New rise in Chinese film market vicissitudes

People are seen at a cinema in Xuchang, Henan province, July 13, 2013. China's film industry received a handsome report card in the first half of this year, when domestically-made movies took up a whopping 62 percent of the country's total box office revenue. [Photo by Geng Guoqing / Asianewsphoto]

BEIJING -- China's film industry received a handsome report card in the first half of this year, when domestically-made movies took up a whopping 62 percent of the country's total box office revenue.

While the fortunes of China's box offices and film producers have ebbed and flowed throughout the industry's history of over 100 years, developing audience demand, regulatory and market conditions have seen both crest once again.

Nationwide, cinemas grossed a total of 11 billion yuan ($1.79 billion) in ticket sales from January to June, of which more than 6.8 billion yuan came from domestic films, according to figures released on Wednesday by the State General Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

Domestic blockbusters such as action-adventure "Switch," "American dreams in China," "So Young" and coming-of-age drama "Tiny Times" have dominated the summer screen.

Though feedback from audiences and film critics have varied, the debates these films have prompted seem to have simply stimulated more moviegoers to open their wallets.

"Tiny Times" alone has pocketed more than 460 million yuan in box office revenue since its premiere on June 27.

The feature film set in contemporary Shanghai made headlines after it beat Hollywood blockbuster "Man of Steel" in terms of opening-day box office records.

The movie, which tells of four college girls' romances and budding careers, stirred controversies for its plot, which some critics said "stressed young people's lust for luxury."

Even US magazine The Atlantic published an article rebuking the film as "a great leap backward for women," saying "its vulgar and utter lack of self-awareness is astonishing."

Its author-turned director Guo Jingming appeared unperturbed by the bombardment. "The audience is changing, but films are not," he said. "It's the elephant in the room that you pretend not to see."

Urbanization sweeps cinemas

Some critics attribute the recent success of domestic films to pulling in a wider audience from the nation's small and medium-sized cities, where going to the cinema has become a way of life quite recently.

Another reason behind the hit, they say, is that films nowadays are "beginning to show the real lives of ordinary people."

"The group of what is called the new urbanites have become regular moviegoers as the urbanization drive sweeps across China," said Liu Haibo, an associate professor from the Film School of Shanghai University.

"New urbanites" refers to young people born in the late 1980s who live in second- and third-tier cities and demand a richer cultural life as their formerly under-developed home cities become more modern, according to Liu.

Ye Xindai was one such new urbanite. Born in a small village in Yongchun Township of Fuzhou City, in east China's Fujian Province, he is now a film critic based in Beijing.

"Cinemas in my hometown are closely following the footsteps of big cities nowadays, and a growing number of young people spend weekends and holidays seeing movies," said Ye, 22.

In the early 1990s, when he was still a teenager, cinemas in his remote hometown were mostly on the verge of closing down, as young people back then would rather kill time in video rooms or at home watching pirated DVDs.

Ye himself only entered a cinema for the first time in 2002, when he was attending Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, capital of the rich eastern province of Zhejiang.