THOMAS PODVIN’S FREELANCE WORK
Freelance writer - translator - Editor

The past few years has seen a flowering of Sino-European co-productions: The White Countess; The World; Red Little Flowers; Love in the Year of the Tiger; Jade Warrior; Luxury Car; Summer Palace and Dam Street, to name a few. Why? In part, because foreign film producers have easier access to the Chinese mainland – and co-productions are seen to benefit both parties.

The results have been generally positive. “We work together; respect each other and appreciate each other’s work and opinions,” says Polish filmmaker Jacek Bromski who helmed the first Sino-Polish joint project (between Changchun Film Studios and Poland Studio Zebra), Love in the Year of the Tiger (LYT). Referring to the unusual degree of mutual respect, Bromski adds that “it’s often not like this when we co-produce with other countries.”

That said, foreign and domestic producers recognize that by definition, co-production means both partners share in the profit, and risk. Last year, proceeds for joint projects, which still account for just 10 per cent of the overall number of films screened, accounted for an astounding 35 per cent of the total box-office revenue.

That windfall can be attributed to various incentives, such as tax breaks (of up to 50 per cent) and better distribution opportunities. Co-productions are not considered ‘foreign’ films and thus are not subject to the ‘20 foreign films per year’ quota. In 2005, the top four box office films were co-productions.

Sino-European co-productions are in a particularly favorable position; they enjoy access to funding from European organizations (France’s Fonds Sud Cinema; Holland’s Hubert Bals Fund, etc.,), and at the same time they can participate in China’s national film competitions (The Hundred Flowers Awards and The Golden Rooster Awards). Indeed, LYT will vie for the Golden Rooster Awards this month in Hangzhou.

Though it’s no small achievement to take home a Golden Rooster, foreign production companies are much more interested in China’s expanding market. Some estimates state that China’s annual box office revenue will reach RMB 8 billion by 2010, up from RMB 2 billion in 2005. “China is a potentially huge market; there are not a lot of theaters but it’s a start,” says French producer Sylvain Butzteijn (Rosem Films), whose latest production, Luxury Car directed by Wang Chao, won the Un Certain Regard/Fondation GAN award in Cannes last May. Butzeijn, like many other European producers is bullish on the industry’s future in China; indeed, he believes the market will be huge in the next decade or two.

In addition to the numbers and the profits they imply, some foreign producers are attracted to China for artistic reasons. Butzeijn, for example, says Sino-European co-productions are a way of introducing Chinese films to the global market, and an opportunity “to take part in the development of a great international cinema.”

Of course, what appeals to an international audience doesn’t necessarily appeal to domestic tastes. A case in point: Jia Zhangke’s The World, a Chinese/French/Japanese co-production, met with a mixed response in Chinese theaters.

To cater to audiences in China and abroad, some filmmakers are combining cultural elements in their works. Producers Francesco Ferracin and Beth Sanders of the UK-based company Silk and Steel Productions have two film projects in development with Chinese partners. Jasmine, shot and set in Shanghai, will reinterpret the European myth of the Flying Dutchman and “blend the qualities of Far-Eastern aesthetics with a traditional European tale”, according to the press kit.

Bromski has taken a similar approach. LYT is set in the 20th-century and concerns a Polish prisoner of war saved by a Chinese hunter. “When the story is based on the natural confrontation of two different cultures,” he says, “both audiences can learn about our differences and similarities.”

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
October 2006 issue

Despite his kung fu prowess, Jackie Chan is no match for China’s DVD pirates. For one thing, he’s vastly outnumbered. But that hasn’t stopped Chan from fighting for his rights. Indeed, at every personal appearance in China or elsewhere in the world, he declares his position with no punches pulled: “They’re robbing the creative industry.”

Of course, robbery is a crime, and consequently Chan has become something of a caped crusader, which is not to say he’s battling alone. Recently, he joined forces with a group of more than 60 film producers to lobby the government to take stern action against those who pilfer creative works.

The pilfering takes place on a grand scale. Last year, the Chinese film industry produced in excess of 260 films, which collectively earned about RMB 2 billion (USD 250 million) at the box office, states a report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Yet in 2005 alone, piracy cost the China film industry USD 2.7 billion (RMB 21.6 billion), according to LEK Consulting. Motion Picture Association (MPA) senior vice president, Asia Pacific, Michael Ellis says that China’s losses account for 55 per cent of the worldwide loss of revenue due to audio-video piracy. Put another way, the numbers suggest that in 2005 bootleggers made ten times the total revenue of the PRC film industry.

In short, the level of piracy in China, which is at an extremely high level indeed, is crippling. It hurts Hollywood, of course, but Ellis says that the “first victim is the national [Chinese] cinema”.

The root of the problem is weak intellectual property rights. As late as 1982, China had no IPR laws to speak of. Since then, laws have been enacted, and anti-piracy campaigns have had some impact. In 2005-2006, police made 2,600 arrests and seized a total of 167 million pirated products. MPA, however, says the government needs to make greater efforts to crack down on pirates, including stiffer deterrent sentencing.

But the most effective method to weaken the pirate’s grasp on the industry lies not in the courtroom, but rather in the classroom. In other words, educating the public on the importance of IPR protection. As such, the government launched IPR Protection Week in April, and a host of new IPR protection plans and arrangements.

But even if these efforts succeed, with the number of Chinese Internet users reaching 111 million, it’s going to take more than a few big character posters to stop the bleeding. Illegal downloading cost the Chinese film industry RMB 8 billion (USD 1 billion) in 2005. No wonder Chan’s anti-piracy slogan is “Fakes Cost More”.

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
October 2006 issue

One might think that fair-haired, well-muscled Nordic warriors and dark and slender Chinese swordsmen have little in common. Yet in Jade Warrior (Jadesoturi) Finnish film director Antti-Jussi Annila has constructed a cultural bridge between his homeland and China.

A Sino-European co-production – involving Finland, China, Holland and Estonia – the RMB 27.5 million film is based on The Kalevala, an epic 19th-century poem still influential in Finland to this day. “The heroes in The Kalevala are not typical heroes; no matter what they do they can never get the women they love,” says Annila.

Jade Warriors follows the travails of one hapless warrior (Tommi Eronen) as he fights to be reunited with his beloved Zhang Jingchu (Peacock). To achieve that aim, he travels across time and place, from ancient China to cold contemporary Finland. Along the way, the past feeds the story in the present day, and slowly reveals the warrior’s origin in China’s Iron Age, as well as his exceptional fighting skills. It’s an odd mix to be sure, but the 29-year-old filmmaker says the hybrid plot is not too far-fetched. Both The Kalevala, and China’s wuxia pian tradition of chivalrous marital arts’ spectacles, share a common theme: “melodramatic love stories of warriors, swords and sorcery”, explains the director.

Annila is both a student and fan of Hong Kong Tsui Hark and John Woo, both of whom are masters of the wuxia pian genre. Indeed, Annila says that his aim in making the film was to “find the source of the huge energy of those Hong Kong action films”.

That said, Jade Warriors promises to be more than your average kung fu flick; rather, it offers an exploration of the cultural connection between the two countries which extends back to the late 19th century. Those ties are perhaps best exemplified in a running motif in the film based on a Finnish artifact, sampo. In Finland, it is said to bring good fortune to the Nordic people, while its Chinese counterpart, sanfu, or sampo in Mongolian, means ‘the secret source of all happiness’.

The Finnish sampo concept then, which is central to The Kalevala, closely resembles the shamanistic cosmologies of Mongolia, and those of Tibet. The Kalevala has been translated into 54 languages, and inspired J.R.R. Tolkien to learn Finnish so that he could read it in the original language. In light of the above, that Jade Warrior is the first ever Finnish kung fu film is really not so surprising; after all, the quest for happiness is universal.

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
October 2006 issue