The US blockbuster Troy recently made its way to cinemas in Beijing and other cities and has proved a box office hit. Moviegoers are showing increasing enthusiasm for epic films, but many say that now is not the right time for the domestic film industry to develop this genre.
Experts say that China has four major problems that prevent studios here from producing a good epic film: lack of good screenplays, shortage of funds, lagging technological support and few qualified directors.
Boring plots. Hollywood blockbuster epics depict people from all over the world. The story of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, for example, is set in medieval Europe -- a far cry from modern southern California. In making their epics, the Americans appropriate legends from Europe and elsewhere and instill the characters with the personality of Uncle Sam.
There is no doubt that it makes a great combination. In China, oddly enough -- where filmmakers have nearly 5,000 years of history from which to pick plots -- the focus is always upon a few personages from a couple of historical periods. Time and time again, the indomitable Emperor Qinshihuang -- the nation's first emperor -- goes to his doom on the screen and only to be revived and dusted off for the next film. Add to those a few tales from the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), and you have moviegoers that are no longer going to movies.
The fact is China has a brilliant history and fascinating culture that offer a multitude of plots, if only filmmakers would use them. The legend of Tang Dynasty (618–907) Xuanzang's pilgrimage to the west and the amazing life experiences of the wandering poet Li Bai (701–762) remain virtually untouched treasure troves.
Insufficient funds. The average investment in this summer's American epic films topped
US$100 million, an enormous figure to the Chinese. Back in 2001, director Feng Xiaogang won the favor of Columbia Pictures Entertainment, which gave him US$3 million to shoot his Big Shot's Funeral. Many Chinese envied Feng's good fortune, but the sum was the smallest that Columbia placed in Asia that year. The standard joke is that Chinese filmmakers are so used to being poor that even if they acquired US$200 million, they wouldn't know how to use it.
But that really isn't an issue, since no one is inclined to dump that amount of money into a stagnant film industry tortured by pirated products. American filmmakers need to have confidence in recovering their costs, and that confidence is based on a sound distribution system, strict industry rules and the support of a large and loyal movie-going audience.
Backstage low-tech. An essential element of a successful epic movie is special effects, which are as numberless as grains of sand on the beach. For example, the computer-generated effects used in The Lord of the Rings and the Matrix trilogy compelled admiration. The makers of Troy created a great war using only 500 people, with the remainder consisting of figures produced on a computer.
These technologies and techniques are vulnerable spots in China's already-ailing film industry. What's more, before the effects can be generated, the concepts are needed. For many Chinese, animation and cartoons are simple images for children, so we lack a group of talented and creative animators. Specialists in 3D modeling and motion capturing are needed to help the animators finish their work. These kinds of professionals are rare in China but can be found easily in the United States, in such companies as George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic and Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks.
A drought in creative juices. One Chinese director insisted that he could top Schindler's List with a film about the Nanjing Massacre. "The Japanese intruders are by no means inferior to the Nazis in violence," he said. He geared up and prepared to trounce Spielberg at the box office with his masterpiece. But it came as no surprise to onlookers that his film quickly disappeared into the dim mists of flophood.
Many a filmmaker has sought to cash in on Ang Lee's critical and popular hit with own kung fu epics. For some time, numerous forgettable crouching tigers and hidden dragons duked it out on China's silver screens, but most of them would have done better to stay hidden.
Critic Gao Jun says that to shoot a wonderful epic film, the director should accumulate a wealth of experience in life and have a deep understanding of history as well as literature and art. Only a few domestic filmmakers -- Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Jiang Wen and a handful of others -- can meet that exacting demand.
(China.org.cn by Li Xiao, July 13, 2004)
