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 2001.03.19 2:37am Taiwan time updated Away from The Oscar Lights, Chinese Cinema LanguishesSHANGHAI, March 18 (AFP) - Imar Film's managing director Peter Loehr should be a millionaire today. Spicy Love Soup, Imar's first production, was second only to Titanic at the Chinese box office in 1998.Imar Film, the mainland's biggest independent film production company, did equally well with its next two releases -- Beautiful New World and Shower made more money than many Western studio releases here. "If we were in a foreign country we would be very wealthy like this," Loehr laments. Alas, China is not any other country. Chinese cinema has come into the media spotlight in the wake of Taiwanese director Ang Lee's martial arts box office smash 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.' Crouching Tiger is headed for a slew of awards at the annual Oscars on March 25, including best director, while Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai won a Cesar for his 1960s period piece 'In the Mood for Love.' But while Chinese directors in Hong Kong and Taiwan have wooed international markets with a vision of China gone by, mainland cinema is in the doldrums and getting progressively worse. Crouching Tiger ran for a couple of weeks in most Chinese cinemas and never got a proper release because of rangling between the film's producers and local distributors. "Every year it seemed as if the industry could go no lower, and every year it has managed to sink further," said Willie Brent, director of the China Entertainment consultancy in Shanghai. At its peak in the early 1990s, China was producing about 200-250 films but that has dropped off in 10 years to around 100, Brent said. China's film market is in such a mess that it is very difficult for either foreign or domestic film companies to make much money. State-run film studios have adapted poorly to the demands of the marketplace and are now producing very few quality films equal to earlier hits, Chen Kaige's 'Farewell My Concubine' and Zhang Yimou's 'Raise the Red Lantern,' said Anke Redl of China Media Marketing Intelligence. Dwindling profit margins have hit the industry hard. Piracy is endemic but it is not the only problem. Distribution is fragmented and arduous while censorship adds a further burden to companies trying to produce a commercially successful film in China. Pirated video compact discs (VCDs) and DVDs erode around 50 to 60 percent of potential box office revenues and some southern Chinese provinces where piracy is particularly rampant such as Zhejiang and Jiangsu are wiped off the revenue map, said Imar's Loehr. In the United States a production company could expect to generate 40 percent of its revenues through video releases, and selling the film to cable and television channels, he said. "In China it is as little as five percent. TV stations are not very excited about buying a film which everyone has already seen on VCD,' Loehr explained. Meanwhile, getting a film into theatres around the country and then collecting the box office takings from screenings is a major headache for foreign and local film companies alike. Only 10 foreign films are currently passed for screening in China although that may rise to 20 once China joins the World Trade Organization, and foreign companies are forced to distribute their films through the state monopoly, China Film "Hollywood studios who deal with China Film don't need to deal with the nuts and bolts, but for China Film and local companies it's a logistical nightmare," said China Entertainment's Brent. Every province and many major cities have a local film distribution authority which acts like a "film warlord," fiercely guarding its fiefdom and taking as big a cut out of production companies' profits as they can, Imar's Loehr observes. For Imar, China's only independent studio, getting a film to market involves a nationwide trip around the local distributors, wining and dining them and trying to woo a way into their good books. "The only way you can convince them not to screw you is to become very good friends with them," Loehr said. Legal action is not an option if local distributors defraud a firm because a lawsuit would be met with a refusal to distribute any further releases. "If there was nationwide one chain of cinemas, or even several chains, China would have a much more vibrant film industry," Brent said. Once a film gets to market, collecting box office receipts is another headache. Theatres get to keep an average of 50 percent of the takings but whittle away at takings by under-reporting attendance and distributors take a 15 percent cut and also under-report takings. Censorship adds a final stab to the already struggling market. Politically sensitive subject matter is obviously difficult to tackle, while sexually explicit footage and violent footage also end up on the censor's cutting room floor. That presents a problem for Chinese film-makers trying to play to an audience that is fed on a diet of sex and violence from pirated foreign VCDs.
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