How Bollywood is giving Hollywood a run for its money in China
Sabena Siddiqi says Hollywood films seem to have lost their lustre in China, where domestic releases and films from India are fuelling box-office revenue
Apparently, Hollywood films are not in high demand any more, as they were not responsible for the booming numbers. Proving this point, in March when there were no domestic releases, the earnings were only half that of the previous month.
Most notable among those that created waves at the box office was Chinese action thriller Wolf Warrior 2, which accounted for 10 per cent of the total box-office earnings last year, becoming China’s top-grossing film of all time. Set in Africa and telling the story of a retired special services soldier fighting Western mercenaries, the film was China’s entry to the “best foreign language” film category at the 2018 Oscars.
Meanwhile, the Chinese audience has apparently had enough of Western films and ideals, displaying a preference for domestic cinema that portrays familiar surroundings and is more imbued with patriotism, family values and a sense of community. This despite Hollywood’s sophisticated and costly marketing campaigns and the Chinese government increasing the quota of foreign films that can be screened in the country from 20 to 34 a year since 2012.
In fact, the low-budget Secret Superstar fared far better in China than in India and made much more than Hollywood blockbusters in the first three months of 2018. Earning 760 million yuan (US$119.4 million) in China, 10 times more than it made back home, this film topped the list of cinematic imports into the country.
Exploring the rising popularity of Indian film, Tan Zheng, editor of the film magazine Dianying Yishu, said: “The stories in the Indian films are like the stories in China, stories the Chinese relate to.” Films from Spain and Thailand also did well in China in 2017.
Sure to try to rise to the challenge, Hollywood might come up with story lines and topics that could engage Chinese viewers. China is now the world’s second-largest market for film with a box-office revenue of US$8.6 billion in 2017, compared to US$11 billion in the US.
Confident that the current trends can be reversed, Jonathan Papish, a box-office analyst at China Film Insider , says: “I don’t think Hollywood is going anywhere, modern Chinese moviegoers have grown up on a steady diet of our films since the mid-’90s and that won’t suddenly disappear.”
Sabena Siddiqi is a foreign affairs journalist with a special focus on the Belt and Road Initiative, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and South Asia
