The Chinese Film Industry's Inferiority Complex

Every time a massively popular Western film opens in China, you hear the same grumbles from the Chinese media. Why can't we make a film like "Avatar"? Why isn't our film industry exporting its own blockbusters to the rest of the world? "Kung Fu Panda" was heavily based on Chinese culture. Why didn't we make that movie? Sure enough, after the release of "Inception" a few days ago, articles like this one started appearing online.

There are a lot of different cultural and historical issues tied up in these complaints, which I'll try to untangle as delicately as possible. The most important thing to keep in mind is that the frustration is not a symptom of envy, but of national pride and competitiveness. China has long been dissatisfied with being shadowed by the West and Japan. Its explosive economic growth in the last decade has given it plenty of clout on the global stage, but in the eternal quest to prove its status as a major world power, China has also spent years trying to compete in "soft power" arenas like sports and the arts. If you saw the last summer Olympics, you get the idea. They see Western media as cultural imperialism to some extent, and the government has taken serious measures to counteract or match it, launching global news networks, investing in co-productions like this summer's "Karate Kid" remake, and so on. And every time a big Hollywood picture beats out the local titles in Chinese theaters, the griping follows.

Outside observers may scoff, but it's easy to see how the inequity can rankle. Many other film industries around the globe have faced similar issues with the dominance of Hollywood flicks at local box offices. China may have one of the more restrictive quota systems, but they're not alone in using protectionist measures. Thanks in part to their efforts, wonderful Chinese filmmakers like Zhang Yimou and John Woo are turning out spectacular costume epics every year, and smaller films from directors like Jia Zhangke and Wang Xiaoshuai have won critical accolades. Chinese films are now a staple at arthouse theaters, and when you throw in the work of Hong Kong and Taiwan-based directors, their pictures dominate many critics' lists of the most influential films of the last decade. Yet there's a dissatisfaction with loftier kudos from the cinegentsia. Artistic excellence isn't what the Chinese are after. It's popularity and influence. They want a Chinese Michael Bay or a Jerry Bruckheimer, not a Chinese Darren Aronofsky or a Sofia Coppola. They seek populist acceptance, that slick wow factor that keeps the Western films at the top of the global box office. They're just not sure how to get it.

The last major "event" film to come out of mainland China was John Woo's "Red Cliff," a massive five hour historical epic starring Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro. It was a lavish production that spared no expense and made full use of the latest special effects and technical filmmaking wizardry, "Red Cliff" was no different from any major Hollywood Blockbuster as far as production values. It made a huge splash in China and the surrounding Asian countries, but the success didn't translate overseas. The international release cut the running time in half, distributors trumpeted it as the comeback of director John Woo, but to no avail. In the US and most other countries, it played the smaller theaters like all the rest of the foreign pictures and completely failed to make any sort of impression on the wider moviegoing public. Most have never heard of the film at all. I sat through the original five-hour version last month marveling at the pageantry and the performances. It wasn't a great film, but it was a shiny, entertaining, epic piece of cinema that you didn't need to be Chinese to enjoy. But it helped to know the history in order to follow the story, and ultimately "Red Cliff" was a blockbuster that only Asian audiences were going to connect to.

It's been fun reading some of the articles where people try to dissect why big American films have universal impact where the local ones don't. Some of the better explanations I've read include the late development of the Chinese film industry, artistic expression constrained by heavy censorship, too much didactic subject matter, and a lack of fantasy and science-fiction pictures. Nobody mentions the fact that Americans rarely embrace foreign films of any stripe, or that if the forces of cultural hegemony are at work, they've given Hollywood a distinct advantage in terms of attracting talent and attention for decades – that kind of systemic bias can't be overcome easily or quickly. I also want to point out that the notorious Chinese restrictions on the distribution of foreign films means Chinese viewers are not getting the full picture of the American cinema landscape. When you only see the top dozen or so films through official channels and other cream-of-the-crop hits through other means, perceptions tend to get skewed. Not only does this set up the foreign films as special event pictures, it keeps Chinese audiences from seeing the depths of the dreck that American audiences are regularly subjected to. Without that context, of course the foreign films are going to look better.

Chinese filmmakers should certainly be encouraged to reach for the stars and compete with their American counterparts, but I can't help thinking that it's counterproductive to measure the success of Chinese films against those made by Hollywood. If the Chinese want to clone the Hollywood system, I've no doubt that they could, but it would be such a waste. Chinese films have their own artistic strengths that should be encouraged. To model everything too closely after Hollywood product would just lead to a multiplicity of pabulum and potentially quash the gains that Chinese films with uniquely Chinese sensibilities have made in recent years. There's nothing wrong with current Chinese films. They're amazing. They're wonderful. And if audiences haven't figured that out yet, it's their loss.