{"id":7440,"date":"2022-01-27T16:36:07","date_gmt":"2022-01-27T14:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=7440"},"modified":"2022-01-27T16:52:40","modified_gmt":"2022-01-27T14:52:40","slug":"china-competes-on-an-equal-footing-with-the-united-states-in-the-seventh-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=7440","title":{"rendered":"China Competes on an Equal Footing with the United States in the Seventh Art"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Having now become the box office champions, China aims to become a cinematic superpower by 2035, as a counterweight to American influence. The US has always held the “scepters” of the box office. But not anymor\u03b5. From 2020 – and in the midst of a pandemic – they are losing ground in this area, as China is now claiming them. Last year, she was the real winner of the – severely affected by the health crisis – film industry, thus displacing the United States for the second consecutive year from the “pedestal” of the largest box office receipts in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the global box office total of more than $21 billion in 2021, China alone accounts for more than a third, with nearly double that of North America. The reason why this happens is due to various reasons such as the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.<\/strong> A key one is clearly the coronavirus, which reduced production in Hollywood and kept cinemas in the West closed for months, while in the vast China of “zero-Covid” they had already started operating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.<\/strong> In the most populous country in the world, meanwhile, the audience is by definition huge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3.<\/strong> His interest now seems to be focused – or even directed – not so much on the Hollywood ones, but mainly on the domestic productions, which last year dominated the Chinese box office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. <\/strong>With this impetus, then, China now declares its determination to soon become a global superpower in the entertainment industry, investing in the mild power of the seventh art. And yes, by all means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hollywood industry is in the crosshairs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chinese state censorship mechanism more or less caught fire in 2021, excluding more and more American productions from being shown in Chinese cinemas. Thus, from the standard ceiling that exists for the screening of 34 foreign film producers in China during a year, last year this number dropped to only 19. Of these, in fact, only 28% was in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The total share of American films, however, decreased from 46% in 2020 to 39% in 2021 (Variety). One of the big losers was Disney Entertainment Co., which saw four Marvel movies being “cut” by the Chinese authorities. Experts in the field estimate that this “clipping” will continue in the future. The reasons are various.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to the content and depictions of characters, even comments that have been made publicly by filmmakers in the past and are not to the liking of the communist regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These, in the context of China’s aspirations to limit American (cultural and non-cultural) influence within borders and to pave the way for domestic – usually propaganda – film productions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Chinese film production home development plan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chinese Film Administration recently unveiled a five-year plan (https:\/\/sohu.com) to grow domestic production, with the stated goal of Chinese dominance in the seventh art by 2035. Among other things, it predicts that domestic production should exceed 55% of the total box office and claims the release of 50 films with revenues of at least $ 15.7 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least 10 of them should be scanned for revenue and reviews, with a view to international discrimination. In the meantime, it is planned to improve the special effects, promote science fiction movies and increase the number of cinemas across China to 100,000 by 2025, from 77,000 today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this, under even more government supervision and under the motto “to praise the party, the homeland and the people”. Typical examples are considered to be the last two Chinese cinematic successes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • One is “Battle of Lake Changjin”: a three-hour epic and by far the most expensive production to date in China, glorifying the Chinese military’s fight against the Americans and their allies in the Korean War. The “Battle of Lake Changjin” had the highest receipts at the Chinese box office in 2021, “crashing” Agent 007 and “No Time To Die” at the box office.<\/li>
  • “Embrace Again” has been moving in a similar “golden” trajectory since the beginning of the year, with a more modern, but equally propagandistic scenario, as it reduces the pandemic to a moving patriotic battle, while erasing the government’s failures with COVID from the big screen. -19 and international criticism of China’s handling.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
    \"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    Is the new ambitious Chinese plan achievable?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In the age of streaming, the prevalence of related platforms in the West and the growing trend amid a pandemic of “couch entertainment” at home, China’s “bet” seems both risky and ambitious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Its aspirations are clearer within itself, with the strengthening of the propaganda mechanism in favor of the long-term (domestic and foreign) policy of the Communist Party of China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    However, it remains to be seen whether the creation of a strong domestic film industry will be able to compete\u2026 with the equal influence that the United States exerts through Hollywood, as an “American dream industry.” Of course, English is also the most widely spoken language in the world, and it is difficult for Chinese to surpass it as the most widely spoken language in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Experts point out that while the growth of streaming makes US film production less dependent on the box office, the viability of many US film companies and studios is increasingly dependent on penetrating the vast Chinese market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Either way, however, more and more people are talking about a gradual change in the terms of the -still recovering- film industry, which now seems to be looking for a “golden ratio” between the big and the small (this time the computer) screen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Having now become the box office champions, China aims to become a cinematic superpower by 2035, as a counterweight to American influence. The US…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1189,1157],"tags":[3264,161,3265,1119,3263,215],"class_list":["post-7440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-culture","tag-box-office","tag-china","tag-film-production","tag-propaganda","tag-seventh-art","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7440"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7487,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7440\/revisions\/7487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}