Logo for www.Chinesefilms.cn

Last month, the Film Bureau of China launched www.chinesefilms.cn, its first English-language website dedicated to promoting domestically produced films to a world audience. The portal offers news, celebrity photos and even informational pages on the major studios in mainland China. From initial appearances, the site has a ways to go: a number of links are broken, and among the top search terms “Confucious” is spelled incorrectly. The look and feel of the site somewhat resembles the pages of the news satire site The Onion when it was supposedly taken over by a Chinese conglomerate. But laugh at your own risk; this website is a shot across the bow of the status quo of global film distribution, the Chinese film industry’s way of saying to Hollywood “It’s on!”

A report in the UK Guardian reads between the lines:

The site suggests a vibrant film industry capable of competing with the best Hollywood can produce… The director of the country’s Bureau of Film Administration, Tong Gang, told the Independent that China was making “considerable progress” in opening up its film industry. He said that success stories born of the new approach included Bodyguards and Assassins, a mainland Chinese-Hong Kong co-production which is up for 18 prizes at the Hong Kong Film Awards on April 18, and John Woo’s Red Cliff, a China-US production which took $250m worldwide and was crowned Asia’s box office champion at last week’s Asian Film Awards.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Thanks to a massive state-sponsored promotional campaign meant to make a statement on the country’s robust film industry, the 2009 production Founding of a Republic broke the all-time box office record for a Chinese film — only to have its feat overshadowed by Avatar’s unprecedented success in China months later. Not even a state-coordinated attempt to push the film out of theaters could stop it.

But the current dominance of Hollywood in China may very well be short-lived. Asia analyst Francisco Sisci, writing in the Asia Times, does the math:

The market grew by almost 44% last year, and about 30% in 2008. Last year, it was worth US$908 million – about a tenth of the $9.79 billion of US revenues in the previous year. At the current rate, the Chinese film market will outgrow the American market in five to ten years.

Sisci goes on to say that the tide will turn to the point that it will be Chinese films flooding into American cineplexes. This may even happen well before China becomes economically dominant over the U.S.: “While we have been waiting for years for the economic overtaking, which will still take a generation to come, the transformation of Hollywood into Chollywood could take only five years.” The result, Sisci warns, is a clash of cultures to a magnitude not seen since Western colonialism descended on China in the 19th century. Sisci extols the need for strengthening channels of understanding the “superficiality and carelessness in dealing with China and in China’s dealing with the Western world,” as is prevalent in popular media and culture.

We at dGenerate like to believe that we offer such a channel for rich understanding of important issues related to China. We do this by distributing films that offer not superficial entertainment or government-approved messages, but an independent vision of reality that’s relevant both to China and to the world. In other words, the films you don’t learn about on www.Chinesefilms.cn.

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Translation by Yuqian Yan

Hail! Hail! Hail! The State of Chinese Cinema in 2009

I. Long Live the Motherland

The Founding of a Republic (dir. Han Sanping)

The Founding of the Republic reflects many demands of the film industry beyond film itself, and it has all but achieved these goals.

First of all, it reveals a reality that is shared by many other fields and industries. In the past several years, resources have been accumulated and controlled by several state-owned, monopolistic enterprises. This is a common phenomenon in the economy.

In the world of culture, different kinds of people collaborated on the one blockbuster film of 2009. For the 60th anniversary of the founding of People’s Republic of China, this blockbuster was eventually taken over from big-name directors by the presidents of state-owned enterprises. It’s almost like the chief director of China Central TV directing the Spring Festival Gala. The only distinction of this year is that in the past fifteen years, imported blockbusters were the nightmare of Chinese films every month; in the past five years, the domestic film market was dominated by three Chinese blockbusters every year. In 2007 and 2008, domestic blockbusters such as Lust, Caution, Assembly and Warlords all had difficulties in production or in passing the censors. Luckily, there is only one domestic blockbuster in 2009; others were small productions. Moreover, this film is very safe; the government wouldn’t give the film bureau officials any trouble.

This film fully reflected a truly exceptional marketing plan. Immodestly speaking, we can achieve the American model of integrated marketing. (I don’t say “we, too, can achieve”, because no other country can achieve that. Even American economic newspapers envy us.) A standard American blockbuster takes up about one-fifth of domestic screens when it is first released. But in our country, an American blockbuster takes up three-fifths of theater screens; some domestic blockbusters can take up four-fifths. Like some people commented online, the producer of this film and film bureau officials have fully comprehended Chairman Mao’s strategy and tactics in the War of Liberation (the Chinese Civil War), concentrating superior military forces to fight a large-scale battle of annihilation. Only the security forces in Beijing during National Day are comparable to the protection of the promotion of this film.

There are two other confrontations.

The first is Han Sanping vs. Zhang Yimou. The so-called “59-year-old phenomenon” can also be found in other industries in China. The most influential figures in Chinese cinema are almost the same age as the state. They dream of brilliant success before their upcoming retirement. Mr. Han finally became the only person in the entire Chinese film circle whose popularity and power surpassed Mr. Zhang. The problem is that the pivotal moment of retirement will hugely affect Han; he certainly can’t direct the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Republic. But Zhang can probably continue to work until China next holds the Olympics.

Han Sanming (in Still Life, dir. Jia Zhangke)

Han Sanping (director, The Founding of a Republic)

The other confrontation is Han Sanping vs. Han Sanming. Many readers might not know Han Sanming. He’s an amateur actor who plays the male protagonist in Still Life. The least reliable rumor in the film circle is that Han Sanming is Han Sanping’s brother. The person who made up this rumor is hateful, with absolutely no morality. He positions himself against Han Sanping, as well as Han Sanming, and makes an idiotic judgement on physical looks, personal background and views on film. The author of this article solemnly clarifies here: there’s no kinship between Han Sanping and Han Sanming. Our guessing only reveals our polarized self-judgement: we only have two options, we either become Han Sanping, or become Han Sanming.

Since there will be many other films on the founding of the Republic in the future, I want to remind those individual “main-melody” directors who are not able to attract big investments or film celebrities: you’ll have to come up with other special strategies. My dear readers, don’t assume that I’m making this up. A DV farmer from the south of Shanxi spent more than 50,000 yuan (7,000) dollars out of his own pocket and for over three years made an epic film on the Long March.

Zu: Warriors of Magic Mountain (2001, dir. Tsui Hark)

The special strategy, as I predict would be: in five years, these self-funded, original productions on revolutionary themes will incorporate the wuxia conventions of Jin Yong: that is to film Baota Mountain as Hua Mountain, and film Jingang Mountain as Wu Tang Mountain. In ten years, “main-melody” epic propaganda films will follow Tsui Hark’s example: that is, PLA soldiers climbing over the snowy mountains and traveling across the grasslands will be shown in the style of Zu Warriors (dir. Tsui Hark, 2001) where Emei, Kongtong, and Kunlun schools fight and compete with each other, flying in the sky and disappearing into the earth.

Many directors of small-budget “main-melody” films complain about repression and unequal competition, such as the Ye Daying’s Tiananmen Square. For me, that’s just the words of jilted women. Why don’t you sacrifice your individualism to satisfy the collectivism of the China Film Group? The Republic was founded by millions of revolutionary martyrs. This is called “I sacrifice your blood to build a new nation.” (This is adapted from Lu Xun’s famous poem “I sacrifice my blood to build a new nation.)

The Founding of the Republic tells us that as long as power and promotion work together, it’s not a problem to attract celebrities and audiences. For those who watched this film, don’t blame the celebrities as cheap and despicable. If you have seen the film, you are not any better than them.

Tomorrow, Part Two: Long Live Capital: Non-stop Financing and the Market

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Zhao Dayong

“How China is using art (and artists) to sell itself to the world” is an informative and insightful article in The Star by Murray Whyte. It analyzes China’s recent boom in cultural and media industries and its discontents—a burgeoning scene of individual expression. dGenerate directors Ou Ning and Zhao Dayong and producer David Bandurski are featured in the article as prominent representatives of the alternative art scene.

For Whyte, China’s recent supports and displays of cultural development reflect the government’s deep desire to raise “soft power”– “the ability of a political body to get what it wants through cultural or ideological attraction”–in order to match its huge economic development. The efforts include the plans for new museums and “creative districts” nationwide, proliferation of a glossy magazine industry that embraces Western excess, participation in global cultural events such as the Frankfurt Book Fair, the induction of formerly underground filmmakers back into state-run studios, and the production of big-budget political blockbusters such as The Founding of a Republic.

These splashy, showy displays, contrary to common expectation, do not indicate progress in free expression. Artist and activist Ou Ning, whom the article identifies as a “tireless campaigner for cultural freedom,” refers to the overwhelming urban reconstruction making place for the creative districts as “trading a specific brand of artistic freedom for a broader tyranny.” Commenting on the burgeoning media and culture landscape, David Bandurski (producer of Ghost Town) of Hong Kong University’s China Media Project notes, “This has nothing to do with the vibrancy of culture, or the diversity of culture.” Instead, he continues, “[The government] wants a renaissance, but they want it to happen under party control.”

Beneath this superficial and artificial glamor, the article also notices a “thriving underground scene” that represents a “new kind of expression that has sprouted amid the state-mandated cultural flowering.” Documentary film, as the article quotes Ou Ning again, is the country’s new frontier for individual expression. Among them, Ghost Town by Zhao Dayong and San Yuan Li by Ou Ning and Cao Fei both depict abandoned landscapes and lives, one left “on the distant margins of a country pushed into modernization overdue,” the other “swallowed by Guangzhou’s land-gobbling development.” Although Zhao Dayong defines his work as more individual expression than political act, Ou Ning and Whyte both see the progressive effects of this growing individual expression. The article concludes with Ou’s remark, “Everyone to make a small change in their daily lives. That’s how society can change: individually, step by step, by all of us.”

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This so-called “leitmotif commercial blockbuster” breaks the pattern of regular political films with its star-studded cast, featuring nearly 200 of China’s well-beloved film professionals, including action heroes Jackie Chan and Jet Li, international star Zhang Ziyi, comedy king Stephen Chow, and even directors Chen Kaige, Jiang Wen, and Feng Xiaogang. In an interview with South Capital Entertainment Weekly, director Han Sanping proudly calls this film an “ingenious cooperation of politics and commerce.” A report on Chinafilm.com reads “The elder generation watches history; the younger generation counts stars.”

In an illuminating report in The Independent, Cliff Coonan defines the film as both an “A-list extravaganza” and a “stirring propaganda epic,” and gives a good reading of the “moments of subtlety and what appear to be hidden political messages” in the plot. Contextualizing the film in global cinematic propaganda, including Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1905), Independence Day (Roland Emmerich, 1996), and, most disturbingly, Triumph of the Will (Leni Riefenstahl, 1934), Coonan notes, “By peppering the picture with stars, its producers hopes to update the patriotic cinema for a new generation.”

In an interview with AFP, Luisa Prudentino, an expert on Chinese cinema, also predicts that the “Jianguo Daye” formula will be the model for future propaganda films. “This allows the authorities to counter Hollywood’s growing influence here by making blockbuster films that make money while also getting their message across to the masses in a more glamorous way,” she said.

On the other end of the spectrum, almost simultaneous to the opening of The Founding of a Republic, controversial artist Ai Weiwei uploaded onto the internet his own “celebration gift film,” Lao Ma Ti Hua (named after a famous Sichuan saying roughly meaning “old mom’s pork feet stew”). This 75-minute documentary, shot with a hidden DV camera, records the bitter and absurd experience of Ai and other witnesses for the human rights activist Tan Zuoren of being harassed and illegally detained by the police of Chengdu (capital of the Sichuan province) at the eve of the court meeting.

The political message is overt. Tan was persecuted for his investigation into the shoddy constructions of the collapsed school buildings at the 5.12 earthquake last year, but here the splendid marble-clad building of the Chengdu municipal police bureau draws sharp contrast with the so-called “tofu crumble” projects at the background. The main part of the documentary records the frustrating and unresolved negotiation of Ai’s group with different parties of the Chengdu police about the release of their detained partner and about a proper explanation of their sufferings–just as Qiu Ju did in the Zhang Yimou film. A police officer managed to say nothing remotely meaningful in hours, often not even complete sentences.

The film ends with a sequence of shaky images when the police forced Ai to surrender his  camera in front of the Chengdu Police Station. It’s true to the mode of guerilla filmmaking: the civilian’s desire to record finally triumphs over the authorities’ suppression of the moving image.

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