FOCUS ON ENTERTAINMENT: What Is Wrong With China’s Entertainment Business?
By Vivian Guo
For quite some time now I haven’t found any movies or pieces of music made in China decent enough for me to appreciate without disappointment. What I hear, read and see everyday in China’s entertainment industry is endless commercial promotions that feel empty and meaningless.
Quite often I wait months and even years for a movie or a music album to be released from the first time I get some amazing information about it from the press only to find out that it is just some commercial trash again. For example, movies made in Hong Kong, which used to be our pride are more and more commercialized nowadays. All the stories are so similar and meaningless that it seems the stars are the only product that the movie producers are selling to the audience. What made things worse?
Ever since “Hidden Dragon, Crouching Tiger” hit the Academy Awards, Chinese movie directors, the famous ones in particular, have put all their hearts into pursuing movie awards of various kinds, which is just another way of promotion. This attitude makes the movies so difficult to understand that they have not gotten anywhere close to real art but a lot farther away from the audience.
Let us take “Hero,” directed by Yi Mou Zhang, for instance. Zhang claimed that “Hero” was going to compete for the year’s Best Foreign Film Oscar from the first day of shooting. Then there was all the promotion about the movie upon its premiere. The movie turned out to be a huge commercial success; but it was an even huger disappointment to the audience. However, Director Zhang showed his indifference towards all the critical feedback and proclaimed himself satisfied with the money he had made on the film. “Hero” was a typical money-oriented as well as award-oriented movie full of stars and beautiful scenes. It was also a distortion of Chinese history and a ridiculous story, by the way. It ended up winning a huge commercial profit, a lot of critical feedback that almost destroyed Zhang’s reputation, and, ironically, no awards.
I believe that what makes entertainment entertaining is good art instead of thunderous propaganda or abstruse ideas. However, China’s entertainment business seems to have put the cart before the horse, which will only do harm to its growth. I sincerely hope that one day China’s entertainment can be as good as it is promoted.
For quite some time now I haven’t found any movies or pieces of music made in China decent enough for me to appreciate without disappointment. What I hear, read and see everyday in China’s entertainment industry is endless commercial promotions that feel empty and meaningless.
Quite often I wait months and even years for a movie or a music album to be released from the first time I get some amazing information about it from the press only to find out that it is just some commercial trash again. For example, movies made in Hong Kong, which used to be our pride are more and more commercialized nowadays. All the stories are so similar and meaningless that it seems the stars are the only product that the movie producers are selling to the audience. What made things worse?
Ever since “Hidden Dragon, Crouching Tiger” hit the Academy Awards, Chinese movie directors, the famous ones in particular, have put all their hearts into pursuing movie awards of various kinds, which is just another way of promotion. This attitude makes the movies so difficult to understand that they have not gotten anywhere close to real art but a lot farther away from the audience.
Let us take “Hero,” directed by Yi Mou Zhang, for instance. Zhang claimed that “Hero” was going to compete for the year’s Best Foreign Film Oscar from the first day of shooting. Then there was all the promotion about the movie upon its premiere. The movie turned out to be a huge commercial success; but it was an even huger disappointment to the audience. However, Director Zhang showed his indifference towards all the critical feedback and proclaimed himself satisfied with the money he had made on the film. “Hero” was a typical money-oriented as well as award-oriented movie full of stars and beautiful scenes. It was also a distortion of Chinese history and a ridiculous story, by the way. It ended up winning a huge commercial profit, a lot of critical feedback that almost destroyed Zhang’s reputation, and, ironically, no awards.
I believe that what makes entertainment entertaining is good art instead of thunderous propaganda or abstruse ideas. However, China’s entertainment business seems to have put the cart before the horse, which will only do harm to its growth. I sincerely hope that one day China’s entertainment can be as good as it is promoted.
2 Comments:
At 10:23 AM , Robinjmmj said...
There must be sth wrong with China's entertainment business, but what the article has mentioned is apparently not the point. And, Personally, I love "Hero".
At 2:02 PM , Brendan said...
Very good post - I enjoyed reading it.
I agree that the overwhelming commercialization of Chinese cinema is disheartening; however, I think that in part it's a product of how difficult it can be to get some movies made and released in China. A number of very fine movies which have won international awards - 鬼子来了, directed by 姜文, is the first movie that comes to mind - have not been officially released in the mainland. (Of course, most of them are available in pirated form in local CD and DVD stores, but the directors of the movies see no money from that.) As a result, there's no incentive to make such films.
I will say, though, that one of my favorite Chinese directors is both a commercial and artistic success. I love 王家卫's films, and am eagerly awaiting the US release of '2046.'
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