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Silver screen salvo lights way

By Liu Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-10 07:49

From black comedy to romantic flicks, the country's growing film industry is starting the new year with a booming box office fueled by what pundits hold are moviegoers looking for some escape from a gloomy economy.

In the following week of this year's Spring Festival that fell on Jan 26, mainland theater box offices grossed 155 million yuan ($22.6 million), a third more than that of last year, as figures on www.cinema.com.cn, a box office research website show.

All top five moneymakers were domestic productions, such as young director Ning Hao's black comedy named Crazy Racer (Fengkuang de Saiche) and romantic flick Look for a Star (Youlong Xifeng) featuring popular actors Andy Lau and Shu Qi.

"First of all, we have more films this year," said Liu Hui, manager of Beijing-based theater chain UME.

"People also need to find some comfort from the gloom of the global economic crisis."

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As suggested by Tong Gang, president of the State Film Bureau, the industry's top regulator, the boom started last year, with revenue from last year's domestic box office reaching a record-breaking 4.34 billion yuan ($634 million), an increase of 30.5 percent from the takings in 2007. The industry has also been experiencing a continuous growth of 25 percent since 2002.

A pedestrian walks by a poster promoting Red Cliff Part II (Chi Bi, Xia) , directed by John Woo, on January 12 in Yichang, Hubei province. [China Daily]

Tong told China Daily that about 300 film producers made 406 features last year. The number of movie screens nationwide has also nearly tripled, from 1,400 in 2002 to more than 4,000 now. In the past year alone, 118 new theaters with 600 new screens opened across the country.

Of the 406 films, eight grossed 100 million yuan ($14.6 million) in box office revenue, such as action maestro John Woo's Red Cliff Part I (Chi Bi, Shang) and popular director Feng Xiaogang's If You are the One (Feicheng Wurao).

Woo's second instalment of his epic (Red Cliff Part II) raked in 100 million yuan in a record-breaking five days after its opening on Jan 7, while Feng's romantic comedy netted 200 million yuan in a record 13 days. Red Cliff's first part, which premiered last July, earned 320 million yuan ($ 46.7 million).

"Eight years ago, 100 million yuan would have made a film the box office champion," said Huang Qunfei, general manager of the Beijing-based theater chain New Film Association Company. "But now we have eight of these winners in one year."

Tong finds what grew in 2008 was not only the box office revenue, but also the variety and quality of the domestic blockbusters, a genre widely considered to have been initiated by director Zhang Yimou with his 2002 work Hero (Ying Xiong), featuring a stellar cast and luxurious budgets.

"Chinese blockbusters have a short history. They were neither artistically nor commercially sophisticated at first," he said.

The road for the domestic blockbuster is said to have been a bumpy one of box office triumph and disaster. Many viewers got tired of dark and depressive content set against lavish production sets, and the repetitive combination of conspiracy in ancient palaces and gravity-defying actions by timeworn pugilists. The discontentment of an audience with such offerings reportedly peaked in 2005 when Internet prankster Hu Ge created a video parodying Chen Kaige's The Promise (Wu Ji).

But Tong believes things are getting much better.

"Filmmakers have learned a lot over the past six years and been trying to do better," he said.

He cited films this year, including Red Cliff and Chen Kaige's Forever Enthralled (Mei Lanfang), an art house biopic on Peking Opera master Mei Lanfang, as examples.

"Films like Forever Enthralled, Red Cliff, If You are the One and Ip Man (Ye Wen) have brought more variety to viewers and shown better quality," he said.

But New Film Association Company's Huang, with 20 years of industry experience, said there is a long way to go.

For one, he said the winter peak movie season still dominates.

About 30 films fill the festive season from late last November to January, what theater managers and filmgoers call in Chinese the "he sui dang" festival period, which literally means "new year celebrating period."

Nearly 500 million yuan ($73 million) of the total 4.34 billion yuan of last year's movie revenue came from December alone, as Huang finds out.

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