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THIS past December, Christmas came early for Chinese moviegoers. They had four big-budget films to choose from, including A Simple Noodle Story, an offbeat comedy filmed by illustrious director Zhang Yimou; Bodyguards and Assassins, a breathtaking action movie supervised by famous Hong Kong director Peter Chan and featuring a dozen or so screen and entertainment stars from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan; The Storm Warriors II, adapted from a popular cartoon; and Treasure Hunter, a sci-fi action movie starring Taiwan’s king of pop Jay Chou and supermodel Chiling Lin. All these blockbusters seem just a prelude to this year’s fierce Chinese New Year’s film competition.
Stiff Competition
The holiday film season in China now stretches from the middle of December to February, covering Christmas, the New Year, Spring Festival and sometimes Valentine’s Day. This isprime time for China’s film market, so you can be sure to see the biggest box office rankings.
Since 2002 the market share of the nation’s holiday film season has been the equivalent of one fifth or even one third of the annual box office returns. In 2008, for example, the entire box office was RMB 4.34 billion, but over RMB 800 million of it came from these holiday offerings, with If You Are the One alone raking in more than RMB 300 million. Such a keen market response draws film producers and distributors to focus on dominating this season, thus heating up market competition.
Compared with previous years, the 2009-2010 season is longer and has more cinematic choices for filmgoers. The three comedies released on November 20, namely The Robbers, Mars Baby, and Panda Express, ushered in the holiday season with a bit of jostling, a full 20 days earlier than before. With Valentine’s Day falling exactly on the 2010 Spring Festival Day, love is also in the air with romantic movies like Hot Summer Days and Once upon a Chinese Classic to stoke up and keep the passion of the film season burning longer.
Costume dramas, sword fighting action films and comedies remain the season’s most well received genres. Actually, the four blockbusters of December highlight the first time in China’s film history that so many big-budget movies with so many impressive names were released at the same time. Insiders predict that this year’s box office championship will go to A Simple Noodle Story or Bodyguards and Assassins, the latter with an estimated box office in excess of RMB half a billion.
Judging from media and audience feedback, however, Bodyguards and Assassins directed by Teddy Chan will probably outdo Zhang Yimo; some believe it to be the best Chinese film of 2009. The film dramatizesthe last years of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) when revolutionists in Hong Kong pledged their lives to safeguard Sun Yat-sen from assassination by the Qing government. The stack of China’s most beloved actors and actresses alone make it worth watching.
All this year’s exciting New Year’s film offerings are truly star-studded. Apart from Zhang Yimou and Peter Chan, Kung fu superstar Jackie Chan offers Junior Soldiers, Hong Kong’s Jing Wong directed the comedy Police in the Future, and the epic Confucius as well as action films 14 Blades and Fist of the Red Dragon all opened this January. From the international side comes blockbuster Avatar, 2010’s first Hollywood entry which opened in China on January 2. Nearly 50 movies will be screened during this 90-day season, providing an unprecedented feast for audiences and a white war for film producers.
King of the Box Office
As the long-time chief of China’s filmdom since the country entered its new era after 1978, Zhang Yimou and his legendary works have become icons of Chinese culture. Born into a simple family in Shaanxi Province in 1951, Zhang was admitted to the Cinematography Department of the Beijing Film Academy in 1978. He directed his debut film Red Sorghum in 1987, which won him the Golden Bear at the 38th Berlin International Film Festival. It was China’s first mainland film to win at an international film festival award.
Thereafter his films Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern, The Story of Qiu Ju, Lifetimes and Not One Less received awards at the Cannes, Berlin and Venice international film festivals. His sharp audio-visual style, intense colors, vigorous characters and reflections of traditional Chinese culture echo with the 1980s values, and have created the “Chinese film style” within the world film lexicon.
The irresistible march of marketization since the 1990s hasincreasingly subjected China’s films to market and commercial factors. Zhang Yimou changes his themes and styles with the times, and nearly every change he makes drives the overall direction of the Chinese movie industry. His urban comedy Keep Cool and his romantic movie My Father and Mother received both unanimous critical acclaim and good market response.
After Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Zhang switched his attention and followed up with his own costume swordplay film Hero in 2002. The movie took in RMB 250 million in box office returns, and that was in a year when the entire nationwide box office was RMB 900 million. His two other films of the genre, House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower, also achieved great commercial success. Despite the scorn they received for their feeble stories and flat characters, these films became successful models for the commercialization of the Chinese cinematic industry and garnered unparalleled box office success both in the domestic and international commercial film markets.
Zhang has also tried his hand at Italian opera in Turandot and large-scale performance in Impression Liu Sanjie, and was hailed for his work as chief director of the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Today he is not merely a film director, but also a one-man bastion of Chinese popular culture.
A relatively low-budget comedy, A Simple Noodle Story employed rising actors from song-and-dance and comedy teams popular in Northeast China, a tack which took audiences by surprise. Adapted from Blood Simple, a film directed by American directors Joel & Ethan Coen in 1984, the story takes on a whole new atmosphere through Zhang Yimou’s kaleidoscope. The film has seen as much censure as praise, nevertheless Zhang’s productions are always cultural events that never fail to do well at the box office.
New Year’s Film Master
New Year’s films maybe deeply rooted in traditional custom and culture. As an agrarian nation, the Chinese people lived by the natural cycles of the seasons and worked diligently through “spring sowing, summer plowing, autumn harvesting and winter storing” before they relaxed and celebrated the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one. It was customary to do so by performing operas and observing rich Spring Festival folklore.Local theatrical groups put on free opera performances during this season of festivity.
Hong Kong cinematic workers were the first to borrow this folk theatrical tradition. The Hong Kong film industry was extremely prosperous during the 1980s, when actors and actresses would habitually gather at the end of year to produce one or two movies. Such productions were mainly comedies with happy endings like It’s a Wonderful Life, All’s Well Ends Well Too and The Chinese Feast. They helped convey the festive moods of prosperity, reunion and auspiciousness, and embodied the traditional values of Chinese family-based culture.
Feng Xiaogang was the first one to introduce this genre to the Chinese mainland and it has remained a mainstay of the nation’s New Year’s film market. Born to a military family in Beijing in 1958, Feng was always fond of the fine arts, and began his career as an art designer and scenarist. In 1997, he produced his first, and also the mainland’s first New Year’s film The Dream Factory. The film cost only RMB six million to make but racked up RMB 36 million in box office returns, leaving it that year’s box office champion. Since then almost all his films were released during the Chinese New Year season and always topped the box office.
Although some experts denounce his cinematic technique, artistic sensibility or lack of ideological depth, Feng’s urban contemporary comedies with their everyday warmth and simple humor have prevailed among mass audiences. His name has become a guarantee at the box office, and every year he broke his own box office records: A World Without Thieves in 2004 gained RMB 100 million in box office; Assembly in 2007 acquired nearly RMB 250 million; and If You Are the One in 2008 was a powerhouse at RMB 300 million. The total combined box office taken by his films has reached RMB 1.03 billion, making Feng the first billionaire film director in Chinese film history.
Joy and Sorrow
It’s Zhang Yimou’s tortured heroes and Feng Xiaogang’s romantic urban nobodies that have lured audiences back to the cinema and helped China’s film market maintain a decade-long steady growth. Since 2002 the box office has registered an annual growth of over 25 percent. The total box office figure for China’s mainland in 2008 was RMB 4.3 billion, an RMB 1.014 billion increase over 2007 and growing at a rate of over 30 percent. Meanwhile, we also see diversified genres that go beyond comedies and action films. Assembly (2007), for example, gave audience food for thought on warfare. Holiday films today have shaken off past formulas in search of new ideas.
New Year’s films over the years have undoubtedly brought abundant delight to Chinese audiences as well as tremendous commercial rewards to their makers. It’s predicted that the box office for the 2009-2010 holiday season will be upwards of RMB 2 billion, combined with an annual domestic box office set to reach beyond RMB 5 billion.
However, behind such staggering records, there lies a hidden concern over a stagnation in the industry. Only a small number of films lead the market, while so many others vanish in obscurity. Unlike the well-scheduled Hollywood Christmas season, Chinese holiday fare is a mix of various styles jammed into a short period. This results in perfectly good films getting lost in the shuffle of the heady festival box office, while beyond this season there is a dearth of choice. So film attendance levels drop off during a kind of “down time” of the year when fewer people splurge on the cinema. Furthermore, the Chinese film industry still lacks a rating system, another situation that needs remedying in order for the audiences to grow.
Stiff Competition
The holiday film season in China now stretches from the middle of December to February, covering Christmas, the New Year, Spring Festival and sometimes Valentine’s Day. This isprime time for China’s film market, so you can be sure to see the biggest box office rankings.
Since 2002 the market share of the nation’s holiday film season has been the equivalent of one fifth or even one third of the annual box office returns. In 2008, for example, the entire box office was RMB 4.34 billion, but over RMB 800 million of it came from these holiday offerings, with If You Are the One alone raking in more than RMB 300 million. Such a keen market response draws film producers and distributors to focus on dominating this season, thus heating up market competition.
Compared with previous years, the 2009-2010 season is longer and has more cinematic choices for filmgoers. The three comedies released on November 20, namely The Robbers, Mars Baby, and Panda Express, ushered in the holiday season with a bit of jostling, a full 20 days earlier than before. With Valentine’s Day falling exactly on the 2010 Spring Festival Day, love is also in the air with romantic movies like Hot Summer Days and Once upon a Chinese Classic to stoke up and keep the passion of the film season burning longer.
Costume dramas, sword fighting action films and comedies remain the season’s most well received genres. Actually, the four blockbusters of December highlight the first time in China’s film history that so many big-budget movies with so many impressive names were released at the same time. Insiders predict that this year’s box office championship will go to A Simple Noodle Story or Bodyguards and Assassins, the latter with an estimated box office in excess of RMB half a billion.
Judging from media and audience feedback, however, Bodyguards and Assassins directed by Teddy Chan will probably outdo Zhang Yimo; some believe it to be the best Chinese film of 2009. The film dramatizesthe last years of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) when revolutionists in Hong Kong pledged their lives to safeguard Sun Yat-sen from assassination by the Qing government. The stack of China’s most beloved actors and actresses alone make it worth watching.
All this year’s exciting New Year’s film offerings are truly star-studded. Apart from Zhang Yimou and Peter Chan, Kung fu superstar Jackie Chan offers Junior Soldiers, Hong Kong’s Jing Wong directed the comedy Police in the Future, and the epic Confucius as well as action films 14 Blades and Fist of the Red Dragon all opened this January. From the international side comes blockbuster Avatar, 2010’s first Hollywood entry which opened in China on January 2. Nearly 50 movies will be screened during this 90-day season, providing an unprecedented feast for audiences and a white war for film producers.
King of the Box Office
As the long-time chief of China’s filmdom since the country entered its new era after 1978, Zhang Yimou and his legendary works have become icons of Chinese culture. Born into a simple family in Shaanxi Province in 1951, Zhang was admitted to the Cinematography Department of the Beijing Film Academy in 1978. He directed his debut film Red Sorghum in 1987, which won him the Golden Bear at the 38th Berlin International Film Festival. It was China’s first mainland film to win at an international film festival award.
Thereafter his films Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern, The Story of Qiu Ju, Lifetimes and Not One Less received awards at the Cannes, Berlin and Venice international film festivals. His sharp audio-visual style, intense colors, vigorous characters and reflections of traditional Chinese culture echo with the 1980s values, and have created the “Chinese film style” within the world film lexicon.
The irresistible march of marketization since the 1990s hasincreasingly subjected China’s films to market and commercial factors. Zhang Yimou changes his themes and styles with the times, and nearly every change he makes drives the overall direction of the Chinese movie industry. His urban comedy Keep Cool and his romantic movie My Father and Mother received both unanimous critical acclaim and good market response.
After Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Zhang switched his attention and followed up with his own costume swordplay film Hero in 2002. The movie took in RMB 250 million in box office returns, and that was in a year when the entire nationwide box office was RMB 900 million. His two other films of the genre, House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower, also achieved great commercial success. Despite the scorn they received for their feeble stories and flat characters, these films became successful models for the commercialization of the Chinese cinematic industry and garnered unparalleled box office success both in the domestic and international commercial film markets.
Zhang has also tried his hand at Italian opera in Turandot and large-scale performance in Impression Liu Sanjie, and was hailed for his work as chief director of the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Today he is not merely a film director, but also a one-man bastion of Chinese popular culture.
A relatively low-budget comedy, A Simple Noodle Story employed rising actors from song-and-dance and comedy teams popular in Northeast China, a tack which took audiences by surprise. Adapted from Blood Simple, a film directed by American directors Joel & Ethan Coen in 1984, the story takes on a whole new atmosphere through Zhang Yimou’s kaleidoscope. The film has seen as much censure as praise, nevertheless Zhang’s productions are always cultural events that never fail to do well at the box office.
New Year’s Film Master
New Year’s films maybe deeply rooted in traditional custom and culture. As an agrarian nation, the Chinese people lived by the natural cycles of the seasons and worked diligently through “spring sowing, summer plowing, autumn harvesting and winter storing” before they relaxed and celebrated the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one. It was customary to do so by performing operas and observing rich Spring Festival folklore.Local theatrical groups put on free opera performances during this season of festivity.
Hong Kong cinematic workers were the first to borrow this folk theatrical tradition. The Hong Kong film industry was extremely prosperous during the 1980s, when actors and actresses would habitually gather at the end of year to produce one or two movies. Such productions were mainly comedies with happy endings like It’s a Wonderful Life, All’s Well Ends Well Too and The Chinese Feast. They helped convey the festive moods of prosperity, reunion and auspiciousness, and embodied the traditional values of Chinese family-based culture.
Feng Xiaogang was the first one to introduce this genre to the Chinese mainland and it has remained a mainstay of the nation’s New Year’s film market. Born to a military family in Beijing in 1958, Feng was always fond of the fine arts, and began his career as an art designer and scenarist. In 1997, he produced his first, and also the mainland’s first New Year’s film The Dream Factory. The film cost only RMB six million to make but racked up RMB 36 million in box office returns, leaving it that year’s box office champion. Since then almost all his films were released during the Chinese New Year season and always topped the box office.
Although some experts denounce his cinematic technique, artistic sensibility or lack of ideological depth, Feng’s urban contemporary comedies with their everyday warmth and simple humor have prevailed among mass audiences. His name has become a guarantee at the box office, and every year he broke his own box office records: A World Without Thieves in 2004 gained RMB 100 million in box office; Assembly in 2007 acquired nearly RMB 250 million; and If You Are the One in 2008 was a powerhouse at RMB 300 million. The total combined box office taken by his films has reached RMB 1.03 billion, making Feng the first billionaire film director in Chinese film history.
Joy and Sorrow
It’s Zhang Yimou’s tortured heroes and Feng Xiaogang’s romantic urban nobodies that have lured audiences back to the cinema and helped China’s film market maintain a decade-long steady growth. Since 2002 the box office has registered an annual growth of over 25 percent. The total box office figure for China’s mainland in 2008 was RMB 4.3 billion, an RMB 1.014 billion increase over 2007 and growing at a rate of over 30 percent. Meanwhile, we also see diversified genres that go beyond comedies and action films. Assembly (2007), for example, gave audience food for thought on warfare. Holiday films today have shaken off past formulas in search of new ideas.
New Year’s films over the years have undoubtedly brought abundant delight to Chinese audiences as well as tremendous commercial rewards to their makers. It’s predicted that the box office for the 2009-2010 holiday season will be upwards of RMB 2 billion, combined with an annual domestic box office set to reach beyond RMB 5 billion.
However, behind such staggering records, there lies a hidden concern over a stagnation in the industry. Only a small number of films lead the market, while so many others vanish in obscurity. Unlike the well-scheduled Hollywood Christmas season, Chinese holiday fare is a mix of various styles jammed into a short period. This results in perfectly good films getting lost in the shuffle of the heady festival box office, while beyond this season there is a dearth of choice. So film attendance levels drop off during a kind of “down time” of the year when fewer people splurge on the cinema. Furthermore, the Chinese film industry still lacks a rating system, another situation that needs remedying in order for the audiences to grow.