Hollywood’s reach is wide and its ambition broad, but selling China to
Hollywood’s reach is wide and its ambition broad, but selling China to the Chinese is bold even by the standards of America’s moviemaking behemoth. Yet the DreamWorks Animation studio has done it with the release of the animated sequel Kung Fu Panda 2.
According to Chinese reports, the film, featuring the voices of Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman and Lucy Liu, premiered earlier this month with the highest opening weekend box office in China of 125 million yuan ($17m).
To be screened in China is an achievement for any foreign film. A Chinese quota system allows only 20 foreign films to be screened there each year.
And yet Chinese authorities embraced Kung Fu Panda 2, says one of its stars, Liu, who has also recently shot a film outside Shanghai, The Man With the Iron Fists.
“The Chinese government embraced the movie itself, which is really helpful,” Liu says. “They may ban one from being shown because it shows negative things that they don’t want to explore in their own culture, so it’s nice they opened the film in China and it was successful there.
“They make it very clear that they are running the show, so if your movie gets in there and they show it, that’s very encouraging.”
Hollywood sees China as a huge, burgeoning film market, one large enough to continue traditional cinema’s global growth – and the Americanisation of culture – for another five years at least. Access remains the issue, politically and economically.
The Chinese government distributor, the China Film Group, releases only 15 per cent of box office receipts to foreign entities and China has stringent unwritten codes on what may or may not be shown in Chinese cinemas and on television.
As recently as March, the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television ruled against TV dramas that involve characters traveling back in time because they “lack positive thoughts and meaning”.
Films seen as unfit to screen there include Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (it suggested the use of nuclear weaponry on Taiwan) and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Shanghai laundry scenes, it was reported, were cut from Mission: Impossible and references to the Cold War were dropped from Casino Royale.
Yet Hollywood will acquiesce because China’s potential is untapped. There are hundreds of cities of more than one million people with only one cinema screen. The country can’t build cinemas fast enough, with 10,000 screens expected to be built in the next five years.
Little wonder DreamWorks Animation boss Jeffrey Katzenberg is planning six Kung Fu Panda films. The series has depicted China and Chinese cinema respectfully, riffing on the revered wuxia genre of martial arts films in a vivid, accessible style.