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Chinese Filmmakers Seek Riches
2000-12-01
HONG KONG - It's not artistic smugness when the latest generation of Chinese film directors flings aside the idea of chasing an Oscar or a Palme d'Or. Winning awards would be fine, but box office is more important. ``Business is first. Second is art,'' says director Feng Xiaogang, Chinese cinema's best monetary bet. China's latest wave of directors, the so-called Sixth Generation from the Beijing Film Studio system, is eager to find financing for films that could reach China's potential audience of 1.3 billion. The directors are striving to produce blockbusters to compete with Hollywood's top offerings, and they've got to hurry. Once China enters the World Trade Organization, perhaps within months, mainland directors will be forced to compete with 20 imports a year. So they're scrambling to find the cinematic formula that will attract the widest possible audience. ``The trend was set a long time ago in Hollywood and China is just catching up,'' says Willie Brent, a Shanghai-based entertainment and marketing consultant. Han San-ping, president of the Beijing Film Studio, says China's filmmakers, whatever their genre, have had a difficult time attracting funding. Chinese lenders are more selective about what they will finance, insisting now more than ever on a return on their money. ``People prefer action movies more than artistic movies,'' says Han, a 30-year industry veteran. ``The more artistic a movie is, the less people appreciate it.'' That's far different from the philosophy of Chen Kaige, perhaps China's most glorified filmmaker from the Fifth Generation, who won a Palme d'Or in Cannes for 1993's ``Farewell, My Concubine.'' Chen mapped China's modern social upheavals through the lives of two classically trained Beijing Opera singers, subtly accusing the ruling Communist Party of destroying all things dear to the human heart. ``Farewell, My Concubine'' played in art houses worldwide, giving the Beijing Film Studio international respectability. The Chinese government initially banned the movie, but later allowed it to be shown on a very limited basis. The film was never given the chance to make money at home. ``Feng Xiaogang is the first linchpin in this,'' Brent says. ``He is the first to come out and say, `I'm here to entertain people and make some money.' What he's doing is leading that shift.'' After years of failing to satisfy the censors, Feng, 42, became viewed as a safe bet for investors with his 1999 comedy, ``Be There or Be Square,'' which grossed $5.3 million, second in China only to ``Titanic,'' which grossed $37 million. The budgets were even more out of balance: Feng's movie cost $1.4 million compared with $200 million for James Cameron's ``Titanic.'' Feng's latest, ``A Sigh,'' avoided any apparent politics and had broad appeal. The film concerns a middle-class love triangle in a setting that resembles an IKEA furniture showroom. The Swedish home furnishings giant donated the pieces in exchange for a credit. ``What he wants is to beat Hollywood at the box office,'' says Stan Rosen, a Chinese politics and film professor at the University of Southern California. That's unlikely, but the Sixth Generation enjoys one home field advantage: Chinese fans like sappy Chinese stories that Hollywood just wouldn't churn out. ``It's a country of a billion people and they have a strong identity. Chinese people want to see Chinese movies with Chinese people with Chinese themes,'' Brent says. Jin Chen, a 30-year-old advertiser-turned director, has tapped that genre with his latest, ``Love Story by Tea,'' in which a Chinese couple learns risk is part of love and life. Set in the freezing cold of China's Gobi Desert, the film portrays love as being enough to keep them warm. ``I don't want to appease the government, but I want people to see my movies,'' Jin says. ``No. 1 thing above everything is money. They want young movies - about love and work - ordinary stories.'' Director Lu Xuechang, 36, says he's still learning to grapple with the censors. Lu's gritty tale, ``A Lingering Face,'' is anything but political but it barely made it to the theaters. The film is a true story about a young woman's rape, a witness to the crime and the perpetrators who want to rub them out of existence. The censors didn't like the fact that the witness didn't ``rise and help the woman,'' Lu says. After a few changes, the film passed, and eventually earned the Best 10 award at the Shanghai Film Festival. AP
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