Big boys embrace their old toys

A group of 30-somethings relive their childhood wearing helmets and shirts with images of Transformers at a screening of the film. Courtesy of Jia Yi

Seven young men all in their early 30s, wearing strange robot-face helmets and white shirts with similar eye-catching images printed on the front, were taking the escalator upstairs to a cinema at the Golden Resources Shopping Mall in west Beijing. An eight-year-old boy standing by curiously gazed at them.

"Why do you all wear the same weird helmets," he chuckled. "You look so ridiculous!"

"Kid, you won't understand until you grow to our age," replies one helmet-wearer.

About one month ago, 31-year-old Yang Jun ordered seven of these unusual helmets online at 300 yuan ($40) each and prepared for "the day".

Last Saturday, the first weekend after American cartoon adapted film Transformers was released in China, Yang, who runs a foreign trade company in Beijing, and his classmate Zang Lei got up at 6 am and drove to the cinema. Some people had already been queuing in front of the ticketing office. Eventually, after three hours of waiting, they bought seven tickets for themselves and five former classmates.

The release of Transformers in China has renewed interest in images of robots from the movie.

After the other five arrived, all seven put their helmets on and had a group picture taken among surprised onlookers. Behind the helmets, they've managed to hide their real identities either as managers in foreign enterprise, software engineers, businessmen or even fathers.

"We are not acting naive or stupid. It's the festival of our generation of the late 1970s and early 80s," Yang says.

Indeed, for young people of Yang's age, the cartoon-adapted film brings back good memories of childhood.

Inside the cinema, Yang and his friends found it was packed with audiences of their age group. "It felt like everyone was familiar with each other," he says. "Since we share the same happy moment in our memories."

It was a Saturday morning in 1989, a regular viewing time for many cartoons. Most children sat in front of TV, waiting for Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. However, instead of these Disney cuties, gangs of giant robots suddenly burst onto screens in front of open-mouthed kids.

These were alien robots from a mechanical planet named Cybertron. The good guys, the Autobots, were led by Optimus Prime, while the bad guys, the Decepticons, were led by Megatron.

The most amazing thing about the new cartoon characters was that they could turn themselves into different forms - from human forms to various vehicles, fighting jets, cassette recorders and even a laser gun.

Transformers immediately conquered the hearts of Chinese children. Optimus Prime, after which Yang's helmets are modeled, is the brotherly leader of the Autobots who can turn into a large truck. He has also become a household hero in every Chinese boy's heart.

Jia Yi, a software engineer, still remembers the most popular schoolyard game at the time when Transformers were on television.

"Boys in my primary school and even in the district we lived often played the roles in Transformers and imitated their voice and action to join in 'a battle'," the 30-year-old recalls.

"We used to scroll a piece of paper into our sleeves, pretending it was a powerful laser gun."

One month before the film was released in China, the seven friends planned to celebrate in this special way to mark the return of their old friends.

"In my view, this movie version of Transformers is still a typical Hollywood blockbuster, full of commercials and senseless humor. But as soon as those familiar characters show up, and hearing Optimus Prime's order 'Autobots transform and roll out!' I felt so excited," says Yang.

Zang Lei, a 31-year-old information engineer, can tolerate the defects. "I am not a movie fan and seldom go to the cinema. But this time it is absolutely different - a dreamlike feeling that not everyone has the chance to experience.

"We are the luckiest generation," he says.

Transformers were originally a line of toys designed and produced by Japanese toy companies, Takara and Hasbro, in the United States in the 1980s. It soon inspired a global phenomenon including animation, video games, comic books and an animated film in the following years.

Michael Bay, renowned director of Hollywood action films like The Rock (1996) and Pearl Harbor (2001) was recruited to transform the 80's classical animated TV series into a "real" blockbuster. Dreamwork and Paramount picture co-invested $145 million in the film to ensure that every special effect looks seamless. It is said that the wizards of Industrial Light and Magic spent 38 hours on every 1/24-second computer generated imagery.

The screening of Transformers also boosted the sales of toy stores and dominated the box office immediately after its release in China.

Owning a toy store named Toys Golden Age in Gulou Dongdajie in Beijing, Wei Wei, 26, has collected all versions of transformers toys, ranging in price from 400 yuan ($53) to 16,000 yuan ($2,120) each.

"During this week, many new customers came into my store and bought the new transformers toys," says Wei who finished his studies in Japan in 2001 and opened this store last year.

"I realized that the price could skyrocket if more people begin to collect well-packed classic toys," says Wei. "As the 70s and 80s generation grow up and have stable incomes, they may want to renew their old dreams."

"My parents couldn't afford a transformer toy around 20 yuan ($3), which was half of their monthly income at that time," says Song Yang, a 29-year-old estate agent, who bought a new version Optimus Prime for 480 yuan ($63) from Wei's store. "Maybe that's the reason I still fancy Transformer toys today."

Since the opening of the film on July 4, Hollywood's box-office record was rewritten by the robots, who nabbed $27.4 million in the second day beating the $15.7 million made by Pirates of Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest in North America.

A marketing manager surnamed Chen of Wan Da International Cinema in downtown Beijing, reveals 80,000 people went to the opening shows for a 2.3 million yuan ($300,000) box office take. It is estimated that total takings in China will reach 200 million yuan ($26.3 million).

(China Daily 07/20/2007 page18)