Toxic air found inside country's cinema business bubble

There are many forces driving the hectic growth of China's film market and not all of them are encouraging. Subsidy and phantom tickets are two of the shady practices that have been blamed for inflating a bubble.

Subsidy tickets, which are technically legal, comes from businesses desiring to lock in the film patrons by paying for part of the ticket prices. Online ticketing services have been the most prominent players in this field.

For the busy National Day season around Oct 1 last year, as much as 20 percent of the box-office total came from subsidies, some experts estimated.