Culture, language and laws often work against filmmakers' desires to tap the widest possible audience

When Chinese audiences saw the online trailer of the multinational co-production Outcast, starring Nicholas Cage and Chinese actress Liu Yifei in a story set in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), many of the comments were negative.

"Why do there have to be foreign warriors that save the heroine?" one complained. "Why are there ancient Chinese who can understand English?" asked another. And then there was this: "When Nicholas Cage kisses Liu Yifei, I completely lost my interest in the movie."

It was the most recent case of a co-production stumbling in the Chinese market, even before it hit screens on Sept 26.

The fast-growing Chinese market is lucrative, but only 34 foreign films are allowed to enter the world's second-largest film market each year.

The international market outside China is much bigger, but few Chinese films can make a splash or sweep the box office like many Hollywood blockbusters such as The Avengers and Iron Man 3.

As a result, film companies from China and abroad work together on projects to break the barriers as much as possible.

China-foreign co-productions are not limited by import quotas, and are eligible for a 43 percent cut of the box office revenue in China, 18 percent higher than imported films.

But the official standard is hard to reach: There must be shots taken in China, at least one-third of the investment must come from China, and there must be at least one main character played by a Chinese star.

Not one co-produced movie has met official co-production standards since the regulation was tightened in 2012.

Stanley Rosen, professor of political science and a specialist in Chinese politics, film and society at the University of Southern California, says: "When it came to making a decision about a blockbuster film like Iron Man 3 or Transformers 4, when they decide whether it is a co-production or for the international market, they will choose the international market but try to get the benefits of co-productions without doing a co-production."

"It might be a co-production. But since they've tightened up the regulations on co-productions, for blockbuster films it is not worth it if you are still concerned about the international market.

"So you make two versions, one for the international market and one for China. That's what is basically done. So there are no real successes for the big films.

"The most successful co-production is The Forbidden Kingdom. Normally co-productions succeed in China or in the US, but not in both."

The Forbidden Kingdom was the 2008 movie starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li about a kung fu-obsessed American teen who goes on an adventure in China.

It is almost impossible for Hollywood to change its century-long filmmaking philosophy for China, even if the market is very important, says Dan Mintz, chief executive officer and founder of the Chinese film producer and distributor DMG Entertainment, in an interview with Film magazine.

"Hollywood movies are extensively popular in the international market. It is difficult to convince them to squeeze Chinese elements into the existing materials. It is difficult to find a suitable angle."

On the China side there are also difficulties. Film, as an important modern medium, usually comes with a self-contained value system, whether intended by filmmakers or not.

Hollywood movies are acknowledged to deliver the values imbedded in the so-called American dream. And China's image in co-productions is officially expected to be positive.

Chinese characters as drug lords or rogues in a movie is not acceptable. When Men in Black 3 hit screens in China, a battle with Asian-looking aliens in a Chinatown restaurant was cut.

But sometimes all-too-obvious political elements can interest neither overseas audiences nor Chinese moviegoers.

"The problem with the Chinese is that they want to do two things at the same time," Rosen says. "They want Chinese films to go overseas and to be successful, and meanwhile to have socialist core values, which is a contradiction."

Another problem is language.

Film director Feng Xiaogang once said at a film forum that domestic films speak Chinese, while most audiences in the world watch English-language movies, and in this sense Chinese becomes a minority language.

Director Huang Jianxi says: "If we make a movie telling a Chinese story in English, it will be unacceptable for Chinese audiences," which creates a barrier to shooting English-language movies that tell Chinese stories.

"But if we shoot co-productions in Chinese, English audiences won't accept them."

For many filmmakers, the most important thing is to tell a good story rather than to cater to different audiences in different cultural markets.

That is why, Jean-Jacques Annaud, when he adapted the Chinese novel Wolf Totem for the screen, decided that he had to use the local language to shoot the movie.

yangyangs@chinadaily.com.cn

A poster of Outcast, a multinational co-production. Provided to China Daily

(China Daily European Weekly 10/03/2014 page7)