Shielding the silver screen
China's biggest ever box-office hit was not a domestic film. In 1998, Titanic set a box-office sales record of 320 million yuan ($41 million) in China, which no other film has broken.
In 2006, half of the top 10 most profitable films in China were imported foreign flicks. Da Vinci Code and King Kong ranked among the top five.
Foreign movies have proven a powerful player in China's cinemas since 1994, when China imported its first foreign blockbuster, Harrison Ford's The Fugitive. For the following decade, there were 10 foreign films publicly screened in China per year. Box-office profits go to the production company, distributor, and cinema with the respective amounts of 35 percent, 17 percent and 48 percent.
The first imported foreign blockbuster, The Fugitive, brought in 50 million yuan ($6.4 million), which accounted for one-fifteenth in China's box-office sales that year. In the following years until 2003, foreign big films' market share increased to about 30-40 percent.
In 2004, three years after China entered the WTO, the number of imported foreign films doubled to 20. Most of these were commercial Hollywood mega productions.
The imported foreign films shouldn't be too violent, pornographic or related to third country's politics, according to Huang Qunfei, president of Beijing New Film Association, the biggest cinema chain in China. Huang used to work for China Film Group, the only company to import foreign films in China.
Huang explained that China like many countries in the world has taken various measures to protect domestic films.
From June 10 to July 10, 2006, China's cinemas were jammed with domestic films while only two international blockbusters were screened. Chinese media deemed it the "month of protecting Chinese films."
But the State Administration of Film was quick to deny the term. They admitted that they have measures to protect Chinese films, but did not force cinemas to cancel foreign films that month. No foreign film was publicly screened in the following October. Instead, 10 domestic films about China's history, modern urban life, children and heroes hit the screen.
However, total box-office sales of foreign blockbusters in 2006 still reached 800 million yuan ($102 million), about one-seventh of total sales.
China Daily
(China Daily 01/11/2007 page18)
