This note looks at Chinese cinema in the new Millennium from 2000 to the COVID crisis of 2020. In this period, in contrast to the 1980s and 1990s, there was an absence of great cinematic movements: there has been no Seventh Generation. This has perhaps impacted on the academic study of Chinese cinema as much work concentrated on the Fifth and Sixth Generations. But, on the positive side, it does demand a move away from a focus on auteurs and movements to a broader approach to the analysis of Chinese cinema.
Cinema from post-socialism to meta-socialism
Many authors have referred to the post-Mao period in China as postsocialist. By this is meant not simply that the period comes after socialism but rather implies a more complex analysis of the Chinese conjuncture which might summarily be described as ‘postmodernism with Chinese characteristics’.
Of course, postmodernism itself is now somewhat dated and academics have suggested a range of alternatives for post-postmodernism. Perhaps one of the more useful is metamodernism where the term ‘meta’ refers to such notions as ‘with’, ‘between’, and ‘beyond’.
To some extent, of course, this can be seen as academic entrepreneurship. However, in a Chinse context, the overall context has clearly changed dramatically from the 1980s or even 1990s and it does seem useful to mark a new era (loosely marked by China’s accession to the WTO in 2001). By analogy with the use of the terms postmodernism-postsocialist, we may call this (current) period metasocialist, i.e. a period beyond socialism but also carrying with it the legacies of socialism.
The basic structure of Chinese cinema was arguably set in the 1990s with the denationalisation of the film industry (at least partially). It is easy to forget that up to the end of the 1980s (and since the early 1950s), all films made in mainland China were made, distributed and shown by state-owned enterprises. As part of the general opening up of Chinese economy and society, much of the film industry was transferred into private ownership and private investment was allowed. However, the CCP (I do not distinguish here between the Party and Government) retains control of significant elements of the film industry and, of course, strict censorship of what can be made and shown remains in place. So now the Chinese film industry must navigate its way between the Scylla of censorship and the Charybdis of commercial pressures.
If there is this element of continuity with the 1990s, in other ways the film industry has changed drastically. As late as 2002, only 100 domestic films were produced in China (Zhang, p. 172). Thereafter, the number of films increased dramatically so that by 2007, over 400 domestic films were made (initially spurred by an increase in TV movies). By 2019, Ruggeri reports that 1,037 films were produced in China, although only about half of these (555 films) were distributed in cinemas. The usual caveats about Chinese statistics apply but the overall trend is clear. However, this figure of 555 films in cinemas overstates the extent to which films made are actually shown (or make money) as many will have had very short runs to small audiences. In 2019, only the top 23 movies (all figures here include foreign films) took in over $100 million. The top 97 took in more than $10 million and 214 took more than $1 million.
This means that China is now making more films per annum than it did in the entire Seventeen Years (1949-1965). It also means that while one person could feasibly keep track of cinematic output in a reasonably consistent way in the 1980s or 90s (or retrospectively review it), it is now impossible for any one person realistically to view more than a minority of China’s current cinematic output.
And in terms of foreign productions, it is only since 1995 that foreign (mainly US) films were allowed to be widely shown. While there remain strict limits on how many foreign films can be shown (and when they can be shown), foreign films take up a disproportionate share of the Chinese box office (albeit that they do not dominate in the way they did back in the 1930s). So, a full picture of Chinese cinema would need to take into account the impact of such non-Chinese movies. However, my focus here is on Chinese-made movies.
(More broadly, the 2000s have seen ‘the visual’ expand well beyond the bounds of traditional cinema (or TV). This phenomenon has been discussed by Voci and others. However, this goes far beyond the scope of this note.)
Cinematic genres
The Mainstream
Main melody cinema
One of the more interesting genres in Chinse cinema (in theory if not in practice) is the main melody (or leitmotif) film [主旋律]. This has been described as ‘films that embody official ideologies promoted by the state’ or films that ‘transmit the ideologies and values acknowledged by the CCP and the country in order to educate the public’. In practice, these films focus on nationalism (given that the CCP is not in any sense communist).
As Zeng Yuli explains main melody films transmit’the preferred social values of the Communist Party of China to the masses. By definition, a successful main melody film should exemplify China’s national spirit and unite the people in praising the historical achievements of the party, army, and the Chinese revolution’.
A number of different types of main melody may be seen. The most basic are biopics of famous leaders and films about events which feature them (such as the Founding of a Republic and the Beginning of the Great Revival). Second, there are films about particular battles and campaigns (stretching now to the Eight Hundred which involved KMT rather than CCP soldiers). Then there are films which show ordinary (and extraordinary) people (often Party members) making their contribution to China (as in The Captain or My People, My Country). Finally, there are films linked to specific campaigns and tropes such as Fatal Decision (2000) or Basic Interests (2004) by Main Melody specialist Feng Xiaoning.
The directors formerly known as the Fifth Generation have played a prominent role in making these films. Huang Jianxin’s career path from absurdism to absurd is particularly marked but Chen Kaige was general director of My People, My Country while Zhang Yimou is general executive producer of My People, My Homeland.
Of course, there is no perfect dividing line between main melody and non-main melody films. Some categorise Assembly as main melody while director Feng Xiaogang himself distinguishes it from main melody films as his characters are more human and flawed.
It should be noted that similar films can be seen in many other countries. Hollywood has long produced pro-US propaganda and the CIA influence on Hollywood is well known while, in a Brexit-battered UK, Dunkirk and Darkest Hour have reassured the benighted Brits that they survived before when the Continent cut itself off.
Popular Cinema (commercial films)
Unsurprisingly, the vast bulk of films made and released in China are mainstream commercial or popular films. These cover a wide range of genres including action, fantasy, drama, comedy, romance, martial arts and/or war. Films frequently combine a range of different genres. Some genres such as martial arts have a long history in Chinese (though not necessarily mainland) cinema.
However, others such as romcoms hardly existed before 2000 but now feature strongly with stars such as Bai Baihe (right) specialising in these roles.
In contrast to most other East Asian countries horror films hardly feature (although there are several low-budget mainly online films). This is due to the censor’s rejection of superstition and it rather defeats the purpose to have a horror movie for which there is a rational explanation. Crime films are very popular but again are somewhat constrained by censorship in that it is, for example, difficult to suggest any police corruption (a staple of crime films elsewhere) and people must always pay for their crimes.
Given the multi-ethnic nature of Chinese society, there is a long tradition of ‘ethnic’ films such as Tuya’s Marriage (2006) (albeit a very small proportion of the total output). These tend to attract a small audience and are often aimed at an arthouse audience.
Countercurrents
Given the tight control over Chinese cinema, commercially successful films which are explicitly critical of Chinese government are rare, though the surprise hit Dying to Survive was a big success in 2018. Countercurrent tendencies are more likely to be found in mid-range films and obscure arthouse movies.
There are (following on a tradition of such films from at least the 1980s) a range of films looking at social problems such as the scarifying Judge (2009) (death penalty); Blind Mountain (2007) (bride abduction); Dearest (2014) (child abduction), and Baby (2018) (disabled children).
My favourite countercultural films are those involving fractured time, dislocated reality, violence and anomie where nothing is as it seems (or rather things both are and are not what they appear). These include Lou Ye’s Mystery (2012) and The Shadow Play (2018); Li Yu’s Double Xposure (2012) and films such as Memory of Love (2009), Blue Amber (2018), My Town (2019) and Summer of Changsha (2019). If film noir captured the Zeitgeist of a dramatically changing and unequal USA in the post-war period, so this brand of metanoir captures the spirit of twenty-first century China.
There is a very limited tradition of Chinese women’s films, let alone feminist films (though see Cui; Hemelryk Donald; and Wang). This situation has not improved greatly in the last 20 years though there are limited exceptions (main melody films tend to be particularly weak from a gender perspective). Li Yu has consistently focussed on women in her films beginning with China’s first lesbian movie Fish and Elephant (2001), through Dam Street (2005), Lost in Beijing (2007) and Buddha Mountain (2010) to Double Xposure. Yao Chen (as actor and producer) has also brought a woman’s perspective to mainstream cinema in films like Lost, Found (2018) and Send me to the Clouds (2019). However, a focus on women is much more likely to be found in smaller/arthouse films like MeiLi (2018); Female Directors (2102); Girls Always Happy (2018); The Widowed Witch (2017); Longing for the Rain (2013); and Spring Tide (2019).
One area where there have been a number of exciting films about young woman is in a recent stream of coming-of-age films some of which have got a cinema release and have attracted a decent audience including The Crossing (2019), Angels Wear White (2017), Egg and Stone (2012), and The Foolish Bird (2017).
Given the official stance on LGBT issues, there are no mainstream films which deal with this topic and one has to look for online films (like A Girl named Lily or Lost in You (2006)) or films made in but released outside China (like Lan Yu (2001)) or only seen at festivals or unofficially like Fish and Elephant and MeiLi.
The definition of arthouse films (‘a film that is intended to be a serious artistic work rather than a piece of popular entertainment’) is, of course, highly subjective. Such films make up a small percentage of China’s total film output. However, significant numbers of small independent/art films continue to be made in China. The Douban database indicates that (depending on the definition) tens or even hundreds of such films have been made since 2000 and the (recently closed) Chinese Independent Film Festival (CIFF) has shown around 1,000 films including features and documentaries since 2003.
The quality varies widely. For every Four Ways to Die in My Hometown (2012, above) there are several tedious Tibetan tales or an Oxhide. Even in the arthouse field, there is little in the way of cinematic innovation and the typical Chinese arthouse movie tends to use long takes of largely static characters not doing much. Sometimes, this can provide engaging cinema (Winter Vacation (2010) or Here, Then (2012)) but not always.
There is also an active documentary film movement in China which is often quite critical of government and society with films such as Petition (2009), Disorder (2009), and Plastic China (2016). However, it is not possible to discuss this in detail here (see Berry et al; Edwards).
Box office and award winners
It is, of course, impossible to provide a detailed analysis of all Chinese films. However, we have looked at two sources: first the top 10 box offices Chinese films for the period 2000-2019 and, second, the winners of the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers awards from 2001 to 2020. This provides a listing of both commercial and official recognition of the ‘best’ films. The first list provides 200 films while the second provides 33 excluding overlaps (there is very little overlap between the two awards and in some years there were joint winners). There is considerable overlap between the two lists although, especially in the early 2000s, the award bodies were inclined to select films which were not commercially successful.
| Genre | Box Office 2000-19 | Golden Rooster 2001-19 | Hundred Flowers 2001-20 | |
| Main melody | 23 | 7 | 9 | |
| War | 5 | 1 | 1 | |
| Martial arts | 13 | 0 | 1 | |
| Crime | 12 | 0 | 1 | |
| Drama & comedy | 145 | 8 | 7 | |
| Scifi | 1 | 1 | 0 | |
| Anime | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| Countercurrent | (3) | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 200 | 17 | 18 |
It should be noted that the top 10 Chinese films were not the 10 most popular films of the year in China and, in some years close to 20 of the top 30 films were non-Chinese (for this exercise I have included HK and Taiwanese films as Chinese).
Main melody films make up over one-in-ten (11.5%) of the top box office films with an increased number (3-4) in the anniversary years of 2009 and 2019. Indeed the 2019 films are much more successful both as cinema and as commercial enterprises than many of the earlier films – commercial films with Main Melody characteristics. Some have seen this as leading to the death of Main Melody films but it seems more accurate to say that the films are just more subtle and less (traditionally) propogandist. This reflects the fact that (a) the traditional message has changed and (b) both party and film makers have realised that better films are required to attract audiences.
Otherwise the top ten is (unsurprisingly) made up of commercial films. There are no arthouse or ‘independent’ films at all in the 200 films included here. Many films cross genres (action, drama and comedy or drama, war and martial arts) so it is difficult to come to any definitive classification. However, most involve action, fantasy, drama, comedy and/or romance. Martial arts films make up about 6-7% of the total as do crime films (many from Hong Kong or by HK filmmakers). Anime and scifi hardly feature although the recent success of Nezha and The Wandering Earth may change that. Horror also hardly features (as discussed due to censorship restrictions).
In contrast, reflecting official approval, main melody films make up over 40% of those receiving the best film award in either the Hundred Flowers or Golden Rooster. These include recent big box office hits such as My People, My Country and the first two in the Founding trilogy (the tedious Founding of a Republic and the dire Beginning of the Great Revival). But they also include films which were not commercially successful and which receive derisory scores on Douban such as Shenzhou 11.
Again the (non-leitmotif) winning films are mainly action, drama and comedy. Crime barely features (perhaps due to the HK influence) though The Dead End did win the Hundred Flowers in 2016. In the earlier years, especially in the Hundred Flowers, the awards did include films which were not amongst the top box office movies such as Mountain Patrol (2004) or Pretty Big Feet (2002) (alongside main melody and commercial films) but more recently the awards go mainly to big box office films and, disproportionately, main melody films (even when the latter don’t do so well commercially).
Feng Xiaogang is probably the director who appears most often both in the box office and award listings (though his more subversive I am not Madam Bovary (2016) is not included). Directors who emerged as part of (or at the time of) the Fifth Generation, such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Huang Jianxin (all now firmly part of the mainstream despite occasional attempts to claim otherwise) also feature. However, no director who emerged as part of the Sixth Generation (such as the festival favourites Wang Xiaoshui or Jia Zhangke) has made it either into the top 10 or the awards.
Literally a handful of box office films might be described as countercurrent as used here: in 2001 we have The Marriage Certificate, a lightly satirical film about Chinese bureaucracy, the ‘horror-romance’ Baober in Love in 2004, and in 2018 there is Dying to Survive a commercial film but one highly critical of government cancer-care policy. I would not categorise any award-winning film as countercurrent. Unsurprisingly, there is very little (if any) overlap between films which are either commercially or officially successful in China and those shown at the large European film festivals such as Berlin, Cannes or Venice.
Cinema out of space and out of time
A striking feature of Chinese films today is that they are usually set out of time and space: extra-temporal and extraneous. Even films which are notionally set in today’s China are set in a China which does not exist with stories which make no reference at all to what is going on in the physical world they inhabit. The table below analyses box office and award-winning films (based on the data above).
| Box office 2000-19 | Golden Rooster 2001-19 | Hundred Flowers 2001-20 | |
| Out-of-time/space | 115 | 11 | 11 |
| Current | 85 | 6 | 7 |
| Total | 200 | 17 | 18 |
As we can see, a majority of films from all sources are set in the past, the future, another country or in a fantasy world (both out-of-space and time). Only about 40% of the box office films were set in a present-day China and this proportion was slightly lower for the award winners. This tendency is particularly notable in certain periods (2006-12, 2016-17) when less than 30% of top box office films were set in the present.
However, even these figures overstate the extent to which popular Chinese cinema says anything about the society in which it is set as many of the films are set in a fantasy China and bear no relationship to the world in which they nominally exist. If we look at 2018-19 when slightly over half of films are set in the present, some, such as Better Days or Dying to Survive do clearly touch on real issues. However, others such as the Pegasus or the Ex-Files 3 arguably have very little to do with reality.
This trend is not, of course, confined to top box office films but rather is something which can be seen throughout the Chinse film output.
Concusion
Watching Chinese films is fascinating for those of us interested in Chinese society and there are many films which deserve to be seen more broadly. Cinema is booming in terms of the number of films produced and box office receipts, although it seems likely that many of the films which are made do not make money.
However, many of the problems which were there in 2000 remain today, in particular censorship. Chinese censorship moves in mysterious ways and tends to wax and wane but it still exercises a stultifying effect on cinema. This, no doubt, is a major contributor to the extra-temporal and extraneous focus in current films. Unfortunately, it is difficult to predict significant changes in this area in the foreseeable future.
(Main image is Cao Fei, Whose Utopia? video still and second image is Cao Fei, China Tracy – Live in RMB City).
dianyingblog 电影 