These days the answer to nearly every question about the Asian film industry is China. The awakening of the world’s most populous nation and the ongoing steps toward it becoming a cinematic powerhouse are not only turning the global boxoffice charts on their heads, they’re also redefining the meaning of the word “co-production” sucking in the once mighty Hong Kong industry and forcing film-makers around the region to grasp the nettle of a prickly, proud and politically unpredictable industry.
Nowhere is the conundrum of China’s film industry better illustrated than at the top of this year’s Chinese boxoffice charts. Released in late 2008 and playing strongly through January, “If You are the One” grabbed an astonishing RMB325 million ($47.7 million) to topple “Titanic” from the perch it has enjoyed for more than a decade. But only a few months later the new record was obliterated by the performance of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”
Whether a result of smart decisions by individual producers or by clever central planning, the winter’s crop of commercial Chinese movies looks set to be huge. According to China Film estimates, there are more than a dozen Chinese-language movies with the realistic potential to each top RMB100, the symbolic figure that only a couple of years back was barely passed by two or three movies. Hong Kong has seen several of its biggest name directors simply relocate to Beijing, the center of political influence and the capital of China’s film industry. These include John Woo, Peter Chan, Tsui Hark and Gordon Chan. Still others including Teddy Chen and producer Raymond Wong are making big films in China.
This has led to an outbreak of worry that the former British colony has suddenly lost its place in Asian film. The truth is that its influence has been waning for several years as big studios like Golden Harvest withdrew from production and as old-school Cantonese-style pictures (that made a creative virtue out of working quickly on low budgets) have struggled to compete in Asian territories where tastes have become more sophisticated and globalized.
