Chinese filmmakers are leaning about pros and cons of trying to appeal to audiences

Film co-production has become something of a holy grail, which many in the film industry relentlessly pursue yet few, if any, have attained. It is supposed to bring about an expansion of the market plus unquantifiable goodwill in cultural exchange. But the reality can be a different matter.

The road to co-production heaven is littered with dead bodies who had been tantalized by the prospect of mutually beneficial deals then devastated by mutual destruction.

In theory, a co-production, say, one between China and the United Kingdom, should appeal to filmgoers in both countries. The story should incorporate elements from both countries, such as a love story between a Chinese man and an English woman or vice versa, with some scenes shot in China and others in the UK. Ideally, both Chinese and English should be employed as languages fit for the occasion.

In reality, it is how a subject is portrayed on screen, rather than what is portrayed, that determines the outcome. The fusion vision goes fundamentally against the dictatorial nature of film directing. Unless a filmmaker is born in - or grew up with - two cultures, he or she can approach a story from only one cultural angle. Call it cultural sensibility. American filmmakers can tell a Chinese story, such as Mulan or Karate Kid, and Chinese stories can be set in North America, such as Finding Mr. Right (aka When Beijing Meets Seattle). While casting and language contribute to the final result, the cultural sensibility of the film storyteller determines the "nationality" of a film, so to speak.

The Last Emperor, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci of Italy, is a Chinese story set exclusively in China. Yet it was embraced in the West, winning nine Academy Awards. However, it had a lukewarm reception in the land where the story happened. It was not just Peter O'Toole's role that provided a Western perspective. The tone of the whole film made this 1987 biopic an international film rather than a Chinese one. Partly frustrated with its Western perspective, Chinese filmmakers made a more "authentic" television series about the same subject shortly afterwards, and as you'd expect, it failed to cross over into the international market.

If there is such a thing as an ideal co-production, examples should include Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Kung Fu Panda. On the surface, the Ang Lee martial arts epic is completely Chinese, but it somehow found a global audience. The Dreamworks animated fest combines two of China's cultural mascots, the panda and kung fu, but it did not have any Chinese input, at least not for the first installment. The results in both cases were artistic integrity, which led to total embrace by the global audience and the Chinese market respectively.

Had these two films been co-productions, would they have been better or worse? Of course, this is a hypothetical question, but certain parts of the stories would have been dumbed down - maybe not even for censorship reasons.

I'm not categorically discounting the potential value of co-productions. Some stories have universal appeal. Others have very little cultural specificity. If you make a film about a cat and a dog, the only cultural trace could be the language on the soundtrack. On the other end of the spectrum, if you make a movie out of a news story that resonates with a narrow strip of society, say, a clutter of villages, the film may not be able to travel very far. Of course, you can mine the human emotions common in all such stories and use the local coloring as a form of exotica.

We must make sure why we desire co-productions. Do we want the enlarged market or do we crave so-called "soft power"? Kung Fu Panda makes China look good, but Chinese companies did not have financial equity in it. If you invest in a Hollywood blockbuster, you'll make money but accrue little influence. The standard way of measuring the export value of China's film industry conceals rather than reveals the whole picture. The value reported in the press includes the taking of foreign partners regardless of how much Chinese companies actually rake in. If your sole benchmark is this figure, all you'll need to do is give co-production status to those projects with marginal Chinese input and, voila, your overseas box-office figure looks as bright as the burning sun.

Another misnomer is co-production between Chinese mainland and Hong Kong or Taiwan. The three industries have long been integrated, and with few exceptions, money, talent and even stories mingle to the point of total blurring.

If you take away all those dubious entries, the category of co-production is a sparsely populated land with few standouts. But that is not cause for concern. As the Chinese film industry gains momentum, it should first focus on its domestic market. Only when the size of the home audience stops growing will Chinese filmmakers feel the urgent need to expand overseas. And even then, co-production will remain just one of many ways of breaking into the global arena.

The author is editor-at-large of China Daily.

(China Daily European Weekly 05/30/2014 page9)