Getting the big pictures

Chinese filmmakers are walking a tightrope between localization and globalization. Finding a happy medium is surprisingly like cooking fish, Raymond Zhou learns.

As China's film industry rockets into the stratosphere of amazing box-office returns, the international market becomes increasingly enticing. Yet, only a fraction of its revenues come from outside China, and even that is often the result of counting in the foreign receipts of co-productions, which technically do not go to the Chinese pocket. Chinese film companies, however, are moving up the learning curve. At a Beijing International Film Festival forum, CEO of Bona Film Group Ltd Yu Dong maps out three stages that Chinese films have to take to launch a global entry.

"None of the steps can be skipped," he emphasizes.