China’s big Hollywood investment: all about making friends and influencing people
Chinese studios are on a learning curve as Sino-US film collaborations create both bombs and blockbusters
An all-singing, all-dancing musical about two struggling artistes in Hollywood; a disaster movie portraying the selfless acts of workers trapped on a burning oil rig off the Louisiana coast; a melancholic, nostalgia-tinged drama set in New Jersey during the politically turbulent 1960s. On the surface, La La Land, Deepwater Horizon and American Pastoral are as American as apple pie, each film fitting easily into the United States’ historical narrative and the social imagery of the day. But they also share another, less heralded link – Chinese money played a part in the production of these reflections on American dreams and nightmares.
Understandably, most recent debate about Sino-US film collaborations has revolved around two films boasting a very visible Chinese front-of-stage and behind-the-scenes presence.
First, there’s Zhang Yimou’s critically maligned The Great Wall. Co-produced by Universal Pictures, Legendary Entertainment, China Film Group and LeVision Pictures, the film attained moderate success in China but bombed spectacularly in the US, where even a monster-slaying Matt Damon couldn’t save it from chalking up a US$75 million loss.
And then there’s Kong: Skull Island, the King Kong reboot co-financed by the Chinese-owned Legendary Pictures and Tencent Pictures. Although the film has yet to be released in China – where it opens on March 24, two weeks after its release in Hong Kong and the US – there has already been much online discussion of the limited screen-time afforded to The Great Wall star Jing Tian. Taking fifth billing behind the Oscar-winning Brie Larson, Jing plays a biologist devoid of surname, nationality and displays of professional expertise. (Her biggest on-screen contribution is opening a can of food for a colleague.)