In advance of the success of Yellow Earth, cinematographer Zhang Yimou screened an anti-Japanese war movie called One and Eight, which the fifth generation filmmakers hoped would be a complete departure from other anti-Japanese movies. “We must be different, totally different!” Zhang would remind his colleagues.

In fact, directors such as Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou placed more emphasis on mise-en-scene and audiovisual effects, sparing no effort in creating verisimilitude and trying to avoid common faults of many Chinese movies, such as politicization, phoniness and lack of depth.

After a rebellious childhood, the fifth generation began to mature. The directors included in this group have since received such prestigious international awards such as the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, and are still active today in the movie industry.

For a long time, Chinese filmmakers didn’t have to worry about financial details thanks to the system of state-owned studios. They didn’t have to consider the box office while creating their art, which gave them more time to work. However, starting in the 1990s, even the least profit-driven film producer would not risk investing in a project that was unlikely to recover costs. And the most dedicated filmmakers could not continue to work if their movies were not attracting audiences.

In recent years, reform of moviemaking in China has deepened, showing the determination of government officials to build a market-oriented industry. State-owned studios and film companies are no longer the sole moviemaking and distribution agencies in the country. A number of independent companies are beginning to produce films.

“Now, the biggest difference between our company and those state-owned companies is that we don’t have their vast resources and dozens of years of history. But everything else is the same,” said Wang Zhongjun, President of Huayi Brothers & Taihe Film Investment Co., a private film company that has turned out many box office hits.

Globalized Industry

“In 1997, Titanic was at the top of the box office, and my film was second, although its receipts were 10 times less than Titanic’s!” said Peter Loehr, an American film producer. In 1997, with an investment of a mere 3 million yuan ($370,000), he produced the film Spicy Love Soup, depicting urban life and love in contemporary China. To Loehr’s great satisfaction, his film earned 30 million yuan ($3.7 million).

Loehr is general manager of Imar Films (China), the first independent film production company to break the dominance of state-owned studios. In the late 1990s, independent film production companies had to be attached to a state-owned company to run a business in China. Imar Films formed a joint venture with Xi’an Film Studio. Spicy Love Soup was said to be of mixed descent, as the investors and producers were all from foreign countries. But most Chinese viewers believed it was a domestic movie, because most of the film’s shooting crew were from China.