Movies for the masses

CLIFFORD COONANon the experience of going to the movies in China, where cinemas may screen only a small quota of western films each year. But this may change soon

MY CHINESE friends tell me how going to the movies used to be an underwhelming experience: a draughty hall showing propaganda movies or a 1970s action film such as Sea Wolvesprojected on to a factory wall to a distracted audience sitting on hard seats, smoking furiously.

This kind of cinema still exists, and the government does run a special unit that shows films on the barn walls of collective farms and on screens in works’ canteens. But the past few years have seen the speedy rise of the modern bells-and-whistles multiplex in the cities, such as the capital, Beijing, and those of the eastern seaboard, such as Shanghai, as well as big regional cities such as Chongqing. But while the hardware has improved at an impressive pace, the software – ie, the film on the screen – remains a problem as censors keep a tight grip on what gets shown. Cinema-going can still be a frustrating experience in China.

To help boost local movies, and to keep spiritual pollution from abroad to a minimum, the screening of foreign movies is tightly controlled in China – there is a quota system that permits only 20 foreign films per year to be released. Plus, there are regular blackout periods for foreign movies to boost domestic fare. Most films made in China are propaganda pieces that will never be released outside the country, and there are plenty planned for this year’s 60th anniversary of the Communist ascent to power.

As a result, the vast majority of my experiences as a film buff in China have been small-screen ones. China's pirate DVD shops offer masterclasses in cinema history in a way that would be simply impossible in the West: boxed sets of Wim Wenders' entire oeuvre for less than it costs to buy Wings of Desire in Ireland, or the collected early films of Peter Greenaway for less than it costs to rent The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. You can find obscure films by Krzysztof Kieslowski that I have struggled long to track down in the West, packaged along with everything else he made.

Around Oscar time, the nominated films flood the pirate DVD shops as screening copies somehow become available to the pirate community. Every film fan in China becomes an honorary member of the Academy for those weeks, offering up their views on Kate Winslet’s performance in The Reader over dumplings in a restaurant, or asking whether Slumdog Millionaire is better than The Full Monty.

The answer, it seems, is "yes", at least as far as Chinese audiences are concerned. Slumdog Millionairewas greenlighted by the censors recently and is screening in 1,000 cinemas across China, a pretty impressive showing. Crucially, the Film Bureau said it would also consider opening up avenues for other Oscar winners to show in China.

None of this has any impact on the broader cinema-going public, of course. The Chinese film business is growing by 33 per cent a year, and is not expected to be affected by the slowdown in the economy. This growth has largely been driven by the rise in the number of cinema screens. Even so, there are still less than 4,000 screens in China, which translates into one per 320,000 people, compared with one screen per 8,000 people in the US.

Nowadays, going to the movies in China shares many of the characteristics of the experience in the West – the feeling of being aggressively marketed to by the concession stands as you approach the door to the theatre, then the comfortable experience of sitting back in the padded pews before the ads come on.

Telling Chinese people to turn off their mobile phones is like telling them to stop breathing for the duration of the film, but at least most turn them to silent. Which doesn’t mean every movie isn’t interrupted by four or five conversations, but you get used to this – hell, this happens at the opera, so why not at the movies? You pay €5 for a ticket, a hefty whack in a country where that’s the equivalent of a week’s wages for much of the population, to say nothing of the price of the popcorn, soft drinks and beer. But for many Chinese, going to the cinema is a totally new experience, and one they adore.

Going to the cinema has become a lifestyle option, an obvious sign of wealth, but it's one that is underwritten by better and more popular Chinese films – such as Red Cliffby Hong Kong legend John Woo; a number of films by local hero Feng Xiaogang, who can turn his hand to witty comedies ( Cellphone) and epic battle pictures ( Assembly); and Jia Zhangke, who has won a Golden Lion at Venice, are serving up good movies that will someday, hopefully, make an impact in the West.

At Filmart in Hong Kong last month, the Chinese government announced a free market zone in Shanghai where controls on imported movies would be relaxed and local film-makers will be encouraged to “go global” and export worldwide. The launch had some people in the business forecasting a weakening of the quota system, which was introduced after the China joined the World Trade Organisation in 2002.

Any softening on foreign imports is unlikely as long as the Communist Party is running the show and deciding what gets screened and what doesn’t. The main focus of the censors is to encourage domestic fare and to keep politically suspect (or erotic, or supernatural) foreign films out of China.

A big debate at the moment is whether China will implement its first film classification system after the all-powerful State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (Sarft) submitted a new law to the cabinet.

Currently, films are deemed either suitable for all audiences or unsuitable, in which case censors cut entire scenes or ban the movie – both drastic steps considering that scripts must be approved before a movie goes into production. And it means that anyone can go to see any kind of film, with no distinction made between adults and children.

Local film-makers believe a ratings system would be a major advance for Chinese films, replacing the censor’s scissors with reliable and predictable classifications and allowing directors and producers to take more risks with content.

There have been some dramatic exceptions to censorship. Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, an erotic thriller set in 1930s Shanghai with scenes of violent sex and a sympathetic Japanese collaborator, seemed destined not to be shown on the mainland. (Lee's Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountainhad previously been banned.) Instead, the Film Bureau let Lust, Cautionthrough, with just two particularly graphic sex scenes cut.

The story among film-makers is that, weeks later, someone in the Politburo (the country’s top echelon of power) noticed the film’s steamy, politically incorrect subject matter and went crazy. Punishment – a ban – was meted out to Tang Wei, the female lead who is from mainland China and the only major figure the government could get at (Lee is Taiwanese and star Tony Leung is from Hong Kong). The censorship climate has been frosty since then.

For the time being, it’s safer to stay at home with my popcorn and my arthouse box-sets. But Red Cliff really had to be seen in the cinema, and these days, I can say I’m definitely getting out to the movies more.

Red Cliffopens in Ireland on June 19th