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Silver screen salvo lights way

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

The winter festival season of Christmas, New Year and Spring Festival, has long been considered the peak times for movies in major Chinese cities, with guarantees of tidy profits for the industry. As Huang observes, the Chinese people are known for saving a lot of money, but they tend to spend it generously during these festivities. Many enterprises also book tickets in bulk as a sort of bonus for their employees at the end of a year.

"The fact that all films are being released in one single period actually shows that filmmakers and distributors do not have enough confidence to out put their movies at other times of the year," Huang said. "We should allow for more profitable seasons in the long term."

Yin Hong, director of Tsinghua University's Center for Film and Television Studies, agreed.

"Of course it is good for the industry to generate a larger market," he said. "The summer holiday period, in this regard, has also been rising quickly in recent years."

Despite the buzz in the holiday film market, Huang has his worries.

"The annual gross is still less than a single Hollywood blockbuster such as Dark Knight, let alone Titanic," he said. "And remember, we imported only 20 foreign films a year. The quota has been very protective."

"There is one movie screen for every 500,000 people in China, while 8,000 people share one screen in the United States," said film bureau president Tong. "Many small and middle-sized cities have no theater at all.

"There is a long way to go."

There is also a possibly larger impact of the global economic downturn, Huang worries.

"The US experience in the 1930s made it seem as though the film industry was 'recession-proof', but that may not be the case in China," Huang said.

"Film tickets are priced relatively high here, 50 yuan each and almost two-thirds of urbanites' daily income," he said.

"Besides, the shrinking real estate industry resulting from the global financial crisis will influence the speed of the construction of new theaters."

Yin, however, sees the other side of the coin.

"The impact of the financial downturn on the Chinese film industry is not obvious yet," he said.

"But less hot money will enter the industry for sure and it is a good time to break the bubbles in the industry," he said.

"As for ticket prices, leave those to the market. Theaters are the most market-oriented part of the Chinese film industry." 

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