Feature: China film industry's 'bleak winter' deepens as coronavirus adds to censorship woes

Huanxi Media

07/02/2020 07:10

By Pei Li and Brenda Goh
    BEIJING/SHANGHAI, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Even before the new
coronavirus, people working in Chinese entertainment had been
calling the industry's struggles their "bleak winter" - as
tighter censorship, a crackdown on tax evasion and new
government restrictions strangle opportunities for work.
    The epidemic is only exacerbating that misery.
    Cinemas across China have closed as part of efforts to curb
the outbreak and the premieres of seven expected blockbusters
scheduled for the Lunar New Year holidays - a time when box
offices usually rake it in - were postponed or cancelled.
    Since Jan. 24, the day when the government warned against
large gatherings in public and the day before the holidays, box
office takings for the world's most populous nation have been
virtually negligible. Industry bodies have also asked actors not
to return to work until further notice.
    "I think China's annual box office revenue will likely halve
from last year due to the coronavirus outbreak. Nobody is going
to a cinema until the danger has passed," Qiu Hongtao, vice
president of Taihe Entertainment, a movie production and
investment firm, told Reuters.
    "We expect quite a lot of cinemas will go bankrupt. Actors
and actresses may have to cope with a lack of work, but for
cinemas, the rent and management cost burden will crush them."
    The epidemic, which has so far claimed more than 630 lives,
is forcing some production houses to make unconventional and
controversial choices.
    Huanxi Media Group  1003.HK  released "Lost in Russia", a
comedy that was widely expected to go on to blockbuster success,
on Bytedance's online platforms free for consumers in return for
630 million yuan ($90 million) to fund new films - a move that
has infuriated China's cinema industry.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N29U02G
    The makers of the martial arts comedy "Enter the Fat Dragon"
made a similar move, with video streaming service iQiyi Inc
 IQ.O  announcing a fee-based online release.
    
    CENSORSHIP PAIN
    The virus-induced gloom comes at a time when the world's
second-biggest movie market has been in dire need of a shot in
the arm.
    While box office takings climbed to a record 64 billion yuan
($9.2 billion) last year helped by higher ticket prices, the
average occupancy rate at Chinese theaters hit a five-year low,
Tencent Entertainment said in a report last month.
    Domestic movie-making - essential to sustaining the market
as the government generally caps the number of major foreign
releases allowed in any one year at 34 - has also been in a
precipitous decline as censorship grows.
    Content offensive to "core socialist values" has been banned
since 2017 - part of efforts, under President Xi Jinping, to
tighten controls on society which have also included clampdowns
on activists, internet regulation and the rise of government
surveillance.
    Last year, censors were especially sensitive as the country
celebrated the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's
Republic of China, industry sources say. At least 15 movies were
either pulled, rescheduled or amended, according to media
reports.
    The biggest to fall victim was the World War II epic "The
Eight Hundred" by director Guan Hu with a reported budget of $80
million. Its June release was suddenly cancelled at the eleventh
hour after retired Communist Party officials complained it
glorified the heroism of the rival Kuomintang party.
    Other movies are just not getting made. Beijing Enlight
Media  300251.SZ  and Beijing Jingxi Culture  000802.SZ  had
both planned 23 movie releases in 2019 but Enlight only released
11 while Jingxi Culture had just nine.
    Creative freedom has shrunk so much that the China
Independent Film Festival, one of the country's longest-running
and largest, said last month it had suspended operations
indefinitely. 
    "It is impossible to organise a film festival that truly has
a purely independent spirit," the organisers said.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL5N29G035
    Nor is censorship expected to let up anytime soon as the
Communist Party will be celebrating the hundredth anniversary of
its founding in 2021.
    New rules on salaries and intense government scrutiny of tax
strategies used by some of China's most well-known faces have
also been wreaking havoc within the industry. The crackdown saw
A-list movie star Fan Bingbing slapped with a $129 million fine.
    Between the scramble to get their taxes in order and
censorship, nearly 1,900 movie production companies folded in
2019, domestic media have estimated.
    For actors, it has meant a severe dearth of jobs in an
already fiercely competitive industry. 
    Chinese actor Li Bin, 37, said the "bleak winter" has
changed the way he and other actors approach work.
    "Now if someone gives me a screenplay, the minute I get my
hands on the script, the first thing I do is to pick on the
stuff that cannot be shot." 
    "I don't pay much attention to the story. I care more about
whether the screenplay is going to get past the censors and
whether investors will get their money back," he said.   
    
($1 = 6.8954 Chinese yuan)

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 (Reporting by Pei Li in Beijing and Brenda Goh in Shanghai;
Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
 ((Pei.Li@thomsonreuters.com; +86 18810385187;))