Chinese filmmakers are asking why a movie like Kung Fu Panda had to be made outside China. From Reuters:
Lu said the government was stifling the creativity of China’s filmmakers, explaining how he had been asked to make an animated film for the Olympic Games, which will be hosted by Beijing in August, but decided to walk away from the project.
“I kept receiving directions and orders on how the movie should be like,” he said. “The fun and joy from doing something interesting left us, together with our imagination and creativity.”
An advisory body to the country’s rubber-stamp parliament debated this week why a film like “Kung Fu Panda,” produced by DreamWorks Animation, had not been made in China, Xinhua reported.
A standing committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress said that, though there was no secret ingredient to filmmaking success, the government ought to relax its oversight. Opening more space for Chinese artists would allow more innovation, ultimately giving China greater cultural influence abroad, they concluded.
