Chinese screenwriters get awards

Wolf Warrior 2 scriptwriers won the Screenwriter Carnival event's top honor, The Most Concerned Movie Screenplay of the Year. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Screenwriter Carnival gathered around 5,000 writers of film scripts, producers and critics in Beijing on Saturday.

The event is organized by Bianjubang, a popular online platform for scriptwriters.

Chinese films Wolf Warrior 2 and Brotherhood of Blades II: The Infernal Battlefield won this year's top honors at the event.

With a box-office total of 5.6 billion yuan ($850 million), the special force-themed Wolf Warrior 2 has become China's highest-grossing film ever.

"It will help our confidence grow in creating good stories," said Lu Yang, the director of the second film in the Brotherhood series that follows the adventures of a 17th-century imperial guard.

The Advisors Alliance bagged the award for being the “most concerned screenplay of the year” among TV shows in China and the best online series award went to Candle in the Tomb.

"As a producer, I usually receive around 800 scripts every year. But most of them cannot be used to shoot a movie or a TV series as the stories are too dry and similar," Fang Li, an established producer, said about the importance of finding a script that is different as well as enjoyable by viewers.

"I hope young writers can open their eyes or tour to more places to know more about the world," Fang added.

Jiang Defu, the general manager of Wanda Media Co Ltd, said about 44 percent of the moviegoers on the Chinese mainland are between the ages 25 and 39. In addition, some foreign films, mostly from Hollywood, continue to make money in the country, putting pressure on domestic films.

"Chinese audiences are becoming more picky and demanding," Jiang said. "But it might be a blessing in disguise. The local industry needs to focus more on creating quality stories."