Seeing the big picture

Clockwise from top left: The Painted Veil, Kill Bill II, The Forbidden Kingdom, The Secret of the Magic Gourd and Trail of the Panda are either Sino-US co-produced films, or filmed, partially or fully, in China.

Hollywood is fast tracking deals with companies and individuals in China to profit from the fastest-growing film market in the world.

Jackie Chan is mentoring Jaden Smith, the 11-year-old son of Will Smith. The boy plays a student of Chan in a remake of The Karate Kid, produced by his father and China Film Group (CFG).

CFG's arch-rival, the privately owned Huayi Brothers, has joined forces with Fox International Productions and Star Television Asia Ltd to produce and distribute the romantic comedy Hot Summer Days.

Paramount Pictures, producer of the Transformers series, opened its first office in China in July, two months after Disney's second co-produced film, Trail of Panda (Xiongmao Huijia Lu), premiered in the country.

"China is on the front page of foreign media at least once a week, for good or bad, but it is there, in people's minds," says Jean Chalopin, co-producer of Trail of the Panda. "It is both known and unknown to foreign countries. The reasons why US studios come to China is a mix of creative, production and distribution interests."

China's box office revenues reached 4.3 billion yuan ($635 million) in 2008, a 30 percent rise over the previous year. The gross has risen by more than 20 percent every year for the past five years, according to the State Administration of Radio, Film and TV.

"China is the most populous market and is growing very fast," says Huang Qunfei, general manager of theater chain New Film Association Company. "Although the box office gross is small compared to the $9.8 billion of the United States, China is a market with continuous and strong growth."

Yet the country allows just 20 foreign films a year - those from the US and other countries - for theatrical release. State-owned CFG is the only importer of foreign films and shares distribution rights with Huaxia Film Distribution. Co-productions between China and other countries, however, are free from the quota and enjoy the same status as domestic films.

"Co-production is definitely a short cut, especially when the Sino-US dispute over audio-visual products is still an outstanding issue," Huang says. "It provides not only money but more opportunities."

In August, the WTO partially upheld US complaints about Chinese restrictions on the importation of films, books and other audio-visual materials. The monopoly of CFG and Huaxia in channeling foreign films was a contentious issue. China appealed the ruling in September.

Producers of a co-produced film take 43 percent of the box office revenue in China, far more than the 13 percent US studios get if their films are among the 20 imported pictures.

On the production side, China has many advantages over other countries, such as sets, facilities and cheaper crews.

Sets include Hengdian in Zhejiang, Chedun in Shanghai and Huairou in Beijing, all of which have proven capable of handling extravaganzas such as Red Cliff (Chi Bi), Lust, Caution (Se Jie) and Mummy III. These bases offer favorable inducements, such as free studios or low taxes.

Shooting films in China is free from the strict regulations of American labor unions, too, which also decreases costs.

"For me, from Hollywood, where there are unions and 5-to-6-day work weeks, it is impressive that the Chinese crews are able to work such long hours and for so many days," says Jennifer Liu, co-producer of Trail of the Panda. "They had one day off for every 10 days of work, and that was already considered a light schedule given that many productions work straight through until the shoot is complete."

Bill Kong, producer of co-productions such as Mummy III and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Wohu Canglong), reportedly says if Jet Li's Fearless (Huo Yuanjia) had been shot in American studios, the costs would have been $60-70 million, but in Shanghai, it cost just half this.

Besides the money talk, shooting in China provides ample chances to build emotional connections with local audiences, which paves the way for future business expansion in the country.

One of the obvious manifestations of this is a more positive image of Chinese people, in co-produced and US studio works.

In The Forbidden Kingdom (Gongfu Zhiwang), directed by Rob Minkoff of Lion King and backed by Huayi Brothers and Lionsgate, Jackie Chan and Jet Li played two kungfu masters, who are kind, thoughtful and humorous.

Disney's The Secret of the Magic Gourd (Baohulu De Mimi), adapted from a Chinese author's work, shapes a three-dimensional Chinese kid, who has typical shortcomings but is still lovely.

In The Painted Veil (Mian Sha), starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, the Chinese officer played by Hong Kong actor Anthony Wong is a courageous gentleman no less attractive than the protagonist, a British doctor.

Pleasing the audience is natural, according to Tan Fei, a veteran film critic and publicist of film and TV. "China is such a big market. Any sensible businessman knows the importance of pleasing consumers here. In 2012, which premiered in China recently, Chinese even build the modern Noah's Ark," he says.

"Also, in co-filmmaking, people of the two countries develop wider and deeper communications, which helps them better understand each other and get a full picture."

Cooperation between the US and China film industries is a win-win process, Tan says.

"America wins a big potential market, while China learns about professionalism, marketing strategies and sophisticated production procedures," he says.

Wang Zhonglei, president of Huayi Brothers, says his team was like a sponge, absorbing and learning everything it could from Columbia Pictures when they co-produced Feng Xiaogang's Big Shot's Funeral (Da Wan) in 2000.

Huayi's budget schedule, more accurate than most local companies at that time, was accurate to about 10,000 yuan ($1,400), but Columbia's budgets were to the exact cent.

Huayi listed all the items needed on one page, while Columbia had 10 pages of 2,000 items for every department's budget, and every department had an accountant. Many Chinese film companies have adopted the same detailed bookkeeping methods, which is professional and benefits the industry in the long term, Wang says.

John Woo says that when making Red Cliff he was impressed by the diligence and intelligence of the young Chinese he worked with, which convinced him that China could create international blockbusters.

When Lust, Caution premiered in Shanghai in 2007, Ang Lee booked the best seats for his crew from Shanghai Film Group, which cooperated with Focus Features. At the premiere, he bowed lowly in recognition of the Chinese crew's hard work.

"Although Europe, Australia and New Zealand are still priorities for Hollywood thanks to their similar cultural backgrounds, Sino-US cooperation in filmmaking has risen in terms of both quality and quantity in recent years," says New Film's Huang Qunfei. "China and America, as each other's second-biggest trading partners, will definitely both win from more comprehensive cooperation in the film industry."