bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

SCMP Reporter

Genuine discs in shops just three days after HK hit's big-screen debut

If you can't beat them, join them, film distributors have decided.

Just three days after cinemas began screening Infernal Affairs III, they have flooded Beijing shops with DVDs of the police thriller - hoping to beat pirates at their own game.

Already, vendors are packing away their pirated copies in favour of the real thing. In the capital's  Xicheng district, Li Xiaohai said: 'This morning I got the high-quality copies of Infernal Affairs III from my supplier. [On Sunday]  I had only poor-quality versions shot inside the cinema.'

The discs - which carry a warning, 'For Sale in Mainland Only' - have a Putonghua soundtrack without subtitles.

The Hong Kong film's mainland distributor said most of the VCDs and DVDs on sale were genuine. Official versions cost the same as fakes - as little as eight yuan.

'It is our strategy to fight against the piracy by flooding the market with authentic and legal products at an extremely low price,' said Ouyang Xinpeng,  media manager for the Guangzhou-based distributor Zoke Culture Company. Big-screen hits including Infernal Affairs II, Warriors of Heaven and Earth and Running on Karma have been fast-tracked to film vendors by Zoke Culture in the past six months.

'Our products now occupy about 70 per cent of the market, as opposed to 60 per cent for the fakes in the past,' Mr Ouyang said. 'We lost profits from them all, but we believe that all this effort is worthwhile to squeeze fake producers out of the market.'

The distributors do not believe their sales impact on cinemas' takings. Cao Jinghai,  from Zoke's Beijing office, said: 'We target different groups of people. Watching films in cinemas and sitting down to see a DVD at home are very different.'

But with legitimate, high-quality discs retailing for barely a sixth of the average price of a cinema ticket, there is no doubt Beijing cinemas are suffering.   Xing Yan,  of the UME International Cineplex in Beijing, said the disc's release had 'definitely' affected takings.   'We have already seen ticket sales  drop enormously from  the first three days.'



Movie firms fast-track DVDs to kill infernal trade in fakes