving 40% open to potential further development. Given this prospect, Chinese practitioners have no cause to complain that the movie industry in China is much worse than that of America. It is indisputable that Chinese producers gain most of their profits from the box office, which represents something of a risky scenario. If a cinema were to break codes of conduct and ‘steal’ box office earnings, the production companies would be the ones at risk. Theatre chains and cinemas in China should foresee the importance of adapting to and developing mobile payment services by conducting necessary studies and adopting appropriate top-level designs. Emerging first in the United States in the early 1990s, the mobile payment business soon came into fruition and rapidly developed in economically advantaged countries such as Japan and North Korea. Their success demonstrates, in terms of the industrial chain, that it is of paramount importance to develop post-movie merchandise. For cinemas, it would be strongly advisable to research various operation modes, and encourage the development of profitable merchandise. According to our findings, even for those famous international theatres long grounded in the selling of post-movie merchandise, the revenue only constitutes 2% to 3% of the total box office and never exceeds 5%. Admittedly, some of the bigger theatre chains gain considerable revenue from food sales (cola and popcorn), which in certain cases may even exceed the box office takings. The fundamental problem is that foreign movies have various derivatives that are appealing to young people. In contrast, those of Chinese movies are very restricted – mostly small-scale merchandise such as notebooks, T-shirts and lighters – showing a notable sign of homogenization. Additionally, they tend to be very expensive, which will most likely have a negative impact on the long-term profit of post-movie merchandise, as well as leaving the industrial chain seriously affected. Cinema operators regularly hold marketing activities related to movies, such as celebrity meetings, media conferences and premieres. In certain cases, they do not have 57

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any specific criteria to adhere to, which can be an issue as both excess and shortage will have negative consequences. The key questions are what can they do to be unique? How can they fully arouse the audience’s attention? These questions all require cinemas to have a practical and qualitative evaluation and explore activities that can attract more media and audiences, directly promote movies and provide a noticeable boost to attendance figures and box office revenue. Chinese cinemas should also carefully study how cinema chains in the West manage to gain revenues of up to 50% of the box office through other commodities. It is recommended that they figure out how to control the ratio between the cost of tickets and other costs that are unrelated to the ticket price. Cinema operators and managers must carefully analyse and concentrate on eight key issues: (1) enhancing cyber-marketing strategies; (2) studying the operation modes of foreign cinemas; (3) deepening the fundamental reform of operational and management approaches; (4) enhancing budget management, streamlining managers and reducing costs; (5) avoiding excessive focus on short-term profits; (6) building feature cinemas of different types, such as common and higher-end ones; (7) adapting to the new social context and innovating modes of operation; and (8) attending to the audience and improving the core competitive edge of cinema services. References Luo, Z. and Zhang, Y. J. (2014), ‘The Box Office Failure of Golden Age, and the Reasons Behind it’, Xinhua Daily Report, No. 7. Du, S. M. (2011), ‘Does Love if Not Blind deserve a 3.3 Billion Box Office?’, China Film News, 1 December 2011. Gao, Y. G. (2012), ‘Apart from Popcorn, What Else Can Cinema Sell’, China Film Art News, 20 January 2012. Notes 1. 张会军，陆阳，朱涛 2. According to the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People’s Republic of China, the official figure released by the Film Department of the box office in China in 2014 is 296.39 billion RMB. 3. According to the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People’s Republic of China, the official figure released by the Film Department of the total number of screens in China is 23,600, and the total number of moviegoers is 8.3 billion.

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Chapter 4 The Present State and the Problems of Chinese Cinema LIU Fan1

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hina’s cinema industry has been maintaining an encouraging state of high-speed development, as exhibited by the persistent growth in terms of production, box office income and audience figures. Although themes and genres of film were still relatively dominated by a select few, diversification has been gradually increasing. There weren’t very many popular films; however, new talents also appear every year. The total number of moviegoers amounted to 613.4 million in 2013, an increase of 32.4% from the previous year; and the overall box office reached 21.769 billion RMB (3.57 billion USD),2 representing an annual growth of 27.51%. As a result of this, China’s film market became the second largest on the globe, following that of North America (10.9 billion USD at the box office in 2013). Approaching the end of 2013, there were a total of 18,195 screens in China, screening 305 new movies of which 61 were imported films and 244 were domestic productions. Thirty-three of the newly-released local films made more than 100 million RMB a piece in ticket sales alone. Of the total amount of 21.769 billion RMB, domestic productions were responsible for 12.767 billion RMB, increasing by 54.32% from the year earlier and occupying a 58.65% share of the market. In comparison to the other nonAmerican countries, China’s domestic production had a fairly high market share. In this chapter, an account will be made for the recent progress of China’s cinema as well as its current problems, from the perspective of both the industry and film-making. .

The Present State and the Problems of China’s Film Industry The Production Segment on the Upstream of the Film Industry As can be seen from Table 4.1, an average of 617 domestic films were produced between 2010 and 2013, which suggests huge progress in comparison to the annual production amount of just 100 in 2002, when the reform of the film industry was yet to be fully implemented. There were 638 fiction features produced in 2013 – a decrease from the previous year; however, the reduction was the result of ‘reasonable adjustment’, to avoid a repeat scenario in which a large quantity of poor-quality films had been produced, leading to a significant waste of time and resources. Take, for example, the case of 2012: based on data from 250 samples out of 558 total films in 2011, the average investment cost was around 9 million RMB. Assuming an inflation rate of 3%, the total investment 61

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cost per film in 2012 reached about 9.27 million RMB. In the same year, the number of domestic fiction films (that can be analysed) amounted to 653 (excluding the 92 films that were produced by the Film Channel); therefore, by calculation, the overall investment in films during 2012 was around 6.1 billion RMB. The entire grossing of domestic films reached 8.273 billion RMB in 2012, and if special funds and taxation were reduced, that number is closer to 7.568 billion RMB. If the respective shares of cinemas, theatre chains and distribution companies were further cut, the actual income of a production company would be approximately 2.8 billion RMB. Although other releasing windows and post-film product sales also contribute to profits, the gross revenue was still relatively low, due to over 80% of the capital recovery being generated by the theatrical distribution. When comparing the recovered investment with the total investment, it can be concluded that, although in previous years there were a number of films reaching a high rate of return on investment and achieving high box office figures, the need to improve the general rate of return on investment remains a fundamental concern for the development of the film industry. Of course, it cannot be ignored that certain investors, for whom other kinds of profits were the real concern, did not care about gains or losses. The basic situation of Chinese cinema in recent years can be observed from Table 4.1, which shows that the box office, the number of audiences and the production quantity have all increased, suggesting a prosperous scenario for the film industry in general. However, there is still an issue with the the yield of each film: 79 of the total number of films hit over 10 million RMB, with even Ip Man: The Final Fight (2013), which is ranked 79th, earning 10.2 million RMB. Since August 2013, when business tax began to be replaced by value-added tax, the income shares of production companies fell by a significant amount, once the value-added tax and film funds, which made up 11.3% of the total income, had been subtracted. Taking the remaining 88.7% as the final gross, production companies would share 43%; thus, in effect, they were only permitted 38.14% of the original box office income. With this 38.14% share, production companies had to reclaim the production investment, and also pay copyright fees, marketing and distribution. So, for a film that earned 10 million RMB, its production company would only get around 3.814 million RMB. Obviously, for domestic productions, the return is notably smaller than the average investment, and with such investment it would be impossible even to make a medium-quality film that could be released in cinemas. When considering these factors, it is not difficult to imagine the predicament constantly faced by production companies. In terms of market entities, the number of film production companies in China exceeds 1,000 at present, in addition to over 3,000 TV drama production companies. However, because most film production companies possess a less diverse horizontal business and do not have solid vertical value-chains to spread risks, there is always a chance that they may suffer huge losses or even a total collapse. Such a poor structure of risk resistance makes big-budget productions in particular a huge financial gamble. This is not truer than 62

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for middle- to small-scale production enterprises that are economically weak and lack the supportive industry-value chain, instead operating solely on the basis of individual projects and separated production-business. This dependency on isolated practices makes it exceedingly difficult to prosper in the ever-changing market. For example, although initially delaying the successful film Painted Skin II (2012), the Kylin Network (Beijing) Movie & Culture Media Company broke the box office record of 720 million RMB, and through allowing the core production team to dominate the production, it contributed to the film industry’s reform on the ‘director centralism’ mentality. The reason for production companies showing such weakness in risk resistance is essentially due to the poor environment in which business is carried out. Production companies in China have to withstand great pressure of management: their potential profits are reduced because of high taxation and inappropriate schemes of income share, and strict content censorship impacts significantly on film-making, leaving a huge policy risk in the development of a film project.

Table 4.1. Basic statistics of China’s cinemas (2010–2013).

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Distribution and Marketing In terms of distribution, there are essentially five models at present: 1. The investor takes charge of both production and distribution. This is the dominant model deployed by big distribution companies in contemporary China, similar to the six big Hollywood studios, for which a major distribution source acts simultaneously as an investment company. The higher-ranking distribution companies in China are mostly modelling towards the business operation method of the six big Hollywood studios, thus fundamentally combining investment with distribution. Based on such a model, the company starts to involve itself in film production from the initial stage of project development, and continues to participate in production investment and distribution (e.g. Lost in Thailand (2012) was both produced and distributed by Beijing Enlight Media; China Film Group Corporation (CFGC) produced and distributed about ten films in 2013, and distributed twenty others by trading marketing efforts for shareholdings). 2. Specialty agent companies take over the distribution. The production company that lacks a distribution system handles marketing campaigns, leaving distribution to the specialty agent who reduces the cost by a certain percentage. Typically, 10% of the revenue would go to the distribution agent. For example, as a distribution agent, (CFGC) released over 100 films in 2013; and Beijing Enlight Media distributed the film American Dreams in China (2013), although it did not get involved in either the investment or the production of the film. 3. The distributor operates by the minimum guarantee. The production company and the distribution company first establish the ‘bottom line’ (usually the lowest grossing by prediction, or the break-even point), after which the distribution company invests in the film according to the bottom line and fronts the cost of marketing.3 Later, the distributor could share a larger percentage of the income providing the grossing minimum is surpassed; for example, the film Tiny Times was a huge hit at the box office, giving Le Vision Pictures, the distributor that operated in the model of minimum guarantee, a 50% share of gross profits and ultimately making it the biggest beneficiary. 4. The distributor buys the copyright for the film’s regional distribution. Generally, domestic companies apply this model when distributing bought-out imported films. The so-called ‘bought-out’ films refer to imported films whose copyright for regional distribution is purchased exclusively, meaning that at fixed prices, overseas producers give up the rights for the mainland release of their films to domestic producers, and the producers would not share box office profits. Nowadays, China imports around 30 bought-out films annually, most of which are from diverse origins, though none are produced by Hollywood’s big six, and may often be less ‘attractive’ than the Hollywood big budgets leaving their domestic 64

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release to fall behind global distribution. In China, CFGC and Huaxia Film Distribution Company exclusively control distribution rights for imported films,4 while other companies can only release the bought-out ones. Having purchased a film’s copyright, they must go to CFGC and the Huaxia Film Distribution to obtain an import license for the film. The copyright of the film The Expendables was acquired in 2010, which then generated 215 million RMB and The Counterfeiters (2007), bought out at a price of no more than 100,000 USD, earned over 10 million RMB. Nonetheless, following the success of The Expendables, the price of boughtout films rose significantly, and many movies were sold at a loss, such as The Artist (2011), which was purchased for over 3.7 billion RMB, yet did not even make 4 billion RMB. 5. Production companies of imported big-budget films split a share with the Chinese distributor, which can only be CFGC or Huaxia. For example, 20th Century Fox, the company that produced Life of Pi (2012) – which eventually earned 568 million RMB – would receive 23 million USD as a result of the share-split deal, which was 25% of the gross. Based on statistics from 2012 and 2013, there are around 70 film distribution companies in China. Film distribution is a business that is necessary financially, and a professional distribution company can only operate if it runs around ten films annually. Within the narrow domestic market (317 domestic and foreign films were released in cinemas in 2012; 305 in 2013), only a few distribution companies are required. What China’s film distribution industry needs to do is gain the economic effect and develop a competitive advantage by means of industrial consolidation and improving of handling capacity. As highlighted on Table 4.2, the top ten distribution companies in China shared 57.81% of the film market in 2013. This is far below the performance of Hollywood’s top ten distribution companies within the North American market, illustrating a lower level of industrial concentration within China’s film distribution market. The threshold to make the top ten list is 380 million RMB at the box office; 1.74% of all the distribution companies passed this threshold (Media Asia Statistics) although it is not a particularly high standard of requirement. The big six distribution companies in China consist of China Film Group Corporation, Huayi Brothers Media Corporation, Beijing Enlight Media, Le Vision Corporation, Bona Film Group Limited and Huaxia Film Distribution Company. If you exclude Huaxia, a proportionately weak company in terms of market competition that monopolizes the market by means of the policy privilege, Edko Film and China Wanda Group would become strong contenders to be included in the domestic big six. In addition, within the other distribution companies, it is worth noting that the Mr. Cartoon Pictures, currently ranked 12th, is good at distributing animations, and the Sunny Fujian Film Distribution Company, which ranks 15th and considers itself to be ‘China’s Lions Gate’, specializes in releasing thrillers. 65

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Table 4.2. Top 15 companies within the distribution market in 2013. Source of statistics: The chapter ‘Research on the Film Distribution within the Theater-Chain System’ in the ‘Research Report on China’s Film Industry of 2014’. The statistics do not cover imported profit-sharing films [jinkou fenzhang pian] or imported bought-out films [jinkou pipian], because the business of distributing those films is monopolized by China Film Group Corporation and Huaxia Film Company, and there is no way to compare the performance of those two companies with that of others.

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Problems faced by the distribution segment in China are numerous. CFGC and Huaxia have a monopoly on the distribution of imported movies, and China Film Group Digital Cinema Line Company controls most businesses of digital copies and encryptions. This goes against the fair market principle and is a disadvantage to the cultivation of industrial competitiveness. Another problem manifests itself in the shortage of competitive specialized distribution companies. In addition to CFGC and Huaxia, which foster their distribution competences by virtue of policies, Beijing Enlight Media and the Le Vision Company are the only ones that possess real distribution teams (‘the ground forces’). Bona Film Group began making its fortune from the business of distribution and is professionally qualified, with the remaining distribution companies consisting mainly of investors who get involved in the release of a film, making their business less stable as more production projects result in more distribution businesses, and vice versa. Most companies are not as developed as Hollywood’s big six, who are able to sustain stable market shares. Distribution companies also generally lack control over film projects, and they tend to converge on the specific model. Film distributors serving specific regions and theatre chains have not yet been adopted by the mainstream, with only a handful of films, such as Silent Witness (2013), experimenting with niche market targeting. Finally, there is a lack of high-quality films, and small distribution companies face inevitable difficulty in securing those that are available. In addition to distribution, film marketing has developed at a rapid pace recently, becoming the fourth most important sector of the film industry after production, distribution and exhibition. Because of the increasing expansion of the film industry in China, the industrial sectors become subdivided at a fast pace, and specialized marketing companies gradually begin to emerge. Among the top ten high-earning domestic films of 2013, only American Dreams in China had its marketing managed by the production company itself, while the remaining nine films outsourced their marketing to specialized companies. According to traditional views, the marketing expense of a film scales with the production cost; however, in reality, it scales with the expected box office revenue. In total, 2.4 billion RMB was spent on film marketing in China in 2012, occupying 14% of the annual box office; in 2013, marketing cost around 2.8 billion RMB, taking up 13% of the entire box office of the year.6 At present, there are several specialized film marketing companies with a higher market share, including Beijing Hesong Shiji Media Company, which served the film Finding Mr. Right, Maxtimes Culture Films Company (Tianjin) for So Young, Wanhua Cultural Promotion Company for Police Story 2013, In Entertainment Company for Personal Tailor (2013), Magilm Pictures for Let the Bullets Fly (2010) and Magic Film and TV Culture Company for The Chef, The Actor, The Scoundrel (2013). Although small in scale, each of those marketing companies has managed successful cases, suggesting that there are still opportunities for latecomers. Marketing is a highly valued sector within the industrial chain of film. The marketing of a film is characteristically different from most other kinds of marketing. Targeting 67

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and propagation are two key points, and there are twenty regularly adopted methods of marketing, which can be practically organized into integrated marketing communications in order to systematically improve marketing efficiency. The ‘big-data’ method has often been deployed in film marketing recently, and is a strategy that can significantly enhance marketing efficiency. There are four kinds of false consciousness within the present film marketing practices in China. The first one is exaggerated marketing: there are many big-budget movies suffering from waste and inefficient use of resources, whose many marketing activities cost a huge amount, with little return on investments. To take a typical example, the real quality of film content fails to live up to the expectation created by dramatic and expensive marketing campaigns, leaving audiences to lose their faith. If the film were already of poor quality, overwhelming publicity could end up doing more harm than a more modest marketing campaign. In addition, some films would attract the audience through dramatic strategies, using expressions such as ‘the first film about […]’ and ‘the movie that initiates […]’. Others might seek to be different by launching new genres, for example, ‘thrilling comedy’ or ‘romantic tragic comedy’. Such strategies must be deployed with due caution, as use of excessive creativity can lead to a detachment from the generic conventions, which in can in turn result in stepping out of the audience’s ‘vision of normative expectation’ – violating the ‘commitment of conventions’ between audiences and film-making companies and subsequently resulting in the loss of audiences. Secondly, film marketing can be divided into different phases, including concept propagation, element diffusion, value spreading and commercial promotion. The focus of marketing should vary according to different phases. For example, the most appropriate method for the value spreading stage is to maneuver online interactions instead of advertisements in order to interpret the beauty of the film. Third, there is the misconception of those targeted by marketing. Film marketing faces four levels of receivers, including the co-operative company, the theatre chain/cinema, the media and the audience. It is commonly considered that media identification + media publicity = audience identification; however, what is in fact important for media is the news value and topical appeal, rather than the actual quality of the film. Therefore, the marketing team has to design towards the audience’s concern, in addition to obtaining the identification and publicity of media, in order to achieve optimum effectiveness in their marketing. The fourth and final kind of false consciousness within the present film marketing practices in China is misguided marketing, which usually equates with creating topical fever and gossip news. It is acceptable to generate topics and gossip news; however, if it is designed to drive film marketing, it has to be composed in accordance with marketing appeals. Failure to do so could result in attention mobilized solely by topics, rather than the genuine attraction of the audience. The reason for so many misconstructions is the lack of maturity within film marketing in China. The ideal status of film marketing is supposed to be appropriate above all 68

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else, adhering to content and orientating towards knowledge-driven and differentiated marketing. Although the specialization of industrial divisions could eventually be achieved, and the development of the film marketing business has been accelerating, marketing companies still suffer from the ceiling effect: marketing entities always play a peripheral supporting role, and are unable to affect the film quality itself. At present, with a discernible lack of high-quality films, some aspiring marketing companies have already started to develop their businesses towards the upstream of the industrial chain. A prime example of this is demonstrated by the In Entertainment Company, which has engaged with the creative planning and script consultation, and the Magic Film and TV Culture Company which has participated in investing in Silent Witnesses and So Young (2013). Theatre Chains and Cinemas Between 2002, which marked the beginning of the film reform towards industrialization, and the end of 2013, theatre chains and cinemas maintained a rapid level of expansion. There were 5,077 newly-built screens in 2013, bringing the total up to 18,195 (a yearly increase of 38.7%) with a staggering 13.9 screens constructed per day. There were 28.85 million screenings altogether by those cinemas in 2013, representing an annual rise of 39.7%, with the number of moviegoers reaching up to 613.4 million (an increase of around 24.4% from the previous year). Table 4.3 demonstrates that from 2002 to 2013, the number of theatre chains rose from 30 to 46, moviegoers increased from less than 100 million to 613.4 million, and the total number of screens grew by 9.9 times during the eleven-year period. The rapidly increasing cinemas become an undoubtable foundation for the ever-accelerating growth of the box office in China.

Table 4.3. The growth of theatre chains and cinemas within China’s film market. Source of statistics: the ‘Market Report on China’s Film’ (2010–2013; China Film Press), and the China Film Distribution and Exhibition Association. There were 3,800 theatres in 2013.

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Table 4.4. Operations of theatre chains in 2013. Source of statistics: ‘The Ranking of the Moviegoers Population of the Theater Chains in China (1 January 2013–31 December 2013)’, China Film News (8 January 2014), 17.

We can take a close look at the respective present status of theatre chains and cinemas. Table 4.4 indicates that the current development of theatre chains in China is not balanced. As illustrated by the statistics shown in Table 4.4, there were a total of 46 theatre chains in 2013, and the gross income earned by those in the top ten reached up to 14.035 billion RMB, occupying as much as 64.47% of the total. The China Film Stellar Theater Chain, ranked 70

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29th, produced 100 million RMB gross, with the theatre chains ranked from 30th to 46th each earning less than 100 million RMB. The Sino-ADI Development Base of Advertising & Creativity Industry, ranked 45th, brought in 4.42 million RMB, while the Anhui Zhong’an Cinema Line Company, ranked 46th, collected just 30,000 RMB. This illustrates the polarized status of theatre chains, with several larger, higher-ranking companies taking control of the market, leaving the smaller theatre chains whose gross fell below 100 million RMB likely to be integrated or forced out altogether in the future. However, because of the territorial and administrative barriers in managing theatre chains, and the unreasonable withdrawal mechanism, it is difficult to control industrial integration. Of all the theatre chains, Wanda and Dadi are two of the clearest candidates for closer examination. Wanda topped the list with a gross annual revenue of 3.16 billion RMB, marking a yearly increase of 28.7%. Complying with the operative model of ‘cinema + plaza’, orientating towards the high-end market and possessing sound capitals, it established the so-called ‘Wanda model’ in theatre management. By the end of 2013, Wanda owned 142 movie theatres and 1,247 screens, among which were 898 3D and 114 IMAX screens, covering 27 administrative divisions9 across more than 70 cities.10 Wanda maintained its leading nationwide role in terms of annual box office performance for five consecutive years from 2009 to 2013. By means of the Blue-Ocean Strategy that targets the markets of second-, third- and fourth-tier cities, counties and towns, and resorting to the lower-price strategy that fits into the commodity-price level of small towns, Dadi ranked first in terms of national cinema construction and box office growth. By the end of 2013, Dadi owned a total of 379 movie theatres and 1,798 screens, including 1,336 3D screens, covering a total of 27 administrative regions. Dadi owned the most screens in 2013, and became the fourth biggest theatre chain nationally with a box office revenue of 1.57 billion RMB, a massive 43.9% increase from the previous year.11 What the cases of Wanda and Dadi demonstrate in terms of theatre development is: flexible and highly effective management directed by the private capitals; clear orientation towards either the high-end or the Blue Ocean of zero-grossing small towns; a demand on the market shares beyond profits for the purpose of rapid expansion; and strong control over theatres through emphasizing the connection of properties. Within the increasingly competitive industry, franchise theatres become less contributive to theatre chains, while share-held cinemas are increasingly becoming the key succeeding factor for success within the final sector of the film industry. However, this very sector in which an increasing number of serious problems are arising. Table 4.5 shows us that Jackie Chan Cinemas, which tops the list, reached a gross of 91.95 million RMB in 2013, with an average of 75.9 moviegoers per screening. Shaoxing International Studios, which ranks 300th, earned 18.72 million RMB in 2013, with the average attendance closer to 31.1. Each of these theatres attracted a larger number of moviegoers per screening than the average of 21.26. It appears quite clear that the lower the ranking of the cinema, the shorter the screening time and the lower the number moviegoers. 71

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In reality, the development of cinemas is also unbalanced at the moment. Jackie Chan Cinemas, which ranked first in 2013, owned 17 auditoriums and earned a maximum of 762,000 RMB per day, and 11.72 million RMB per month.12 It has maintained its place at the top for several years in terms of gross income and movie-going population, and it is the only cinema to have breached the record of 90 million RMB. Nonetheless, there are still many poorly performing theatres in China. There were only 512 cinemas in 2012 that earned over 10 million RMB, and 1,623 cinemas earning less than 2 million RMB, together making up 4.82% of the national box office revenue. Less than 17% of the total number of theatres could earn over 10 million RMB, with around 70% barely yielding more than 5 million RMB, and 60% failing to earn more than 1 million RMB.13 Those theatres with a gross of less than 1 million RMB have been struggling significantly, and inevitable future restructuring within the theatre industry could leave smaller companies unable to compete and facing liquidation.

Table 4.5. Managerial statistics of the top 300 theatres in terms of movie-going population in 2013. Source of statistics: ‘The Ranking of the Moviegoers Population of the Theater Chains in China (1 January 2013–31 December 2013)’, China Film News (8 January 2014), 17.

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Table 4.6. Per-screen box office output of China’s urban theatres (2010–2013). Source of statistics: ‘Analysis on the Management of Theater Chains and Multiplexes of 2013’, in Research Report on China’s Film Industry of 2014, Market Report on China’s Film (2012–2013).

As suggested by Table 4.6, the per-screening revenue gradually decreased from 2010 to 2013, and the same has been happening to the number of moviegoers per screening. In terms of theatre management, current problems reside in the decrease of box office revenue and average attendances, the converged profit model, the limited room for return left by high rent, and the homogenizing tendency, all of which restrict the development of theatres. The national average seat-occupancy rate was as low as 15% in 2013, highlighting a difficult scenario for cinema companies. What theatres desperately need is a switch from competition between similar organizations to meticulous management with individual appeal, and a transformation of revenue-generating model, from an over-dependence on box office to integration of rental, selling of goods, advertising and specialized services. Additionally, theatres also need to turn to technology in order to significantly reduce running costs. The Present Status and the Problems of China’s Cinema As suggested by the rapid and substantial development of theatres at present, it is not the number of screens but the lack of high-quality productions that has become the fundamental issue within the film industry. Therefore, it is necessary to take a close look at the problems of the film-making sector, in order to pinpoint what exactly is going wrong and to examine potential ways in which the situation can be improved.

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Genre film-making has gradually entered the mainstream; however, the production quality remains in need of improvement Taking a look at the domestic films that were released in cinemas in 2012 and 2013, one can see a gradual growth in the proportionate number of genre films. Of the 242 domestic films that were distributed in theatres in 2012, 177 were genre films, making up 73% of the total. And of the 244 newly-released local movies in 2013, 188 were genre films, occupying 77% of the overall. Those statistics indicate an increasingly tendency in filmmaking of awareness towards conventions, with genre film-making gradually becoming the primary mainstream appeal. Within generic film-making in recent years, very few changes occurred to the dominant genres; romance, comedy, thriller and action movies have been and continue to be four of the most popular genre choices of all time. Romance and comedy prevailed as the top two genres, with the best performance in terms of both production and distribution quantity. As one of the most time-honoured genres, comedy has developed around a dozen sub-genres, including satirical comedy, romantic comedy, black comedy, screwball comedy, action comedy and tragic comedy. Generally speaking, most comedy movies thrive on being vulgar and amusing, though they are rarely above satisfactory in terms of quality; even the blockbuster movie Lost in Thailand can be classified as little more than a middle-quality production. Among all the genres, romantic comedies such as I Do (2012), Finding Mr. Right (2013), Say Yes (2013) and A Wedding Invitation (2013) have stood out as most popular. Although romantic movies were often high in quantity, very rarely were they also high terms of their quality. The low overall standard of romance movies is caused by a lack of artistic determination from the film-makers themselves. Love Will Tear Us Apart (2013) and Love You for Loving Me (2013) are typical examples of films that lack a true representation of profound feelings and romantic portrayals on love. Thrillers are usually combined with elements of horror, suspense and crime, creating special audiovisual consequences to produce a tense and thrilling atmosphere on the one hand, while delivering a step-by-step sequence of suspense to attract the attention of the audience on the other. However, the general quality of thriller movies has always been criticized, with maintaining a sustainable development becoming an increasing concern following improving production standards and public reception. Although the movie Chinese Zodiac (2012) stands out as one of a number of ‘serious’ productions, costume action films have been showing a steady decline overall, and superficially-produced films, such as The Assassins (2012), The Guillotines (2012), The Four Final Battle (2012) and its sequels, Taichi (2013) and its sequels and Saving General Yang (2013), have been appearing more and more, gradually undermining the faith of the audience in the genre. Animation, crime, teen and suspense are all promising genres that have recently been developing. The Hong Kong crime productions were all outstanding in terms of their artistic design. Films such as Firestorm (2013), The White Storm (2013), Drug War (2012), Blind Detective (2013), Police Story 2013 (2013), Cold War (2012) and Black 74

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& White Episode 1: The Dawn of Assault (2012) have made great progress in terms of unconventional characterization, with less-stereotyped images of both the police and of criminals. There have been a number of well-executed scenes involving intense shootouts between police and criminals, which create a spectacle of suspense. However, due to censorship restrictions, what has been discussed in crime movies about humanity, politics and society is far from adequate. Teenage stories have become the dominant theme within genres of Taiwanese cinema, successfully entering China’s market via the film You Are the Apple of My Eye (2011). Teen movies, such as So Young (2013), American Dreams in China (2013) and Tiny Times (2013) grew from obscurity to suddenly emerge as a new force in 2013, due largely to their addressing of popular interests. However, in comparison to other countries, China’s

Table 4.7. Statistics of 20 top-grossing domestic films in 2013. Source of statistics: ‘The Inventory on 2013’, in China Film News (15 January 2014), p. 1; ‘Analysis on China’s Film Market and Box Office of 2013’, in Research Report on China’s Film Industry of 2014.

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teenage narratives are still weak in their handling of commercial elements. For example, youth productions such as Friend (2011) and Sunny (2011) are centred around violence, while Juno (2007) and American Pie (1999) focus on the topic of sex, creating humour based on ‘sex-related topics’, or profound arguments by exploring the phenomenon of ‘teenage pregnancy’. Nonetheless, by taking a look at China’s teen movies, one finds a complete lack of representation of these necessary sensitive elements and, consequently, directors are deprived of important explorations on teenage stories. In addition, although suspense films are lacking in quantity, a number of the more ‘serious-minded’ ones have still been emerging, such as The Silent War (2012) and Silent Witness (2013), suggesting a reasonable prospect for development. Finally, nativelydesigned animations, although facing consistent criticism in terms of quality, have also been making steady progress in recent years. As can be seen on Table 4.7, the twenty top-grossing native films of 2013 all fall under one of the eight genres discussed; only Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons (2013) mixes fantasy and comedy, and No Man’s Land (2013) integrates elements of crime, western, road movie and comedy. In addition to those eight genres, other genres such as fantasy, catastrophe, children’s, war-time historical and biographical also possess certain market shares. However, with the exception of fantasy, all of those additional genres have failed to show any significant signs of improvement or progression for a number of years. Furthermore, there has only been a small handful of productions from the genres of road movie, motivated drama and crime, which could potentially be explored further in the future. China’s film-makers have already been self-consciously deploying different types and conventions to construct film narratives, particularly in terms of interacting immediately with audiences. Genre productions of recent years have made significant progress through increased audience interaction, a tendency that is exemplified by So Young (2013) and Finding Mr. Right (2013). This outlines the fact that directors and screenplay writers have been contributing to a brighter future, through localizing genre conventions by interacting more closely with audiences. Nonetheless, restricted by low film-making quality and censorship, problems appear in a number of areas, including: homogenization of types, lack of creativity and the copycat phenomena, all of which highlight the need within China’s genre film-making industry for further qualitative enrichment. The Marginalization of Non-Genre Film-Making and the Decline of Art-House Cinema Due to the pressure of marketization, non-genre film-making has become increasingly marginalized. Generally, non-genre films can be divided into three categories, comprising big-budget auteur cinema with prominent directorial signature, low-budget art cinema with the experimental intention on artistry, and mainstream films. Recently, all three 76

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of these kinds of cinema have been affected by the poor status of film-making. Of the twenty films screened at cinemas for a period of more than six weeks in 2013, only The Grandmaster (2013) and The Story of Zhou Enlai (2013) came from non-genre categories, with all the rest conforming to standard genre conventions. Overall, for non-genre filmmaking, there is a huge gap between the reception received and the box office performance. Big-budget auteur cinema The increasing number of moviegoers in China over the recent years has produced a small group of recognizable directors. When individual film-makers build up a good reputation, they attempt to take advantage of the prominence of personal style to mobilize more resources for producing auteur cinema. Films such as The Grandmaster (2013), Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (2011), White Deer Plain (2011), The Last Supper (2012) and 1942 (2012) all fall into this category. However, with the exception of The Grandmaster, all of these films suffer from a lack of entertaining effects, due to their over-emphasis on the expression of ideas and subsequent detachment from some of the basic principles of film-making, a combination of which leads to an unsatisfactory performance at the box office. However, despite disappointing in terms of market performance, the films Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale and 1942 stand for the artistic creativity of recent film-making of China, each portraying the tragic past of their respective ethnic groups, while simultaneously embodying the directors’ own profound thoughts and input. It cannot be denied that films such as these hold faith in the aspiration of artistry and the expression of ideas; however, finding a balance between articulation and amusement in order to actualize auteurism within the institutional system remains a challenge that demands further attention from directors. Low-budget art-house cinema with experimental intention Art-house cinema with experimental intentions encompasses films that achieve a certain level of creativity both in content and form. Only a few films from the overall domestic productions can be included in this category. Films such as Beijing Blues (2012), A Simple Life (2011), Feng Shui (2012), People Mountain People Sea (2011), Life Without Principle (2011), Eleven Flowers (2011) and Design of Death (2012) all entered the focus of discussions, although they drew a varied reception. Some films from 2012 received numerous positive comments, such as The Love Songs of Tiedan (2012), Apart Together (2010), Don’t Expect Praises (2012), Fly with the Crane (2012) and The Ideal City (2013), yet performed below expectations in the market. A Touch of Sin (2013) had won prizes internationally, yet still encountered obstacles on the road to being released domestically. All of the above-mentioned films, with the exception of A Simple Life (2011), performed badly at the box office. 77

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In the wake of the improved film cognition of audiences, art-house cinema with experimental intentions has been shaping a bigger niche market; if marketed in a proper way, some artistic films could indeed achieve a better return from the market. Nonetheless, the development of artistic films in recent years has been steadily declining, with less and less creative content and form. Due to the allurement of the commercial interests of genre films, and the content constraint imposed by censorship, many artcinema directors made the switch to genre film-making, drastically reducing the creative force within art cinema. It should be art-house cinema with experimental intentions that bears the cultural expression of the era, the artistic creation of the individual and the challenge towards the Grand Canyon of world art cinema. However, recent art-cinema has been performing disappointingly in each of those respects. Main melody cinema Main melody cinema has always been an indispensable component of China’s film market. The year 2012 saw a number of main melody films produced as tributes to the 18th National Congress of the Party, such as Loyalty and Betrayal (2012), The Tree in the Rain (2012), Champion (2012) and Live or Death in Lop Nor (2012). The year 2013 witnessed the extended release of The Story of Zhou Enlai (2013), taking advantage of the ‘mass line’ (‘qunzhong luxian’) campaign. Since its launch, ‘main melody cinema’ has been growing for twenty years and has developed rigid patterns that are hard to break through. Since The Founding of a Republic (2009), main melody cinema has rarely ‘shot a satellite’.17 It would perhaps be advisable for main melody cinema to take conventional film-making as the reference model, or depend on all-star casting, while still complying with the timing of political campaigns. In addition to the above three categories of non-genre cinema, there are also a number of ‘water testing’ films within the domestic film market that are produced by emerging directors. Some of these films have less clear or less recognized ideas of film-making, some are too concerned with self-expression over narrative, while others are not recognizable by genre. Most of these films were unable to attract any attention, and thus disappeared from the overloaded film market. The next key step for improving the quality of domestic productions in the future is to focus on and provide more experiences to young and emerging film-makers. The Root of the Problem Lies in the Lack of Film-Making Talents The deficiency of high-quality films is a direct result of a general shortage of talent in the film-making industry, and a specific lack of top directors. Taking a close look at the 50 most successful directors, it is apparent that some are established film-makers of older generations, some are middle-generation directors who have accumulated certain artistic 78

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capital, and some are young directors who have just recently begun to appear on the scene. Beyond the box office, there are still a number of veteran directors worth mentioning, such as Ann Hui, Jia Zhangke, Hou Hsia-hsien, Gu Changwei, Stanley Kwan, Alex Law and Cao Baoping, as well as a number of sharp-minded young directors such as Zhang Meng, Diao Yinan, Du Jiayi, Zhao Tianyu and Cheng Er. However, generally speaking, the supply of young Chinese directors is far from sufficient for the high demand of the market. Currently, the average age of theatre audiences is around 21, with post-1980s and post-1990s generations constituting the main force. However, the older generations of directors are still controlling the majority of the filmmaking resources, whereas film-makers from post-1970s and post-1980s generations, although equal in terms of talent, generally have significantly less control over resources. The generational shift of the audience requires a change to the traditional structure of directors, as young directors have a better chance of knowing how to convey the thoughts and emotions of young audiences, and are able to sell more tickets by engaging the audience with greater precision. Those young directors who are capable of successfully producing localized genre films will become the core aspect of China’s cinema in the future. The market requires around 100 young directors for genre film-making every year; however, production companies tend to cooperate with very few of them, resulting in the phenomenon of ‘deserted directors’ (daoyan huang). In fact, some of the leading film enterprises have already been cultivating young directors, such as Beijing Enlight Media, Huayi Bros, the Le Vision Company and Edko. However, to produce exceptional directors takes time, and cannot simply be used as a short-term solution. In addition to directors, there is a discernible lack of talent in the production department, primarily that of screenplay writers and production executives. A good playwright is the basis of any successful film, as the quality of a film can be largely determined by the quality of the initial script. Among recently released films, many are missing a strong narrative, such as An Inaccurate Memoir (2012), Switch (2013), Crimes of Passion (2013) and Up in the Wind (2014). In contrast, works that have a sound screenplay are generally well received, as demonstrated by films such as Lost in Thailand (2012), Silent Witness (2013) and Finding Mr. Right (2013), in which the directors act simultaneously as script writers. The quality of movies such as So Young (2013) and Let the Bullets Fly (2010) is also all but guaranteed by their esteemed playwrights. The lack of talented playwrights has resulted from a combination of factors: their suppressed voice and exploited interests; compliance with the classic educational model which was beyond practices and normative filmmaking; and the present education programs in China. In addition to directors and playwrights, there is another essential film-making department that has been neglected by traditional academic research: the backstage production executives (or producers who master the film expertise). The scarcity of people skilled in this area is a hindrance to the artistic achievements of China’s cinema. Presently, there are only a select few highly professional executives who can deliver substantial operations; an experienced production executive is capable of mobilizing and 79

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integrating resources effectively, finding the necessary balance between art and business and reducing production risks. Taking Bodyguards and Assassins (2009) as an example, it is the excellent management of the production executive Huang Jianxin that ensures the emotional reception towards mainland culture, with a perfect balance between mainstream revolutionary values and the commercial model of film narration. The reason for Lost in Thailand (2012) managing to achieve outstanding success at the box office is largely due to the invaluable contribution of Wang Changtian, who is responsible for the overall decisions and coordination of resources, particularly the cast (Wang managed to secure the services of Huang Bo) and publicity. China’s film-making has been in a period of gradual transition, from ‘directorcentrism’ to ‘producer-centrism’. However, skilled production executives are still in high demand. A number of experienced directors began carrying out full-time or parttime supervision for film students (e.g. Huang Jianxin, Andrew Lau, Peter Chan Hosun, Wong Pak-ming, Jonnie To, Wang Jing), and a few stars have worked on movies as part-time producers (Jackie Chan, Andy Law). This partly relieved the pressure left by the lack of qualified executives; however, there is still a huge shortage of full-time and experienced supervisors, such as William Kong and Chen Kuo-fu. In the future, China’s cinema needs more influential figures such as William Kong, as one William Kong is capable of nurturing several Xue Xiaolus.18 Acknowledgements This paper is one of the outcomes of the project ‘Studies on the Issues of the Film Industrial Chain’, financed by the National Social Science Fund of China (Arts Category, Project Reference No: 11CC089). Notes 1. 刘藩 2. The central party, or the reference rate of the RMB, in the inter-bank foreign exchange market was 6.0969 on 31 December 2013. 3. For materials on the investor as distributor (touzi faxing), the specialty-agent distribution (daili faxing), and the minimum guarantee (baoben faxing), see the chapter ‘Research on the Film Distribution within the Theater-Chain System’ in the ‘Research Report on China’s Film Industry of 2014’ (China Film Press 2014). 4. Translator’s note: the ‘imported films’ here refer to the imported big-budgets, which are usually to be distributed in accordance with the fifth model. 5. Source of statistics: the chapter ‘Research on the Film Distribution within the Theater-Chain System’ in the ‘Research Report on China’s Film Industry of 2014’. The 80

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statistics do not cover the imported profit-sharing films (jinkou fenzhang pian) or the imported bought-out films (jinkou pipian), because the business of distributing those films is monopolized by the China Film Group Corporation and the Huaxia Film Company, and there is no way to compare the performance of those two companies with that of others. 6. Source of materials: http://www.m1905.com/news/20140126/727702.shtml. Accessed on 5 February 2013. 7. Source of statistics: the ‘Market Report on China’s Film’ (2010–2013; China Film Press), and the China Film Distribution and Exhibition Association. There were 3,800 theatres in 2013. 8. Source of statistics: ‘The Ranking of the Moviegoer Population of the Theater Chains in China (1 January 2013–31 December 2013)’,China Film News (8 January 2014), 17. 9. Translator’s note: there are 34 administrative divisions in total in China, including provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. 10. Source of statistics: ‘The Market Information of Theater 2013’, China Film News (15 January 2014), 14. 11. Source of statistics: ‘The Market Information of Theater 2013’, China Film News (15 January 2014), 14. 12. Source of statistics: ‘Survey on the Influential Multiplexes of 2013’, China Film News (15 January 2014), 13. 13. Source of statistics: Market Report on China’s Film in 2012; ‘Analysis of China’s Film Market and Box-Office of 2013’, in Research Report on China’s Film Industry of 2014. 14. Source of statistics: ‘The Ranking of the Moviegoer Population of Theater Chains in China (1 January 2013–31 December 2013)’, China Film News (8 January 2014), 17. 15. Source of statistics: ‘Analysis of the Management of Theater Chains and Multiplexes of 2013’, in Research Report on China’s Film Industry of 2014, Market Report on China’s Film (2012–2013). 16. Source of statistics: ‘The Inventory on 2013’, in China Film News (15 January 2014), p. 1; ‘Analysis on China’s Film Market and Box-office of 2013’, in Research Report on China’s Film Industry of 2014. 17. Translator’s note: ‘shot a satellite’ used in this paper is derived from the phenomenon during the Great Leap-forward (1958–1961), which exaggerated output in order to boost a huge improvement. Here, the author’s use of this phrase suggests that any huge breakthrough has not yet been realized, since the success of The Founding of a Republic, in terms of the high grossing. 18. Translator’s note: Xue Xiaolu is the director and the scriptwriter of the film Finding Mr. Right (2013), which was backed by the supporting program of the Edko Company owned by William Kong. Kong is also the production executive of Finding Mr. Right.

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Chapter 5 How Will Art Film Make a Real Breakthrough? An Analysis of Several Trends in China’s Art Film Promotion PENG Ke1

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ow should ‘art film’ be defined? There are a number of different definitions and discussions in different contexts and market environments. Liao Binghui made a summary concerning ‘art film’ in his book Key Words 200: The Collections of Common Terms in Literary and Critical Studies. Although the subjects of his study are European films to a degree, the features he summarized also reveal the nature of art films within different contexts. ‘In terms of technique experiments and narrative, [art film] has its independence and unique purpose, which is distinct from mainstream commercial films (especially Hollywood films)’ (Liao 2003). Liao’s definition of ‘art film’ places emphasis on auteur theory and the dichotomy between art films and mainstream commercial films regarding narrative, cinematic representations and circulation. On the topic of ‘art film’, Liao Binghui suggests that ‘the main concern should be the artistic value and the experience drawn from this experiment, rather than commercial circulation in the market’ (Liao 2003). Undoubtedly, the original aspiration of making an art film lies in the personal wishes of the author, with a view to opposing and rebelling against mainstream commercial films and inspiring the audience into self-reflection and contemplation by breaking their unconscious approval of images. According to David Bordwell, ‘it is vital for an author to fuse his opinions of life into art films’ (Bordwell [1979] 2012: 349–350). Although the discussion of 'art film' always centres on 'non-commercialized' and 'niche' aspects, art films that are labelled as 'niche' also need to go through a complete commercial cycle; from production to distribution. At the end of the day, cinema is one type of mass media, and the most expensive art form. Such commercial cycle is inevitable, which applies to both blockbusters and art films. This is not to say, however, there is not a better commercial cycle that is suitable for the art film industry. The most urgent challenge for art film industry in the current circumstance, is the area of publicity and promotion; this weakness gets worse when there is also an absence of policy support. How to solve these problems, and how one can create an effective platform to promote art films, or to invite the public to recognise and accept art films, are the top priorities in Chinese film industry as a whole. There have been a number of ups and downs, and rises and falls for mainland art film since the mid-1980s. Promotion entered a new stage, especially for the regular screening of art films in certain cinemas, following the appearance of the Contemporary MOMA Broadway Film Center at the end of 2009. In May 2003, Wei Xidi, a distinguished film critic who initiated a screening tour in existing cinema chains (‘Rear Window 85

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Distribution’), attracted substantial media attention and received a warm reception from the audience. One month later, Shanghai Art Film Federation, composed of four cinema chains and ten cinemas, came into being, with the endeavour to make regular art film screening fit in with the screening routine. In 2004, the ‘1905 Excellent Films on Demand’, launched by 1905.com, was opened along with the newly-established 1905 Film Company, screening a selection of excellent Chinese films by combining their efforts with certain cinemas and powerful communication channels such as the Internet and television. Furthermore, as an academic screening institution, China Film Archives Center regularly screens old but well-loved Chinese and foreign films that are rarely seen in commercial cinema chains, with the aim to create a group of intellectual or ‘highbrow’ film fans. Although the films screened by China Film Archives Center are not contemporary, the company is able to make a significant contribution to the Chinese market for art films. It has become apparent that in recent years, the creation of voluntary and unofficial groups has no longer been the only effort to promote art films in mainland China. In fact, it is widely reported that China Film Group Corporation is building art cinemas right now. With more capital investments and favourably-targeted policies from the central government, the promotion of art films on the mainlan is becoming more diversified, positioning with and targeting its audience more directly, and implementing more professional planning by cooperating with cinemas. The Current Situation and Features of Mainland Art Film Screening From the mid-1980s to the beginning of this century, several first-tier cities including Beijing and Shanghai, the two cultural centres of China, tried setting up cinemas for art films. However, all attempts were futile. The reasons behind this failure are, first, the shortage of art film sources and second, the ineffective promotion that fails to serve as a necessary bridge between the excellent film works and certain audience groups. In 2007, establishing cinema chains designed for art films was put on the year’s agenda by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People’s Republic of China (SAPPRFT, the then-SARFT). Support from the central government instilled new hope in the troubled promotion of art films. In an era inundated with commercial films, there remains a most basic need to reserve some space for art cinema and, accordingly, art film promotion in China has made various breakthroughs in terms of cooperating with cinema chains. Compared to the several failed attempts of the past, art film promotion has recently become more stable and flexible, which indicates several new characteristics.

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1. Contemporary MOMA Broadway Film Center: The art film cinema that realized brand effects by scale The establishment of the Contemporary MOMA Broadway Film Center at the end of 2009 marked a brand-new attempt, different to anything seen in the past in terms of art film promotion in China. The company was also the first independent art film cinema on the mainland. The establishment of Contemporary MOMA Broadway Film Center owes its success to Jiang Zhiqiang, the famous Hong Kong film-maker and the president of Edko Films Limited. In 1996, Jiang Zhiqiang set up ‘Broadway Film Center’ in Hong Kong, dedicated to the development of art films, which gradually became one of the cultural landmarks of Hong Kong. The Contemporary MOMA Broadway Film Center in Beijing can be seen as the mainland Broadway Film Center, as they both follow the same philosophy and business strategy. According to Jiang, ‘this cinema does not aim to make money, but to provide a platform for domestic young directors to conduct experiments and for art films to be screened; it endeavours to diversify the Chinese film market’ (Liu 2009). Apart from screening art films in fixed cinemas, Broadway also puts in place supporting facilities such as cinema libraries and cafes. With ‘membership’ as its central business strategy, members can enjoy discounts on film tickets, free access to film magazines, books and DVDs, and participation in related activities. Cinemas will also employ the unique strategy of selecting which films to screen based on the requests of its members (He 2013: 37). To date, Contemporary MOMA Broadway Film Center has been operating for four years as one of the central landmarks of Beijing art film screening. Judging from its philosophy and strategy, distinct from normal commercial cinemas (i.e. combining cinemas, bookstores, libraries and cafes and prioritizing membership), it takes film culture as the core with a view to pursuing economies of scale, promoting art films by brand effects, focusing on target groups and achieving a gentle and effective circular consumption. Art film cinemas provide a flexible and adjustable screening pattern for art films. Beijing Broadway now has three fixed screening units: ‘New Works of Young Directors’, screening young directors’ films that are approved by SAPPRFT but are almost never favoured in commercial cinema; ‘Re-explore China’s New Films’, reviewing the classical old films of China; and ‘BC Afternoon Tea’, which involves ‘re-screening some selected films that were screened in cinema chains within the past two years but were overwhelmed by blockbusters at that time, such as Feng Shui (2012), The Piano in a Factory (2010) and One Mile Above (2013)’ (Yu 2013: 34). Meanwhile, flexible screening patterns grant enough time to Broadway to screen a selection of excellent art films. For instance, The Sword Identity (2011), directed by Xu Haofeng and nominated for the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, was screened for almost a whole year in 2012, enabling as many audiences as possible exposure to this distinctive ‘swordsman’ production. For a film to be screened for such a long time is indeed very rare in the context of any cinema. 87

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Broadway adopts a practical policy of ‘supporting art films by the income of commercial ones’. Every time Broadway screens one art film, it will simultaneously screen one commercial film so as to earn enough money to maintain operations. This twopronged strategy, derived from practical concerns, sustains Broadway’s operation, offering audiences who intend to watch commercial films a wider range of choices while at the same time encouraging them to see more and learn more about art films. In summary, Contemporary MOMA Broadway Film Center has a series of functions ranging from screening art films and promoting film culture, to developing film audiences. It is an invaluable and unique platform for the development of art film culture in mainland China. 2. Shanghai Art Film Federation: The federation that unites mainstream cinema chains and regularly screens art films with policy support In June 2013, Shanghai Film Distribution and Exhibition Association called for two cinema chains and ten cinemas (including Shanghai Film Art Center, Shanghai Ever Shining Circuit Cinema, Shanghai Wanda Cinema and Shanghai Film Museum) to form Shanghai Art Film Federation (SAFF). Shanghai has long been one of the main centres for mainland art film development. In recent years, tickets were exceedingly difficult to purchase for categories such as Classical Films and Tribute to Masters in the Shanghai International Film Festival, further illustrating the market potential for art films. SAFF’s focus at the first stage is to regularize the screening of art films. Its membership cinemas are required to screen at least two art films each day, one during the afternoon and the other during prime time, in order to provide art film fans with sufficient choices. 3. ‘Rear Window Distribution’: The screening tour that involves multiple cinema chains and endeavours to build a ‘virtual art cinema chain’ In 2013, another issue worth mentioning regarding art film promotion is ‘Rear Window Distribution’, through which fifteen exceptional Chinese art films were screened across seventeen cities over half a year. In 2013, according to official statistics, ‘Rear Window Distribution’ screened a total of fifteen films, including Don’t Expect Praises (2012), Song of Silence (2012), Useless Man (2012), Falling City (2011), The Silent Holy Stones (2005), Transcendence (2012), Fly with The Crane (2012), Memories Look at Me (2012), Feng Shui (2012), Lan (2009), Sweet Eighteen (2012), China Affair (2013), Youth Novel (2013), Last Train Home (2009) and China Heavyweight (2012). These films were screened on a tour through seventeen cities including Nanjing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu and Chongqing. Just one glance at this list reveals that ‘Rear Window Distribution’ focuses on breaking new ground for well-made art films that face difficulty in terms of conventional distribution through mainstream commercial cinema chains. 88

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In contrast to Beijing Broadway and SAFF, which have stable cinema partners and fixed screening times, ‘Rear Window Distribution’ screens one film in many cities in a linear manner, essentially having the same effect as screening one film for an extended period of time. While the quantity is limited, it has succeeded in spreading the screening of art film all over China. Among the fifteen films, the top performer is China Heavyweight, directed by Zhang Qiaoyong and nominated for the Best Documentary at the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival. Through the promotion of ‘Rear Window Distribution’, or the small-scale screening tour on demand, it soon gained a strong reputation among artistic young audiences. China Heavyweight’s promotion was so successful that it was commercially screened on 20 December 2013 in 300 cinemas across more than 70 cities nationwide. This event attracted huge media attention, and was even reported by the Hollywood Reporter, a professional newspaper from the United States. China Heavyweight is said to be the ‘most widely screened documentary in Chinese history’, which illustrates how ‘Rear Window Distribution’ can make a real impact (Vlessing and Coonan 2013). There are only four members of ‘Rear Window Distribution’, but each of them is influential in the fields of art film and independent film. One of them is Wei Ximo, the renounced independent film critic and former judge at the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, who serves as the artistic director. Yang Cheng, who is responsible for brand construction, and is also the general manager of Heaven Pictures (Beijing) Culture & Media Co. Ltd., a company working on finding, supporting, fostering and promoting new directors. This company enables its directors to concentrate on artistic creation through a contract system that protects directors from the interference of over-commercialization. Fly with the Crane (2012) and Don’t Expect Praises (2012) in ‘Rear Window Distribution’ were both funded and produced by Heaven Pictures. Therefore, despite its weak appearance at first sight, ‘Rear Window Distribution’ has the intention to combine production at an early stage to screen at a later stage, in an attempt to sell what it produces. In terms of cooperating with cinema, ‘Rear Window Distribution’ adopts the same method as many others, attempting to integrate resources. Its long-term goal is to build a virtual cinema chain that comprises several different cinema chains. To be specific, it tries to turn one space in mainstream commercial cinemas into the space for art films, which, when put together, form a cinema chain for art films. Nowadays, ‘Rear Window Distribution’ covers 30 cinemas in ten cities including Nanjing, Hangzhou and Dalian, and is ready to expand into 100 cinemas in 40 cities nationwide (He 2014: 35). 4. 1905 Excellent Films on Demand: The activity coordinating online and offline efforts In April this year 1905 Excellent Films on Demand, an activity launched by 1905.com and the newly established 1905 Film Company, commenced in Beijing. The first film on demand was the Chinese-French film, The Nightingale (2013), directed by Philippe Muyl 89

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who is also the director of Butterfly (2004). Later on, in May, the film on demand was Don’t Expect Praises (2012), by the young independent director Yang Jin. At the beginning of 2014, CCTV-6 launched an ‘Art Cinema’ thematic film screening every Monday, while 1905.com also opened a channel called ‘Art Cinema’. Against this backdrop, 1905 Excellent Films on Demand was launched. This activity selects quality art films, invites prestigious film-lovers and senior film industry insiders to appreciate art films together with directors, talk about stories before and behind the screen and explore the meaning of the film. At the same time, one cinema in the prime location of Wangfujing took on the name of ‘1905 Theme Cinema Hall’, aiming to create an elegant and comfortable environment consistent with its ‘theme’ […] it is planned to screen 19 excellent films on demand in 2015 and bring 5 that best represent China’s cultural and artistic values to renowned international film festivals in such countries as UK, the US, Australia, Canada and France for international cultural exchange. (1905.com 2014) The biggest advantage of this initiative lies in the fact that its offline activities are coordinated with the Internet and TV channels. According to Li Yi, the general manager of 1905 Film Company, 1905.com has a huge number of film copyrights and is therefore exempt from the widespread worry that affects other art film cinemas over a shortage of films (1905.com 2014). Furthermore, 1905.com plans to bring Chinese film culture to the international arena by means of its unique communication channels. Promoting Art Films with the Assistance of Integrated Marketing in the Era of New Media In 2005, douban.com went online, gradually gathering a large group of film fans with a shared passion and love for discussing film. Douban Location has since become an important platform through which to release screening information for art films. In 2009, Sina Weibo was launched; by the end of December 2012, its registered users hit a staggering 500 million. In 2011, Love is Not Blind (2011), a relatively low-budget film promoted by Weibo, surprised many in surpassing Hollywood blockbusters such as Rise of the Apes (2011) and The Adventures of Tintin (2011), with a box office income of over 350 million RMB. The film was subsequently deemed as a legend within the film industry. In January 2011, Wechat was released, and within just two years it had more than 300 million users, with its public platform providing a new marketing channel for a variety of businesses. During an era in which competition among new media grows ever fiercer, significant importance was attached to the use of new media in the promotion of 90

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art films and new media which, in turn, made a significant contribution to the art film industry. Since 2007, an ever-growing number of people have been watching films in China’s Film Archives. In January 2010, when the Great Hall of Arts Cinema reopened after renovation, the number of audience went through a sharp rise. This is attributed to the improvement of facilities, as well as such social media outlets as Douban, Weibo and Wechat […] people love to access screening information through them. (Yu 2013:32) To some extent, every promotion institution or organization is experimenting with the idea of ‘integrated film marketing’ by taking advantage of the features of new media interactivity, precision and huge appeal that gathers people together (Chen and Lu 2012: 290-303). 1. Building a reputation through online interaction One of the prime examples of applying new media in promoting art films is provided by ‘Rear Window Distribution’. On 13 May 2013, its initiators created a new Weibo account named ‘iRearWindow’, and posted a long Weibo titled ‘Why should we screen these films?’ which marked the beginning of ‘Rear Window Distribution’. Since then, Weibo, Wechat and Douban have been core platforms for ‘Rear Window Distribution’ to release screening information. On 8 December 2013, having screened China Heavyweight (2012) in Chongqing, Han Yihao, the film-maker, called for the audience to share their feelings on-the-spot after watching the film, and to invite friends to watch the film in cinemas on 20 December. All of this illustrates how interactive social media can play a major role in contemporary promotion of art films. New media, such as the Internet, digital magazines, digital TV, mobile TV and messaging get people involved. In particular, media like the Internet, Weibo and smartphones transform audiences from traditional unilateral information receivers to information recreators who share their feelings and interact with others, maximizing the audience’s role in building reputation. This can be seen as beneficial in the spreading of art films which, despite often high in quality, may not yet have achieved wide-scale recognition. 2. Targeting certain groups and offering tailor-made services The precision of new media focuses on the subdivision of audiences. It targets certain groups among the audience, providing tailor-made information services and carrying out extensive marketing more effectively. The art film audience is in itself a special group of individuals whose taste and demand are relatively stable. 91

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The membership marketing strategy adopted by Beijing Broadway takes precision targeting as its core foundation. It can send screening information to members through messages and offer related information and services in order to effectively link members with products. Yang Cheng, the founder of ‘Rear Window Distribution’, also expressed his wish to take up a membership in order to offer members related information and discounts. 3. Flexibility to adjust based on user feedback New media has a huge appeal that draws people together. As well as the core of this appeal, consumer feedback is also the focus of ‘integrated marketing’ and the foundation for flexible adjustment. It has been pointed out by some that the value of this appeal goes to bridging communication among people through the consumption of traffic[…] what is the mental state of every consumer behind traffic consumption and what is the relationship between this mentality and the behaviour of consumers? Through analysis we know when and how to make communication with traffic consumers and in this way, the value of this appeal comes into being. (Ge 2009: 15) As for ‘integrated marketing’, the essence is to regroup the behaviour of businesses and markets according to a consumer-oriented approach, integrating and coordinating a variety of communication methods, building up a unified ‘brand image’ by delivering consistent product information; establishing a long-term close relationship between the brand and consumers by interacting with consumers and establishing brand awareness swiftly among them in order to promote and sell products more effectively. (Schultz and Schultz 2005) Membership can provide long-term, reliable feedback, making it easier to understand the demand of users. The special screening of The Sword Identity (2011) by Beijing Broadway has proved the effectiveness of user feedback. As Sha Dan, who works in the Development Department of China Film Archive, once said, ‘it is possible to predict the number of audience tonight or even the workload today by how many people forward the information on Weibo’ (Yu 2013: 32).

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Thematic Screening Should Emphasize Curating to Realize Educating and Communicating Functions Nowadays, in addition to providing locations and opportunities for high-quality lowbudget films that are rich in artistic value yet refused by mainstream cinemas, all promotion teams for art films are sparing no effort in giving full control to the role of curators; in an attempt to improve the comprehensive value of art film screening through various means including thematic screening, face-to-face communication with creators and lectures on film culture. This integrated strategy combines screening with cultivation of audiences, popularizing film culture and communicating different cultures. It not only explores the richer and more valuable connotations and functions of art film promotion, but also makes art film screening more balanced with films from various countries screened at different times. 1. Fixed screening categories As cinemas that cater for art films, Beijing Contemporary MOMA Broadway Film Center and Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in the 798 Art District have adopted relatively fixed screening categories. Both have their own representative screening categories, such as Broadway’s ‘New Works of Young Directors’, ‘Re-explore China’s New Films’ and ‘BC Afternoon Tea’ and Ullens’ ‘Classical Unit’, ‘Hot Filmmakers’ and ‘Avant-garde Films’. In handling their categories in such a way, they are able to build up their own brand and attract audiences to watch films. 2. Film exhibitions featuring certain directors In July 2012, China Film Archives held an event ‘The Puppet Master: A Review of Hou Xiaoxian’, which was attended by Hou Xiaoxian himself. Additionally, the newly established ‘Rear Window Distribution’ is preparing for a themed exhibition named ‘Xie Fei Retrospective Exhibition’. Such film exhibitions featuring certain directors often invite the creators or related experts to participate in face-to-face interaction, providing audiences with a better chance of cultural film exchange outside of simply watching the film itself. 3. Thematic film exhibition There are a number of thematic film exhibitions such as ‘The Thoughts in a Foreign Land—2013 Hong Kong Thematic Film Exhibition’ and ‘Minority Children in Films’, both held by Broadway, and ‘Beijing Women 2013’ and ‘The First Everyday Chinese Women’ held by Ullens. These thematic screening activities reflect the demand for crosscultural experiences and inspire the audience by projecting images to join in with broader discussions and thinking. 93

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Conclusion While we are still discussing ways in which to promote art films, European and American art films have already become regarded as a part of the film business by a number of scholars. The advanced status of art cinema in other countries can be analysed and replicated in China. For instance, ‘Arsenal’ in Berlin, Germany, achieved a sustained and significant progress by combining the ‘International Forum of Young Cinema’ and the ‘Berlin International Film Festival’; with a favourable policy and financial support, France ranks first in the world in terms of its concentration of art cinemas; and ‘New Danish Screen’, funded by national film institutions, protects directors from commercial pressure and encourages them to stand by their personal styles. Contrary to the several failed attempts both last century and at the beginning of this century, art film promotion nowadays combines the increased screening with integrated marketing theory based on new media. It not only gives full control to the role of curating, but also works to communicate culture and improve public perceptions. These three aspects are by no means exclusive; instead, they work together to push forward a healthy development for art cinema. We should consider promoting art films to target groups and effectively gather their feedback which, although it may account for only a small part of the population, can be highly representative. For such a huge yet disorganized film market in China, it is believed that this will in turn stimulate the creation of more exceptional mainland art films. References 1905.com (2014), ‘Art films for this Spring: “1905 Excellent Films on Demand”, the New Pattern to Watch Films’, http://www.m1905.com/news/20140404/746798.shtml. Accessed on 15 August 2014. Bordwell, D. (1979), ‘The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice’, Chinese Translation: Yang, Y. (trans.) (2012), Film Theory, Beijing: Beijing World Publishing Corporation. Chen, X. G and Lu, Q. (2012), ‘“All Media Era”: New Media and Integrated Marketing of Films’, China Film Archives, Film Ecology under the Perspective of All Media Communication, Beijing: Culture and Art Publishing House. Ge, J. D. (2009), ‘To Make Communication Consistent within the Demand of Consumers’, The Marketing Strategy of New Media, No. 5. He, D. P. (2013), ‘Ullens and Broadway: Art Film Libraries’, Entertainment Industry Reporter, No. 18, http://www.zongyiweekly.com/new/info.asp?id=3338. Accessed on 15 August 2014. He, D. P. (2014), ‘Rear Window Distribution: Open a Window of Film’, Entertainment Industry Reporter, No. 18, http://www.zongyiweekly.com/new/info.asp?id=3337. Accessed on 15 August 2014. 94

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Liao, B. (ed.). (2003), Key Words in Literary and Critical Studies, Taibei: Rye Field Publishing Co. Liu, Y. (2009), ‘The First Art Cinema in Mainland Opens, Screening “Niche”’ http:// translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://www.1905.com/ news/20091228/308034.shtml&prev=search. Accessed on 15 August 2014. Schultz, D. E and Schultz, H. F. (2003), The Next Generation: Five Steps for Delivering Value and Measuring Returns Using Marketing Communication, Chinese Translation: He, X. J., Huang, L., Zhu, C. H. and Wang, L. (2005), China Financial and Economic Publishing House. Vlessing, E and Coonan, C. (2013), ‘“China Heavyweight” to Become Most Widely Screened Documentary in Chinese History’, Hollywood Reporter. http://w w w.hollywoodreporter. com/news/china-heavyweight-become-widely-screened-666946. Accessed on 15 August 2014. Yu, R. R. (2013), ‘SAFF: Art Films in Mainstream Cinema’, Entertainment Industry Reporter, No. 18, http://www.zongyiweekly.com/new/info.asp?id=3336. Accessed on 15 August 2014. Yu, R. R. (2013), ‘China Film Archives: From an Academic Institution to a Cultural Landmark’, Entertainment Industry Reporter, No. 18, http://www.zongyiweekly.com/ new/info.asp?id=3335. Accessed on 15 August 2014. Note 1. 彭可

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Chapter 6 An Emic Study of the Impact of Jun'ichiro¯ Tanizaki's Literature on Tian Han's Early Films: Dream by the Lake1 ZHANG Chong2

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he name Tian Han receives great attention and has created a substantial number of chapters in the history of modern Chinese theatre. As the founder of China’s modern theatre, he was the initiator of the Southland drama movement and paved an entirely new path for China’s modern drama movement. His dramas The Night the Tiger Was Caught (1924), The Death of a Popular Beijing Opera Singer (1927) and Guan Han Qing (1958) are all regarded as masterpieces of China’s 100-year drama history. Tian Han’s contribution to the movie industry is of equal significance. He wrote more than twenty film scripts in his life, with Three Modern Women (1932) and a number of others becoming representative works of China’s left-wing films. Up until now, research focus on Tian Han’s films is primarily on the left-wing films during the 1930s, when the ideological trend in the industry ‘shifted to the left’. Tian Han’s essay ‘Silver Dream’ started to draw public attention from the 1920s onwards. With the rapid expansion of the film industry at the time, Tian Han founded the Nanguo Film and Drama Institute in South China and created five film works to fulfill his ‘Silver Dream’ with great enthusiasm. During this period, his ‘Silver Dream’ was greatly influenced by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, a representative of the Japanese School of Aestheticism, which Tian Han was not ashamed to admit repeatedly in various publications. Although his ‘Silver Dream’ – similarly to his drama work – did not achieve instant success at that time, it furthered our understanding of the artistic views embedded in his early work through studies of his film creations during the 1920s. What are the characteristics of Tian Han’s early films? How did he learn from and move beyond Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, which resulted in an originality in his work? This paper examines his first movie Dream by the Lake (1927) and discusses his acceptance of Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s literary characteristics in his early films. Tian Han and Jun’ichirō Tanizaki Tian Han studied at the Tokyo Normal College Japan (now the University of Tsukuba) from 1916 to 1922, a period that saw the fast development of new artistic styles in Japan. During his time in Japan, Tian Han not only read numerous works of Western and Japanese literature, but also managed to make a number of local friends. He also showed great interest in modern drama and film art. As he recalls,

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My study in Tokyo was a period for the fast development of European and American films. Japan had just started to engage in film making. I spent days watching movies in cinemas around Kanda and Asakusa, which led to my nearsightedness. (Tian 1983a: 450) Jun’ichirō Tanizaki is a master of literature on aestheticism in Japan, whose early representative works such as The Tattooer, Kylin and Evil were highly praised and recommended by Nagai Haka, who helped the Japanese writer to build his reputation. Through the vivid descriptions of the relationship between mistreatment and masochism, the women in his works are portrayed as subject to physical abuse and the beauty of physical functions. Thus, Tanizaki is also known by some as Satan. During the same period, Jun’ichirō Tanizaki had also shown great interest in drama and film. He was keen on film creation and was employed as art advisor by the Taisho Film Company. In chronological order, he wrote the four film scripts: Amateur Club (1920); Katsushika Sunako (1920); Hinamatsuri No Yoru (1921); and The Lustful Snake (1921). Hokusai and The Lustful Snake (1921), in particular, were ‘pure artistic movie[s]’ that even had a significant influence on Tomu Uchida and Kenji Mizoguchi. When Jun’ichirō Tanizaki became popular as a result of his aesthetic works, Tian Han was studying in Japan and devoted time to reading his works extensively. He once watched two dramas by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki: Lady Windermere’s Fan (translated by Tanizaki) and Xinxi (written by Tanizaki). He also watched the premiere of Amateur Club in Tokyo in 1920.

Figure 6.1. Yang Naimei leading actress in Dream by the Lake.

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After returning to China, Tian Han continued to pay attention to Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s works. In 1926, he translated Tanizaki’s Naomi (1924) into Chinese. In 1927, in his essay ‘Silver Dream,’ he cited Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s remarks on film art and spoke highly of Amateur Club (1920) and The Lustful Snake (1921). In 1926, Jun’ichirō Tanizaki paid a second visit to China and had a discussion with Tian Han and Guo Moruo about China’s situation at that time. They also celebrated the Chinese Lunar New Year together at Ouyang Yuqian’s home. Tian Han and Ouyang Yuqian welcomed Jun’ichirō Tanizaki by holding a ‘Revival’ party, which later became an important event in Shanghai’s artistic circle. Tian Han spent nearly every day showing Tanizaki around when he stayed in Shanghai. Jun’ichirō Tanizaki also watched Tian’s drama The Night the Tiger Was Caught (1924). In 1927, when Tian Han visited Japan, he was received by Tanizaki at Kobe port. Tanizaki showed his hospitality by taking Tian Han to Kyoto, Osaka and Bunraku-za, and received him as his guest for several nights in his home between 1926 and 1931. During this time, they would also frequently exchange ideas on literature and social and personal conditions by mail. Their close communication influenced Tian Han’s work, from his artistic views to his drama creation techniques. The movie Dream by the Lake (1927), discussed in this paper, was actually completed at the height of their communication in 1927. According to a special edition of the journal Star, published in October of 1927, Tian Han explained that he did not participate in the actual production of the script. Instead, he provided the movie director Bu Wancang with the details of the story. By the time Tian Han returned from Nanjing to Shanghai in Autumn that year, shooting for the movie had already begun. Dream by the Lake featured two movie stars at that time: Gong Jianong and Yang Naimei. The story centres around a dramatist named Sun Bijiang who has high expectations for a pretty actress named Fei Cuixian, who later not only downgraded the drama through her poor performance but also abandoned him completely. Desperate and disheartened, Sun Bijiang goes to Xizi Lake to comfort himself and encounters another mysterious married woman name Li Qibo. They fall in love, experiencing the sweetness between ‘mistreatment’ and ‘abuse’; however, they ultimately find nothing but illusion. Although Tian Han was not involved in the actual shooting of the film, he produced the introduction as well as the subtitles. He was relatively satisfied with the movie, saying ‘I have to admire Wangcang for his talent in understanding my ideas fully even without an actual film script’, adding that he had taken ‘the first stride toward my dream’ (Tian 1927: 17). The Influence of Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s Work on Tian Han’s Film Dream by the Lake 1. Views on Film Tanizaki had unique insights about film as a kind of emerging art; he also published a series of commentary reviews that reflected on his own specific views. Representative reviews include Active Portrait of the Present and Future (1917) and Thoughts on Films 101

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(1920), in which he predicted that movie as a parallel art form of drama and painting was in for a great future. He pointed out that film is a dream that is made by the artist’s mind as a dream generator, and always paid great attention to western movies, especially pure artistic movies. In 1921, after watching the German expressionism film Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari/The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), he wrote ‘this is the most outstanding film that I have seen in recent years. Popular jargons such as pure art and superb film should fit it’ (Tanizaki 1981–83: 107). The concept of Tanizaki’s ‘dream’ movie had a huge impact on Tian Han. In the opening chapter of ‘Silver Dream’ he cited Tanizaki, commenting that Tanizaki is a great Japanese modern novelist but at the same time he is interested in drama and film as well. He once wrote film scripts for Amateur Club and The Lustful Snake. The former is a love comedy taking Kamakura beach as background while the latter is a love tragedy recomposed from Tales of Moonlight and Rain by Ueda Akinari. As has been mentioned before, film is a dream that is made by the artist’s mind as a dream generator. It is equivalent to wine and music which are all the greatest masterpieces of humankind – remarkable views! (Tian 2000a: 9) In addition, Tian Han made an initiation announcement for the Nanguo Film and Drama Institute, stating that ‘wine, music and film are three great masterpieces of humankind. Film enjoys the shortest but is the most fabulous that can make dreams in daytime’. It can be concluded that Tian Han fully accepted Tanizaki’s view on film; that ‘Film is a machine that can make dreams come true’. He also agreed with Tanizaki’s concept of ‘close-up’, which he admitted could describe the essence of the character (Tian 2000b: 16). Tian Han also praised the German expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). In Silver Dream: Dr. Cali Gerry Den, he said, ‘Since I engage in arts, I have never understood the essence of beauty in this sharp and strange form; I have never experienced the excitement and thrill of this soul!’ (Tian 2000c: 38). Highly inspired by pure art films and expressionism, Tian Han made a conscious effort to experiment and apply it in his own work. How did he gain inspiration for the film Dream by the Lake (1927) in the same year as his literal publication ‘Silver Dream’? And how did he integrate Tanizaki’s views and expression techniques into his own work? Masochism ‘Masochism’ is a key word that can be seen throughout Tanizaki’s literature. Throughout the early works, such as Devil (1912), Sorrow of a Heretics (1917), and Naomi (1924), and later works such as Shunkinshō (1976), most protagonists were despised, betrayed and even killed by their beloved women. Instead of resisting, they subjected their own destiny to a woman’s manipulation. The reason can be traced back to the loss of their mother at 102

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an early age, and a subsequent yearning for a mother figure in their lives once they had grown up. In addition, this kind of description is also considered as a challenge to deeprooted male chauvinism, which has an implication for modern thinking. This kind of modern literary expression that adopts ‘sadomasochistic love’ has also been applied to Dream by the Lake (1927) by Tian Han. In this film, Sun Bijiang willingly accepted his mistreatment by Li Qibo as pleasure instead of suffering. Therefore, Tian Han created the following lines: Sun Bijiang: Li Qibo: Sun Bijiang: Li Qibo: Sun Bijiang:

I have been thinking of dedicating my life to a beloved woman, but I became disappointed many times; today I eventually found the right one, and please feel free to let me know your request. I want to beat you. You told me that you owed your life to me. Can’t you let me hit you? Okay! Come on, hit! I want to hit you every day, can I? As you like. Just like that, but I do not know why it makes you pleased.

Tian Han admitted his artistic inclination towards ‘Masochism’, saying ‘Personally I was influenced by Tanizaki’s literature for a long time and addicted to maltreatment and masochism’ (Tian 1983: 533). He even thought it was his dream to be addicted to masochism. It was his first step towards a dream ‘worthy of celebrating for a bright future!’ (Tian 1927: 16).

Figure 6.2. Sun Bijiang flogged by Li Qibo.

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Relationship between the Heroine and the Hero First of all, the film is about the relationship between Fei Cuixian and Sun Bijiang. Fei Cuixian is a female character and Sun Bijiang is trying to customize a particular play for Fei and to help her become a successful star. Sun Bijiang: You are smart and diligent. You have the potential to be China’s Du Cui. Fei Cuixian: Then Sir, you would be China’s Da Longqiu and I’d like to be your actress all my life. Through his character in the movie, Tian Han expressed his own dream to become an aesthetic playwright like Gabriele D’Annunzio and to find an actress like Duse Eleonora, who was in total emotional agreement with Gabriele D’Annunzio. This desire of his perfect match between a playwright and a female character, such as that of Gabriele D’Annunzio and Duse Eleonora, is also apparent in his essay Silver Dream: Cloud. Unfortunately, although Sun Bijiang’s Cuixian was pretty, she became a dissolute character both in the film and in real life, which greatly disappointed Sun. Such a perfect-match tendency can also be found in Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s literature. Characters like Fei Cuixian are frequently seen in his literary works, with his early works, such as The Tattooer, Kylin and Idiot’s Love all portraying such female characters. As for the character’s relationship, Idiot’s Love gained great popularity soon after its publication; it is a story in which Nakata Jōji and Naomi also share the same type of relationship (cultivating and being cultivated). Even though Nakata Jōji was not a playwright, he tried to foster an ideal lady out of Naomi according to his own dream. Yet, contrary to his wish, Naomi gradually became a dissolute lady. Furthermore, the prototype of Naomi was generally known as Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s sister-in-law (his wife’s sister) Hayama Michiko. Second, the film is about the relationship between Li Qibo and Sun Bijiang. Li is a beautiful and powerful lady. When confronted by Sun in the film, she states ‘women are not weak just because a man said so’. To follow up, Tian Han answered the question that the weak are better conquerors than the powerful, which is also reflected in Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s aesthetic acclamation in The Tattooer (1910): ‘all the power belongs to the beautiful, while weakness belongs to the ugly!’ His female characters could be summarized as both beautiful and powerful, and they undeniably have more control than their male counterparts. Li Qibo happened to be such a character: The relationship between Li Qibo and Sun Bijiang in the film can be seen as a typical one between the abuser and the abused, the conqueror and the conquered. Sun expressed himself to Li: ‘my life is in your hands!’, which means the male protagonist subjugated his life to the female. This relationship is one of Tian Han’s artistic dreams. In his autobiographical novel, Shanghai, he expressed his wish through the characters to seek a female role to ‘die for’. (Tian 1983: 27) 104

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Figure 6.3. Leading characters in Dream by the Lake.

This type of worship of females and the portrayals of unique relationships are common in Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s literature, such as Qing Ji’s willingness to be the ‘fertilizer’ of young ladies in The Tattooer (1910), and Sir Weiling’s willingness to be Madame Nanzi’s ‘slave’ in Kylin (1910). Therefore, it could be said that Tian Han arguably created his characters under the enlightenment and influence of Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s literature. 4. Relationship with The Lustful Snake and The Legend of White Snake Although Dream by the Lake is a modern love story, the author believes that its central theme can be traced back to the films The Lustful Snake and The Legend of White Snake, for which Tian Han had always had a passion. The Lustful Snake, written by Ueda Akinari and based on the Chinese drama White Snake, is one of the chapters in Tales of the Moonlight and Rain, a famous collection of novels written during the Edo Period in Japan. Unlike The Legend of White Snake which narrates a beautiful euphemistic story, the novel emphasizes two sides of the hostess’ character – humanity and animosity – highlighting atmospheres of mystery and horror. The second son of the fisherman, Toyoo, a romantic teenager, falls in love with the beautiful Manago in the falling rain, but soon finds out that she is in fact a snake genie. Later on, he married Shoji Tomiko, daughter of Shoji. On the second night of the wedding, Shoji Tomiko’s body was possessed by the snake demon, Manago. Finally, the monk Fa Hai uses his magic to trap the snake demon in an iron pot. For Tanizaki, Ueda Akinari was the one who led him to the literary field. He showed his admiration for Ueda Akinari many times and thought highly of Tales of Moonlight and Rain. Therefore, Tanizaki hardly made any modifications when adapting the novel 105

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into a movie, which was incidentally regarded as one of the reasons for its poor box office record. In 1927, Tian Han wrote an article called ‘Women and Snake’ to express his love on this topic. He later also adapted Ouyang Yuqian’s paintings into the films Classic Ghost Stories and The Legend of White Snake. He considered John Keats’s narrative and Tales of Moonlight and Rain, written by Ueda Akinari, to be fine arts, while by contrast labelling The Legend of White Snake as a kind of crude product that had not been purified by art (2000d). He was determined to turn the story into a movie to draw global attention. Afterwards, in 1933, Tian Han wrote another film script, Lust, which once again portrayed a snake as the symbol of woman. In 1944, Tian Han wrote The Tales of Iron Pot and modified it into The Legend of White Snake. It can be concluded that it had been a long-cherished aspiration of Tian Han to modify The Legend of White Snake by the technique of ‘art purification’. What does ‘art purification’ mean? In Woman and Snake, he considered this topic to be a combination of romance, beauty, mystery and the shining scenery of South China. Beyond any love story, the perfect combination of ‘brilliant writer’ and ‘lonely, pretty lady star’ can arouse a wonderful fantasy in people. It is clear that Dream by the Lake met all the expectations that Tian Han had hoped to achieve. Let us take the first characteristic, the shining scenery of South China, as a background. The protagonists are set to meet again in the ‘mist of the West Lake, the West Lake [which] is like a beauty wearing chiffon’ (Tian 2000d: 12). As the leading character Gong Jianong recalled, ‘When the film was shot at West Lake, the top ten scenery of West Lake such as [the] mist, willow, [and] Su Dike were captured’. The second characteristic is the romantic, beautiful and mysterious plot. The experience of Sun Bijiang can be described as mysterious and romantic. He was flogged by the protagonist and robbed by gangsters. But all of these incidents turned out to be a dream. Tian Han also considered Ueda Akinari’s Tales of Moonlight and Rain as an example of ‘art purification’. He said in his essay that, although he did not watch the film The Lustful Snake in person, he still thought the film Woman and Snake corresponded to Tanizaki’s Satanism, which he believed to have terrified the audience. Indeed, in terms of background, as written in the script of The Lustful Snake, both protagonists met at the Kawasaki seaside in the rain, with beautiful scenery used as a background. In terms of the plot, Manago disappeared after the two fell in love and decided to get married. They later reunited at Toyoo’s sister’s home, but Manago disappeared again when the monk Fa Hai revealed that Manago was a snake demon. After Toyoo got married, Manago, as a snake demon, engaged in spiritual possession on Toyoo’s wife and was eventually captured by Fa Hai. Signs of a romantic plot can be seen in this novel as Toyoo was captured by the snake demon’s beauty, and refused to abandon everything for his love. It must be mentioned that Tian Han did not care one bit about box office performance, insisting that ‘songs of a highbrow type will find very few people to join in the chorus’. It can be concluded that ‘art purification’ was the only thing that he had always sought after. Tian Han and Tanizaki are able to connect with one another, understanding how 106

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to adapt this kind of script into pure art film, although Tian Han never watched the film The Lustful Snake. Originality of Tian Han’s Works and Influencing Factors Although Tian Han’s films in the earlier period, represented by Dream by the Lake, are influenced by the literature of Jun’ichirō Tanizaki in respect to artistic views and techniques of expression, it should be stressed that they do not simply rely on imitation, but also take into account the Chinese social situation and his personal living conditions at the time. This demonstrates some distinguished features in the work of Tian Han that differ from that of Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s. Lingering Homesickness Reflecting the theme of aesthetic and sentimental romance, the film Dream by the Lake showed the author’s dissatisfaction regarding society at that moment in time. The author’s displeasure is chiefly represented by Sun Pijiang’s deploration of Fei Cuixian’s slatternly life style, which the author attributes to the status of the society, as well as literary and art circles at that time. In his notes for this film, Tian Han wrote that the female protagonist, Fei Cuixian, was originally a flower of arts, but her life is ruined by society; Sun Pijiang claimed that society disappointed us. It is unclear when Chinese drama critics were able to clearly distinguish between the gains and losses of drama and beauty, or otherwise of the acting. This view is similar to what is revealed in The Death of a Popular Beijing Opera Singer, another famous film created by Tian Han during the same year. Both movies criticized the sufferings of artistic professionals generated by a morbid society.

Figure 6.4. Stage photo of The Lustful Snake.

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In this period, the films created by Tian Han, such as To Common People, Duke Cuiyan and Nanjiang, touched upon social problems to a different extent. For instance, the romantic fantasy of revolutionary youth is displayed in To Common People. To sum up, although Tian Han was immersing himself in aestheticism during the 1920s, the harsh reality of society forced him to embed it in his works. In his autobiography, Shanghai, Tian Han, when faced with a query on Satanism raised by one of his best friends, Zhifu, admitted his instinct of art to pursue Satanism, which was actually not fully applied in his work. He emphasized that he was a patriot, always focusing on the relationship between literature and society. At that time, Tian Han clearly hoped to realize pure aestheticism. However, the strong sense of responsibility to his country and the harsh social situation forced him to pay close attention to social issues, which can be seen as a stance of compromise between the Chinese artistic pursuits and the social responsibilities of Chinese artists. Projection of Personal Emotional Life The year 1927 witnessed a lifetime of sentiment experienced by Tian Han. His wife, Yi Shuyu, passed away. Fulfilling his promise to his late wife, Tian Han married her best friend, Huang Dalin. Nevertheless, he realized his decision was very hasty. Huang was not ideal; she was far from the type of person who represented the union of soul and body. The differences in knowledge background, temperament and future prospects made it impossible for them to reconcile. This disappointment was also apparent in his movie Dream by the Lake. The betrayal by Cuixian was deemed as destruction of the ‘soul’, and the failed relationship with Li Qibo led to the ‘dual destruction of spirit and body’. As seen in Tale of Tian Han, written by Tian Benxiang, the writer also indicated My father felt disappointed and even disillusioned immediately after getting married to Huang, which was revealed in the movie of Dream by the Lake, where the hero was devastated by the ‘dual destruction’ of spirit and body throughout his pursuit of true love. (Tian et al. 2013: 70) Conclusion Based on the above analysis, the following summary can be drawn. Tian Han’s close personal connection with and admiration for Jun’ichirō Tanizaki had influenced and affected Tian Han’s early work, such as the famous Dream by the Lake. However, the different social status and personal emotional experiences also marked Tian Han’s style. His writing not only incorporated social situations but also indicated his depression. 108

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Therefore, it could be concluded that Tian Han expressed his social concerns not only in his 1930s left-wing films, but also in his romanticism movies in the early 1920s, demonstrating his sense of responsibility to the country. Nevertheless, the aesthetic technique was not completely abandoned after the 1930s, evident in the screenplay Color. Although the theme was related to the social revolution, the representation of aestheticism was evident in the depiction of the ‘snake’, the close-up of ‘female feet’ and the conflict between spirit and body. As a modern artist who was open-minded to different components of art and willing to closely follow the modern trend, Tian Han presented various schools of thought in his work. In summary, it might be too simplistic to characterize his work with such words as ‘romanticism’ or ‘revolution for advancement’. An observation of Tian Han’s work from various time periods and from multiple perspectives would be needed in order to gain a sophisticated and comprehensive understanding of this complex modern artist. References Gong, J. (2013), Strolling at West Lake: Memoirs of Gong Jianong as an Actor, Beijing: China Encyclopaedia Press. Tanizaki, J. (1981-1983), Collection of Jun’ichirō Tanizaki Works, Tokyo: Central Press. Tian, H. (1927), Original draft of Dream by the Lake, Special edition of Star, Vol.60. Tian, H. (1983a), ‘An unaccomplished dream – to the common people’, Collection of Tian Han’s Works, Beijing: China Drama Press. Tian, H. (1983b), ‘On Dream by the Lake’ in Collection of Tian Han’s Works 11, Beijing: China Drama Press. Tian, H. (1983c), Collection of Tian Han’s Works 14, Beijing: China Drama Press. Tian, H. (2000a), ‘Silver Dream: a dream in daytime’, Collection of Tian Han’s Works 18, Hebei: Huashan Publishing House. Tian, H. (2000b), ‘Silver Dream: Cloud’, Collection of Tian Han’s Works 18, Hebei: Huashan Publishing House. Tian, H. (2000c), ‘Silver Dream: Cabinet des Dr. Caligari’, Collection of Tian Han’s Works 18, Hebei: Huashan Publishing House. Tian, H. (2000d), ‘Silver Dream: Woman and Snake’, Collection of Tian Han’s Works 18, Hebei: Huashan Publishing House. Tian, B. X., Wu, W. M. and Song, B. Z. (2013), An Bronze bean Tian Han, Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Press. Notes 1. 湖边春梦 2. 张冲 109

Chapter 7 The Lens of an Intertextual Era: Reinterpretation of the Film A Twig of Plum Blossoms QI Xian'gu1

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t its inception, the Chinese film industry was essentially the result of a marriage between drama (including traditional Chinese operas and crude stage plays) and photography, an example of which is the film The Romance of a Gold Hairpin (1920). Furthermore, the situation regarding social affairs at the time would also be dramatized from time to time in order to draw in an audience, such as the film Yan Ruisheng (1921), which falls perfectly into this category. By the 1920s, elements from Chinese classic literature works by the School of Yuanyang and Hudie, otherwise known as the School of Romanticism and the Western Literary Classics, had become involved in Chinese filmmaking, which resulted in the appearance of several different versions of The Lady of the Camellias (1948) on the Chinese film market. In the meantime, influenced by the influx of a large quantity of Western films, Chinese film-makers produced a large number of equivalent Chinese versions. For example, King of Comedy Visits Shanghai (1923) was made in the fashion of the Charlie Chaplin films, and A Blind Orphan Girl (1925) drew greatly upon Orphans of the Storm (1921). Entering the 1930s, due to the involvement of elements of left-wing literature, cinema-related fields in China took on greater complexity. Upon outlining the early development of Chinese cinema, one will easily find that its early years not only mark the growth of Chinese national cinema in history, but also a period of absorbing nutrition from worldwide movies. Director Sun Yu once remarked that his film Wildflowers by the Road (1930) was actually inspired by Alexandre Dumas’s The Lady of the Camellias (1948) and the American film 7th Heaven (1927). Such a confession speaks volumes for the attitude and respect that director Sun, as an artist, had held for the source of inspiration. Perhaps even more importantly, it unintentionally conjures up the historical picture of how many early Chinese films absorbed significant influence from films from around the world. In fact, the kind of absorption in question is what people today call ‘intertextuality’, a term referring to the phenomenon in which two or more texts quote and influence one another. According to Julia Kristeva, ‘intertextuality’ denotes ‘the relationship between a certain text and the texts it quotes, adapts, absorbs, develops or completely remakes’ ([1966]2012: 34). And when it comes to films, ‘intertextuality’ usually refers to a relationship of reference between one film-text and another, or texts of other genres, and in this relationship all film-texts are of equal standing in forming the basis for a plot. Since its appearance, Chinese cinema has been developing amidst an enormous network of intertextuality. The film A Spray of Plum Blossoms (1931) provides a fairly typical example of a text created amidst the criss-crossing network of intertextuality during its early days. 113

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In 1931, the newly established Lianhua Film Production and Printing Co. Ltd. (renamed ‘United Photoplay Service’ in 1932 – thereafter referred to as ‘Lianhua’) presented the film A Spray of Plum Blossoms (1931), directed by Bu Wancang, with the script written by Huang Yicuo. Its crossover of identity (attributable to its adaptation of the Shakespearean comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona) and strong cast that brought together some of the best-known names at that time such as Lily Ruen (Ruan Lingyu), Yan Jin and Chocho Lam, made the film a pioneering work of the Chinese film industry at the time. However, this film was not recognized as being of great importance to the history of Chinese cinema. Even in the accounts given by the director and a number of the leading stars, the film was rarely more than a passing mention. But, as the appeal to ‘rewrite the history of Chinese cinema’ has begun to gain momentum, and as Sinology increasingly spreads overseas, this very film once labelled as ‘mediocre’ has gradually come into the view of film researchers. Starting with the film–literature relationship that has long existed since the birth of Chinese films, Zhang Zhen (2010) expanded her research from the screen-adaptation phenomenon prevalent in the early days of Chinese film market all the way to the recreation of Shakespearean plays, namely the production of A Spray of Plum Blossoms (1931). From her point of view, through the addition of family ties, the setting of gender ratio and the design of bilingual subtitles, the resultant film succeeded in deviating from the original play, thereby revealing from the outset a world orientation mixed in with its more localized themes. Therefore, the ambiguous appearance (neither original nor imitative) taken on by A Spray of Plum Blossoms is ‘more like a projection – the adaptation and recreation cinematically and culturally’ (Zhang 2010: 28). Limited by China’s social and political circumstances, the cinematic technological conditions and the cultural mechanism at the time, this kind of ‘cosmopolitan projection’ nonetheless happened to suit the popular yet bizarre trends of the film market, such as ‘genre-variation’ and ‘genre-hybridity’. Together, they conveyed the keen aspiration of the early Chinese film-makers for advanced cinematic technologies. Similarly, based on Zhang Yingjin’s research on A Spray of Plum Blossoms’ creative adaptation of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Zhang digressed from the etymological meaning of ‘“Traduttore，traditore” (Translators, the betrayers)’ and decided that A Spray of Plum Blossoms is in fact a cross-cultural practice that goes beyond historical contexts. This relates to ‘the cultural turn’ (anti-invisibility) in translation studies and ‘the sociological turn’ (transcendence of faithfulness) in adaptation studies since the 1980s. This cross-cultural practice, through intervening or infringing from the authoritative ‘authorship’ (the author of the original work), gives a more prominent place to the ‘authorship’ of the film (the person who recreates it). Meanwhile, with the modification of the characters and relationships, a Sinicized style of narration and a performance infused with body language, the film A Spray of Plum Blossoms not only secretly catered for the nationalist sentiment, but also successfully identified itself with the international 114

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intention of adapting foreign literature. As a result of this, the existing dichotomy in the relationship between the adaptation power and the translation power was shattered, so that a ‘none-zero-sum’ win–win situation came to pass. Admittedly, the studies conducted by these two scholars are nothing if not creative. However, they not only provided a more creditable method with which to appraise the textual values and historical significance of A Spray of Plum Blossoms, but also opened up broader fields of exploration for studies of the early Chinese film industry. As for the cinematic properties of A Spray of Plum Blossoms, however, I believe that the film still has an infinite dimension that is worthy of discussion and analysis. In other words, although both Zhang Zhen and Zhang Yingjin were aware of the intertextual connections between A Spray of Plum Blossoms and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and through comparing them had discovered the unique value existing in A Spray of Plum Blossoms’ reestablishment of the ‘film–literature’ relationship, their discussions about intertextuality seem to have merely touched on the story or the plot while completely overlooking the intertextuality that exists in the presentation of cinematic images. Edified by this point, I later discovered that there actually exist various kinds of intertextual connections between A Spray of Plum Blossoms and the Hollywood film The Eagle (1925), starring Rudolph Valentino. In the early 1930s, Hollywood maintained the dominant position it had held throughout the 1920s, with its films still accounting for half of all Chinese cinema (which was particularly prevalent in Shanghai). The phenomenon of American films taking China by storm not only affected the taste of the common Chinese city folk, but also deeply influenced the creation tendency and aesthetic tastes of Chinese film-makers. As illustrated by Critic Xia Yan, We started to engage in film-making in the early 1930s. And we learned how first by watching foreign films, mostly American movies just like the others. While watching, we calculated the duration of its films. And that is basically how we managed to learn a bit about cinematic approaches and techniques. (Xia 1980: 167) In addition, Hollywood stars had also built a huge fan base in Shanghai. Lillian Diana Gish and Douglas Fairbanks, for example, enjoyed great popularity among Chinese viewers. Rudolph Valentino, too, was no exception in this regard: The Eagle (1925) which he starred in launched a seven-consecutive-day screening at the Audi Anda Theatre from May 19th to 25th, 1926 (three times per day). Even a large-sized advertisement (see Figure 7.1) was carried in the newspaper Shun Pao, and the key point it emphasized was the fact that Rudolph Valentino starred in it. (1926: 16)

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If all these subjective and objective conditions only serve to make it possible for A Spray of Plum Blossoms to learn from The Eagle, the proximity between these two in terms of their visual performance undoubtedly attests the intertextual relationship between them. The Intertextuality Between Yan Jin and Rudolph Valentino In Shakespeare’s original screenplay, the kind of position held by Valentine is not clearly stated, whereas in the film A Spray of Plum Blossoms, Hu Lunting is appointed the Captain of the Guard and is given a stately military uniform. Some researchers believe that this too, like the change of setting from Verona-Milan to Shanghai-Guangzhou, is of political significance. Northern Expedition acts as the backdrop for the story and, with Guangzhou the base camp of the national revolution, its selection as the setting of the film could not have been more fitting. Towards the beginning of the film, Hu Lunting is positioned as an ambitious graduate from military school. On this account, the encounter between Hu Lunting and Guangzhou seems in a sense an omen for the Revolution, and Hu Lunting therefore becomes a byword for patriotism. In my opinion, however, full meaning behind this detail goes far beyond what is mentioned above. Indeed, due to the drastic changes in the domestic political situation, Chinese national films in the 1930s (during which ‘Lianhua’ was founded) were somewhat influenced by ideological characteristics. Upholding the principle of ‘relieving the grave film shortage, revoking the rights wrested away by foreign powers, promoting national glories and advancing art’ and aiming at removing the long-standing malady in China’s film-making world to set the stage for films conducive to the times and conforming to the principle of art, mitigating the current panic within Chinese cinema and resisting against the manipulation of foreign film studios. (Huang 1930: 44–45) The production of A Spray of Plum Blossoms was unquestionably driven by an ambitious aspiration of ‘rejuvenating national films and guarding against foreign films’. This echoed the initial progress of the Chinese nation in gaining power to speak up in the international community and indirectly establish itself a patriotic image, just as was demonstrated in the poster (Huang 1930: 44–45) (See Figure 7.2). There are, nonetheless, many contradictions involved in the poster. On the one hand, ‘Lianhua’ aimed at putting an end to the invasion of foreign films; on the other hand, it betrayed an inclination to deny history as well as itself – all the films towards which ‘Lianhua’ was hostile not only referred to other national films on the market at that time, but also to all Chinese films prior to A Spray of Plum Blossoms (see Figure 7.3). Undoubtedly, the latter embodies the history of the Chinese film industry and even the specific history of the company. 116

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Meanwhile the poster, from beginning to end, emphasized the Chinese characters ‘A World Literary Giant’ in bold, and flaunted the film’s international identity with a picture of Mei Lanfang and his wife in the scene of the shooting. Mei Lanfang had become an international celebrity since his visit to the United States (Sun 2012: 121-126), which effectively gave a touch of ‘self-contradiction’ to its slogan, ‘catching up with the West’.

Figure 7.1. Poster of The Eagle (1925) – 22 May 1926.

Figure 7.2. Poster of A Spray of Plum Blossoms  (1931) – 18 July 1931.

Figure 7.3. Poster of A Spray of Plum Blossoms  (1931) – 19 July 1931.

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In addition, the film was extremely westernized in terms of the setting (e.g. the room of Shi Luohua), the hairstyle of the characters (e.g. the taco-like hair of Shi Luohua), and the activities of the characters (e.g. horse-riding and drinking wine from goblets), further revealing the contradiction in question. Therefore, what hides behind the military uniform of Hu Lunting is more than just an ideology. The consumer-oriented appeal also played some significance. What this consumer appeal relies on is in fact the intertextuality between Yan Jin and Rudolph Valentino. By the 1920s, the Chinese film market had already developed its own star-making strategy, a major way of developing a particular type of star. That is, to have the actors or actresses who had achieved success in certain roles continue to play similar roles so as to consolidate the fan base they had already begun to build. Hanlun Wang, for example, was hailed as the most important tragedy actress on the big screen. Later on, as Hollywood stars were making an increasing impact in China and winning over more and more Chinese fans, the Chinese film market attached more and more importance to creating its own stars through emulating Hollywood. Hanlun Wang was also heralded as China’s ‘Lillian Diana Gish’. The same business logic was also applied in A Spray of Plum Blossoms’ casting of Yan Jin, who played Hun Lunting in the film. Yan Jin, who rose to fame overnight by playing a young master of a wealthy family in Wild Flowers by the Road (1930), won widespread acclaim for his tall and handsome appearance, dealing a heavy blow to the more womanlike appearance of many previous male stars on the screen. In Love and Duty (1931), Yan Jin maintained this disposition in his role as a poor university graduate. And in A Spray of Plum Blossoms, he played a military man, as was consistent with his healthy and powerful screen image. Imitating the soldier played by the immensely popular Rudolph Valentino in The Eagle paved the way for a perfect characterization of Yan Jin as an actor who bore a close resemblance to Valentino. This was a strategy tailor-made for Yan Jin to win the hearts of more and more Chinese viewers. Valentino, who made his screen debut in his early twenties, ranked himself among the most popular celebrities in the 1920s by virtue of his successful performance in films such as The Sheik (1921), which won him a large number of fans (Hansen 1991). Following the export of his films to China, he managed to carve out an important position in the hearts of many Chinese viewers. In 1926, Valentino passed away at a young age, which only boosted his legendary life story and his commercial value even further. In the same year, Carlton Theater screened his very last film Son of the Sheik (1926), and Shun Pao (Shanghai News) took this opportunity to make an in-depth introduction to his charisma and reproduce some of the highlights of his acting career (Ying 1926). In 1928, the Valentino fever continued to thrive, and on 14 May that year the Audi Anda Theatre screened his film The Unfortunate Couple. This time, not only did Shun Pao report this event, it also wrote rave reviews about Valentino once again. In October of the same year, Silver Star devoted a major section to commemorating him, in which the magazine not only posted his filmography 118

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and a selection of still images, but also published detailed illustrations of his biography, including his funeral ceremony. At this point, Valentino had become a commercial icon that boasted great publicity value. And, given the fact that Yan Jin happened to bear a close resemblance to Valentino in so many ways (his handsome appearance, his ethnic background), having Yan Jin imitate Valentino effectively doubled the commercial value of A Spray of Plum Blossoms. On the one hand, Yan Jin’s existing image was perfected; on the other, the spirit of Valentino was able to be presented to the viewers in the form of Yan Jin. What is more, in A Spray of Plum Blossoms, Valentino’s wearing of a military uniform was also designed to create another ‘visual spectacle’ – sharp-looking women in military uniforms (Hu Zhuli played by Lily Ruen and Shi Luohua played by Cho-cho Lam), pursuing the same eye-ball economy and commercial effect as the design of Czarina wearing a military uniform in The Eagle. The Intertextuality Between Plum Blossoms and The Eagle In the original screenplay, the group of bandits led by Valentine has neither an emblem nor a flag, but in its adapted film, his group is dubbed as ‘A Spray of Plum Blossoms’. And in The Eagle, Vladimir Dubrovsky (played by Valentino) names the bandit group which he himself leads ‘The Eagle’. In this respect, there exists a correlation between the relationships, with Valentine and Vladimir Dubrovsky both naming their respective bandit groups. In the West, as a representative of predators, the eagle symbolizes strength, robustness and aspiration, all of which epitomize Vladimir Dubrovsky as an avenger. The eagle is also a cultural totem: ‘In various advanced mythologies regarding hunting ethnic groups, the eagle embodies the sun. And the Ancient Egyptians, the Indians and the Persians divinized the eagle as the God of the Sun’ (Zhu 2001: 92). The Ancient Egyptians enshrined and worshiped the eagle, so much so that the God of the Egyptian-Horus is also hailed as the God of the Eagle, whose eagle eyes stand for the blessings and protection of the deities as well as the supreme power of the sovereign. In Ancient Rome, however, the mighty eagle was regarded as the embodiment of the Holy God, protecting the offspring and worshipers of the Holy God from any harm. It was said that, since the Holy God compared himself to the eagle, whoever believed in the species would be able to soar in the sky like a mighty eagle and be continuously renewed with vitality. The story of The Eagle took place in Russia during the reign of Czarina (1762– 1796). In Russia, too, the eagle has an extraordinary national significance and historical origin. Irrespective of the changes in the imperial court throughout Russian history, ‘the two-headed eagle’ continued to serve as the national emblem, with only a few minor modifications to the shape (Tian 2009).

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In Russia, the two headed eagle was looked on as ‘The Eagle of an Imperial Empire (имперскийорёл), The Bird of a Mighty State (державная птица)’. The national emblem, as the symbol of a nation, embodies the national mentality and the historical mission of the entire nation. The two crowned eagle heads stand for the unity of the religious rights and the temporal rights. Lying uppermost and at the heart is a third crown which symbolizes the authority of the Holy God in the whole of Russia. (Tian 2009: 223) In the film The Eagle, the images of the eagle appear around Czarina in various forms, such as on the empress’s helmet which is embellished with a two-headed eagle, the palace on which the image of the two-headed eagle is painted, and the documents that are reviewed by Czarina (the covers of these documents are emblazoned with the emblem of the two-headed eagle). The images of plum blossoms in A Spray of Plum Blossoms are represented in a similar way. In the film, the images of plum blossoms are ubiquitous, such as Shi Luohua’s plumblossom-shaped brooch, her boudoir decorated with plum blossoms – probably an imitation of the decorations of Czarina’s palace in the film The Eagle – the drawing and ballad poems of plum blossoms (the two tokens by which Shi Luohua and Hu Lunting pledged love), and the plum-blossom dock inhabited by the group of bandits. All of these images echo not only such narrative techniques commonly used in Chinese literature as ‘narrating at length’ and ‘embellishing’, but also the position held by plum blossoms in traditional Chinese culture. They symbolize the lofty, unyielding character of the three enduring plants in winter (pine trees, bamboo and plum blossoms), implying the immutability of love. Furthermore, taking into account the social context at that time, plum blossoms, as the national flower of the Republic of China, undoubtedly also have political connotations. At the end of the film, Governor Shi’s surrender of all his bandits at the request of Hu Lunting reflects, to some extent, the commendation for liberal politics. The last scene of the film, in which Hu Lunting, Bai Lede (played by Wang Cilong), Shi Luohua and Hu Zhuli, all dressed in military uniforms, are training troops together also portrays a certain visualization of a political Utopia. The Intertextuality of Female Roles Considering the various paradoxes Valentino has about himself (elaborate analyses pertaining to this point will be provided later), I also discovered that the configuration of the female roles in A Spray of Plum Blossoms, in particular that of Shi Luohua, exists not only in the masculinization of the women as highlighted by Zhang Yingjin, but also in the film’s direct expression of women longing for men (Zhang 2008: 30). This point, therefore, highlights another example of the intertextual relationship with the role of Czarina in The Eagle. 120

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When closely examining ‘Valentino fever’, Miriam Hansen found that most films in which Valentino starred did not conform to the already popularized classical narrative model of films. Rather than conforming to Laura Mulvey’s notion that ‘In a world arranged by the imbalance of sex, the pleasure of looking divides into the positive/men and the passive/women’ ([1975]2005), there was a tendency to deviate or transgress. One example of this is that, as Valentino looks at (good) women, he himself is also being looked at by (bad) women (Hansen 2004: 49). In Miriam Hansen’s view, this is in fact contradictory, and such a contradiction is very important to theories on the spectatorship of women. On the one hand, those films themselves intensified patriarchy in the cinematic gaze, whereas on the other, they provided women with an opportunity to shatter the taboo of looking. The success achieved by the images typically shaped by Valentino – images that are both the object of looking and the subject of looking at the same time – prompts us to take a new look at the contradiction of visual pleasure, namely the latent reversibility and the mutual effect in the subject-object relationship among the roles (Hansen 1991). In The Eagle, the Czarina’s unbridled observation of Vladimir Dubrovsky is of a great defying spirit (see Figure 7.4). A Spray of Plum Blossoms echoes this defying spirit in the composition of its visual pattern; its way of defying not only enriches the dichotomy that ‘men look whereas women are looked at’, but also turns the dichotomy completely upside down into one in which ‘women look whereas men are looked at’. The first encounter between Shi Luohua and Hu Lanting took place at the bureau gate, where Shi Luohua accidentally dropped her horsewhip. Hu Lunting, who just happened to be present, was just about to pick the horsewhip up and give it back to Shi Luohua when Diao Liao (played by Gao Zhanfei) got to it first. What caught Shi Luohua’s eye, however, was the handsome face of Hu Lunting: she cast her eyes down on her horsewhip before resting them on Hu Lunting (see Figure 7.5). Her horsewhip, after changing hands several times, eventually became a substitute for Hu Lunting in the shape of ‘a man’s penis’. But Shi Luohua’s looking at and owning the horsewhip suggests an uncontrollable longing for Hu Lunting, further intensified by the fact that she took the initiative to gaze at Hu Lunting. Although it was Hu Lunting who threw the first look in their second encounter, what got his attention was not Shi Luohua herself, but rather her footsteps and entourage. In fact, there was more curiosity than lust in that look. On the contrary, Shi Luohua, once recognizing Hu Lunting through the hollowed-out window, could not help but stop dead in her tracks to peep through the circular window-holes, which conjures up a picture with profound overtones of voyeurism. After a while, Shi Luohua resumed her footsteps and walked into her father’s – Governor Shi’s – office, where she picked up the muster roll lying on the desk, further confirming the name and identity of the object of her desire. Hot on Shi Luohua’s heels, Hu Lunting came into the office, produced a letter of recommendation and handed it in to Governor Shi. As her father was examining the letter, Shi Luohua once again boldly rested her eyes on Hu Lunting, holding her horsewhip 121

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before her eyes and swirling it a little. The flow of lust at that moment was abundantly clear for all to see. However, the absence of a reverse shot seems to illustrate, yet again, Hu Lunting’s refusal of being looked at by Shi Luohua. Upon finishing the letter, Governor Shi introduced his daughter to Hu Lunting. In a scene in which all three characters are present, Hu Lunting was politely bowing to Shi Luohua. And, almost immediately, there comes an individual close-up of Shi Luohua, whose eyes remained fixed on Hu Lunting as she was returning the courtesy. Soon, a triangle develops in the scene, with Shi Luohua and her father at either side of the foreground with their backs facing the camera, and Hu Lunting in the background, caught in between the father and the daughter (implying that the fate of Hu Lunting thenceforth would be determined by both of them). Then, another individual closeup of Shi Luohua appears on the screen, as she replies with a smile and again looks at the horsewhip that she was holding before her eyes. After this, the scene returns to the triangle with Hu Lunting caught up in between the other two. Between the repetitive cuts of these uneven shots, Hu Lunting’s beleaguered situation foreshadows the dangerous and passive position in which he was put. In addition to this, Shi Luohua’s lust for Hu Lunting is also brought into full view in these repetitive comparisons. While the attitude adopted by Hu Lunting towards the lust of Shi Luohua in the abovementioned scene was one of either declining or shying away, in the scenes involving horseriding and troop training, he was well and truly reduced to the pure object of Shi Luohua’s

Figure 7.4. Czarinn’s looking in 《黑鹰盗》The Eagle.

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Figure 7.5. Shi Luohua’s looking in 《一剪梅》 A Spray of Plum Blossoms.

lust. There is a scene in which Shi Luohua was leading a crowd on a horse-riding outing when she met a skilled man who was horse-hurdling. At the sight of it, she asked, ‘Are you guys able to leap over that hurdle, too?’ At this, Hu Lunting volunteered ‘Let me have a try’, and he smoothly leaped over the hurdle under the watchful and admiring gaze of Shi Luohua. On this occasion, it is not so much Hu Lunting winning over Shi Luohua by virtue of his extraordinary horse-riding skills as his willingness to stoop to become her visual slave. Similar episodes that followed shortly after further consolidate Shi Luohua’s active status. In another scene featuring Shi Luohua’s boudoir decorated with plum blossoms, she was sitting in front of the mirror pinning her plum-blossom-shaped brooch when she heard the troop exercising (precisely speaking, she heard the voice of Hu Lunting). She went directly to the plum-blossom-shaped windowsill, and through a set of bead curtains (the gentle swaying of which echoes the fluttering of her heart), she looked out over scene in the distance. In the panoramic scene that followed, Hu Lunting, who was originally facing the troops with his back to the camera (Shi Luohua), instantly turned around to face the camera square on, whereupon he started chanting the military slogans necessary to instigate the drills. Soon, an individual close-up of Hu Lunting was cut in, revealing, to the fullest, his handsome appearance. The close-up lasted approximately five seconds before being replaced by a much more magnificent drilling scene. The following scene was an individual close-up of Shi Luohua, who was still gazing at Hu Lunting through the window until a female guard walked in, bringing an abrupt end to the scene. What is even more amusing is that, similarly to The Eagle, A Spray of Plum Blossoms also underwent a name-changing incident. The only difference is that the former changed its name simply to avoid a collision with other films, whereas the reason for the latter to 123

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change its name from The Two Gentlemen of Verona to The Love Pirate, A Spray of Plum Blossoms to A Spray of Plum Blossoms is perhaps a little more complicated. In the original play, The Two Gentlemen of Verona primarily tells the love story of two gentlemen, whereas The Love Pirate, A Spray of Plum Blossoms, just as the name implies, places its emphasis on Hu Lunting. However, by naming the film A Spray of Plum Blossoms, the focus of the original name is shifted. In other words, compared to The Love Pirate, A Spray of Plum Blossoms, A Spray of Plum Blossoms has a far richer connotation. It may refer to the love that takes ‘a spray of plum blossoms’ as its token, or to Hu Lunting, who calls himself ‘a spray of plum blossoms’, or even to Shi Luohua who is as aloof, beautiful and supercilious as plum blossoms. In my personal opinion, the corresponding relationship between A Spray of Plum Blossoms and Shi Luohua may be the most striking one, as Hu Lunting has always been a somewhat ‘showy’ nickname. Shi Luohua is the genuine owner of plum blossoms – she owns a room teeming with plum-blossom decorations, a rockery stone with the lines of a poem eulogizing ‘A Spray of Plum Blossoms’ (Shi Luohua touched this stone several times during the film) and last but not least Hu Lunting, who nicknamed himself ‘a spray of plum blossoms’. Therefore, it could be concluded that the name A Spray of Plum Blossoms and the direct representation of the lust of women are not completely unrelated. It is perhaps even safe to assume that A Spray of Plum Blossoms, in effect, tells a story of how a woman manages to steal the heart of the object of her lust. By analysing the way in which characters look at one another in Valentino’s films, and considering Sigmund Freud’s relevant theories, Miriam Hansen revised the rigid definition of Hollywood’s narrative films by feminist scholars, exemplified by Laura Mulvey, shattering the dichotomy of ‘looking and being looked at’ and its gender hierarchy; bringing to light the defining heterogeneity and multi-element features of the early American films. Following the above analysis regarding the viewing relationships in A Spray of Plum Blossoms, the rich and contradictory feature of early Chinese films appear almost self-explanatory. What is more, this pluralistic and contradictory feature is even extended to the acceptance of A Spray of Plum Blossoms by the viewers: ‘A Spray of Plum Blossoms draws fairly well. The ladies are crazy about it. Intellectuals, especially students, however, criticize the film over and over again […]’ (Sha 1933). For this reason, it is very important to examine A Spray of Plum Blossoms, as well as other early Chinese films, in a fresh light. The Intertextuality of the Lens Language Systems Apart from what has already been mentioned, there also exists a certain kind of intertextuality between the lens language system of A Spray of Plum Blossoms and that of The Eagle. As far as the lens language is concerned, what is most creditable about The Eagle is the inventive application of tracking shots (Hayward [2000]2013: 562). After Vladimir Dubrovsky successfully defeats his enemy, Kyrilla Troekouroff readied a lavish 124

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feast in honour of his visiting guest. The shot begins by featuring Kyrilla Troekouroff, who was sitting at the head of the table, gorging himself on delicacies. The camera then moves backwards horizontally, at an even speed, spanning along the characters, and eventually disappearing from the screen. The guests on either side of the table are toasting to each other, the ten-metre-long table is covered with various delicacies, and the servants on both sides are busy doing their job. The sequence eventually ends with a scene featuring the hustling and bustling crowd at the centre. The entire shot was accomplished at a stretch, and the scene that changed from a single person shot to a crowd was simply breathtaking. At the same time, the underlying ridicule of Kyrilla Troekouroff ’s extravagant lifestyle was also readily exposed. Somewhat amusingly, aside from the vertical high-angle shot of the round-table banquet in the hall of the governor’s residence (which takes the shape of a plum-blossom), the aspects of A Spray of Plum Blossoms that are most noteworthy also include two eye-catching tracking shots. One features a maid (played by Chen Yanyan) who is busy working, with the shot beginning with her shining a pair of shoes attentively. Then the camera, which is pointed towards the maid, moves backward along the track at a steady speed. With the scene going from close-shot to medium-close shot to medium shot to full shot to long shot, the row of shoes in front of the maid and the courtyard in which she is sitting gradually unfolds before the viewers, until Bai Lede finally enters the scene. An unexpected comedy effect was thus achieved through just one shot of the elaborate courtyard, coupled with the somewhat comical behaviours of the maid. Conclusion As has been demonstrated by the various coincidences discussed above, even if it cannot be concluded in concrete terms that the production of A Spray of Plum Blossoms is a result of its creators absorbing, transforming and employing the quintessential aspects of The Eagle, a degree of intertextuality between the two films can nonetheless be illustrated. From the intertextuality in images, we can infer that, in spite of ‘the campaign to rejuvenate home-made films’, ‘Lianhua’ was still linked with Hollywood films in various ways. This not only reflects the complexity of ‘Lianhua’ itself, but also mirrors the embarrassment and ambiguity experienced by Chinese films, and even China at the time, in the process of establishing their identities. References Cheng, J. (1998), History of the Chinese Cinema, Beijing: The Chinese Film Press. Hayward, S. (2000), Cinema studies: the key concepts, Routledge – Chinese translation: Zou, Z., Sun, B. and Li, Y. Y., (2013), Beijing: Peking University Press. 125

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Hansen, M. (1991), Bable and babylon: spectatorship in American silent film, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hansen, M. (2004), ‘Fallen women, rising stars, new horizons: Shanghai silent films as vernacular’, Film Quarterly, 54: 1, pp. 10–22. Huang, L. (1930), ‘The Genesis of the Founding of Lianhua Film Production and Printing Company’, The Motion Picture Review, 1: 9. Hansen, M. (1999), ‘The Mass Production of the Senses: Classical Cinema Vernacular Modernism’, – Chinese translation: Bao W. H. (2004), in Contemporary Cinema, No. 1. Kristeva, J. (France), (1966), ‘Words, Dialogues and Novels’ in Desire in language, Chinese translation: Zhu K. Y. & Huang S. J. (2012), in Rhetoric Learning, No. 4. Mulvey, L. (1975), ‘Visual pleasure and narrative cinema’, Screen, Chinese translation: Zhou, C. J, Wu, X. L. and Lin S. X (2005), in Guided Reading of Film and Television Theory References, Shanghai: Shanghai University Press. Sha, J. (1933), ‘Interviews of Chinese film Artists: Wancang Pu, director of the film The Light of Motheral Instinct’, Shun Pao, Local Supplement. Sun, B. (2012), ‘A Silent China’ in A Ferry Scene: A Spray of Plum Blossoms, Beijing: Chinese Film Press. Theatre News (1928), ‘The Unfortunate Couple – In honor of Rudolph Valentino’, Shun Pao, Local Supplement, 14 May. Tian, J. (2009), ‘The cultural metaphor and symbolic meaning of the two-headed-eagle emblem’, Theory Research, 27. Wu, Y. (1999), Shanghai cinema journal, Shanghai: Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences press. Xia, Y. (1980), Accounts on Films by a Cultural Revolution Survivor, Beijing: Chinese Film Press. Ying, H. (1926), ‘Carlton to Screen the Very Last Work of Rudolph Valentino’, Shun Pao, Local Supplement, 11 November. Zhang, Y. (2008), ‘Paradigm shifts and cross-media practices in translation and adaptation: Shakespeare’s Drama to Early Chinese Cinema’, Chinese translation: Qin L. Y. (2008), in Literature and Arts Studies, No. 6, p. 41. Zhng, Z. (2004), ‘Cosmopolitan projections: World literature on early Chinese screens’ in Stam, R. & Raengo, A. (eds), A Companion to Literature and Film, Chinese translation: Lu, H. (2010), Art Criticism, No. 7. Zhu L. (2001), ‘Totem of Myth and Prototype Displacement – Interpretations of Cultural Symbols (“the eagle/the snake”) in Anthropological Studies’, Journal of Fujian Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), No. 3. Note 1. 齐仙姑 126

Chapter 8 Surpass Stereotypes: Study on Li Wei's Seventeen-Year Villain Performance1 DING Ning2

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uring Ding Li Wei’s ‘seventeen-year’ acting career, there were only a few actors who were eligible to represent the ethos of Chinese mainstream working class heroes. Their performance would be affected and judged according to numerous factors such as the history of their acting career before liberation, their personal appearance and the disposition and official recognition by the ‘Working Class’. Li Wei received many opportunities from the beginning, following the founding of New China in 1949. His performances of a worker and a soldier were debuted in films such as The Life of a Peking Policeman (1950), It is Only Love (1951) and The March of the Couple (1951). However, these roles failed to meet the authority’s expectation of standard working class heroes, with It is Only Love and The March of the Couple even subject to intense criticism. Back then, the outlook of Li Wei’s acting career seemed uncertain at best. I. During the early 1950s, Li Wei had been playing mostly positive characters who lacked the necessary influence to speak for him, making him merely an ambiguous male face in need of developing and positioning. In 1955, Li played the part of Lin Dong, a supporting role in director Bai Chen’s film The Story of South Island (1955).3 Despite several twists and turns in composing the film script, the leading role was finally confirmed to be Fu Ruohua, with the head nurse played by Shangguan Yunzhu. This film features the growth of the female soldier. With a touching portrayal of this character, Shangguan Yunzhu, a superstar of Old Shanghai at the time, made a successful transition in her acting career. The film tells a story of eighteen wounded soldiers trapped deep in the mountains, who try their best to overcome all the difficulties with which they are faced while waiting for the arrival of reinforcements. All of the characters are supporting roles with the exception of the heroine figure, on whom the film focuses. The group of wounded soldiers’ primary mission in the film was not to fight head-to-head against the Japanese army, but rather to stay safe in the mountains while allowing their wounds to heal. The arduous natural environment and shortage of food and medication gave these soldiers a vulnerable appearance that was in stark contrast to the energetic and courageous warriors in tidy military uniforms that were typical of mainstream war films. In fact, with their shabby and torn uniforms, injured bodies and languish faces, their image was far from the usual one of masculinity commonly associated with the military. 129

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Each of the wounded soldiers, including the veteran and prudent Political Instructor (played by Sun Daolin), the humourous and generous Chief Steward (played by Mu Hong), the down-to-earth and courageous Zhang Qiang (played by Zhong Xinghuo), and the optimistic and strong-minded Xiao Yang (played Sun Yongping), plays a positive role in spite of their varying degrees of political maturity. In contrast, Yun Dalu (played by Feng Qi) and Lin Dong (played by Li Wei) appear depressed and languid, which represents the realistic circumstance of individual vulnerability in the cruel environment of war. Lin Dong, who is eventually determined as a traitor, had become a typical villain of those who allow themselves to deteriorate and refuse to be educated and remoulded by Communist ideology. A number of scenes in the film are devoted to the vivid depiction of his gradual transformation from an ill-tempered wounded soldier to a defector. In order to act out the transformation vividly, Li Wei abandoned the conventional manner of villain acting, concentrating his effort on moulding the character’s personality and mental world. In the film, Lin Dong’s presence is heard before it is seen. While all the other wounded soldiers are worrying for their lives in the mountains, Lin Dong is casually humming a tune as if everything is beyond his concern. Leaning on his crutch, a wooden stick, the wounded singer is plagued all over by a strong sense of decadency, from his unshaved chin to his ragged and unbuttoned uniform. The typical boldness and masculinity of a strong warrior is nowhere to be found. Becoming physically and mentally weaker, Lin Dong portrays the complete opposite image to that of manliness. He cries out, for he could not bear the pain brought by normal saline when it touches his wounded skin. He complains about not being allowed access to the supply of German medication, which is reserved for only the heavily wounded. He constantly grumbles about the shortage of food. Apparently, this new soldier, who has been in the army for just half a year, cannot stand the ordeal brought by revolution. The conversation between Lin Dong and Yun Dalu indicates that both of them are from rural areas. However, unlike most peasants, who are generally honest and unsophisticated, Lin Dong is cunning and slippery. This selfish, cowardly and ill-tempered wounded soldier is far from the Communist ideal of a warrior. Having failed to convince Yun Dalu to join him, Lin defects with a total disregard for the collective interests of his comrades. Ultimately, he is condemned to be shot by Fu Ruohua. Li Wei’s performance in the film is both natural and realistic. With no intentional qualification in moulding the villain, he succeeds in making Lin Dong’s personality more vivid, authentic and believable. According to Li’s wife Zhang Ying, Li Wei had a tendency to be ‘ill-tempered, wired and unaccommodating’ in real life (Liu 2004: 53). His characteristics, it would appear, correlate with those of his character Lin Dong. To a certain extent, this might be one of the reasons why Li’s acting is so naturally presented without any clear trace. The Story of South Island gained a favourable reception when it was released. Li Wei’s antihero performance was widely accredited and accepted. His ‘nonstereotyped’ acting style, with a focus on the depiction of a character’s inner world, was 130

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beginning to take shape. As no influential positive roles could be found in his previous portrayals of ‘Working Class’ characters, Li Wei began to reposition his performance characteristics as a villain, and Lin Dong, the character that brings Li’s unique style into full play, was able to establish his position as an important milestone in Li’s acting career. II. Under a certain social and cultural context, ‘hegemonic masculinity is able to include the masculinity it wants while rejecting or even marginalizing the ones unwished’ (Yang). Within the male performances of Li’s ‘seventeen-year’ career, being sordid and mercenary was always against the heroic characteristics of the ‘Working Class’, which was often marginalized as a feature of neutral characters or villains. As for Li’s performance, although his naturally expressive temperament of petty urban bourgeois weakens the hero stance required for positive roles, it contributes greatly to those of villains through the exaggerated and even distorted sordidness and venality. It is also clear to see that most of the villains played by Li acted were from urban areas. In Mother (1956), Li acted the part of an unpleasant character called Shen Chiwu. Dressed in a heavy coat with a thick scarf, or a long gown with a formal hat and a paper fan, the character always had a ‘ruffian’ feel about him. Flattering the head spy and chief of police, while acting in a threatening manner in front of the workers, Li Wei successfully shows a despicable character through vivid and accurate body language and facial expressions, despite the fact that only a very limited number of scenes are assigned to his character. In Diary of a Nurse (1957), Shen Haoru, the leading villain played by Li Wei, is defined by his mean and petty demeanour. The film focuses on the depiction of Jian Suhua (played by Wang Danfeng), a great nurse who would not let herself be tied down by a personal emotional attachment towards her fiancé. This allows her to lead a comfortable urban lifestyle, in which she travels a great distance to provide medical services for the construction workers in the North-eastern part of China. However, Shen Haoru, her fiancé, is the polar opposite. In contrast to most young men in socialist China, Shen Haoru lacks optimism, enthusiasm and masculinity. Despite being a well-educated doctor, his intellectual disposition does not compensate for his sordid and narrow-minded nature. Once again different from the traditional antihero portrayals, Li Wei does not simply attempt to make the character unattractive or unappealing. This can be seen from his clothing as, in contrast to the simple and plain clothes worn by the positive characters, Shen Haoru is always exquisitely dressed. From the well-tailored suit and wind coat to the glossy hair, he always presents himself on the big screen like an urban bourgeois. This kind of image represents a strong contrast to the typical ethos of the honest yet unsophisticated ‘Working Class’, who were almost always dedicated to dynamic socialist construction. 131

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Li’s dynamic body rhetoric of ‘seventeen-year’ villain acting was reflected through not only Japanese invaders and Chinese traitors, but also National Party officers, spies and youths with middle class predispositions. For the former, he eliminates the manliness through facial and physical ‘uglification’; for the latter, he portrays the weak and odious soul through the use of exquisite clothing. The well-dressed Shen Haoru shamelessly indulges in the comfortable urban life. While Jian Suhua strives to provide medical care for the workers in freezing construction sites, Shen drifts casually between the ballroom, the café and the park, accompanied by another nurse. He even travels to the remote Northeast to force Jian to return to Shanghai and marry him. As a result of this rash behaviour, he ends up being flatly refused by his fiancée. In contrast to the nobleminded Jian Suhua, Shen Haoru, with his fashionable clothes, appears to be sleazy and ungenerous. After all, he is no more than a ‘small man’ – a male chauvinist with a greedy and selfish disposition. Diary of a Nurse, in which Wang Danfeng successfully transformed her image from an Old Shanghai superstar to a contemporary socialist woman, attracted great attention from the moment it was released. Furthermore, Li’s performance of the villain also drew widespread praise. One critic pointed out that ‘the script vividly depicts Shen Haoru as a mean man through only a few pages, subtly and naturally shaping such an insignificant figure’ (Ma 1958: 7). Through the character of Shen Haoru, Li Wei’s villain performance style of focusing on the temperament and personality without following the stereotypes became further consolidated. As a matter of fact, films made during the ‘seventeen-year’ period generally tend to show a strong inclination towards stereotypes. The positive roles are defined by their features of masculinity, while the villains are usually depicted as sordid and mean. In contrast to most other villain actors, Li’s performances go above and beyond the set patterns. His natural style provides his villains with a sense of authenticity and realness. Although the characters presented on-screen by Li often have marginalized roles, their unique personalities enable them to stand out and go beyond mere empty symbols of social ideology. III. In 1956, the policy of ‘let hundreds of flowers bloom and hundreds of schools of thought contend’ shone a new light on China’s literary and artistic creations.4 The Film Bureau of the Ministry of Culture streamlined its troublesome censorship system; hence, more space was created for China’s film production. Films began to come one after another, such as Before the New Director General Comes (1956),5 The Man Does Not Bother about Trifles (1956), So Full of Passions (1956),6 The Unfinished Comedy (1957), Real Love (1957)7 and Trouble on the Basketball Field (1957)8, allowing intellectuals, local government officials and common citizens to become protagonists on the big screen. The male image in the new era gradually eclipsed the stereotyped ethos of the ‘Working Class’, and instead 132

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began to be become much more diversified. A number of actors who were regarded unsuitable for the traditional heroic ‘Working Class’ image were consequently presented with opportunities to play leading antihero male roles. Following on from his limited yet powerful scenes as the main villain in Diary of a Nurse, Li Wei starred in Who’s Been Abandoned (1958),9 the screenplay for which is adapted by Sun Qian from his short novel The Strange Story of Divorce (1956).10 It was no longer a praise of the great new socialist life, but a revelation and satire of – and an attack on – the darker side of reality. Renamed Who’s Been Abandoned, the film was directed by Huang Zumo from Shanghai Film Studio, and was eventually completeted in 1958. Yu Shude, played by Li Wei, is a bureaucratic, corrupt and ungrateful local government official who has been trying to abandon his wife. The corrupt character of Yu Shude is a rare phenomenon in the ‘seventeen-year’ films. With all the classic features of his villain characters fused into this role, Li’s style had truly come into its own. Although Yu used to be a soldier during the war, not a single trace of simplicity or modesty can be found in his character. The smart uniform, well-combed hair, lavish cigarette case and polished wristwatch made the Office Director appear more like a petty bourgeoisie. He flirts with the adorable young lady Chen Zuoqin, while deceiving and persuading his wife into a divorce. Behind Yu’s devious eyes, there lies a hypocritical and despicable man. His true ruggedness is fully revealed when he quarrels fiercely with his wife. In this particular case, the ‘petty townsman’ demeanour still features in Li’s villain performance. As an ex-serviceman in the film, the protagonist Yu has a handsome and commanding appearance, but his masculinity is somewhat tactically weakened by the film’s narrative. In the scene of wartime, Yu was a wounded soldier. It was Yang Yumei (who later became his wife) who carried him on her back and rescued him from what would have been a certain death at the hands of Japanese army. When their car was stuck in the mud, he had Yang push it while he himself was sitting inside it. In contrast to his generous and honourable wife, Yu appears to be mean and ungrateful – a ‘small man’ who likes dancing and relaxing in cars, and who detests the rural lifestyle. He has neither the manliness of a decent soldier nor the unselfishness required for a contemporary socialist man. Li Wei’s performance of bullying and deception towards women further intensifies his image as a ‘vicious man’. In Mother, Shen Chiwu humiliates Xi Que, who is his mother’s daughter. In Diary of a Nurse, Shen Haoru finds a new girlfriend shortly after his fiancée departed for the Northeast. In order to stay in Shanghai, he went to the Northeast to force Jian Suhua to go back to Shanghai and marry him, though in the end Jian refused this man who considers love to be nothing more than a game. In Who’s Been Abandoned, Yu Shude seduces the beautiful Chen Zuoqin without telling her about his marriage or his children. When Chen became pregnant, he began seeking a divorce from his wife, to whom he had been married for thirteen years. With his ungrateful and contemptible behaviour, the plot’s design of Yu’s unjustifiable relationship with another woman made the character not only a villain from an ideological perspective, but also from the point of view of morality 133

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and humanity. Therefore, Li Wei’s villains are always featured by the ‘vicious’ power of human nature. Compared to most other villain actors during the ‘seventeen-year’ period, Li’s acting is more accurate in revealing the darker side of human nature. During the short ‘Two Hundred Policy’ period, satirical comedy became a popular film genre through which to mock the bureaucracy of Chinese government officials. For example, in An Unfinished Comedy (1957) and Trouble on the Basketball Field (1957), film-makers Fang Hua and Zhou Boxun portrayed the indecent government officials in an exaggerated, comical and cartoon-like manner. Sun Qian also tried his luck with satirical comedy in his film script for Who’s Been Abandoned, though in the end the film was not shot in a comic fashion, with Yu Shude satirized by just a male voiceover. As a result of the decision, Li Wei avoids an exaggerated acting style. Instead, he shows Yu’s bureaucratic mindset through a natural presentation of the character’s daily behaviours, such as his smoking habit, his impatient facial expressions and the arrogant tone of voice he uses when giving speeches. The satire of Yu’s corrupt lifestyle is further strengthened through his sedan car. Back then, critics conducted in-depth analyses on the role of the car in this film: He can either take his favourite woman to a date in the park, or drive it back to his 450-mile-away hometown to divorce his wife. The car becomes an exclusive privilege and his private property […] Originally, the basic function of an official vehicle is merely a transportation tool to serve the public; while in the film, it turned out to be Yu’s tailored ‘love’ vehicle. On the big screen, the car is no longer a common theatrical property, but personified into an eyewitness of Yu’s corruption. (Geng 1958: 42-43) In nature, Yu is indeed little more than an ungrateful and corrupt womanizer. However, the film is not a simple ‘uglification’ of the character on the surface, but also reveals Yu’s sophisticated inner world in a realistic manner, such as the paternal love towards his daughter that is well depicted throughout. Therefore, Li Wei gets rid of the ‘stereotyped’ antihero performance. He not only made Yu Shude a vivid and significant character with realistic traits, but also provided the film with a more serious and realistic power of criticism towards reality. Who’s Been Abandoned finished shooting in 1958, when the Rectification Movement and the Anti-Rightist Struggle were both at their heights. The previous free environment for arts and literature that had resulted from the ‘Two Hundred Policy’ was suddenly swept away. A number of realistic films and characters were criticized, particularly the role of Yu Shude in Who’s Been Abandoned. In Chen Huangmei’s article ‘Resolutely Remove the White Flags on the Big Screen: Critics on the Incorrect Ideological Inclination of Films in 1957’, published in People’s Daily on 2 December 1958, the author strongly criticized the yet-to-be-released film Who’s Been Abandoned, saying that

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the film severely distorts our living surroundings. Yu Shude, the vicious man, seems to have entered a ‘land of no man’. The struggle of the party and the people against him is nowhere to be found in the film. The only impression we got from this character is that, when senior party members and veteran cadres enter the cities and become leaders, they would degenerate. This is an attack and slander upon our party. (Chen 1958: 7) The article also points out that some films need to be rectified, or they cannot be released publicly, such as An Unfinished Comedy, Who’s Been Abandoned and Sleepless City […] Although the film-makers’ political circumstances vary from one another, it is hard to deny that films like Who’s Been Abandoned and Trouble on the Basketball Field are anti-party and anti-socialism. (Chen 1958) As a result, Who’s Been Abandoned was not able to be released and common audiences were denied the opportunity to see the on-screen character portrayal of the corrupt official Yu Shude. Fundamentally speaking, the reason for Who’s Been Abandoned receiving such severe criticism from the authorities was due to the character Yu Shude shattering the ideal image of Communist party members and cadres, while overthrowing the masculine ideal of the ‘Working Class’. In fact, masculinity itself is not an intrinsic nature, but rather an ideology that inclines to speak for male dominance. It is historical, and its creation and re-creation represent a political process that influences the social balance of interests and the political direction of social progress (Clatterbaugh 2003: 4). The ‘seventeen-year’ films make every effort to create a heroic image of the ‘Working Class’, so that it can speak both for the Communist Party and the country. Hence, the heroic ethos of the ‘Working Class’ becomes the dominant masculine feature eulogized by society as a whole, which is in accordance with the cultural ideal and institutional regime in China back at that time. Its dominant position has become immovable. Yu Shude is special because he is different from typical villains such as National Party officers, Japanese devils, traitors and spies, who are ideologically against the Community Party. Yu is but a communist cadre who has a certain political status within the party. As a party member who had gone through the ordeal of the Anti-Japanese War and the War of Liberation, Yu moved to the city and was promoted to government official following his liberation. Traditionally speaking, he should have displayed a typical male image that conforms to the heroic masculinity of the ‘Working Class’, but he instead indulges himself in defecting to the opposite side. It is clear that such a bureaucratic, unmanly and ungrateful character image demonstrates that the dominant masculinity of the ‘Working Class’ is instable and ‘utopian’. It poses a threat to and even deconstructs the official ideology of the Chinese Communist Party. 135

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This is the precise reason why many other ‘realistic films that are bold enough to reveal the social contradictions and face the corrupt practices of government officials’ (Qi 2007: 87) were criticized around that time. Within them, the depiction of corrupt government officials provides the inevitable focal point for much of the criticism. The characters Yi Bangzi (played by Fang Hua) in An Unfinished Comedy, the comical Section Chief Liu (played by Li Jingbo) in New Director General is Coming, the comic-style Zhang Renjue (played by Zhou Boxun) in Trouble on the Basketball Field, and the realistic Office Director Yu Shude in Who’s Been Abandoned, all became ridiculed and criticized by the authorities, who gave them a negative image. Who’s Been Abandoned, although it had not been released until recently, can now be purchased on DVD on the market. At last, the audience can have a look at the corrupt Yu Shude, whose image was very rare during the ‘seventeen-year’ era of Chinese film production, and experience the true splendour of Li Wei’s unconventional antihero acting performance. IV. Li Wei’s villain performances reached a climax in Military Depot 51 (1961),11 in which he acted the part of Ma Fugen, Director of the Japanese Intelligence Section. Once again in contrast to the stereotypical insignificant and ‘de-masculine’ image of traitors, Ma Fugen takes part in a battle of wits and courage with a group of underground workers, led by Liang Hong (played by Liang Boluo). Ma’s image is exquisitely designed with a pair of goldrimmed glasses reflecting his insidious inner world masked under a gentle appearance. From lavish suits to long Chinese robes and formal hats, Ma’s clothing is both fashionable and diversified. Similar to Liang Hong’s clothing during undercover investigations, Ma’s dress is as trendy as that of the anti-espionage heroes in Silent Woods (1957) and Secret Post in Canton (1957). Thus, Ma Fugen is no longer the simple symbol of a traitor, but a man of distinctive personalities. Suspecting Liang Hong, competing with his rival Huang Yuanlong, and even displaying a lack of faithfulness to his superior Kameda, Ma appears to be more vivid and real with his strong individual and subjective consciousness. Ma Fugen’s suspicious, insidious and opinionated personality is vividly reflected by Li Wei through his well-designed facial expressions, accompanied by behavioural traits such as rubbing his glasses, wearing gloves, putting on hats and smoking. The scene of Ma playing mahjong at home in a T-shirt and necktie adds a natural sense of realness to the villain citizen. Ma did not talk back when he was scolded by Kameda, yet his strong, subject consciousness radiated from the sinister light in his eyes when he was smoking alone afterwards. In Military Depot 51, the image of Li Wei’s villain is upgraded from that of a sordid townsman to one of a hardened gangster. From the gold-rimmed glasses, the long robes and formal hats, to his behaviours and use of language, Ma Fugen is more like a sophisticated veteran gang member who has a clear knowledge of the unspoken rules of 136

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mafia society, rather than a ‘de-masculine’ traitor. The film also incorporates gang culture in its narration. For example, Liang Hong conducts his undercover investigations inside enemy territory with the identity of ‘Young Boss’, the supreme apprentice of the leader of a feudal gang. The film is filled with a strong sense of gangsterdom when Ma Fugen uses the gang’s jargon in his interrogation of Liang Hong. According to Li Zhiyu, Li Wei’s biological brother, ‘he (Li Wei) is very knowledgeable. He has seen all kinds of people including gangsters […] so he can play a wider range of roles than others’.3 The gangster temperament endows Li Wei’s villain performance with a unique quality. His character, whose masculinity remains untarnished, is filled with the strong power of male individuality. At the first ‘Hundred Flowers Awards’ in 1962, the ‘Best Supporting Actor Award’ finally went to Chen Qiang (who played Nan Batian in The Red Detachment of Women 1974)). However, Yang Mengchang (who played the Housekeeper in The Red Detachment of Women), Liu Jiyun (Han Laoliu in The Tempest (1961)12) and Li Wei (Ma Fugen in Military Depot 51) also received a significant number of votes. Li Wei’s position in entertainment circle of New China was further consolidated through his villain performance. V. Some actors like to have their image defined by a unique character they played during the ‘seventeen-year’ period, such as the learned and graceful intellectual played by Sun Daolin in Threshold of Spring (1963, also referred to as Early Spring February), the romantic young man acted by Feng Zhe in The Peach Blossom Fan and the National Party officer acted by Xiang Kun in Eternity in Flames. In Stage Sisters (1965), Li Wei acted the part of Manager Tang, the manager of a theatre in Shanghai. As a role that has all the features of Li’s villain performance, which tops all the previous roles he had played, Manager Tang marked the end of Li’s performances during the ‘seventeen years’. On this occasion, in contrast to his role as the bullied acrobat in The Dagger Thrower, he acted the part of the bully, with the opera artists as his victims. This marked an interesting transformation of roles for Li Wei. In the film, Manager Tang lives in the debaucherous, luxurious and prosperous city of Shanghai. The audience is fascinated by his combination of Chinese and Western-style attire. The character’s sophisticated urban image is well expressed through the use of props such as a small teapot, fancy hats, fans, sunglasses and gloves. The well-dressed Manager Tang follows the physical rhetoric strategy employed by Li in both Diary of a Nurse and Who’s Been Abandoned. Toying with the affections of Shang Shuihua (played by Shangguan Yunzhu) and Xing Yuehong (played by Cao Yindi), Tang is essentially a ‘beast in human form’. Whether it is Manager Tang, Shen Haoru or Yu Shude, Li’s villains are somehow always charismatic and attractive to women. With flesh and desire, yet still with a strong 137

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sense of masculinity, Li Wei’s performances of these antihero characters go far beyond the stereotypes. The Dagger Thrower covers the time period stretching from the AntiJapanese War to the War of Liberation. Although Manager Tang does not collude with the Japanese, he does conspire with the reactionary regime of the National Party during the War of Liberation. When the conspiracy of the National Party regime is revealed in court, Manager Tang escapes stealthily in his wind coat, fine hat and sunglasses. In this way, the actor avoided insignificant facial and body performance while embodying the vain masculinity of the petty bourgeoisie. As a villain, aside from being on the opposite side of socialist ideology, Manager Tang also brings the dark side of human nature into full play. Thus, the villain’s image performed by Li is no longer a mere superficial form, but transcends the single dimension of ideology and indicates the true power of complex human nature. Actors playing villains in the ‘seventeen-year’ films are usually stereotyped by the representative characters that they have created, fixing their image as ‘a certain type of evil face’. For instance, Chen Qiang became the typical image of a vicious landlord, Fang Hua of a Japanese soldier and Xiang Kun for a National Party officer. Li Wei’s strength, in contrast, lay in his realistic and unique acting style rather than simply in his image. Presented with a great sense of realism and authenticity, Li Wei’s ‘seventeen-year’ villain performances highlighted how a character’s demeanour and personal characteristics could be shaped with unity of form and spirit. The antihero images created by Li are not stereotyped by just another evil face, but rather embodied in unique individuality and unaffected masculinity through his exquisite costumes and sophisticated appearance. Benefiting from a natural familiarity with civil lives, and presented to a certain extent in his roles, Li’s villain images with had not only positioned him outside of the ethos of Chinese mainstream characters (the ‘Working Class’), but also distinguished him from common conventional villains of artificial, ideological symbols.13 Thus, Li was able to solidify his reputation as a distinctive antihero actor with ‘seventeen-years’ of experience, who went beyond traditional stereotypes. Based on Li Wei’s track record during the ‘seventeen-year’ films, it is evident that he was not an actor who was constantly under the news spotlight. In newspapers and magazines, very few reports about him have been discovered, nor is there any article about his political resolve. In the world of the big screen, Li Wei is not a leading actor of the heroic ‘Working Class’, as the majority of his characters are villains. Influenced by the trend of the era, many veteran actors were eager to transform their on-screen images into ones of the positive ‘Working Class’. However, Li Wei felt no such pressure. The transition of his image was slow and natural. Ultimately, he is remembered in the film industry of New China for his non-mainstream image and non-stereotyped antihero performances. With ideological propaganda generally the top priority of the ‘seventeenyear’ films, masculinity was always used for rhetoric purposes. For example, the hero figures are often decadently masculine, while the villains have a tendency to be deprived of their masculinity. However, Li Wei’s performance of Manager Tang in Stage Sisters 138

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had eradicated all traces of foppishness. Although he played many villains during his ‘seventeen-years’ of film experience, his distinctiveness allowed him to surpass the stereotypes, and none of his characters could be regarded as just an ‘artificial face’. After the ten-year Cultural Revolution, most of the ‘seventeen-year’ actors retired from their leading positions. They became constrained by their classic images, which have become a permanent symbol of the past era and a feature of the ‘seventeen-year’ period that would be difficult to ever erase, even should they be presented with an opportunity to return to the screen. Li Wei, however, is once again an exception. As his image and style deviate from the ‘seventeen-year’ mainstream, he does not have a typical feature of the ‘seventeen-year’ stereotypes. Hence, he can quickly adapt to the context of new performances. Li stars a number of important roles in Xu Mao and His Daughters (1981), River without Beacon (1983), Strange Encounters (1983), My Lover, My Hate (1986), First Woman in the Forest (1986), The Hardship of the Lord (1986), Ju Dou (1990), The Acrobat’s Son (1990) and 44 Days of Liu Shaoqi (1992). He has become honoured as the ‘Man of a Thousand Faces’ on the big screen (He 2009: 79). Regardless of the era, Li Wei has never been a popular superstar or spokesperson for the mainstream male image. However, thanks to his unique performance style and refusal to become a typical tool of certain ideologies, he avoids facing a similar fate to many other actors, who simply fade along with the past era. Li Wei’s performances have been seen on the big screen for over half a century. With an unparalleled artistic vitality transcending all his contemporary rivals, Li Wei has become a miracle of Chinese film history. References Chen, H. (1958), ‘Resolutely remove the white flags on the screen: critics on the incorrect ideological inclinations of films in 1957’, People’s Daily. Clatterbaugh, K. (1997), Contemporary perspectives on masculinity, Chinese translation: Liu, J. T. and Lin, J. D. (2003), Taipei: Fembooks Publishing House & Bookstore. Editorial (1962), ‘Congratulations to announcement of the hundred flowers awards: make every effort to improve the quality of film arts!’, Popular Cinema, No. 4. Geng, X. (1958), ‘Writers and the “Ungrateful”: comments on Who’s Been Abandoned and film script A Visit to Relatives’, Popular Cinema, No. 11. He, Y. (2009), ‘Li Wei: man of a thousand faces on the screen’, Screen, No. 11. Liu, S. (2004), ‘Li Wei and Zhang Ying: A love melody composed by the Wrongs’, Popular Cinema, No. 4. Ma, S. (1958), ‘I also wrote a diary: after watching Nursy’s Diary’, Popular Cinema, No. 2. Qi, Z. (2007), ‘On the “People’s films”: The second wave of the “Non-Mainstreams” in the seventeen years’, Film Art, No. 6. Yang, Y. ‘A brief study on advertisement and dominant masculinity’, http://mail.nhu. edu. tw/~society/e-j/71/71-09.htm. Accessed on 1 April 2014. 139

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Notes 1. Editor’s Note: Some of the early films that are mentioned in this chapter do not have English titles, therefore the titles are translated literally with a footnote to the original title in Simplified Chinese characters. 2. 丁宁 3. 南岛风云 4. ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend’ is New China’s policy towards the cultural and academic circle. It was first carried out in 1956, and is also referred to as the ‘Two Hundred’ policy. 5. 新局长到来之前 6. 如此多情 7. 寻爱记 8. 球场风波 9. 谁是被抛弃的人 10. 奇异的离婚故事 11. 51 号兵站 12. 暴风骤雨 13. ‘Working Class’ (工农兵，Gong Nong Bing in Chinese phonetics) referred specifically to workers, peasants and soldiers before the ten-year Cultural Revolution in China. The term was no longer in use following the revolution.

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Chapter 9 Cut-Throat Rivalry, Who Will Be the Winner? See Film Box Office Battle in China from the Perspective of Huayi Brothers SHAO Bocong1

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hirteen years has passed since the chivalrous martial arts film Hero (2002), directed by Zhang Yimou, unveiled the curtain of China’s blockbuster era towards the end of 2002. During the past decade or so, China’s film industry has witnessed unprecedented changes, which can be divided into the following three aspects: (1) the ‘fifth-generation directors’ have followed closely the steps of Zhang Yimou, producing commercial films but gaining a mixed reception; (2) privately-owned film companies have sprung up while many old previously successful state-owned film production companies such as Beijing Film Studio and Xi’an Film Studio have faced very challenging times; and (3) box office income has soared dramatically since 2009, multiplying by the dozen year on year. By 2012, China had surpassed Japan with a box office of 17 billion RMB, becoming the second largest film market in the world. All large Chinese and foreign film production companies strive openly and as well as discreetly for success and dominance in the increasingly competitive industry. The film box office battle in China is now growing ferociously like a raging fire, and is showing no signs of relenting in the near future. Before the Battle: Planning, Investment and Production The Planning of Genre Films Lays the Foundation for Box Office

A successful film cannot be produced without creative ideas and innovative selling points. Creative planning can be initiated by one person’s inspiration, but any experienced film production company would have a full professional planning team who can allow feasible proposals to be completed and fast-track the brainstorming of ideas. Each film proposal should include, at the very basic level, market positioning, prospect analysis and shooting purpose. In today’s film market in China, in order to attract audiences and succeed at the box office, it could be argued that companies should produce genre films, particularly science fiction, comedy and romance – all of which are current favourites for the Chinese audience. Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei at Huayi Bros had visionary sights and ideas regarding director Feng Xiaogang’s comedies – tailored for the New Year celebration – as early as 1997, after watching The Dream Factory (1997). They believed firmly that Feng’s comedy style, which was full of unique characteristics, would be a huge success in the 143

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future. For this reason, soon after the company was established, they invested in and shot Sorry Baby (1999), thus marking the beginning of a partnership between Feng Xiaogang and Huayi Brothers that would span for the next decade. From Big Shot’s Funeral (2002) to A World Without Thieves (2004) to the If You Are the One series, comedies by Feng had begun to bring significant success to Huayi Brothers, giving them a strong competitive advantage in China’s box office. Huayi Brothers have done business with prestigious film directors and producers such as Feng Xiaogang and Zhang Jizhong, turning their studios into subsidiaries. These celebrities and super film-makers all but guarantee the quality of a film, giving the company full confidence in the development of themes and allowing it to confidently invest in a variety of film genres. Aside romantic comedies, Huayi Brothers has also had success in a number of other film genres, such as the war movie Assembly (2007), the traditional costume drama film The Banquet (2006), the suspense film Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010), and the historical feature film After Shock (2010), all of which returned huge revenues at the box office. Regulating and Controlling Investment Costs is an Essential Capability John Ford once said, ‘For directors, the business principles must be observed. In our industry, a failure in art is insignificant, but a failure in business means a death penalty’ (Cai and You 2004: 31). He implies that in a long-term box office rivalry, the fate of a director or a company does not depend on the quality of their films, but on the income that is generated. The artistic value of a film is not necessarily proportional to its commercial value, with the latter arguably the more significant of the two. Cleopatra (1963), produced in Hollywood, won four Academy Awards and led to Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton gaining worldwide recognition. Nonetheless, the high cost combined with a poor box office performance almost led 20th Century Fox to bankruptcy. Heaven’s Gate (1980), by Michael Cimino (Academy Award winner for Best Director in 1979), brought about the collapse of the studio that it had been produced by – United Artists. There has never been a lack of examples of failed investments in the history of world motion pictures. At present, film companies are confronted by a number of problems. Which kind of cost is necessary, and which is not? Starting out as an advertising company, Huayi Brothers has developed into one of the most influential media groups in China, with its focus not on how to save money, but rather on how to make money. Feng Xiaogang once said, talking about his boss, Before I signed the contract with Huayi, I had met numerous investors that always like boasting and bragging, but could never keep their word when it came to implementation. They always say, ‘It does not matter if you lose money. How much money can a film cost? I have more than enough for you to spend!’ Contrary to them, 144

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Wang Zhongjun never makes empty promises to make you feel good at the beginning. He would say, ‘All my money is earned from hard work, so I want the payback’. As long as our cooperation [is] confirmed and implementation started, he is never in arrears with payment. He is so different from those people. (Wei 2012a: 442) Certainly, very few would argue that Wang Zhongjun lacks expertise when it comes to knowing exactly how to invest. Another significant advantage for Huayi Brothers is its artists. The Message, released in 2009, enjoyed both strong recognition and a high gross at the box office. The personal charisma of the celebrities and superstars in the film, such as Zhou Xun, Li Bingbing, Huang Xiaoming and Su Youpeng, can all but guarantee at least a certain level of success, even prior to the film’s release. However, this is something that is far beyond the investment capacity of most small and medium-sized companies, as the price alone of inviting two top stars to be involved in the film may already take up half of their entire budget, before even accounting for the necessary ‘agency fees’ for connecting with and persuading actors to participate. Therefore, an ‘all-star cast’ can be a real trump card in the box office battle, but it is one that can only be played by the more powerful, wealthy companies such as Huayi Brothers and Beijing Bu Yi Le Hu Film Corporation. So, are films that lack well-known celebrities destined to lose money from the offset? Not necessarily. As far as Assembly (2007) goes, the main actors Zhang Hanyu, Wang Baoqiang and Deng Chao were not considered top stars at that time, yet the film still managed to top China’s box office that year, owing to its extraordinary public reception. However, its production cost was only 80 million RMB, a figure that was fairly low when compared to many other war films. The key to success is to ensure that the right talent is selected, and to invest in a promising film genre. High and New Technology is Paramount in Post-Production Rivalry The comprehensive digitization that has taken place in recent years will be an irreversible trend for the film industry. What is the reason behind Hollywood movies occupying a 52% market share in China, despite the fact that there are different types of policies and restrictions on imported films? The answer is obvious: science fiction films. There are only three domestic films that ranked among the top ten in China’s box office in 2012: Lost in Thailand, Painted Skin: The Resurrection and Chinese Zodiac 12, with Hollywood science fiction films achieving a landslide victory. Undoubtedly, these productions will continue to dominate the film market during the next decade or two. Actors will spend more time in front of the green screen in the studio than on shooting locations. Directors will no longer need to learn mise-en-scène techniques from masters such as Miklós Jancsó and Béla Tarr, because no matter how complicated the planning of a full-length 145

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shot, computers are almost certainly able to make it happen. Comprehensive digitization gives us a strong signal that, for China’s film production, the post-production quality and advanced technology are of paramount importance. The special effects issue is always a big concern in China’s motion picture industry. The Huayi Brothers, who became ‘the Chinese version of Warner Bros’ through self-motivation and dedication, wished to avoid the risk of lagging behind, so the company employed a top behind-the-scenes team in China, giving them ample space in which to conceive new ideas, free from issues of feasibility. In Painted Skin: The Resurrection (2012), the exquisitely beautiful scene of ink and wash is composed of over 1,200 special effects; and to create the key scene of changing skin, a team of around 100 people spent some 60 weeks making it happen on screen, at a cost of approximately 6 million RMB. The company even imported gesso from the United States in order to create a better makeup effect. The emerging giant Beijing Galloping Horse Media Company needed help from the top Hollywood special effects company Digital Domain, in order to compete with Huayi Brothers, who produced Painted Skin: The Resurrection, ‘the first domestic (mainland China) IMAX-3D blockbuster’, followed by Tai Chi I (2012) and Tai Chi II (2012). Although these productions received criticism by many netizens as having ‘fake 3D’, they still represent a huge leap forward in Chinese film technology. Some small companies in China, however, are still focusing on creating humanistic aspects to make films more realistic. Their artistic value aside, these movies do not have sufficient advantages in order to compete at box office level. In fact, with the popularization of computer technologies, the scale of the special effects industry will continue to increase. Therefore, small- and medium-sized companies should not rush to compete with larger companies in terms of film investment, because the top priority now is to unearth real talent for an affordable price, before the actors gain a level of fame that will inevitably leave them out of the reach of those companies lacking the necessary financial power. Regardless of other factors, attracting a large pool of talent is the most cost-effective form of investment. During the Battle: Promotion, Distribution and Release The Result of Promotion and Distribution Once the preparation is complete, the period of promotion and distribution follows. The promotion and publicity of a film is a crucial factor in the battle of the box office. In Hollywood, every company generally becomes accustomed to a set, formatted model of film promotion, and they usually outsource the production of trailers and posters to professional creative companies. Take the famous Trailer Park in Hollywood as an example: in terms of the promotion, a distributor will select some highlights and clips from the film in order to make a trailer, usually lasting no longer than two minutes and 40 seconds. Next, they make different versions of the trailer, generally around 30 to 60 seconds in length, such 146

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as TV trailers, teaser trailers, broadcasting advertisements and viral marketing videos. The production company will then put them on the market in order to receive some feedback. If they are not acceptable, the trailers will be revised immediately. The same strategy is applied to the making of posters. Different types of posters will be gradually fed onto the market, including teaser posters, character posters, artistic posters, the second group, the third group and, finally, the ultimate version. This whole process of line production has become increasingly accepted and integrated by Chinese film-makers. Around the National Day holiday in 2010, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, with its box office revenue of 300 million RMB, comprehensively overshadowed Legend of the First: The Return of Chen Zhen, both of which had a similar level of production and cast. This victory was the ultimate reward for Huayi Brothers’ strict implementation of Hollywood-style promotion. As early as one and half years before the film was released, Tsui Hark had revealed that he would create the ‘Chinese Sherlock Holmes’, starring Andy Lau, Li Bingbing and a number of other recognized superstars. Then, Detective Dee’s designing of posters, teaser posters and character photos became exposed to the public. The first trailer was launched five months prior to the release of the film, and two months later the second trailer was put on the market alongside character posters, increasing the level of suspense. Meanwhile, the nomination of the film at the 2010 Venice Film Festival drew even more attention and expectation from audiences. Around two weeks before the release, the audience’s expectation reached its peak as a result of the launch of specially-targeted trailers and posters, ensuring that the success of the film during the National Day holiday was both natural and reasonable. On the other hand, Legend of the First: The Return of Chen Zhen was released a week earlier, with the time of its release happening to cover both the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day holiday. Prior to its distribution, however, there was substantial hype surrounding leading actor Donnie Yen’s remuneration, and fierce speculation regarding his refusal to attend the press conference following a dispute with Jet Li. A combination of all of these factors contributed to a box office failure for Legend of the First: The Return of Chen Zhen. In certain cases, the performance of a film can be predicted by evaluating the standard of its trailers and posters. The poster of Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame uses solemn colours, and the five leading actors are standing sideways in two oblique lines. Andy Lau dresses as a detective with a long sword in hand; Carina Lau wears a crown and an imperial robe; and Deng Chao has the appearance of a villain, with his white eyebrows and long beard. In comparison, the newer film Say Yes (2013) was more unique in its methods of promotion. It cleverly combined the theme of Valentine’s Day with the sensational Internet theme in which ‘the loser succeeds in getting a gorgeous girl as his girlfriend’. The famous TV host Zhao Zhongxiang did the voice-over for the trailer, with his characteristic voice, famous from the prestigious TV program Animal World, making it popular among audiences with its tasteful humour.

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Marketing Requires Good Strategy, While Implementation Needs Capital Input What is the most convenient and efficient method of marketing? There is a strong argument for advertising sponsorship being the primary answer. Few are more aware of this than Wang Zhongjun, who started his business from commercial advertisements. In Big Shot’s Funeral (2001), there are several conspicuous examples of product placement, including mobile phones, cameras, mineral water and real estate. However, due to its unique theme and creative content, the viewers did not feel offended, but rather felt that these advertisements enhanced the comedy effect. As a matter of fact, the subject of a film decides, to a large extent, the possibility of product placement. When viewers see the large billboard of ‘Maysu’ in If You Are the One (2010), they may smile a little, because it corresponds and combines well with the plot. Therefore, if a modern film is produced, particularly one that reveals the entertainment industry itself, a significant advantage lies in the fact that there can be a reasonable amount of casual product placement. The If You Are the One series, directed by Feng Xiaogang, played a direct role in increasing the popularity of a number of tourist attractions. If the person in charge has no knowledge of the target audience, they are all but destined to lose the battle of the box office. Who is really keen on watching movies? Nowadays, it is predominantly students, office workers and those under the age of 35. Capturing their interest means gaining the initiative. As stated by Ma Ke, a partner of Jiang Wen (one of China's top directors), We specially invited a 4A advertising company to do the assessment. Our film promotion must cover various media, including TV channels, buses, street nameplates, subways, demassified media and Internet media. It is a must-do task, so there is no room for carelessness. (Wei 2012b: 9) For this reason, the promotion cost of Let the Bullets Fly (2010) was as high as 50 million RMB. Lost in Thailand, which was the unusual case that defeated Huayi Brothers in 2012, had a production cost as low as 30 million RMB, but its street advertisements even spread as far as a number of county-level cities. The world of marketing requires a game genuine capital input, with zero tolerance for miserliness. Tricky Release Policies Filled with Latent Rules All drills performed by a troop are carried out in preparation for the fighting moment in a battle (film release day). Whoever it is, even if all the previous work had been executed to perfection, can rarely predict or guarantee a film’s box office income. The loss made by Back to 1942 (2012) was good news to some online users, but no more than a month later, Huayi Brothers released the hit film Chinese Zodiac 12, which achieved an astonishing 148

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box office revenue of 800 million RMB. However, the popularity of Chinese Zodiac 12 could easily be labelled a victory of comedy, and the viewers' love for the signature funny movements of the nearly 60-year-old Jackie Chan is palpable. It is undeniable that Chinese audiences love comedies and nostalgia. This is further highlighted by the fact that bitter tragedy movies such as Back to 1942 and The Last Supper (2012) did not appeal to the audience, despite being directed by the reputable Feng Xiaogang and Lu Chuan. The current situation in the Chinese film market can be explained as such: Hollywood continues to outshine domestic blockbusters, while domestic blockbusters remain ahead of other low-budget domestic productions. Although domestic blockbusters cannot compete with their Hollywood counterparts, they can earn sufficient profits due to the latent rule inaugurated by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television stating that, for a certain month, cinemas can only release major domestic movies. The low-budget films, however, struggle to even qualify for a share of the benefits from this rule, regularly finding themselves under the converging attack of Hollywood and domestic blockbusters. Domestic blockbusters also have their own preoccupations with having to engage in a dog-eat-dog competition, which could be seen in April 2012 leading up to the important International Labor Day holiday. At that time, The Avengers (2012), the gathering of superheroes, was set to be released in China, meaning that Galloping Horse, Stellar and Beijing Enlight Media could only release their respective movies in mid-April, sandwiched between Titanic 3D (2012) and The Avengers. In the end, all three of the films – Guns and Roses (2012), Design of Death (2012) and An Inaccurate Memoir (2012) – perished. The film 11 Flowers (2013), directed by Wang Xiaoshuai, was also meant to join the battle, but its distributor estimated that it would be extremely tough to remain competitive and in the hope of securing a better box office performance, delayed the release date until May that year. However, the consistent sentimental style of Wang Xiaoshuai was not widely appreciated by a new generation seeking sensory stimulation, resulting in the film grossing just three million RMB at the box office. The experienced and astute Huayi Brothers showed its wisdom again by announcing in mid-March that its movies would be released in July and August, during the so-called ‘domestic film protection months’. Without the strong competition from Hollywood imports, Huayi Brothers seemed to have no opponent; it produced an all-star cast in Painted Skin: The Resurrection, breaking the record within just three days of its initial release. Furthermore, Huayi Brothers was also good at reserving a certain amount of power for later on in the battle. At the end of September, after the three Hollywood science fiction movies The Dark Knight Rises (2012), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and Prometheus (2012) left China, Huayi Brothers quickly monopolized China’s IMAX market from 27 September 2012 up until the beginning of 2013 in dominant fashion by releasing four blockbusters with an investment of over 100 million RMB: Tai Chi I (2012), Tai Chi II (2013), Back to 1942 and Chinese Zodiac 12. Its most shrewd action was that Huayi Brothers signed an exclusive hegemonic agreement with the IMAX company, resulting in the IMAX release time of Life of Pi (2012) lasting for only one week in mainland China. 149

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The release of films indicates not only the battle between companies, but also the rivalry among theatre chains. At the beginning of November 2012, five major distribution companies, including Huayi Brothers, China Cinema and Bona, allied to demand an increase in their share of box office distribution receipts, to 45%. But the thirteen theatre chains, led by Wanda, Jinyi and New Film Association, showed no signs of fear and even threatened not to release a single film from those distribution companies. Finally, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television intervened to defuse this confrontation by formulating four support and subsidy policies, and the five distribution companies also signed new agreements regarding their share of the overall revenue. Through analysis, it is easy to see that the solution to this confrontation resulted in greater benefits to the big companies, as the so-called ‘subsidy and support’ was only based on a large investment and high box office. If the box office revenue of a domestic film in one year reaches 50% of the year’s total, 100% of the special film fund will be returned; even if the box office of a domestic film in one year is less than 45% of the annual total, as long as it is higher than the previous year, 50% of the special fund will still be returned. These policies mean that big companies will make more effort to produce, distribute and release blockbusters as box office is everything. Huayi Brothers is more aggressive and powerful in terms of film release than most other companies. First of all, the company has its own cinemas in major cities, so it can guarantee the optimal release of its films. Prior to the release of Back to 1942, the big news spread on the Internet that Huayi Brothers had stopped issuing exclusive digital screening keys to 362 cinemas, leaving the cinemas very anxious. Huayi Brothers designated a special representative to explain that this was a warning to certain cinemas to stop stealing or concealing box office revenue. Tai Chi failed as a result of this, and could be viewed as ‘an action of striking the mountain to shock the tiger’. In the cruel battle of China’s film box office, the saddest thing for directors of literary films and smaller companies is that, although they work hard to produce films, very few people are given the opportunity to watch them. In 2012, over 600 domestic motion pictures were produced in China, but only around 200 of them were released in cinemas. The remaining two thirds were stored in the vault, watched online or on DVD, or aired at midnight on the Movie Channel. After the Battle: Comment, Reflection and Prospect It is Hard to Obtain Both Good Box Office and Public Recognition A major issue for Chinese movies is that they ‘win the battle but lose prestige’. Since Hero unveiled the curtain of China’s blockbuster era in 2002, this issue has remained, and even today shows no signs of improvement. Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and other ‘fifth-generation’ film-makers are getting older, and the huge gap between the glory of 150

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their era and the mediocrity of today has let numerous fans down. Meanwhile, newgeneration directors such as Ning Hao and Wu Ershan are eager to produce good movies. After gaining significant recognition from the two classic ‘crazy’ comedies, Ning Hao’s new film Guns N’ Roses was little more than satisfactory. It is hard to hide a weak narrative behind the splendid pictures in the films of Wu Ershan, who originally began his directing career with music videos and advertisement production. As for Xu Zheng, his development potential in the future will almost certainly decrease. It is impossible for Huayi Brothers, leader of the motion picture industry in China, not to pay attention to the balance between the box office and public response. In fact, the works of Feng Xiaogang during these years, such as Assembly (2007) and Back to 1942 (2012), all have a relatively high artistic value. However, seventeen years of sincere and hard work only led to the shattering of Feng’s box office myth. It appears that, in the future, Feng Xiaogang and Huayi Brothers are not likely to produce the films with commercial risks, regardless of how in-depth their themes may be. This could lead to a devastating loss for the Chinese film industry. Resisting Bad Movies Starts with an Individual Why does the box office become the ‘demagogic’ poison of battle? In order to achieve success at the box office, producers and cinemas work together, ensuring that losses are minimized. Some cinemas have a very poor screening quality, sometimes even falling below the standards provided by many home cinemas, while some films are of very low quality. Other issues include the use of artificial 3D effects in films in order to increase ticket prices. Many examples of irresponsible market behaviours can also be found, and this is just some of the chaos within the current Chinese film market. Truthfully, we cannot place all the blame on production companies; the participation of the audience also needs to be considered. Director Huo Jianqi, who has won international awards, once told the author about his 2003 film Nuan (winner of the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix) that ‘Many years after the film release, we still met with Japanese fans who held the poster of Nuan to pay their tribute to us when we arrive in Japan. But in China, nobody likes to watch literary films’. This concern was further highlighted when Huo Jianqi’s new film, Falling Flowers (2012), failed poorly at the box office following its release last April. The low-quality film Upside Down (2012) was also shamelessly adapted by Hollywood with use of artificial 3D effects, and exported to mainland China in search of greater profits. Indeed, this technique proved effective, since its box office in China accounted for more than 50% of its global box office. The Expendables (2014), Looper (2012), and a number of other films deliberately invite Chinese actors to play a selection of relatively unimportant roles, in order to reach the co-production standard and thus increase their share of distribution revenue. There are thousands of overseas film companies that are coveting the huge financial potential of China’s film market. As the audience, we have 151

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the right and the obligation to say ‘no’ to those productions that have the sole purpose of making money, with a subsequent disregard for cultural and artistic values. The Film Bureau and related companies should set themselves as examples, as the ‘domestic films protection month’ cannot be the sole protection against commercial blockbusters. Art film theatre chains should be established in the near future, and we should learn from Taiwan and Europe, both of whom allocate special funds to young directors who are committed to literary film-making. Only through these measures can the Chinese film industry hope to achieve true prosperity. There is Still a Long Way to Go with Great Responsibility There are a lot of challenges facing giants such as Huayi Brothers and Beijing Enlight Media. One of the most notable is how to ‘stabilize the domestic market while winning the competition against foreign rivals’. Against the backdrop of economic globalization and a more open film market, it would not be possible to avoid competition and seek the authority’s protection. Indeed, it would not be wise to destroy one another’s businesses through non-healthy competition. The only way to win this persistent battle is to connect with the public, improve our film-makers’ own abilities, and make full use of the advanced technologies available. References Cai, W. and You, F. (2004), American Films Study, Beijing: China Radio and Television Publishing House. Wei, J. (2012a), Exploration of Chinese Movies Influence – Interviews with Leaders, Peking University Press. Wei, J. (2012b), Exploration of Chinese movies influence – Interviews with Leaders, Peking University Press. Note 1. 邵博聪

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Notes on Contributors HOU, Guangming (侯光明), Professor of Beijing Film Academy, Party Committee Secretary LIU, Jing (刘静), Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Art and Communication, Beijing Normal University WEI, Jinru (魏晋茹), Postgraduate student at the College of Urban and Environmental Sciences of Peking University, enrolled in 2013 ZHANG, Huijun (张会军), Dean of Beijing Film Academy and Professor in film studies LU, Yang (陆阳), Manager of the Circulation Department of Jackie Chan Theatre International Co. Ltd in Beijing, and MA in Business Administration, Business School of Renmin University of China ZHU, Tao (朱涛), Lecturer at the Photography Institute of Beijing Film Academy, and postgraduate student in filmology LIU, Fan (刘藩), Associate Research Fellow, Culture and Art Research Centre of the Chinese National Academy of Arts PENG, Ke (彭可), Lecturer at Chongqing Post University ZHANG, Chong (张冲), Associate Professor at the College of Foreign Languages, Ludong University QI, Xian’Gu (齐仙姑), Postgraduate student at the Department of Film Studies, School of Literature, Remin University of China DING, Ning (丁宁), Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Drama, Film and Television, Beijing Normal University; Associate Professor at the School of Public Management & Media, Beijing Information Science & Technology University SHAO, Bocong (邵博聪), Undergraduate student at the School of Music, Drama, Film, Television & Literature, Tianjing Normal University, enrolled in 2013 153

Journal of Beijing Film Academy Advisory Board Director: WANG, Honghai Deputy Director: YANG, Yuanying; LIU, Jun Board Members (order in Chinese strokes): WANG, Jing; WANG, Rui; WANG, Honghai; WANG, Liguang; LIU, Jun; LIU Gesan; SUN, Lijun; YANG, Yuanying; LI, Jianping; WU, Guanping; WU, Manfang; SONG, Jing; ZHANG, Hui; ZHANG, Huijun; CHEN, Yi; ZHONG, Dafeng; HOU, Guangming; HOU, Keming; AORI, Lige; HUANG, Dan; HUANG, Yingxia; TONG, Lei; MU, Deyuan; DING, Yaping; WANG, Yichuan; Emilie Yueh-yu YEH; QI, Longren; LI, Xun; LI, Yang; YU, Ji; ZHANG, Ling; ZHANG, Zhen; ZHANG, Yingjin; LU, Hongshi; LU, Shaoyang; CHEN, Jie; FAN, Zhizhong; RAO, Shuguang; NIE, Wei; JIA, Leilei; XU, Feng; DAI, Jinhua

Journal of Beijing Film Academy Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief: WU, Guanping Associate Editor: HUANG, Xin Duty Editor: FANG, Zhaoli Secretary: CHU, Qimei 《北京电影学院学报》学术委员会： 主任：王鸿海 副主任：杨远婴、刘军 委员（按姓氏笔画排序）：王竞、王瑞、王鸿海、王黎光、刘军、刘戈三、孙立 军、杨远婴、李剑平、吴冠平、吴曼芳、宋靖、张辉、张会军、陈浥、钟大 丰、侯光明、侯克明、敖日力格、黄丹、黄英侠、童雷、穆德远、丁亚平、王 一川、叶月瑜、齐隆壬、李迅、李洋、余纪、张泠、张真、张英进、陆弘石、 陆绍阳、陈捷、范志忠、饶曙光、聂伟、贾磊磊、徐枫、戴锦华。 《北京电影学院学报》编辑部： 主编：吴冠平 副主编／编辑部主任：黄欣 责任编辑：方兆力 秘书：储齐梅

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Beijing Film Academy 2015 Yearbook

The Beijing Film Academy (BFA) is one of the most revered film institutions in the world. Since 1984, the BFA's Department of Film Studies has been publishing the Journal of the Beijing Film Academy, the only journal of film theory that integrates film education in higher learning with film theory studies. Now, coinciding with dramatically increased interest in Chinese cinema, comes the Beijing Film Academy Yearbook, showcasing the best academic debates, discussions, and research from the academy in 2015 - all available for the first time in English. Aimed at narrowing the cultural gap for cross-cultural research, the book contributes not only to scholarly work on Chinese cinema, but also to film and media studies more generally. The Journal of the Beijing Film Academy, founded in 1984, is edited by the Beijing Film Academy's Department of Film Studies.

Part of the Intellect China Library series ISBN 978-1-78320-605-6

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