With a rapidly expanding cinema audience, the biggest new films are being adapted for what is now the second largest box office in the world
There's a lesson to be learned from new teen comedy 21 & Over, though the abstract of that lesson will largely depend on where you see it. Catch it on one of the 300-odd UK screens it opened across yesterday, and witness a jocular salute to the redemptive power of youth, rebellion and getting fucked-up. Hold out for the film's debut in China later this month and you're in for an altogether more moralistic experience.
Along with a growing band of Hollywood innovators, the producers of 21 & Over have worked closely with the Chinese government to produce an alternate cut for their audiences, one in which the film's hero is refashioned as a Chinese exchange student who ultimately shakes off the rank delinquency of American college life and returns home a reformed character. With just 34 foreign imports allowed to compete for China's rapidly expanding cinema market in any given year, such drastic acts of appeasement are becoming commonplace.
Ever since China reopened its doors to American releases in 1994, with the intrepid cultural ambassador that was The Fugitive, studios have fought hard to capture a fair share of the country's immense cinema audience, with artistic integrity often taking a back seat to the demands of a strict review board. But since China overtook Japan to become the world's second-largest box office last year, Hollywood's more entrepreneurial quarters have been getting busy. Last year, Lionsgate spent $1m digitally substituting Red Dawn's villainous Chinese baddies with North Korean ones; this summer's Brad Pitt-starring zombie epic World War Z has already excised a fleeting suggestion that the outbreak emanated from within the country's walls; while Django Unchained toned down the colour of its many blood splashes.
As so often, James Cameron was a pioneer, crediting the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park as the inspiration for the sweeping vistas of Avatar. The film went on to become the highest grossing in Chinese history, while one of the park's peaks was swiftly renamed the Avatar Hallelujah Mountain. Similarly eager to ingratiate, last year's sci-fi hit Looper relocated an entire act from Paris to Shanghai, while 2010's candy-sweet The Karate Kid remake rendered its title meaningless with a calculating move to the land of kung fu.
In spite of such blatant pandering, the latter two films failed to meet expectations at the Chinese box office; a sign, perhaps, of a growing cynicism towards such tokenistic approach to cultural inclusiveness. Just this month, Iron Man 3 flew the flag for Sino-American relations by embellishing its Chinese cut with appearances from local stars Wang Xueqi and Fan Bingbing. But it inadvertently made a mockery of their inclusion by reducing both roles to blink-and-you'll-miss-them cameos in the US version. If cinema screens continue to pop up in China at a rate of nine a day, the likes of Wang and Fan won't be waiting around for Robert Downey Jr's scraps much longer.
**China's flourishing box office**
*2008: *$0.62bn
*2009: *$0.91bn
*2010: *$1.47bn
*2011: *$2.1bn
*2012: *$2.7bn
**China's addition to Iron Man 3**
*Wang Xueqi*
Born in 1946, Xueqi is a Hong Kong veteran with a taste for playing stirring roles in party-boosting historical dramas (2009's Bodyguards And Assassins, 2011's The Founding Of A Party). Also directed of Sun Bird, which didn't do much.
*Fan Bingbing*
Thirty-one-year-old Bingbing is an actor, singer and the Most Beautiful Person in China 2010. She has also started her own movie studio and fashion line. If she finds a minute, she's set to appear in the next X Men movie, too. Reported by guardian.co.uk 6 hours ago.
There's a lesson to be learned from new teen comedy 21 & Over, though the abstract of that lesson will largely depend on where you see it. Catch it on one of the 300-odd UK screens it opened across yesterday, and witness a jocular salute to the redemptive power of youth, rebellion and getting fucked-up. Hold out for the film's debut in China later this month and you're in for an altogether more moralistic experience.
Along with a growing band of Hollywood innovators, the producers of 21 & Over have worked closely with the Chinese government to produce an alternate cut for their audiences, one in which the film's hero is refashioned as a Chinese exchange student who ultimately shakes off the rank delinquency of American college life and returns home a reformed character. With just 34 foreign imports allowed to compete for China's rapidly expanding cinema market in any given year, such drastic acts of appeasement are becoming commonplace.
Ever since China reopened its doors to American releases in 1994, with the intrepid cultural ambassador that was The Fugitive, studios have fought hard to capture a fair share of the country's immense cinema audience, with artistic integrity often taking a back seat to the demands of a strict review board. But since China overtook Japan to become the world's second-largest box office last year, Hollywood's more entrepreneurial quarters have been getting busy. Last year, Lionsgate spent $1m digitally substituting Red Dawn's villainous Chinese baddies with North Korean ones; this summer's Brad Pitt-starring zombie epic World War Z has already excised a fleeting suggestion that the outbreak emanated from within the country's walls; while Django Unchained toned down the colour of its many blood splashes.
As so often, James Cameron was a pioneer, crediting the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park as the inspiration for the sweeping vistas of Avatar. The film went on to become the highest grossing in Chinese history, while one of the park's peaks was swiftly renamed the Avatar Hallelujah Mountain. Similarly eager to ingratiate, last year's sci-fi hit Looper relocated an entire act from Paris to Shanghai, while 2010's candy-sweet The Karate Kid remake rendered its title meaningless with a calculating move to the land of kung fu.
In spite of such blatant pandering, the latter two films failed to meet expectations at the Chinese box office; a sign, perhaps, of a growing cynicism towards such tokenistic approach to cultural inclusiveness. Just this month, Iron Man 3 flew the flag for Sino-American relations by embellishing its Chinese cut with appearances from local stars Wang Xueqi and Fan Bingbing. But it inadvertently made a mockery of their inclusion by reducing both roles to blink-and-you'll-miss-them cameos in the US version. If cinema screens continue to pop up in China at a rate of nine a day, the likes of Wang and Fan won't be waiting around for Robert Downey Jr's scraps much longer.
**China's flourishing box office**
*2008: *$0.62bn
*2009: *$0.91bn
*2010: *$1.47bn
*2011: *$2.1bn
*2012: *$2.7bn
**China's addition to Iron Man 3**
*Wang Xueqi*
Born in 1946, Xueqi is a Hong Kong veteran with a taste for playing stirring roles in party-boosting historical dramas (2009's Bodyguards And Assassins, 2011's The Founding Of A Party). Also directed of Sun Bird, which didn't do much.
*Fan Bingbing*
Thirty-one-year-old Bingbing is an actor, singer and the Most Beautiful Person in China 2010. She has also started her own movie studio and fashion line. If she finds a minute, she's set to appear in the next X Men movie, too. Reported by guardian.co.uk 6 hours ago.