Chinawood?
2010-11-09 4:51AM / 標準BLOG
/ 會員可以看
2個評論
Actually I've heard of that word before. I think there are a couple of companies out there, or film funds, named that. To me, it represents the movement, or rather the attempted movement for now, of the Chinese film community to globalize their product, i.e. - make films that people the world over, and especially the West, will clamor to go see. Much like the way Hollywood movies get eaten up like soup dumplings in China.
It's no secret that all things China currently are interested in breaking the mold and finding mainstream success the world over. Chinese cars, appliances, food, electronic chips, athletic apparel, and, yes, films are trying to find audiences outside of China and the US tops the list.
I'll admit, I'm as curious as anyone to see whether this will work. And while a US-China co-production such as the Karate Kid remake this summer seems to suggest something like that would work on both sides of the Pacific, what about mainstream pure Chinese films finding commercialized success over here? Not Crouching Tiger, Jackie Chan martial arts stuff. Not art house cinema where there are pockets of sophisticated people in cities like New York or LA who might enjoy a Zhang Yimou flick or two, but mainstream Chinese fare finding mainstream American audiences. If America's top film can sell the hell out of China, can China's top film sell the hell out of America?
I missed it in Shanghai this summer, so last night, I found myself trekking to a theatre on 3rd Ave to catch the recently released Chinese blockbuster hit Aftershock. It was all the rage in China this summer. It's going to be China's foreign film Oscar submission. I'd heard mixed things, but still, I wanted to see it. Anything Chinese I get to see in the States makes me feel like I'm back there and that's a feeling I like.
Granted, it was a Sunday night. Granted, it was kinda cold. Granted, the New York City Marathon was earlier in the day so maybe the city was just plained tired.
But last night on 3rd Ave, at a mainstream movie theater in which films like Due Date and Paranormal Activity 2 are playing, and where there was decent business at least from the looks of the people in the lobby, I was the ONLY person in the Aftershock screening. There's been a recent rash of beg bugs in NYC and they say they are hiding out in movie theaters, but I bet you even the bed bugs weren't in this one.
I love having whole theaters to myself. I mean, it's great. I'll take that anytime over a crowded theater. But insofar as to what it seems like America's reception to China's top box-office hit has been? Between my own experience and
what a journalist in Washington DC's experience was recently, lukewarm doesn't even seem to be the right word.
Some people are getting the bold idea to put top Chinese commercial films in theaters in the US that aren't necessarily art house cinemas (as talked about in this Washington Time article), and while I think it's an interesting thought, me thinks, sadly, it may die a quick death.
Will Chinese fare ever find a home on commercialized soil in the US? (We're going to
keep trying.) Will the numbers ever support it? I'd like to think Americans will one day embrace things that are more than just their own, but it's so hard to see right now when the majority of people here keep gobbling up things like the Jersey Shore or another Fey/Carrell/Dr. Ken (I hate Dr. Ken) film. After all, even the singular me (it was touching, but uneven by the way) went in on a free ticket.
BLOG評論 (2)