Chollywood rising

[GeneChing]

This is a good overview of who Wanda is.

Timeline of Wanda's expansion in cultural industry
Updated: 2013-01-03 07:56
By Liu Wei ( China Daily)

Wanda Cultural Industry Group has been nicknamed "a flagship of China's cultural industry" since the day it was founded on Dec 1, because of its scale, assets, variety of businesses and potential.

It has an ambitious blueprint that covers various ventures, including its art collection, movie productions, distribution and exhibition, stage show, theme parks and film bases.

Wanda has proved its foresight in the cultural sector by its success in film industry since it entered the business seven years ago. At present, its cinema line is the most powerful among Chinese film exhibitors.

Chinese Calligraphy and Painting Collection (the late 1980s)

Wanda Group Chairman Wang Jianlin is a veteran art collector known for his insight and generosity. China Entrepreneur Magazine revealed that as early as 1992 he could spend 8 million yuan ($1.27 million) on a work by Fu Baoshi, a modern Chinese painter who died in 1965.

Insiders say Wanda's art collection could stock a museum. According to the company's website, the group focuses on collecting paintings and calligraphic work by famous modern and contemporary Chinese artists, and has owned roughly 1,000 pieces valued at 10 billion yuan in total.

Cinemas (2005)

Wanda owns the largest cinema chain in Asia and the second-largest in North America. It has 86 five-star cineplexes in China, most of which are located in downtown areas of cities across the mainland. It also owns the most IMAX screens in China. Among its 1,000 screens, approximately 50 are IMAX. Wanda Cinema Line holds around 15 percent of the market share in China.

In September, it completed acquisition of AMC Entertainment and its 5,048 screens in North America.

Media (2007)

Wanda purchased Popular Cinema, which was China's most popular movie magazine in the 1990s but was struggling to survive the fierce market competition until Wanda acquired it this year. Wanda also has interests in China Times, a weekly business & finance magazine, and Global Business, a monthly magazine.

Film and Television Bases (2009)

Wanda is building a film and television production base in Dalian, Northeast China.

Karaoke (2010)

Wanda owns 45 "Superstar" karaoke centers nationwide and plans to have 130 by 2015, making it the largest operation of its kind in China.

Theme Parks and Resorts (2010)

Wanda plans to build world's leading theme parks in Beijing, Dalian in Northeast China and Xishuangbanna in the southwestern province of Yunnan. The construction of the Dalian park is expected to be completed in 2015. The Xishuangbanna park will start construction soon. The Beijing theme park, tentatively named Dreamchasing City, is located in the eastern district of Tongzhou and is scheduled to open in 2016.

The group is also building a recreational park, involving film production and technology, in Wuhan.

Stage Show (2010)

Wanda has a joint venture with the Franco Dragone Entertainment Group in the US and will invest $1.6 billion to launch five stage shows in Wuhan, Dalian, Sanya and other cities. The Wuhan show will premiere in 2014.

Film and Television Production (2011)

The company's website notes that the group invested $80 million to found the Film & TV Production Company in 2011. It has produced or distributed a small number of works this year, but plans to make more than 10 movies or television works annually after 2013.

Some of the company's better-known projects include the production and distribution of The Warring States in 2011, starring veteran Sun Honglei and newcomer Jing Tian, the distribution of Taiwan director Wei Te-sheng's epic Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale in May, and the production of a romantic feature called Holding Love, starring Yang Mi and Liu Kaiwei, in June.

[GeneChing]

Why Hollywood studios need to learn Chinese
Lucas Shaw Reuters
11:50 a.m. CST, February 22, 2013

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - For the last few years, Hollywood has sharpened its focus on releasing English-language movies in China, one of the world's fastest growing film markets. But that may not be enough.

In the next few years, they may want to make the movies in Mandarin as well.

A pair of recent releases co-produced by Village Roadshow Pictures Asia, a subsidiary of Village Roadshow Limited focused on Chinese-language movies, show why language may matter more than ever.

Its first effort, fantasy-action comedy "Journey to the West: Conquering Demons," from "Kung Fu Hustle" actor-director Stephen Chow, earned more on one day - ironically, Valentine's Day - than any other movie on any day in Chinese history, grossing 122 million reminbi ($19.6 million). It also has also become the fastest film to reach $100 million in its homeland.

And VRPA's second film, "Say Yes!," a Chinese-language remake of a TV drama, set a new record for a romance film opening on Valentine's Day, which this year coincided with Chinese New Year, earning $7.5 million.

Together, the two films accounted for 85 percent of the box-office grosses on the Hallmark holiday.

"This will be the largest indigenous market outside of English language movies in the U.S," Greg Basser, CEO of Village Roadshow Entertainment Group, told TheWrap. "It's still very immature, but we have a big familiarity with the region and a good brand in the region."

They aren't the only ones tapping into the market. DreamWorks Animation has partnered with three Chinese companies to launch DreamWorks Oriental, which will be headquartered in Xuhui. It will make original Chinese-language films based on local stories, and the first original movie should arrive in 2017.

Fox International Productions, a subsidiary of News Corp., has already released local-language movies in a number of markets, including China. Last October, it partnered with the Bona Film Group to co-produce more such films.

"With China growing as a market, you're only going to see more of this," Phil Contrino, vice president and chief analyst for BoxOffice.com, told TheWrap. "A Hollywood movie won't appeal to a Chinese moviegoer just because it flies to Beijing or Shanghai for a sequence. In the same way, an American might not watch a movie in Chinese with an all-Chinese cast just because 10 minutes of it are in America."

While the success of Chinese-language movies is not new, a recent surge in broken records reflects the irrepressible growth of the marketplace. A series of Chinese companies, led by Beijing Enlight Pictures, account for the biggest hit yet in China, "Lost in Thailand," which this year broke the record set by "Avatar" in 2009.

Fox International Productions, which distributed the record-setting "Journey to the West" in Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia but not China, has charted smaller hits with "Love in Space," a Hong Kong-set romantic comedy, and "Hot Summer Days."

No wonder the Australian-based Village Roadshow, whose Village Roadshow Pictures is a major co-financier and co-producer for Warner Bros., is planning to make four to eight Chinese language pictures a year, budgeted from $2 million to $25 million. The next release is Keanu Reeves' directorial debut, "The Man of Tai Chi," which Universal will distribute.

Village Roadshow has been involved in the Chinese film market for more than 40 years. As part of a partnership with Golden Harvest, a Hong Kong-based film company now called Orange Sky Golden Harvest, it distributed Bruce Lee movies in Australia, while Golden Harvest distributed some of Village Roadshow's movies in China.

In 1988, the two companies signed a joint venture agreement to form Golden Village, a multiplex operator across Asia. Together, they opened Singapore's first movie theater and at one point operated cinemas in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea and India.

They also opened the first multiplex in Shanghai. "Immodestly, I will say we multiplexed Asia," Basser said.

More than 20 years later, Village Roadshow decided it would rather produce films in China than simply own physical cinemas. Just before the 2009 release of "Avatar," the most successful movie in Chinese history until "Lost in Thailand," Basser and Village Roadshow Chairman Rob Kirby met with Orange Sky to talk about the growing audience in China.

"There are over 300 different film companies in China," Basser told TheWrap. "There's this huge appetite. Although we've released 70-odd pictures in China, we decided to focus on making films in Chinese for the Chinese market."

And the marketing expense? "A fraction," according to Basser, because studios don't have to spend anywhere close to the same amount on TV and print advertisements in China as in the U.S.

Of course, while the success of some of these Chinese-language local productions has indicated an appetite for more local products, none of this means the Chinese will stop watching American-made films with subtitles or dubbing.

Contrino pointed to the recent success of "Cloud Atlas," a movie that bombed in the United States and has now made just as much in China as it did domestically. Global box-office receipts hit record levels in 2012, thanks in large part to the growth of the Chinese market.

However, the Chinese government has long stifled filmmakers, producers and distributors from across the globe by imposing a quota on the number of imported films it would permit. It also has a limit on the percentage of box office grosses that could come from foreign titles.

Several companies have found ways to get around the quota, most notable co-productions that film scenes in China and feature Chinese factors.

With "Looper," Endgame Entertainment partnered with Beijing-based DMG Entertainment, moved production from France to China and added new cast members. Sony, whose TriStar Pictures released "Looper," partnered with China Film for 2010's "The Karate Kid," gaining access to several Chinese landmarks.

DreamWorks Animation has planned "Kung Fu Panda 3," the latest installment in the billion-dollar-franchise, as a co-production. And Marvel Studios did the same with "Iron Man 3," due in theaters May 3, though it has not officially registered it as a co-production yet.

Yet Hyde Park Entertainment CEO Ashok Amritraj, whose company operates a fund out of Singapore that it will use to make local language co-productions, said the number of co-productions remains small because of legal and logistical difficulties.

"It's getting more tricky to qualify English-language films as co-productions," Amritraj said. "The rules are fairly strong and one has to be very careful how one qualifies."

Most co-productions face another hurdle - an ongoing Securities and Exchange Commission investigation. As a result of allegations that production companies were bribing people to secure filming permits, the SEC is looking into whether American companies have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars U.S. companies from bribing public officials in other countries.

Despite a recent story about how this has unnerved several companies, some of whom declined to comment to TheWrap about this piece, lawyers said that the investigation served more as a warning flag for future projects.

A bigger question looms: As the burgeoning market for Chinese-language movies evolves, what are its chances of an even wider audience - possibly even one in the United States?

Few Chinese-language movies that were successful at home have drawn crowds in the U.S. "Lost in Thailand" made less than $30,000 in its first weekend in the U.S. while "Love in Space" only played briefly in New York.

"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is the best example of a Mandarin movie that succeeded stateside, but most see that more as an exception than the rule.

"There is not yet a formula where local language films can play to anything other than a real niche audience in America or some of other foreign countries," Amritraj said. "Once you do it in Mandarin, you are restricting yourself to the Chinese marketplace."

Yet Village Roadshow and DreamWorks Animation are still betting their movies will eventually travel around the world.

"Can a Chinese movie go worldwide?" Contrino asked. "The first step is appealing to their own people. After that, they can get more ambitious and try to compete with Hollywood on a global scale."

It always comes back to CTHD. Ang Lee has been at the forefront ever since. He even won the Oscar for Best Director last night. He's still the MAN.

[GeneChing]

This sums up the story so far quite nicely.

Lost in translation
By Patrick Frater
Thu, 28 March 2013, 10:30 AM (HKT)

Many headlines over the past year have marvelled at the growth of the Chinese film industry – the box office records, the number of new cinemas opened each day and its blow for blow tussle with Hollywood.

So when international critics and buyers got a chance to see Lost in Thailand 人再囧途之泰囧, China's low budget box office miracle, at last month's Berlin film market they rushed in. They emerged bemused by a comedy which is slick and competently made, but is very parochial in its subject and humour, and which has minimal appeal outside China's borders.

The reviewers' disappointment is typical of an older dichotomy, namely how to sell Chinese films abroad while also building an industry at home. The problem may become more acute before it is resolved.

While box office in China has grown very substantially, some 30% in each of the last two years, making the country now the number two theatrical market behind North America, exports of Chinese film has waned. According to the State Administration of Radio, Film & Television (SARFT) 國家廣播電影電視總局, the overseas box office of Chinese films dropped by 49% in 2012.


Changing Export Markets

European buyers warmed to Chinese and other Asian films in the early part of the century when Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 臥虎藏龍 (2000) singlehandedly blasted out a new market. Distributors and audiences worldwide tuned in to Chinese costume action films and settings and were able to ignore the traditional hurdles of subtitles or unfamiliar stars that normally make such films a tricky sell.

It was followed by In the Mood for Love 花樣年華 (2000) albeit in a different genre, which broke BO records in territories including the UK, then by Hero 英雄 (2002) and House of Flying Daggers 十面埋伏 (2004). Hong Kong's Infernal Affairs 無間道 (2002) trilogy also kept Cantonese language films in buyers' minds.

The success of these films helped Sony/Columbia open a production office in Hong Kong and encouraged other producers and stars to cash in by delivering the next film in the vein of Crouching Tiger. There were some unhappy knock offs such as Flying Dragon, Leaping Tiger 龍騰虎躍 (2001) and Roaring Dragon, Bluffing Tiger (aka Heroes on Fire 南國風雲 (2000)).

The boom occurred at a time video was still strong and provided robust ancillary market support following theatrical releases. Video and DVD sales have since tumbled in Europe and North America – major retail chains HMV and Tower Records went bust as a result – and have not been fully replaced by paid-for online sales.

Collapsing video, global economic recession and the revival of local films in some territories has meant that distributors are no longer keen to acquire as many Chinese films as they were in the early 2000s.

"We simply don't buy as many Chinese films as we did in the Contender days," says Jo Sweby, who previously headed acquisitions at UK genre video label Contender Entertainment Group before she and Contender joined multinational distributor Entertainment One (eOne). Similarly, Showbox Media Group, a rival UK video group which used to be a mainstay, has not bought a Chinese film for two years.

The problem of changing markets is not one uniquely faced by Chinese films. "International markets are increasingly difficult, because output deals and co-productions leave little room for indie or foreign fare," says Albert LEE 利雅博, CEO of Emperor Motion Pictures Ltd 英皇電影有限公司, which as a producer straddles Hong Kong and China and is also a Hong Kong distributor. And many local Asian film industries have succeeded in growing the domestic share of their home markets.

But the failure of Chinese films to connect in international sales markets is significant considering how many film funds in the pre-financial crash period were posited on slates of new Crouching Tigers and the idea of Chinese films becoming a global currency.

In particular, the North American market, which was rarely the most lucrative for Chinese films, but was often the most symbolic, has changed dramatically.

Several indie distributors such as Magnolia and IFC have scaled back on theatrical releasing, in favour of ventures into premium-video-on-demand and ultra-VoD (showing on video before theatrical). Other Asian specialists in North America ImaginasianTV, Tokyopop and Indomina Releasing have closed their distribution arms. Similarly, the Hollywood studios, have slashed their buying of Asian titles, and many Chinese titles have waited in vain for a deal.

Well Go USA Inc remains a traditional distributor that opens titles aimed at cross-over audiences in theatrical release ahead of other windows, though it actually makes more than 70% of its revenues from old fashioned DVD sales. Rival, China Lion Film Distribution Inc seeks the Chinese diaspora audiences and wherever possible gives its titles day-and-date outings at the same time as their China or Hong Kong releases.

US exhibition giant, AMC Entertainment Inc, which is now owned by Chinese property and cinemas giant Wanda, has itself also put a toe into the US distribution arena. It acquired and released Lost In Thailand in Feb 2013 (grossing just $57,000 in its first two weeks) and is aiming for two releases per year.

"There are several factors that have [negatively] affected box office revenue of Chinese films in the US," says Well Go CEO Doris PFARDRESCHER. "VoD has become an easy way to watch movies, especially with theatrical and video windows shrinking. Second, genre. Chinese films that do well in the US are martial arts action, however the films that are currently doing well in Chinese territories are comedies, romance and fantasy films – all of which have a hard time translating overseas."

"It is not necessarily true that the market-ability of Chinese film is declining. At China Lion our BO in 2012 was up 100% over 2011," says China Lion founder, Milt BARLOW, who left the company earlier this month. "The real issue is there is still not enough focus from Chinese studios and sales agents to get a meaningful US release up and running. With piracy as our top competitor for Asian American audiences in North America, if we are not day-and-date with Asian home countries then the film is dead. And let's get real, mainstream Western audiences do not want to see these films."

continued next post

[GeneChing]

We're very pleased to be working with Well Go USA now. The have bought our topmost banner to promote Bangkok Revenge and Muay Thai Warrior, as well as supplied several prizes for our sweepstakes. I encourage you to support them.

Genre Identity

The kind of movies Chinese film-makers are serving up is an equally tricky issue. They are widely seen as too parochial or formulaic.

Mainland China's censorship system, which makes certain subjects taboo, and on the other hand requires every film to be acceptable for general release – China does not have a rating or classification system like most other countries – is blamed by film-makers and overseas distributors alike for narrowing the range of films being made.

Producers including Edko Films Ltd 安樂影片有限公司's Bill KONG 江志強 and Lion Rock Productions 獅子山製作有限公司's Terence CHANG 張家振 say that such restrictions mean that they are unable to make contemporary thrillers for the mainland market, though they do so from Hong Kong instead. (Kong was last year responsible for Cold War 寒戰 which was released in China and achieved over $40 million at the box office.)

"Filmmaking is all about genres and having a strong antagonist. Without the bad guy, the good guy has nothing to do, but it's hard to make contemporary movies because crime today won't pass censorship," mainland director CHEN Daming 陳大明 has said.

EMP's Lee sums up the sales agent's dilemma. "Chinese comedy doesn't travel. Action films are beaten by US films for special effects. Drama needs stars and we don't have them. And historical martial arts is over-exposed," he says.

Scholars such as Film Business Asia's chief critic Derek ELLEY argue that today's 700 title per year output from China is far more cutting edge and innovative than it is given credit for. Supposedly taboo subjects such as ghosts and time travel are indeed making it on screen. China even enjoyed its first monster action adventure Million Dollar Crocodile 百萬巨鰐 last year.

But perceptions are hard to change and Chinese film may remain stuck until sales agents and marketers actively promote China's diversity and use international platforms such as festivals to do so. "I don't need to see any more glorifications of Chinese history. I'm surprised these films still have any success with Chinese audiences. It is no surprise that Chinese film exports are dropping," says Christoph TERHECHTE, head selector at the Berlin International Film Festival's Forum section.

While China's domestic market remains so robust there is little incentive to make huge efforts to curry international favour.

"Chinese companies have no idea about international sales. That's because they are so strongly focussed on their home market. It is like Japan in the 1970s," says EMP's Lee. "China is our opportunity. We should actually redeploy staff from our international side to the China operations," says Lee. "And in fact we are already doing so."

There are exceptional films,which enjoy sales success. But they are few. "The China market has evolved into such a monster that [mainland China] films don't travel either in Asia or the rest of the world. Lost In Thailand is an example," says LIM Teck 林德, head of Clover Films Pte Ltd, a Singapore distributor, which has now begun making its own Chinese-language movies.

"[Jackie CHAN 成龍's] CZ12 十二生肖 is one of the rare Chinese films that did connect – it did well in China and broke records around Asia. The challenge is to balance local and international needs – to find the next CZ12."

Others point to a factor that even the censors cannot be blamed for: mood. "Chinese movies have become very dark, there is rarely a transcendent hero," says producer and Chinese film commentator Bey LOGAN. "The Warlords 投名狀 (2007), Bodyguards and Assassins 十月圍城 (2009), The Guillotines 血滴子 and Back to 1942 一九四二 were not fun. The Last Supper 王的盛宴 was also very dark. Its director LU Chuan 陸川 tells me that's the darkness in Chinese people's soul. But that's why people can be turned off. It's also why the Ip Man 葉問 (2008) films were well regarded. They are simple stories of individual heroism that are well told.

Technical Factors

Technical, industry-specific factors may also hinder Chinese films from punching at their full weight in international markets.

"It is difficult for foreign distributors to programme and market Chinese films because they have so little forward certainty over the date of release," says Infernal Affairs producer Nansun SHI 施南生. "That gives problems with censorship and materials."

In the longer term history and economics may anyway work in China's favour. A decade from now the picture may be one where other Chinese firms have followed Wanda Media Co Ltd 萬達影視傳媒有限公司's example and acquired their own stakes in Hollywood, and one in which foreign firms like Village Roadshow Pictures Asia Ltd 威秀電影亞洲有限公司 and Fox International Productions are fully embedded in Chinese production.

Already, these companies' films like Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons 西游　降魔篇 and Hot Summer Days 全城熱戀熱辣辣 (2010), have put Chinese audiences and tastes first and made money locally for their backers. International sales are simply treated as a bonus.

[GeneChing]

Well Go USA will buy out our topmost banner again next week. Finally all of this work promoting Chinese movies is paying out...or at the very least, helping to fund our forum here.

China’s homegrown hit films flop overseas
By AP News Mar 20, 2013 1:12PM UTC

HONG KONG (AP) — The surprise hit in Chinese theaters last year was a low-budget, wacky road-trip comedy that even beat out global blockbuster “Avatar” to become the country’s highest-grossing film ever. But “Lost in Thailand” disappeared overseas.

The film that earned 1.26 billion yuan ($200 million) in China earned a paltry $57,000 during its U.S. theatrical release, joining other homegrown hits that have flopped internationally. It is the latest sign that while the country has become a box-office superpower, it faces a harder task fulfilling its leaders’ hopes that its studios will be able to rival Hollywood for global influence.

Action-comedy “Let the Bullets Fly,” starring Chow Yun-fat, grossed $111 million at home but $63,000 in the United States, while action-fantasy “Painted Skin: The Resurrection,” starring Donnie Yen, earned $113 million domestically but $50,400 in the U.S., according to Hollywood.com.

Hong Kong actor Chow Yun-fat, left, and Chinese actor and director Jiang Wen seen in 'Let Bullets Fly'. The film was a huge hit in China, but failed to make an impact in the US. Pic: AP.

Chinese movies’ overseas box office receipts fell 48 percent last year, alarming regulators, who also worried about Hollywood movies taking more than half of ticket revenue, which totaled 17 billion yuan ($2.7 billion), for the first time in nine years. Tong Gang, head of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, urged filmmakers to “better express Chinese images and stories in line with the international film mainstream” and step up their marketing and publicity, according to state media.

China’s film industry has been reaching out to Hollywood in search of co-production deals that would help studios make movies that both Chinese and global audiences like. They’re hoping to make the next “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” a 2000 U.S.-China-Hong Kong-Taiwan co-production that became a global blockbuster.

But film distributors say selling China’s movies to the world is hampered by subject matter that doesn’t travel well, different storytelling methods and the sheer size of its own market.

Lim Teck, managing director of Singaporean producer and distributor Clover Films, said China has become so lucrative that local studios don’t need to think about other markets.

“China has become so big and so powerful. Basically a lot of movies nowadays are very China-centric,” Lim said at a panel discussion at the Hong Kong International Film and TV Market, a major trade show.

“They’re produced primarily for the China local market, which is nothing wrong because the market is so big, but with that in mind it sort of undermines the (appeal to the) rest of Asia,” Lim said.

Doris Pfardrescher, president of distributor Well Go USA, said the kinds of movies that are popular in China today — romances, comedies and fantasy flicks — don’t necessarily appeal to audiences in other countries.

“For the U.S. market, what primarily does well are your martial arts action films. … Usually they have simplified stories. It’s all about visual effect. They’re just easier to consume as far as with the fanboys,” she said, adding that China is making fewer and fewer such movies.

“The films that are being made now, the Chinese films, are these romantic comedies that just don’t do well for us.”

“Lost in Thailand” follows two businessmen who encounter a tourist while searching for their boss. While it has been applauded for depicting modern middle-class life in China, critics say its humor doesn’t appeal outside China.

In an interview, director Xu Zheng said, “I didn’t even think of the foreign market when I was making the film, because the budget was limited.” Had he known it would have been released in other countries, “I might have changed some things in my script.”

China’s censorship system has also been blamed for limiting the kinds of films made, as filmmakers stay away from edgy subjects like in contemporary thrillers in favor of safer storylines.

Film distributors said there are also subtle differences in storytelling, especially with historical and cultural touchstones that differ among audiences.

“There are a lot of things you need to explain and tell to the Western audience (that) would be considered boring” to a Chinese audience, said Jeffrey Chan, CEO of Hong Kong-based Distribution Workshop.

Action movies aside, “you need social, historical, cultural background. Then the way you tell it to a Chinese audience and the way you tell it to a non-Chinese audience will be very different,” Chan said.

Pfardrescher added that for “a lot of Chinese films that I see there is this assumption that Americans know maybe the history or the political humor or something, but unfortunately we don’t. We don’t understand. We don’t know. So it doesn’t translate.

“The only way to do that is to make a lot longer movie to explain it all, but it would be very boring for Chinese audiences.”

[GeneChing]

Isn't all the Disney merch made in China already?

Kennedy seeks Disney expansion in China
By Patrick Frater
Sun, 21 April 2013, 19:30 PM (HKT)


Kathleen KENNEDY, one of the most successful Hollywood producers of all time, said that The Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm Ltd are seeking ever greater film-making collaboration in China.

Making a keynote speech at the Beijing International Film Festival 北京國際電影節, Kennedy who recently became president of Lucasfilm, described the attraction of China.

"The landscape of entertainment is changing — and a major part of that change — is China's growing role in the global film industry. – As a new member of the Disney family, — I speak for all of us — when I say — that we are thrilled to work with China. Disney and Lucasfilm are committed to working with the best filmmakers, wherever they are – and offering support to help develop young talent — however we can."

She pointed to Disney's commitment to a research venture with Beijing's National Animation Creative Research and Development Cooperation, a joint partnership between Disney, the Ministry of Culture's China Animation Group, and Tencent Holdings Ltd 騰訊控股有限公司.

"The goal — is to grow China's homegrown animation talent, — develop projects, and deliver original content — that will reach people locally and around the world," Kennedy said. "To be able to export Chinese stories and culture — through this collective — is very meaningful to Disney, and it's something we are honored to be a part of."

Earlier, Lucasfilm cemented its visual effects pact with Beijing-Based provider Base FX.

On behalf of Disney she also revealed that the Hollywood studio has pledged a donation of $1 million the relief fund for Saturday's Sichuan earthquake.

Her speech on the subject of innovation, included reminiscence about her first trip to China, in 1985, when shooting Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, and a message about self-belief, determination and good quality execution.

[GeneChing]

Everyone wants a piece of China and Korea has worked that mine for years.

China's genre revolution
By Derek Elley
Tue, 23 July 2013, 08:30 AM (HKT)
Industry Feature

Over the past decade or so a movie revolution has been taking place in the world's most populous country that's largely gone uncharted outside its borders — and has certainly not been recognised by international film festivals beyond niche events. China's evolution from a relatively small movie producer (given its size) to one that now ranks alongside India, Japan and the US as one of the biggest by number of productions has been dominated by a single development — the emergence of a powerful commercial sector in which straight genre movies (comedies, horrors, rom-coms, action) now play the same role as in any other market.

Among other Asian countries, tiny South Korea has also seen a similar, if smaller, revolution that's been more internationally visible — partly thanks to the Koreans' canny use of marketing mechanisms like festivals as well as the creation of centralised bodies like the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) 영화진흥위원회 to lead the overseas charge. China, by contrast, has a much less co-ordinated structure and way less fervour in proving itself to the rest of the world — at least where movies are concerned.

However, aside from major festivals pigeonholing China into political and "underground" slots, and the country's own lack of a centralised promotion agency, there are other reasons for the country's revolution passing the rest of the world by. Chinese-language cinema (Mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan) has been as much hindered as helped by its 40-year-old identification with action and martial-arts movies. Those genres were essentially developed "offshore" in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and burst upon the West in the '70s, at a time when it was hungry for exciting new genres. Apart from a brief spell during the 1920s, martial arts movies have never formed a major constituent of Mainland production in the same way — and certainly not in the PRC after 1949, when social and political-oriented fare dominated by government decree. As production in China started to diversify in the '80s and considerably loosen up during the '90s, those action/martial-arts film-making skills had long been lost to Hong Kong, and have only recently begun to be re-learned with the help of Hong Kong talent.

That left China with a big identity problem. When the Korean New Wave began in the late '90s, it was lucky to start with a cultural blank slate, with no western pre-conceptions of what a South Korean movie really was. China, however, was "Chinese" — but "Chinese culture" had basically been hijacked by Hong Kong back in the '50s and '60s. If China couldn't produce action/martial arts movies with a finesse and pacing like Hong Kong's, how could it distinguish itself commercially on the world stage, especially as western audiences had been schooled to think that these genres were all there were?

As much for political reasons than commercial ones, China became identified via western festivals with political, protest, socially-oriented and "underground" films — though the country, in fact, was rapidly changing back home. As film-making, like the rest of the economy, became less centralised and more market-driven, with private production companies blooming, China focused on developing its vast home market and to hell with its international image. As in any other national industry, that meant genre movies for its vast home audience — with no need, unlike tiny Hong Kong, to develop an export-oriented industry.

The past decade has been a gradual process of China redeveloping a broad film industry on a par with Shanghai's of the '20s and '30s and in line with other major Asian ones. It's been a period of "firsts", shouted from posters whether true or not: "China's first spy/war super-production" (The Message 風聲 (2009)), "China's first modern-day psycho-thriller franchise super-production" (Lost in Panic Cruise 密室之不可靠岸 (2011)), "China's first disaster movie" (Super Typhoon 超強颱風 (2008)), and even "Henan [province]'s first local super-hilarious film" (No Kidding 不是鬧著玩的 (2009)). Directors previously known for artier movies have climbed on the genre bandwagon. And though political biographies and war films still form around 5-10% of titles, under the canny leadership of HAN Sanping 韓三平 even state-owned China Film found a way of making The Founding of a Republic 建國大業 (2009) and Beginning of the Great Revival 建黨偉業 (2011) marketable by turning them into spot-the-star-cameo games.

As Film Business Asia's analysis of Mainland theatrical releases during the past decade reveals, Drama (including Melodrama and Romance) has always been the dominant genre, providing 40-50% of all production — way higher than Action or Comedy, two basic staples in neighbouring Hong Kong. As other genres like Rom-Com and Horror have developed in the past few years, they've basically emerged from Drama and taken some of its share.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Horror
Unlike in the West (which tends to focus on pure shocks and gore), but similar to other Asian countries, modern-day Horror has essentially grown out of the tradition of ghost stories, in which belief and acceptance of ghosts as a parallel part of life play a large part. The tradition is well-established in classical Chinese literature but was proscribed under the early PRC as a "feudal" tradition and is still officially encouraged to be presented as an irrational fear. That hasn't prevented film-makers in pushing the envelope to a point where it's hardly an impediment to making full-blown Horror: a final caption describing events in rational terms, or a scene (similar to earlier US movies, such as Psycho) of a specialist providing an explanation, generally gets round the proscription, but even those are becoming progressively rarer.

Horror jogged along in the early '00s with a couple of films a year, followed by a brief spike in 2005 and two movies by artier directors in 2007 (LI Shaohong 李少紅's The Door 門 (2006), with stars CHEN Kun 陳坤 and HUANG Jue 黃覺, and TENG Huatao 滕華濤's The Matrimony 心中有鬼 (2006), with FAN Bingbing 范冰冰, Hong Kong's Leon LAI 黎明 and Taiwan's René LIU 劉若英). The last two made some money but it wasn't until 2010 that the genre really took off, with the surprise success of John CHIANG 蔣國權's Illusion Apartment 異度公寓 (2010) (with RMB19 million/US$3 million), Hong Konger LO Chi-leung 羅志良's Curse of the Deserted 荒村公寓 (2009), with China's Kitty ZHANG 張雨綺 and Hong Kong's Shawn YUE 余文樂 (RMB23 million), ZHANG Panpan 張番番's Lost in Panic Room 密室之不可告人 (2010), with Taiwan's Alec SU 蘇有朋 and Pace WU 吳佩慈 (RMB21 million), and especially ZHANG Jiabei 張加貝's Midnight Beating 午夜心跳 (2010), with Hong Kong's Simon YAM 任達華 and Francis NG 吳鎮宇 (RMB30 million). The code had finally been cracked: money could be made from Horror by employing Greater China casts and upping production values.

Zhang, who'd earlier directed the horror E-mail 信箱 (2007), followed Lost in Panic Room with Lost in Panic Cruise, set on a ship, to equally good returns. But it was the surprise (and lucky) hit of Hong Konger Rico CHUNG 鍾繼昌's Mysterious Island 孤島驚魂 (2011) in summer 2011 that really surprised the Mainland industry, with RMB90 million earned from combining slasher-horror with scantily dressed babes and a marketing campaign centred on sexy starlet Mini YANG 楊冪 in a soggy T-shirt. As was shown by the failure of Chung's Mysterious Island 2 孤島驚魂２ early this year, Horror is still a fragile genre that's not to be taken for granted. But it's now an established part of China's genre fabric, in 12% of the country's theatrical releases last year, and has also been attracting foreign directors. The China-produced Bunshinsaba 2 笔仙Ⅱ (pictured), by South Korea's AN Byung-ki 안병기 | 安兵基, has just broken the opening record of Mysterious Island.

Rom-Com
Romantic comedies are the other most significant development of the past few years, taking elements from Drama (traditional romances and melodramas) and Comedy, and combining them with the emergence of a yuppie class during the '00s in prosperous New Urban China. The genre is an almost exact parallel with Hong Kong's '80s yuppie rom-coms from companies like D&B Films and Cinema City, plastered with band-name advertising, end-title logos, aspirational living and a new national confidence.

The template for the modern China Rom-Com can be traced back to New Year hitmeister FENG Xiaogang 馮小剛's Be There or Be Square 不見不散 (1998), with comedian GE You 葛優 and actress XU Fan 徐帆 playing two Mainlanders in Los Angeles. At the time, the film was practically ignored overseas, as it fitted into none of the Mainland pigeonholes established in the West. A subsequent precursor was Li Shaohong's Baober in Love 戀愛中的寶貝 (2003), an ambitious film that was ahead of its time when it appeared in 2004 and was met with mystification by general western critics (more used to Li's artier movies) when shown at some festivals that year. Locally, however, audiences were already ripe for the genre, which suddenly took off in 2007.

The episodic Call for Love 愛情呼叫轉移 (2007), by Shanghai-based ZHANG Jianya 張建亞, set things rolling, with comedian XU Zheng 徐崢 (who was to hit the super bigtime five years later with the comedy Lost in Thailand 人再囧途之泰囧) trying to romance a bevy of women played by name actresses. Zhang followed it with the equally episodic Fit Lover 愛呼２：愛情左右 (2008), which earned a healthy RMB33 million, but it was the mega-hit later that year of Feng's If You are the One 非誠勿擾 (2008), which made 10 times the amount, that definitively announced the arrival of the glossy Rom-Com. Starring his favourite actor Ge and Taiwan actress SHU Qi 舒淇, the odd-couple rom-com combined Feng's trademark ironic comedy with glossy production values that reflected the changes in lifestyle since Be There or Be Square a decade earlier.

The Rom-Com immediately became the genre of choice, especially for actresses, with Eva JIN 金依萌's Sophie's Revenge 非常完美 (2009), produced by and starring ZHANG Ziyi 章子怡, with South Korea's CJ Entertainment as a production partner, clocking up a handsome RMB94 million, and actress-director XU Jinglei 徐靜蕾 acing that the following year with Go! Lala Go! 杜拉拉升職記 (2010) (RMB114 million), an office rom-com with a Greater China cast that oozed confidence and great clothes. The genre took advantage of marketing hooks (Valentine's Day, White Day, Singles' Day) and since then has produced several skilfully written and played movies, none better than Teng Huatao's office rom-com Love Is Not Blind 失戀３３天 (2011), Xu's reteaming with Taiwan-American actor Stanley HUANG 黃立行, Dear Enemy 親密敵人 (2011) (which takes the China rom-com into global high finance), and not least SUN Zhou 孫周's I Do 我願意 (2011), with terrific lead playing by SUN Honglei 孫紅雷 and LI Bingbing 李冰冰.

Unlike Horror, which remains one of the few exportable genres in Asian cinema, Rom-Com remains a tough genre to sell to the West, however well-made or enjoyable as entertainment. Comedy is an even trickier overseas proposition, and in China has always played considerable second fiddle to Drama.

Pure Comedy, rather than Comedy-Drama, is more often found on TV than on cinema screens, though in the past five years it's been taking a rising share of film production and showing considerable inventiveness beyond just slapstick. A spate of money-chasing comedies, partly sparked by NING Hao 寧浩's Crazy Stone 瘋狂的石頭 (2006), has revealed a local gift for multi-character, criss-crossing scripts that make good use of the country's vast supply of character actors, give chances to younger actors, and throw up unlikely stars in goofy comics like HUANG Bo 黃渤, WANG Baoqiang 王寶強 and Xu Zheng. Black comedies, like GUAN Hu 管虎's Cow 鬥牛 (2009) and Design of Death 殺生, ZHAO Tianyu 趙天宇's Deadly Delicious 雙食記 (2007), and YANG Shupeng 楊樹鵬's The Robbers 我的唐朝兄弟 (2009) and An Inaccurate Memoir 匹夫, have continued to blur genre lines in an inventive way, while genre spoofs like Big Movie 大電影之數百億 (2006) and Two Stupid Eggs 兩個傻瓜的荒唐事 (2007) by Ah Gan 阿甘 (aka Kiefer Liu) have broadened the comic spectrum.

Pure Action, with no Comedy elements, remains surprisingly low on the Mainland genre scale, partly because of a traditionally Chinese preference for interweaving the two and partly because crime movies largely remain the preserve of TV drama series. Hard-driven action dramas set in China's deserty landscapes, like GAO Qunshu 高群書's Wild East-style Wind Blast 西風烈 (2010), have begun to appear, though Ning Hao's reportedly very dark No Man Land 無人區 (2009) remains on the shelf, a victim of a censorship system in which all films must be suitable for all audiences. South Korea's notorious propensity for ultra-black, ultra-violent movies doesn't look as if it will be replicated in China soon — partly because there's little taste for such fare among Chinese audiences.

Despite that, the sky is pretty much the limit in Mainland genre cinema at present. As China's reliance on Hong Kong imports decreases as its own star system grows and filmmakers learn their own tricks, genre cinema looks set only to grow and diversify further, to feed the ever-expanding home market and a huge, diverse population with very different tastes in the north and south. The revolution continues.

The graph above reflects the percentage presence of five key genre elements in locally produced, theatrically released features. (Hong Kong and Taiwan films with a considerable non-Mainland constituent have been excluded.) As many films feature more than one genre element, the graph records the genres as an overall percentage, not by numbers of titles.

Production in China has mushroomed during the past decade. The number of films certified by SARFT currently runs at around 700 a year, though only some 20% ever get a wide theatrical release and many of those last only a few days due to intense competition for screens. The majority of smaller films go straight to DVD or TV, or receive special screenings, regional showings and so on. For 2003, FBA surveyed just over 30 local productions; for 2012, the figure was over 180.

'ultra-black, ultra-violent movies' oh yeah.

[GeneChing]

Chinese films opening in N. American cinemas
By Kevin Ma
Thu, 25 July 2013, 15:05 PM (HKT)



Several Chinese films will be released theatrically in North American cinemas over the next two months.

Well Go USA Inc released Jay CHOU 周杰倫's The Rooftop 天台 last weekend on 17 screens in the United States and Canada. In its first three days of release, it made US$47,259. It is already the US-based company's second highest grossing film of the year, behind South Korea crime drama New World 신세계 | 新世界.

Well Go – in partnership with Variance Films – will next release Johnnie TO 杜琪峰's Drug War 毒戰 in one New York City cinema this weekend. They will then expand the release across the US and Canada in August. Well Go will also launch pre-theatrical VoD for Ip Man: The Final Fight 葉問　終極一戰 on 20 Aug before a limited theatrical release on 20 Sep.

China Lion Film Distribution Inc is releasing GUO Jingming 郭敬明's Tiny Times 小時代 (pictured) this weekend. The hit youth drama will open on three screens in Los Angeles, Vancouver and Toronto. The multi-national distribution firm released Vicki ZHAO 趙薇's So Young 致我們終將逝去的青春 in the three cities in June.

The highest profile Asian release in the upcoming months is WONG Kar-wai 王家衛's The Grandmaster 一代宗師. The Weinstein Company is set to release the martial arts epic in cinemas on 23 Aug. The distributor has already started its publicity campaign in North America with Wong Kar-wai's visit to the Comic-Con in San Diego and a special event devoted to the director hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on 22 Jul. Wong and actress ZHANG Ziyi 章子怡 both appeared at the Academy event.

Let's see now, we've been following tR, IM:tFF, and of course, GM.

[GeneChing]

This is exactly why we reviewed Wolverine & Pacific Rim.

Martial arts elbowing into Hollywood's biggest films
Scott Bowles, USA TODAY 1:08 p.m. EDT August 1, 2013
Fanboys get a kick out of kung fu's resurgence on the big screen.

Everybody in Hollywood is kung fu fighting this summer.

Films showcasing Asian martial arts were once relegated to grindhouse theaters and niche markets, but the genre is enjoying a subtle resurgence in the mainstream. Major studio tentpole films are using kung fu to woo American kids raised on anime, and they're luring Asian kids by showcasing action heroes from that part of the planet.

The past month has been rife with releases featuring Eastern-influenced action that would please the surliest of samurai:

• The Wolverine. The sixth installment of the X-Men franchise is a ninja-meets-superhero hybrid set in Japan. The film, featuring Hugh Jackman and a largely Japanese cast, scored a convincing No. 1 this weekend by taking in $53 million.

• Red 2. Despite a premise of aging European and American spies, the sequel features a new character in South Korean action star Byung-hun Lee, who plays an unstoppable Asian assassin. Lee also provided the high-flying kicks in G.I. Joe: Retaliation, out this week on DVD.

• Pacific Rim. The latest film from avowed fanboy Guillermo del Toro is a mashup of martial arts and monsters. Inspired by Godzilla movies and the Ultraman TV series, Rim includes combat-training sessions in dojos of the future.

Hollywood's fascination continues with The Grandmaster (due Aug. 23), a drama about Ip Man, the martial-arts master who trained Bruce Lee. Keanu Reeves becomes a samurai in 47 Ronin (Dec. 25). And last week, the Weinstein Co. announced that it was remaking two martial-arts classics from more than 30 years ago, The Avenging Eagle and Come Drink With Me (no release dates yet).

Studio executives say Japan and China have become titans at the international box office, and films have had titles and scenes altered to sell overseas. Disney and Marvel Studios added four minutes to Iron Man 3to include Fan Bingbing and Wang Xueqi, both Chinese stars, against a Chinese background.

Chris Aronson, 20th Century Fox's president of distributions, says the studio wasn't catering to an overseas crowd in setting The Wolverine in Japan. He says the backdrop "comes straight from an X-Men comic book" that featured the Silver Samurai. And the martial-arts infusion, he says, "was just to expand Wolverine's skill set for the fans."

But authors and academics say there's more to it.

"I think the resurgence is definitely meant to pander to animefans, international markets and our nation's ongoing fascination with Asian culture," says Brad Ricca, author of Super Boys, a biography of the creators of Superman.

Aging fanboys are also behind the surge, he says. "These films are appearing because the directors and producers were raised on this fare and only now are in a position to make them as passion projects. Del Toro is an unabashed monster aficionado."

As China becomes a bigger player at the box office, "it's inevitable for American films to feature this 'fusion' culture," says Sang Nam, associate professor of communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn. "Previously, American culture was Euro-centric. Now, the Chinese are coming."

Some welcome the invasion. Jeremy Conrad, editor of furiousfanboys.com, says the Asian influence "is natural, given fanboys were raised on Bruce Lee movies and Kung Fu TV episodes."

He says that martial arts, "when they're done right, look great in a movie. It's ballet. We love that stuff."

[GeneChing]

120 IMAXs in China. Wow.

Everything is in place. Now all Wanda has to do is deliver some international blockbusters.

China's Wanda Pushing Film Credentials With 'The Palace'
5:14 AM PDT 8/13/2013 by Clifford Coonan


Wang Jianlin, chairman of Wanda Group and China's second richest individual
The conglomerate, whose chairman Wang Jialin is China's second richest individual, wants to be a major player in the cultural industries as well as a real estate giant.

Wanda Media, the production and distribution arm of Chinese real estate conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group, is stepping up its efforts to become a major player in the "cultural industries" with the opening of costume drama The Palace.

The movie is a love story set during the Qing Dynasty and features Zhou Dongyu, who made a big splash for her role in Zhang Yimou’s Under The Hawthorn Tree, and also features Lu Yi, Zhao LIying and Chen Xiao.

The movie was directed by Pan Anzi and opens in China today.

In May of last year, Wanda bought the North America's second-largest theater chain, AMC Entertainment, for $2.6 billion to create the world's biggest cinema owner, and the group is keen to exploit the distribution synergies that the acquisition offers.

For the next three years, the company plans to distribute nine films and produce eight annually.

"With the support of Wanda Group, the company is also seeking to set up slate financing agreements with major Hollywood studios to get the financing and distribution rights for China, while also seeking to co-produce films with international companies," the group said in a statement.

Among Wanda Media's production credits so far are Keanu Reeves' directorial debut, Man of Tai Chi, Police Story 2013 with Jackie Chan and The Monkey King: Uproar in Heaven 3D with Donnie Yen and Chow Yun-fat.

As a distributor, Wanda has Jim Sheridan's Dream House, the Taiwanese epic Seediq Bale and Eng Dayyan's Inseparable with Kevin Spacey and Daniel Wu.

A key factor behind the expansion of the Chinese film business has been the number of cinemas opening in the shopping malls springing up over China. Many of those malls are being built by Wanda.

Wanda group has assets of $48 billion and an annual income of $23 billion, and operates 71 Wanda plazas, 38 five-star hotels, 6,000 cinema screens, 57 department stores and 63 karaoke outlets across the country.

The company is Imax's largest international exhibition partner since a deal last month when its exhibition unit Wanda Cinema Line Corp. pacted with Imax for up to 120 new theaters for China.

Wanda and Imax revised their 2011 joint revenue share agreement to add at least 40 and as many as 120 new theaters to be located throughout China, and the deal also extended Wanda's lease terms for all new theaters to 12 years, from 10, and will see Wanda commit to up to 210 theaters.

"We have set a great goal for this company. In 2020, the revenue will reach 80 billion yuan, ranking within the global top 10 of cultural industry players," company chairman Wang Jianlin told a gathering of entrepreneurs in December.

All told, Wanda comprises 11 companies working in nine different areas, including Wanda Cinema Line, AMC Theaters, its theme park business, gallery and a film magazine.

The group's culture unit, the Beijing Wanda Culture Industry Group, has registered capital of five billion yuan ($820 million) and total assets of 31 billion yuan ($5.06 billion).

"The Chinese film market is very big these days, and all flowers should be blossoming in this garden," said The Palace's scriptwriter Yu Zheng, adding that he expects the movie to have broad appeal.

[GeneChing]

More Leading Roles for Asian Actresses Shows Hollywood's (Slow) Progress
By Vera H-C Chan | Movie Talk – Fri, Jul 26, 2013 3:18 PM EDT

Ladies, it may be your turn.

Overseas Asian performers who get top-tier Hollywood treatment has mostly been male — Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-Fat, Jet Li, Ken Watanabe. This summer, Korean actor Byung-hun Lee broke the Hong Kong/Japan chokehold with combative turns in "G.I. Joe" and "Red 2" (where he did a fleeting but eye-catching nude scene).

Now actresses are joining Hollywood's work-abroad program. Japanese model Tao Okamoto is the love interest in "Wolverine," which also features Rila Fukushima as a cherry-haired bodyguard-assassin. Rinko Kikuchi — the first actress from Japan to receive an Oscar nomination in 49 years — lobbied "Pacific Rim" director Guillermo del Toro to play Kaiju-battling pilot Mako Mori. French-Cambodian Elodie Yung, who comes by way of France, applied her black-belt training as Jinx in "GI Joe: Retaliation."

Four in four months may not sound like a monumental trend. Then again, you're talking about an industry where:

Asian Pacific Islanders wrangle 3.8 percent of TV and theatrical roles — low considering APIs make up 5.1 percent of the U.S. populace and 13.9 percent of California, Hollywood's home base.
Leading roles for women — Asian or otherwise — have sunk to a five-year low. In 2012, only 28 percent of speaking roles in the top 500 movies went to females. (This year's not much better, female cop buddy movies aside: Only 32 percent of 2013 movies so far star women.)
Actresses still experience lots of sexism, as a rabble-rousing Comic-Con panel confirmed.

All this cross-cultural casting is Hollywood hustling for that billion-dollar market called Asia. China leapfrogged Japan in 2012 as the world's second-largest film audience and should overtake the U.S. by 2020. Plus, the homegrown popularity of China's domestic movies portends "negative growth" for U.S. films there.

Production companies in China, Japan, and South Korea have been busy celebrity-swapping in their pan-Asian productions. Those partnerships pose another challenge to Hollywood, but they also widen the casting net. Tinseltown execs can issue generic casting calls for an "Asian actress" and land quality performers. Besides this year's crop, they scored Summer Qing (China) for "Looper," Doona Bae (Korea) for "Cloud Atlas," and Yu Nan (China) for "The Expendables 2."

Exit the sex kitten, enter the dragon lady
"Hunger Games" success aside, the American summer blockbuster is mostly male territory, so this 2013 batch might warrant even more respect. Del Toro told the Toronto Star that he deliberately sought out tough for "Pacific Rim."

"One of the other things I decided was that I wanted a female lead who has the equal force as the male leads. She's not going to be a sex kitten, she's not going to come out in cutoff shorts and a tank top, and it's going to be a real earnestly drawn character."

And, giving relief to action fans tired of hokey Harlequin romance injections, pilot Mori doesn't hook up with co-workers, either.

Universal Pictures' Kikuchi gets another chance before international audiences, starring opposite Keanu Reeves in "47 Ronin," debuting Christmas 2013. And she'll reclaim the ultimate Asian female stereotype as sorceress Mizuki, who literally turns into a dragon.

Er, progress?

Somewhat, if one takes the global view. Roles deemed stereotypes in America aren't thought so very much in Asia, where actors and actresses have done martial arts since the silent era, and female shape-shifters are the stuff of classic Chinese literature.

A female lead and an Asian presence in Hollywood productions are just way overdue. "Looper" changed the setting to Shanghai and the ethnicity of the lead character's wife to seal a China production partnership, but the tweak reflected the political reality of China as a 21st-century power.

Not that some casting decisions aren't strained: Arthouse actress Yu had a better screen presence than most of her "Expendables 2" co-stars, but her youth made her the odd woman out among action-hero senior citizens. (She was 2 when Sylvester Stallone's "Rocky" came out in 1978.)

That's better than the tokenism of Fan Bingbing in "Iron Man 3." Only Chinese audiences saw the extended scenes of a crack Chinese surgical team saving Tony Stark — and they mercilessly ridiculed the ham-fisted scenes. Fortunately, Bingbing gets a better shot as mutant Blink in "X-Men: Days of Future Past," due out 2014.

A fighting chance for Asian-Americans?
Might Hollywood's courtship of overseas talent help the native pool here? Unknown. Producers want to tap into proven Asian commodities — the Catch-22 for underemployed Asian American actors. In March, Masi Oka ("Hawaii Five-O" and "Heroes") talked about the difficulty that Asian-Americans still have getting a job in their own backyard.

"It’s changed in Hollywood, but only so much. You can’t get Asians cast in leads yet. Maybe as a second lead, but the lead is still going to be Caucasian or African American. But Hollywood is fickle: It follows trends. If a show or a film did well with an Asian lead, then it would take off."

Asian American actress Maggie Q of "Nikita," who had a leading role in the 2008 big-budget China film "Three Kingdoms," pointed out at Comic-Con that she's in "the action box and the ethnic box; it's a very small box they put you in. It's a lot of effort to climb out. At least it's something to climb out of."

More opportunities are opening up, albeit in that same box. The Weinstein Company and Celestial Pictures (owner of an immense library of 1970s Hong Kong actioners) will remake such classics as "Come Drink With Me" (1966), featuring a swordswoman as the compelling lead. Also in the works is a "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" sequel starring the inestimable Michelle Yeoh, one of the rare female crossover stars in U.S. films: "Tomorrow Never Dies" (1997), "Memoirs of a Geisha" (2005), and "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" (2008).

Ironically, Yeoh and her fellow actresses stoked up controversy (Chinese playing Japanese) in the adaptation of Arthur Golden's already controversial bestseller. This time, Okamoto and Bae match their characters' nationalities, but there are no guarantees. The "Cloud Atlas" role of the Korean clone had been offered to Natalie Portman before the Wachowski brothers muted accusations of whitewashing by hiring Bae.

Here's one twist: Set to co-star with Yeoh in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon II: The Green Destiny" is Donnie Yen, the fifth-highest-paid actor in Asia. Born in China, he emigrated at age 11 to Boston, where his mother — a martial arts grandmaster — founded the Chinese Wushu Research Institute. He ended up finding cinematic fame by heading East, a route followed by other North American Asian actors. The rising tide that lifts all boats seems to do best for those bound for China.

Hollywood racism is why I'm not a major movie star.

[GeneChing]

I'm delighted to see that this trend I've been spotlighting since the launch of my Chollywood column in 2010 is finally catching the attention of others. It's very vindicating.

What’s Behind Hollywood’s Asian Flirtation? China’s Box Office
by Marlow Stern Aug 3, 2013 4:45 AM EDT

From Pacific Rim to Wolverine to Only God Forgives, Asians are finally getting good roles in big films. Why? It’s helping the studios’ bottom lines. By Marlow Stern.

Cinema has long held a mirror to society, both present and past. Its contribution to the cultural fabric is not, as F. Scott Fitzgerald so eloquently put it, “exactly minus zero,” but substantial. The movies serve as one of many cultural barometers, informing us where we are, and where we need to be. And there’s a recent trend emerging in Hollywood that the most optimistic of cineastes might call groundbreaking.


(L-R) Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori in 'Pacific Rim', Rila Fukushima as Yukio in 'The Wolverine', and Yayaying Rhatha Phongam in 'Only God Forgives'.

For three consecutive weeks, a hotly anticipated film featured an Asian actress playing the lead/love interest opposite the ubiquitous tortured white hunk. There’s Oscar-nominated Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi batting eyelashes at Charlie Hunnam in the robots vs. monsters blockbuster Pacific Rim; former Thai pop star Yayaying Rhatha Phongam as the apple of Ryan Gosling’s bruised eye in Only God Forgives; and Japanese model-cum-actress Tao Okamoto making Hugh Jackman’s blood boil in The Wolverine.

“What’s happening right now, I think it’s about time, to be honest,” says Michelle Yeoh, who served as a torchbearer, playing a Bond girl in 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies. “There are so many terrific Asian actresses, and the world is so global now that I don’t think our passports define us. It shouldn’t be so unfathomable to have an Asian actress be the love interest.”

Yeoh had to endure a grueling casting process to land the role of Colonel Wai Lin, a Chinese spy and ally/paramour of Pierce Brosnan’s 007. At one point, she almost lost out to buxom blond Natasha Henstridge.

“When I first started, you could literally count the number of Asian actresses on one hand that would appear in European or Hollywood films, and there was always a need to find an excuse for why there’s an Asian face in the middle of an all-white movie,” says Yeoh. “We’d have to be in the triads or in Chinatown and speaking funny English, which I found very objectionable.”

But why this sudden breakthrough in Hollywood’s casting diversity? It’s “a market thing,” as New Yorker critic David Denby told me.

In the first half of this year, China’s box-office revenue grew by a mammoth 36.2 percent from the same period a year ago, making it the world’s second biggest movie market after the U.S., according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Further, more than 70 percent of movie studios’ annual box-office revenue is now coming from international markets.

To court Asian box offices, American blockbusters, like The Wolverine and parts of Pacific Rim, are being set there. Western studios are even shooting different versions of their movies for Chinese audiences.

"Getting a big Chinese actor or actress in your movie is coveted now, but the quality of the part is another story.”

For example, there’s the recent comedy 21 & Over, about a Chinese medical student tormented by parental-induced anxiety who alleviates medical-exam stress by partying on an American college campus. Before production began, executives at the studio, Relativity Media, told filmmakers they’d be shooting additional scenes in China for a customized version of the film, The Los Angeles Times reported. Relativity had brokered a deal with several Chinese companies, including the government-owned Huaxia Film Distribution Co., to partially fund the movie (along with other undisclosed benefits). Thus, the Chinese cut of the film has a radically different ending than the U.S. version.

“21 & Over, in China, is sort of a story about a boy who leaves China, gets corrupted by our wayward, Western partying ways, and goes back to China a better person,” said Jon Lucas, the film’s screenwriter.

Studios are also tweaking their films to make them more Chinese-friendly. Take World War Z. In an early cut of the Brad Pitt starrer, a scene had characters debating the origins of the zombie epidemic before coming to the conclusion that it all started in China, a Paramount executive told The Wrap. Fearing trouble with a release there, producers changed the origin to South Korea. And for last year’s remake of Red Dawn, the invading enemy army was North Korean, changed from the original Chinese in post-production in order to ensure access to China’s coveted box office. Even Iron Man 3 added additional Chinese characters and scenes to its Chinese version.

The change is not-too-subtle in Hollywood’s slate of future releases. Famous Asian names are part of ensemble casts in a host of hopeful blockbusters: there’s Tadanobu Asano in Thor: The Dark World; Maggie Q in Divergent; Ken Watanabe in Godzilla; Fan Bingbing in X-Men: Days of Future Past; and Li Bingbing in Transformers 4. Even so, the roles are usually supporting ones, around seventh, eighth, or ninth billing.

“There’s been a definite shift, and I can see it when we’re developing movies—the talk of the global audience, the talk of China,” says G.I. Joe Retaliation director Jon M. Chu. “Anything to make the movie more global is a good thing for a film that needs to make a lot of money back. And getting a big Chinese actor or actress in your movie is coveted now, but the quality of the part is another story.”

Maggie Q is a half-Vietnamese action star who’s appeared in Mission: Impossible III, Live Free or Die Hard, and the upcoming Divergent. She stars as a government agent on the CW series Nikita.

“We are action, historical, hookers, or accented in a lot of what’s out there,” she says. “They are not looking for a woman like me to pair up with a white male heartthrob. It would take a pretty brave and open producer to have the vision for something more than what the mainstream has offered.”

She adds, “We need to be part of the solution. Even though it’s hard, we need to be walking away from roles that don’t move us forward. That’s how we change our circumstances.”

As far as global box office is concerned, Asia—in particular China—is only growing stronger. Four of the top 10 highest grossing films of all-time in China came from Hollywood, including the recent Iron Man 3 ($122 million and rising), which has already become its seventh-highest grossing movie ever.

A recent report by Ernst & Young even predicted that the U.S. movie box office would be eclipsed by China in 2020. So, you can expect to see more and more Asian faces in Hollywood films, in varying capacities.

“Lots of big social changes have happened for purely financial reasons, and that’s OK, but I think that’s just the beginning,” says the American-born Chu. “I’m excited for a future where there isn’t just an Asian actor included for box office, but an Asian-American actor that has nothing to do with being exotic, or from another land.”

[GeneChing]

Odd time to drop this with The Grandmasters having it's national release today. I'm reposting it here mostly because I reminds me of our Chollywood Rising column in our current print issue. Our copy editor Gary Shockley took over for this installment, and some of his comments are echoed in the article below.

Chinese Cinema: Have Pics, Can’t Travel
August 30, 2013 | 12:07PM PT
Filmmakers focus on local market but int’l expansion may come from corporate giants
Patrick Frater
Asia Bureau Chief

While the Chinese film industry is booming at home, with production volume, cinema numbers and theatrical box office all racing ahead, film exports are going almost nowhere.

Official figures are vague on the value of overseas sales achieved by Chinese rights holders, but data points to overseas box office for Chinese films dropping for the past two years.

In some quarters this is a cause for concern, but for others it is a matter of sublime indifference. That’s because they are too busy figuring out how to profit from this domestic golden era.

“China’s companies have no idea about international sales. That’s because they are so strongly focused on their home market,” says Albert Lee, CEO of Emperor Motion Pictures, another conglomerate that straddles Hong Kong and China.

When local films can gross anywhere between $30 million for “Say Yes” to the $200 million earned by “Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons” and “Lost in Thailand,” (pictured) China’s filmmakers will not go to the trouble of learning the complications of overseas territories for only marginal extra income.

While the new commercial movie crop is well-made and marks a refreshing break with the past, its stories are also more local. They may resonate with audiences in Asia, but for audiences in the U.S. and Europe, the new films, young directors and little-known TV and Internet stars may remain remote.

“For Chinese-language films, only kung fu movies work internationally,” says Bill Kong, head of Hong Kong- and China-based conglomerate Edko. In August he unveiled plans for “Rise of the Legend,” an attempted revival of Wong Fei-hung, one of the iconic characters of the Chinese action genre.

The irony here is that Kong was one of the producers of Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” a surprise global hit that was largely responsible for a massive surge of interest in Chinese movies in 2000. Unfortunately the boom, which had happened at the tail end of the video and DVD era, did not last. Also, the great financial crisis in the West meant many film funds never took off, output deals were allowed to expire, and U.S. and European buyers became more risk-averse — across the board, not just with Chinese movies.

The structure of China’s film industry has also hampered overseas success, especially its censorship system. Stories must not only steer clear of sex, drugs, religion and present-day politics, but also sci-fi, time travel, ghosts and contemporary thrillers. Censorship has also made international co-productions tricky, as regulations do not officially permit multiple versions of a Chinese film.

Filmmakers such as Chen Daming have complained that such rules make it difficult to have a strong antagonist, while John Woo’s producer partner Terence Chang says a contemporary crime thriller, such as the Chinese version of “The French Connection” he dreams of making, is out of the question because crime, corruption and police procedures are all taboo.

After liberalization in 2000-01, this meant a clustering of titles in “safe” genres: martial arts and ancient historical action.

Film regulators have gradually eased up and a genre normalization has taken place. The transformation has become more apparent with a succession of local hit movies this year, ranging from romantic comedies “Say Yes” and “Wedding Diary” through glossy actioner “Switch” to “American Dreams in China” and “So Young,” light contemporary dramas projecting a hip and aspirational universe contrasting with the naive simplicity of Chinese film just a decade or two ago.

In the longer term, the weight of history and economics may be on China’s side. China’s booming economy will draw in international talent, investors and co-producers such as Oriental DreamWorks, Legendary Pictures, Village Roadshow or Fox Intl. Productions. Chinese companies like China Film, Enlight, Le Vision, Bona Film or Huayi Bros. will seek the prestige and brand enhancement that comes from being a Hollywood player. Few believe that property-to-cinema group Wanda’s acquisition of U.S. cinema chain AMC is the last move in the Chinese film industry’s international expansion drive.

[GeneChing]

Maybe I should change the name of this thread to Wanda Rising.

Wanda unveils Qingdao entertainment complex

By Kevin Ma
Sun, 22 September 2013, 17:50 PM (HKT)

Dalian Wanda Group Co Ltd 大連萬達集團股份有限公司 unveiled plans for the Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis 青島東方影都, a RMB30 billion (US$4.9 billion) entertainment complex, at its opening ceremony in Qingdao today.

The 5.4 million square meter complex – targeted for a June 2016 launch – will include a production studio, film museums, a convention centre, a hotel resort and a yacht club.

Wanda Group chairman WANG Jianlin 王健林 announced that it has signed tentative agreements with several production companies and talent agencies. He estimates that 100 domestic and 30 international productions will be filmed at the complex each year.

Wang also announced that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the four top talent agencies in the world and the China Film Association 中國電影家協會 have offered their support in creating the Qingdao International Film Festival 青島國際電影節.

If approved by the central government, the first edition of the festival will be held in Sep 2016.

This morning's ceremony – including a 30-minute red carpet ceremony – featured appearances by representatives from SAPPRFT, Hollywood studios, American talent agencies and the AMPAS.

International stars like Leonardo DiCAPRIO, Nicole KIDMAN, John Travolta, Catherine Zeta Jones, Tony LEUNG Chiu-wai 梁朝偉, ZHANG Ziyi 章子怡, HUANG Xiaoming 黃曉明, Vicki ZHAO 趙薇 and Donnie YEN 甄子丹 also attended.

Local media reported that Wanda paid a rumoured RMB1 million (US$163,000) attendance fee for the appearance of certain local stars. It is not known if Hollywood stars were paid to attend.