A Touch of Sin is reported to depict violence, and is self-described as being “based on true events,” a fact that led many Chinese web-users to express surprise that such a cutting-edge social commentary made it past state censors. Before taking the prize, Jia talked with The Hollywood Reporter in Cannes. In the interview, Jia discusses the film’s motivations and influences, how it differs from his previous work, and his hopes to effect change in Chinese society through film:

Now the world’s second-largest movie market, China’s rise as a major player in the global film industry is firmly established. But director Jia Zhangke’s win of the Best Screenplay award at Cannes Sunday gave his country something it continues to hunger for: recognition as a creative force in world cinema, rather than merely a market for consumption.

[...]THR: I can’t think of a single recent Chinese film that addresses social and political issues so boldly that has gotten a mainstream release in China.

Jia: The film will indeed be released in China. Everyone in Cannes has been asking me about this. And the answer is: Yes, it has been approved for release in China.

THR: Wow. That would represent a big moment for the Chinese film industry, no?

Jia: I really want to bring about some changes in China – and not just freedom of speech or freedom of expression. I want to use that free spirit and put it into my films, to let everyone see that with that belief in the free spirit, we can tell stories that help propel society forward, which is ultimately far more important. [Source]

A South China Morning Post report on Jia’s victory in Cannes quoted similar sentiment from the writer/director’s acceptance speech:

“Cinema makes me live,” Jia said as he received the best screenwriting award on Sunday. “China is now changing so fast. I think film is the best way to me to look for freedom.” [Source]

Jia Zhangke is a member of China’s “Sixth Generation” of filmmakers (第六代导演). The Global Times quotes Jia on what sets this cohort of directors apart from their predecessors:

As one of the leading figures of the “Sixth Generation” movement of Chinese cinema, Jia’s works has been popular in major international film festivals. The most notable is “Still Life” which claimed the Venice Film Festival’s top award, the Golden Lion, in 2006.

[...]Jia Zhangke said, “We sixth generation of directors always choose a personal angle, a personal value to observe the society and observe the people. I think China needs personal experience and personal memories, which are very precious to art.”

For Jia and other Chinese directors, showing true images that accurately reflect the country and its people is the best way of reviving Chinese cinema and keeping it in tune in with the rest of the world. [Source]

The last Chinese national to win the best screenplay award at Cannes was Mei Feng for the 2009 screenplay to Spring Fever (春风沉醉的夜晚)—until now, Mei was the only Chinese national to take the award. Unlike Jia’s new film, Spring Fever was produced without the consent of PRC censors and in defiance of a 5-year ban placed on director Lou Ye by Chinese media regulator the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT).

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Post tags: awards, Cannes, censorship, film industry, films, Jia Zhangke, SARFT, soft power
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Like a town marshal determined to nip trouble in the bud, China’s main film distributor rode into the country’s movie theaters on Thursday and took out Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” before it could get its gun out of its holster.

“Django,” the story of an American slave-turned-bounty hunter who cuts a bloody swath through the antebellum South in an attempt to free his wife, was set to premiere in China Thursday morning. But it was pulled at the last minute after China Film Group, the film’s government-controlled importer, issued a notice instructing theaters to stop showing it.

[...]The movie had already begun showing in some places when the orders arrived. One Chinese fan of Mr. Tarantino’s, 27-year-old photographer Xue Yutao, said he had just sat down to watch a 10:15 a.m. showing of “Django” when the lights suddenly came on.

“About a minute after the film started, several people in suits came in and the film stopped,” he said, adding that the theater apologized and offered them refunds. “At first we were shocked and didn’t know what to do, but then we all laughed at how ridiculous it was.”

Whether or not screenings will resume in China is uncertain. The Guardian tells of official and speculated reasons why the film was pulled from theaters, and the adjustments already made to prepare for China’s tight media regulations:

Media authorities claimed the Quentin Tarantino film, scheduled for release on Thursday, had been postponed for “technical reasons”, but unofficial news websites reported that the real reason was a scene showing full-frontal male nudity.

[...]Tarantino, Django Unchained’s director, had already reined in the movie’s gore for the Chinese market, retouching footage to tone down the colour and bloodshed.

[...]Many online commenters were perplexed by the cancellations because the film had passed China’s notoriously opaque pre-screening censorship process. Censors’ “cutting hands are fiercer than that of a slaveowner, insistent on making Django a eunuch”, wrote one, according to Agence France Presse.

Off Beat China translates netizen commentary showing frustrated suspicion that the film was pulled due to nudity:

One netizen 桃桃林林小淘淘 commented: “Some people don’t have balls, so they cannot tolerate the thought that other people have. I guess that all penis scenes will be cut before the movie is allowed to be shown again.” Netizen imomad thought the same: “Everyone at the censor body is a Taijian (royal servants in China’s history who need to be castrated before taking the job). They don’t have, so others’ must be cut. Or maybe they are intimidated by Django’s size because their own have shrunk due to overuse.” Another netizen 影评老大爷暗夜骑士 commented: “In this hypocritical country, the corrupt and the rich can have group sex parties, and yet the ordinary people aren’t allowed to see a penis.”

Even Hu Xijin, chief editor of mouthpiece Global Times, thought it was a stupid move: “The showing of Django Unchained was stopped abruptly. The action itself does more harm to the country than a few uncut ‘harmful scenes.’ China’s current system lacks people who dare to speak out the truth on sensitive issues to prevent inappropriate policies from being made. Maybe the system doesn’t encourage such people. Absurd policies are everywhere. The government’s credibility among its people is what at cost.”

Even after being edited to satisfy Chinese censors, the film was set to run its marathon 165 minutes, unlike Cloud Atlas and Skyfall, which both saw significant portions cut before opening in China earlier this year. Hollywood has been increasing efforts to reach the Chinese market by catering to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), China’s media regulator. The Washington Times looks at Tarantino’s taming of Django (and other recent examples) to show the contradiction between Hollywood’s flaunting of free-speech ethics at home and its desire to tap into China’s burgeoning market:

“For an industry that promotes free expression and alleged liberal values to work with totalitarian government that is the antithesis of the values we hold dear as Americans is in many ways a hypocrisy,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch.

“They often mask what they do with other values such as the First Amendment, but if indeed they are working with China’s censors, then obviously they don’t believe in those values,” said Fitton.

[...]“The censoring of content is simply ‘good business’ as far as the studios are concerned,” said Stephen Tropiano, an associate professor of screen studies at Ithaca College and author of Obscene, Indecent, Immoral and Offensive: 100+ Years of Censored, Banned, and Controversial Films.

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Marvel Studios will release a special cut of the movie ”Iron Man 3″ specifically for China, the Walt Disney Co. subsidiary said Friday in a joint statement with Chinese media company DMG.

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In ignoring the official co-production process, the film is challenging conventional wisdom about how best to tap China’s lucrative but tightly controlled film market. Over the past several years, foreign film producers have signed a number of official co-production deals in China under the assumption that such deals were the most efficient method for bypassing the country’s foreign film quotas, which the cap the number of foreign films the country can show at its theaters each year to 34 each year, provided 14 of them are filmed in 3D or fit the jumbo Imax screen format.

The 2011 film “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,” a co-production between IDG China Media of Shanghai and Fox Searchlight, fell flat in both of the world’s largest box offices, making $1.3 million in the U.S. and $6 million in China’s box offices, according to box office database Box Office Mojo and the film’s producers.

Other co-productions have found success in China but failed to win over a global audience. Each installment of the two-part John Woo epic “Red Cliff,” produced by Lion Rock Entertainment and China Film Group, raked in more than 100 million yuan ($16 million) in its first week of release, according to media-research firm EntGroup. A condensed version for Western audiences, meanwhile, earned less than $700,000, according to Box Office Mojo.

The creators of Iron Man hope to win everyone over, so they’ve avoided over-playing any China plot for an easy entry into the market, said Mr. Cain. At the same time, producers have kept things friendly with China by shooting scenes in the country and featuring Chinese stars Wang Xueqi and Fan Bingbing next to Hollywood stars Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow.

As attention gathers around the upcoming release and reception of the third film in the ‘Iron Man’ series, Marvel Studios, one of the companies behind the movie, has released a second trailer for the Chinese audience. From The Hollywood Reporter:

The tweaked Asia-targeted trailer closely resembles the U.S. original, but offers additional glimpses of Chinese actor Wang Xueqi and actress Fan Bingbing, along with a scene of Iron Man taking flight amidst cheers from a group of Chinese schoolchildren in front of Beijing’s historic Yongdingmen gate.

Meanwhile, the Chinese blogosphere is rife with speculation about the film’s rollout in China, with unconfirmed reports stating that Downey Jr. will be flying into Beijing for a three-day visit from April 4-6, during which he will attend the film’s world premiere.

Jointly produced by Marvel and DMG, IM3 drew some fire when the film’s first teaser trailer was released in October and revealed no Chinese actors or China-set scenes. Traditionally, to officially pass as a co-production in China — a status which would allow the film easier access to Chinese cinemas and its foreign producers a bigger slice of box-office receipts — projects must include significant participation from Chinese talent and Chinese settings or motifs.

DMG declined to comment when the Hollywood Reporter reached out Thursday to inquire about the company’s marketing rollout for the film in China. But the Chinese micro-blogosphere was abuzz with excitement Thursday over a tweet from the Robert Downey Jr. Fan Club Weibo account “TeamDowney,” which seemed to suggest some insider information on the star visiting Beijing from April 4-6 for a world premiere.

See also Hollywood, China, & Freedom to Blow Up Tiananmen, which focuses on film censorship and China’s relationship with the Academy Awards and Hollywood, via CDT.

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Lee made no mention of China — even though China claims Taiwan as a renegade province and tensions run high between them — but he did end his speech by thanking the audience in Chinese (as well as English and Sanskrit). Was his omission of China deliberate? It’s impossible to say. (Curiously, Lee thanked China after he won in 2005.)

[…] There’s no shortage of tweets embracing Lee as “the pride of the Chinese people,” and “the pride of Chinese film.” However, this patriotic cheerleading has its detractors. Tengjing Shu, a Shanghai-based film critic, summarized her objections in a lengthy mid-afternoon tweet:

“A journalist asked me what kind of influence Life of Pi and its four awards will have on Chinese film. I said that it was irrelevant to China. The awards, and the fact that Life of Pi was shot in Taiwan, only serve to highlight problems with Chinese filmmaking.”

Many have offered suggestions about what those problems might be. From Yang Jingjie at Global Times:

Hao Jie, a young director whose 2010 film Single Man won the Special Jury Prize in the Tokyo Filmex Festival and numerous plaudits from critics but was never screened in the mainland for its depiction of complex sex lives in a village, sounded off on his frustrations.

“Due to the censorship, we are restrained from the beginning of our production, which forbids our works from mirroring genuine realities,” Hao told the Global Times.

While acknowledging the system’s role in undermining excellent works, Su Mu, a professor with Beijing Film Academy and well-known film critic, told the Global Times that the atmosphere in the mainland’s film circle is also to blame.

Su argued that the film examination system in Iran, which is equally strict, did not stop Iranian filmmakers from producing good works.

“Lee produces his works with his heart, but most mainland directors now only have money in mind,” commented Su, adding that the bad atmosphere is consistent with the overall situation of the society.

Global Voices online has translated a selection of other posts on Lee’s victory and the ensuing debate. See more on China’s pursuit of Oscars and Hollywood’s pursuit of China via CDT.

The award also thrust Lee into another controversy over the precarious state of the visual effects industry. Life of Pi won four Oscars including the award for best visual effects, but Rhythm & Hues, the VFX studio responsible, was forced to file for bankruptcy earlier this month. That Lee credited Taiwan for making the film possible without thanking the effects artists, despite the film’s almost total reliance on their work, was one of several parts of the ceremony felt to have added insult to injury.

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As Oscar fever grows around the world with the 85th Academy Awards set to begin in Los Angeles just hours from now, excitement is building in China, even though it has no films in competition. There is also a sense of frustration here about why China’s movies aren’t nominated for the world’s biggest awards?

[…] The most popular answer to the question, held by ordinary Chinese and film experts alike, is: “Too few good films. That’s the real reason in recent years Chinese films have moved further and further away from the Oscars dream,” wrote The International Herald Leader newspaper, in a story carried on the country’s popular Tencent entertainment site.

An article by The Economic Daily, carried on People’s Daily Web site, gave another interpretation: “The Oscars have never been a communal forum, the films taken seriously have only the responsibility to portray the North American world view and the lives they’re willing to see.”

The Oscars’ presence in China is almost as thin as China’s at the Oscars, according to The Los Angeles Times’ Barbara Demick. Only one of this year’s Best Picture nominee has so far reached Chinese theaters: Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, which as a co-production with China enjoyed exemption from tight import quotas in exchange for compliance with the whims of the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television.

As for Oscar viewing parties? Unimaginable. The ceremony, which begins at 9:30 a.m. Monday in China, will be broadcast only in much-redacted form hours later by state-owned CCTV. (Last year, it didn’t air until 10:40 p.m. Monday.) […]

[…] “Nobody even has the live stream in China,” complained Raymond Zhou, film critic for the English-language China Daily. “The government won’t allow it. They are afraid somebody will say something against China.”

Chinese television used to broadcast the ceremony live, but stopped after Richard Gere, as a presenter in 1993, called on then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping to remove troops from Tibet.

“The Chinese translators didn’t know what to do, so they just tried to ignore the sentences. After that, they were afraid of the Oscars,” said Wu Renchu, a Shanghai film critic. “It is regrettable. There are many Chinese movie fans, students and white-collar workers who really would like to watch the ceremonies.”

[Update: CCTV6's M1905.com (via Bill Bishop) is streaming the awards ceremony.]

Gere’s outspokenness earned him a twenty-year ban from the awards, ending tonight with a musical performance to mark Chicago‘s six-Oscar haul in 2003. “Apparently, I’ve been rehabilitated,” he told HuffPost UK. “It seems if you stay around long enough, they forget they’ve banned you.” Despite this punishment, Gere became a symbol of Hollywood’s defiance of Chinese authoritarianism, before hunger for Chinese funding and market access made this a disposable luxury. From Damien Ma at Foreign Policy:

In Hollywood in the 1990s, China was an oppressive place. Red Corner opens with Gere gazing up at security cameras in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, ground zero of the infamous bloodshed of early June, 1989, seared into many Americans’ memories. Brad Pitt, too, had been blacklisted from China, ostensibly for starring in the 1997 feature Seven Years in Tibet, in which his character becomes friends with the young Dalai Lama.

[… But t]he era in which China could still be a menacing villain and stir political passions from the Spielbergs and the Geres appears to be ending. Even Brangelina are reportedly studying Mandarin. And the political drama surrounding disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai, ripe for Hollywoodification, will never see the light of day. Too bad, because the Bo Ultimatum is the Chinese Godfather waiting to be made. As Hollywood gathers for its biggest awards night Sunday, the industry seems to be biting its tongue. After all, the future, as Jeff Daniels quips in Looper, is in China.

From The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos:

[… T]hese days, Hollywood directors find themselves in the curious position of being more compliant than some of their Chinese counterparts. When censors ordered the Chinese director Lou Ye to make additional cuts to his movie “Mystery” just over a month before the film’s release date, Lou took the unusual steps of publicly tweeting the censors’ demands and then removing his name from the credits. Online, he explained his decision to break the taboo of discussing censorship in the hope that the system would “become more transparent and eventually be cancelled.” He was not willing to comply in silence. “We are all responsible for this unreasonable movie-censorship program,” he wrote.

[…] By comparison, Hollywood has been less vocal on the subject of censorship. When James Cameron released “Titanic” in 3-D last year—having agreed to censor Kate Winslet’s breasts—the Times asked him about the compromises of working in China. He said, “As an artist, I’m always against censorship… [But] this is an important market for me. And so I’m going to do what’s necessary to continue having this be an important market for my films. And I’m going to play by the rules that are internal to this market. Because you have to. You know, I can stomp my feet and hold my breath but I’m not going to change people’s minds that way.”

Transparency might be a more constructive approach than either foot-stomping or meek compliance. While there may be no end in sight for Chinese film censorship, Osnos suggests that the industry could formally and publicly catalogue cuts made at SARFT’s behest. Lou’s defiance, meanwhile, together with changes recently imposed on imports such as Cloud Atlas and Skyfall, has prompted calls for a more codified and less capriciously restrictive system. From Kristie Lu Stout at CNN:

[…] Lu Chuan is calling for change in the censorship system, hoping that Chinese filmmakers can be governed less by guesswork and more by a transparent rating system.

Lu says there must be change for the sake of his craft and also because his audience demands it.

“In an American movie, you can blow up the White House. We cannot blow up (Tiananmen) Square. It’s different. But the audience wants to see a lot of exciting visual things. So I think the leadership will think about that.”

He’s asking for the freedom to film China’s own “Independence Day,” the freedom to blow up anything without fear of political blowback.

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Post tags: Academy Awards, Dalai Lama, Evan Osnos, film censorship, film distribution, film industry, hollywood, Lou Ye, Lu Chuan, oscars, Richard Gere, SARFT, Tiananmen Square, Tibet, Titanic
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Industry insiders say international influence is only set to grow, as Chinese censors loosen restrictions on foreign films and more fans make a habit of seeking out the latest blockbusters. Last year, the country’s box office receipts increased 30% to over RMB 17 billion ($2.7 billion), making China the world’s second-largest box office

On the fifth episode of CNN’s monthly show “On China,” host Kristie Lu Stout traveled to Hengdian Film Studios to discover what strikes a chord with Chinese viewers. There, she asked Dan Mintz, CEO of DMG Entertainment Group, and acclaimed film directors Jin Yimeng (Eva) and Lu Chuan what Chinese filmgoers want to see.

On the surface, the script for success is not dissimilar to what works in the United States, they said. U.S. films, including “Titanic 3D” and “Mission: Impossible– Ghost Protocol” comprised seven of the top 10 highest-grossing films in 2012, according to the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television. While foreign films accounted for only a quarter of the 303 movies screened in Chinese theatres last year, they took in over half of overall ticket sales (52.4%).

Easy access to theaters is also driving mainland viewers to the silver screen. China has over 12,000 movie screens and it is adding more at a rate of eight to 10 each day, Mintz said. Cinemas in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai are comparable to those in the U.S., Lu added.

In an attempt to attract fans of the film, ‘Titanic,’ there are now plans to build a replica of the Titanic in China. From The Hollywood Reporter:

According to Blue Star Line, the cruise line company Palmer founded to build and manage the vessel, the Titanic II was designed by Finnish naval architecture firm Deltamarin but is being built in China’s Jiangsu province by state-owned Chinese shipyard CSC Jinling.

Palmer introduced the dinner via a video-conference call from Australia, saying, according to the Wall Street Journal: “Why build the Titanic? Why go to the moon?”

“They’ve really got guts. You see how many collapsing bridges there are in China and how much ‘tofu-style’ construction there is, and they still dare to do it,” the Journal quoted one micro-blogger as writing.

“Titanic II is being built by a Chinese shipyard!! How stupid. Do you want to re-enact the original ending?” wrote another.

Despite the success of international films in China, Stephen Chow’s latest comedy landed in the top spot in the box office during the Spring Festival holiday. From China Daily:

The takings for Chow’s blockbuster, featuring Wen Zhang, Shu Qi and Huang Bo, accounted for 66.7 percent of all ticket sales during the period, according to a posting by China Film News on micro-blogging service Sina Weibo.

The film took 76.7 million yuan on its first day of release on Feb 10 on the Chinese mainland. It also smashed the opening-day record for domestic films by beating last year’s 70 million yuan made by Chinese film Painted Skin: Resurrection.

The fast-expanding Chinese film market – measured by audience figures and number of screens – has nurtured record-breaking box-office revenue this year, said Huang Qunfei,general manager of Beijing New Film Association Co Ltd, one of China’s largest theater chains.

Huang said domestic box-office revenue has grown 30 percent on average each year, with more than 9,600 screens across the nation. he said he expects even higher growth this year.

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Some who are involved in Hollywood’s entry into China are privately expressing hope that the Justice Department inquiry will be resolved before they run out of time on what one of them last week called a “ticking clock,” as Chinese consumers outgrow their receptivity to Hollywood fare.

The squeeze started last year when they began to spend more money on some homegrown films than on the American blockbusters.

But Michael W. Emmick, who was formerly a prosecutor with the Justice Department, and now focuses on the corrupt practices cases, among other things, in his private law practice, said a resolution could be a long time coming.

“This is still early in the game,” he said.

While Mr. Emmick is not representing clients in the investigation, and said he had no direct knowledge of it, he said that regulators sometimes use such industrywide inquiries as a “cost effective” way of putting an entire business sector — like the pharmaceuticals industry or the portion of the financial industry dealing in sovereign debt — on notice.

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The original film, based on the novel of the same name, spanned 172-minutes long for European and American markets but was cut to just 137 for its mainland version, according to the film’s directors.

[…] “Although the mainland version is a bit constrained, [we] fully believe in the regulator’s editing standards,” said Cloud Atlas co-director Tom Tykwer, who was in Beijing on Tuesday to promote the movie ahead of its January 31 release.

[…] Material deleted mainly comprised of love scenes, gory sequences and nudity. A number of same-sex love scenes between actors Ben Whishaw and James D’Arcy were also cut from the film due to the Sarft’s strict ban on homosexual content.

Details of changes to the latest Bond film, Skyfall, also emerged last week following its belated Beijing premiere. While The Atlantic’s Matt Schiavenza dismissed the edits as “little more than a government tailoring a popular film for its audience“, Xinhua reported that the altered film had prompted calls for a less capricious censorship process:

Shi Chuan, a professor from Shanghai University’s school of film & TV arts and technology, proposed the enaction of relevant laws and the establishment of norms for movie censors to follow.

[…] “Movie regulators should respect the producers’ original ideas, rather than chopping scenes arbitrarily,” Shi said.

However, he said that he believes the censorship system is necessary for China’s film industry.

[…] During an annual session of China’s political advisory body held in March last year, Yin Li, vice chairman of the China Film Association, said Chinese film-making faces too many restrictions regarding sensitive topics such as public security, diplomacy, ethnic minorities and religion.

“I hope China can offer more freedom to film-makers so that a more favorable environment can be created for the country’s movie industry,” Yin said.

While money from the mainland has attracted attention recently, SCMP’s Vivienne Chow wrote that Cloud Atlas‘ financing suggests a role for Hong Kong in the global film industry:

According to veteran Hong Kong filmmaker Philip Lee, an executive producer of Cloud Atlas responsible for its fund-raising in Asia, Hong Kong has a unique edge in film financing, especially in the Asia-Pacific region.

“Hong Kong is the Asian financial centre and has a long history in filmmaking. With more collaboration with foreign projects or companies, knowing how to find the right match is very important, and Hong Kong has the expertise,” says Lee, who served as an associate producer of the international hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and a line producer for Batman film The Dark Knight during its filming in Hong Kong.

[…] “The mainland certainly has capital, but can they find the right people? Not necessarily. Hong Kong can be more active in bridging this gap,” [Media Asia's head of distribution Ricky Tse Chi-keung] says.

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Wanda has been talking with some studios, as Mr. Wang promised when Wanda completed its $2.6 billion acquisition of AMC Entertainment with a flashy presentation in early September. But any progress has come in halting steps, according to people briefed on the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid conflict with the principals.

And that probably carries an overall message about the film industry’s current rush to do business in China: The promise is great, but much is still being lost in translation.

“Hollywood would prefer to accept what they commonly call ‘dumb money’ and not give very much back in return,” said Stanley Rosen, a University of Southern California political science professor who has written extensively about China. “China is now pushing back.”

Both sides are likely to continue pressing their efforts; Hollywood is eager to have a partner that can help it tap into China’s fast-growing film market, and Wanda wants to strengthen its foothold in the lucrative North American market. But the slow going underscores the disconnect inherent in negotiations between parties whose goals reflect their own, more narrow interests.

See more on Wanda’s acquisition of AMC and Cieply’s recent account, with Brooks Barnes, of the political strings attached to co-productions in China, via CDT.

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The missing scene was set in Shanghai, when a French hitman (played by Ola Rapace) is shown shooting a Chinese security guard in the elevator lobby of a skyscraper before preparing for an assassination.

Later in the film, in a casino in Macau, Daniel Craig’s Bond questions the story’s femme fatale, Severine (Berenice Marlohe), about whether her tattoo is the result of her being forced into a local prostitution ring at an early age. While the lines remains intact on the soundtrack, the Chinese subtitles suggest the spy is asking her about being coerced into the mob instead.

The film’s Chinese subtitles also fudged the exposition of the back story of the film’s villain, Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), who tells Bond how he was handed over to the Chinese authorities while working for the MI6 in Hong Kong. He adds that he suffered immense torture at the hands of his interrogators before attempting to kill himself.

Increasingly, content likely to hurt the feelings of the Chinese people is being removed during production, often in consultation with officials.

Bloomberg’s Tim Culpan, meanwhile, reports that genius inventor Tony Stark will be outsourcing some of his gadgets in the forthcoming Iron Man 3:

In a product-placement deal for Paramount Pictures Corp.’s third Iron Man movie, Robert Downey Jr.’s character Tony Stark will battle his latest nemesis, the Mandarin, using TCL’s products. Some real-world features, such as handheld devices interacting with televisions, will be replicated on-screen.

[…] “I believe our new generation of products are as good as those from Samsung and Apple,” Tomson Li, TCL’s chairman and co-founder, said in an interview at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week. “This Iron Man cooperation is very useful for us to promote the TCL brand in the global market, including the U.S. and China.”

To support the marketing effort, Li sealed a deal last week to rename Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Los Angeles as TCL Chinese Theater, buying naming rights for the cultural landmark along the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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[…] Paramount Pictures just learned the hard way that some things won’t pass muster — like American fighter pilots in dogfights with MIGs. The studio months ago submitted a new 3-D version of “Top Gun” to Chinese censors. The ensuing silence was finally recognized as rejection.

(“Political disapproval?” wondered the Times’ Edward Wong. “Or just good taste?”)

Mr. Cohen’s “Mummy” film, which was shot throughout China in 2007, was a historical fantasy about an evil emperor who is magically resurrected by foreign adventurers in 1946. The script was preapproved by China’s censorship board with only token changes — the emperor’s name had to be fictionalized, for instance. The censors also cautioned that the ancient ruler should not resemble Mao Zedong.

In a 2011 Web post, Robert Cain, a producer and consultant who guides filmmakers through China’s system, described having worked in Shanghai on a romantic comedy that went off script; the director included a take in which an extra, holding a camcorder, pretended to be a theater patron taping a movie on a screen.

The next day, Mr. Cain and others involved with the film were summoned to the office of a Communist Party member who told them the film was being shut down for its “naïve” and “untruthful” portrayal of film piracy. Assuming they had been reported by a spy on their crew, the producers apologized and managed to keep the film on track.

As tricky as dealing with SARFT may be for foreigners, it is all the more so for Chinese filmmakers. Last year, director Lou Ye described the tortuous process of securing approval for Mystery, a film he ultimately disowned in protest.

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Post tags: cinema, film censorship, film industry, films, hollywood, Mao Zedong, movie industry, piracy, SARFT
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But in the last few years, more and more filmmakers like Yang have been trying to carve out a new middle ground: They are developing scripts for art house-style movies that can win a “dragon seal” (Chinese censors’ official stamp of endorsement). As the number of these government-approved indie films grows, a nascent Chinese industry — production houses and exhibitors — is emerging to support them.

The trend is not without its detractors, who fret that a new generation of filmmakers may be sacrificing its artistic integrity. But Yang and others say independent filmmaking in China can be broader than just underground cinema.

While non-dragon seal films can be sold only overseas or online, Yang said applying for a dragon seal, so that a film can be screened domestically, does not necessarily mean making a deal with the devil.

Among members of the younger generation, though, there seems to be an expectation — perhaps naive, perhaps practical — that they will simply hop back and forth between the two worlds of dragon seal and underground independent film with little conflict.

Indie films in China continue to run into trouble with the government with the power outages earlier this year at the Beijing Independent Film Festival. While the “dragon seal” is available for filmmakers, other filmmakers, such as Lou Ye, have taken a more confrontational approach when dealing with government censorship.

See also “Devils on the Doorstep”: Film Censorship Up Close, via CDT.

© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dragon seal, film, film censorship, film industry, Lou Ye, SARFT, yang jin
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The delay points to a central quandary regarding culture in China today. Officials want to impress the world with its richness, but they also want to manage it as they have managed the economy, and this constant meddling leaves culture in a deeply uncomfortable place, suspended between genuine creativity and political correctness, between greatness and mediocrity.

In film, weak ideas, often because of political restraints and bowdlerized scripts, and delayed openings because of lengthy censorship are weakening the ability of Chinese directors to attract audiences. As foreign imports increase, people are voting with their feet and domestic movies are slipping financially.

[...]

To try to change that, film bureaucrats said last week that the National Film Development Fund would return its 5 percent cut of box office takings to theaters that show more domestic films, in a kind of reward.

Yet in a sign of what officials really intend, at the same news conference, Sun Zhijun, deputy head of the party’s Propaganda Department, said: “Some media organizations and people believe that deepening the cultural reform is for the purposes of making the culture an industry and wholly market-based. This is not true.”

In an accompanying blog post, Tatlow writes about the difficulties of parsing out why censors choose to restrict one film over another. For more on how State Administration on Radio, Film, and Television censors films, see the text of a decision to censor the 2000 film Devils on the Doorstep, via CDT.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: art censorship, film censorship, film industry, SARFT
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“Beijing Blues” portrays the lives of the urban dwellers through the work of a squad of plainclothes crime-hunters.

In receiving the award, director Gao Qun Shu was visibly shocked, and he thanked the “globe” for giving an inexperienced director like him such honor and recognition.

[...] Controversial Chinese director Lou Ye did not receive the widely expected award for directing box-office hit “Mystery.” But at the ceremony, Lou received a rare mention for eventually directing a movie that was screened in Chinese theatres.

“Mystery” — about a woman’s radical revenge after uncovering her husband’s infidelity — is seen as marking Lou’s entry into the commercial mainstream after years on the social and artistic edge.

Lou Ye described the tortuous process of gaining official approval for Mystery on Sina Weibo earlier this year, and eventually removed his own name from the credits in protest. See more on China’s film industry via CDT.

© Mengyu Dong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: film industry, Lou Ye, movie directors, movies, Taiwan
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