Could China create its own "Kung Fu Panda"?

(CRI)
Updated: 2008-07-23 13:45

Voice actor Jack Black poses near life-sized pandas during a beach photo call for the animated film "Kung Fu Panda" as the 61st Cannes Film Festival starts, May 14, 2008.[Agencies]

With Chinese box office totals of more than 135 million Yuan in only three weeks, "Kung Fu Panda" has broken the 100 million Yuan record at the animated film box office in China.

The inspirational success story from America has raked in huge quantities of cash from around the world, but some Chinese believe it has exploited their national treasures of pandas and Kung Fu.

However, the China Youth Daily carried an article that questioned whether China was actually capable of creating its own "Kung Fu Panda".

A CEO of Nanjing Animation Company said the Chinese movie industry simply doesn't have a basic foundation. He suggested that China should develop the animation industry with better script writing.

The article also said that China lacks professional investors, brokers, managers and producers to take it to the market.

The lack of large-scale private capital was stated as a big problem. The article showed that the "Kung Fu Panda" movie cost in excess of 130 million U.S. dollars, with an international promotion fee of as much as 150 million dollars. However, most of China's animated films are given budgets of only a few million Yuan, which is far below the required amount for success.

The article concludes that a producer should follow a path of international cooperation to solve the problem that China's animation film industry now faces.