Silver screen takes on a new dimension

Chinese cinema has been affected by the country's dramatic economic growth, but mainstream European audiences are largely unaware of it.

"There has been a huge transformation," explains Berry. "Twenty years ago, China's cinema seemed to be in total decline and it was assumed that after China joined the World Trade Organization, Hollywood would take over. But careful management to ensure that Hollywood could not own all the distribution and exhibition chains, combined with a wide program of movie theatre building and investment in local cinema has led to a revival of the local industry at the same time as the Chinese market has become the second most valuable in the world after Hollywood. Soon it will be the most valuable.

"Chinese filmmakers have also learned how to make popular genre movies that can compete with Hollywood cinema."

Realizing its huge box office potential, Hollywood has begun to attach more importance to the Chinese market and collaboration between the film industries of China and the US is at an all-time high.

This collaboration has spawned a kind of Hollywood-style creativity in Chinese cinema as it takes on the US film industry at its own game, according to Berry, but it is a very limited kind of creativity that sticks to a stereotypical image of the Orient.

"I am afraid that Orientalism still rules, whether it is in art cinema or in blockbusters," Berry says. "That is why the only kind of Chinese blockbuster to succeed in Europe and elsewhere are the martial arts films."

Within China itself though, there have been changes. Among them is the convergence of cinema from Hong Kong and the mainland.

According to Berry, it is impossible to say if many films are Hong Kong or mainland anymore. "This is because the main audience for Hong Kong films is now the mainland audience.

"At the same time, a low budget independent cinema has emerged to cater to Hong Kong audiences concerned with local issues and local identities on the mainland. As well as the rise of a high-budget, popular genre cinema, the other story for quite a while now has been the existence of a parallel world of independent cinemas whose existence is not acknowledged by the authorities, and whose room to grow is severely limited as a result."

That situation could change though. The government ruled last month that directors no longer have to submit screenplays for official review and approval, although they will still go through China's stringent censorship process.

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