A still from Useless Man (MTIME.COM)

The first half of year 2013 saw great box office successes for Chinese films, with revenues grossing 10.91 trillion yuan ($1.78 billion). Yu Dong, founder and CEO of Bona Film Group, estimates China's yearly film revenue will reach $10 billion by 2018.

East West Bank Executive Vice President Bennett Pozil agrees. He says China's film revenue will probably surpass America's in four years.

But insiders worry about severe problems in spite of rapid growth.

Behind the scenes

Huge investments and A-listers barely stir audiences and mimicry of star-studded Hollywood affairs bring little benefit to domestic filmmaking.

"It is not who stars the film that counts, but whether the cast are compatible with the film," said Wang Changtian, president of Beijing Enlight Media, citing the example of comedy Lost in Thailand (2012), which broke records by grossing 1.26 billion yuan ($200 million).

Budgets soared as revenues surge, yet the ascendant remuneration for celebrities and famous directors only "spoiled" them and brought malignant competition to the film industry, Yu noted.

Xu Zheng, director and lead actor of Lost in Thailand, alluded to the notorious failure of Switch (2013) to tell a coherent story despite costing 160 million yuan ($26 million).

"The essence of a film is the story itself. Why didn't the director invite a good scriptwriter when he employed a fabulous production team from Hollywood?" said Xu.

Compared to Switch, Yu said low budget films such as Lost in Thailand as well as American Dreams in China (2013), So Young (2013) and Love Is Not Blind (2011) cater to the storytelling preferences of Chinese moviegoers.

Arbitrary screening schedules force multiplex cinemas to show the same blockbusters simultaneously and back-to-back to rake in the big bucks, to the detriment of cultural diversity. Tiny Times (2013) had a decidedly less-than-diminuitive premier, taking up more than 45 percent of screening schedules in 20 major cities across China.

"In France, no film should be allowed to occupy a third of the daily screening schedule at any cinema," blogged director Jia Zhangke, who won the Gold Lion at the Venice International Film Festival in 2006 and best script for A Touch of Sin at Cannes in 2013.

The "director-centered" rule is another malady of Chinese filmmaking, says Wang Zhongjun, Chairman of the Board of Huayi Brothers Media Group, who indicates that baseless traditional reverence for auteurship might be due to a lack of good directors.

According to Taylor Hackford, the president of the Directors Guild of America, only a few directors, such as Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg, have the right to make final cuts in Hollywood and directors and producers should comply with contracts during filmmaking. In the eye of Li Shaohong, the president of China's Association of Film Directors, China's film industry is stepping into a producer-centered mode.

Pang Hong, producer of Painted Skin (2008) and Painted Skin: The Resurrection (2012), believes a producer-centered mode makes the producer responsible for films' success or failure in the market.

New hope

Although severe problems lie inside of the industry, there is room for innovation. Useless Man (2012), an art film shortlisted in the 2013 Beijing International Film Festival, tested the waters for successful independent filmmaking.

It tells the tragic story of a gang of con artists shortly before the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945). It cost a mere 1.5 million yuan ($245,000) to shoot in just 22 days.

Independent films in China are mainly screened by online movie critics and non-governmental exhibition planners.

Zheng Dasheng, director of Useless Man, comes from a long line of filmmakers and studied independent film production in the United States. Zheng said that he and producer Sun Yan budgeted hourly costs and thanks to accurate planning, they stayed in the black.

"Though the scale is limited, it is a very good channel for the exhibition of art films," said Zheng.

"Independent films are flourishing in China's film industry," Zheng continued. "I believe complete chains of independent films will soon be formed in our film industry."

(Source: Guangzhou Daily)