JOIN USHollywood shifting to China-friendly fantasies
When ‘Kung Fu Panda 3’ kicks its way into China’s theaters in 2016, the country’s vigilant film censors will find no nasty surprises. After all, they have already dropped in to monitor the movie at the DreamWorks Animation campus in California. And the story line, production art and other creative elements have met their approval.
The lure of access to China’s fast-growing film market – now the world’s second largest, behind that of the United States – is entangling studios and moviemakers with the state censors of a country in which American notions of free expression simply do not apply.
Whether studios are seeking to distribute a completed film in China or join with a Chinese company for a co-production shot partly in that country, they have discovered that navigating the murky, often shifting terrain of censorship is part of the process.
Billions of dollars ride on whether they get it right. International box-office revenue is the driving force behind many of Hollywood’s biggest films, and often plays a deciding role in whether a movie is made. Studios rely on consultants and past experience – and increasingly on informal advance nods from foreign officials – to help gauge whether a film will pass censorship; if there are problems they can sometimes be addressed through appeal and subsequent negotiations.
But Paramount Pictures just learned the hard way that some things won’t pass muster – like US fighter pilots in dogfights with MiGs. The studio months ago submitted a new 3-D version of ‘Top Gun’ to Chinese censors. The ensuing silence was finally recognised as rejection. Problems more often affect films that touch the Chinese directly.
“Any movie about China made by outsiders is going to be very sensitive,” said Rob Cohen, who directed “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” among the first in a wave of co-productions between US studios – in this case, Universal Pictures – and Chinese companies.
One production facing scrutiny is Disney and Marvel’s ‘Iron Man 3,’ parts of which were filmed in Beijing in the last month. It proceeded under the watchful eye of Chinese bureaucrats, who were invited to the set and asked to advise on creative decisions, according to people briefed on the production who asked for anonymity to avoid conflict with government or company officials. Marvel and Disney had no comment.
Another prominent film, Ang Lee’s ‘Life of Pi,’ which was nominated last week for 11 Academy Awards, made it through the process mostly unscathed, but got some pushback over a line in which a character declared that “religion is darkness.” “They modified the translation a little, for fear of provoking religious people,” Lee said.
Hollywood as a whole is shifting toward China-friendly fantasies that will fit comfortably within a revised quota system, which allows more international films to be distributed in China, where 3-D and large-format Imax pictures are particularly favoured.
In addition, some studios are quietly asking Chinese officials for assurance that planned films, even when they do not have a Chinese theme, will have no major censorship problems. The censorship bureau did not respond to a list of questions submitted by The New York Times seeking information about its process and guidelines.
Studios are quickly discovering that a key to access in China is the inclusion of Chinese actors, story lines and locations. But the more closely a film examines China, the more likely it is to collide with shifting standards, unwritten rules and unfamiliar political powers who hold sway over what can be seen on the country’s roughly 12,000 movie screens.
Token changes
Cohen’s ‘Mummy’ film, which was shot throughout China in 2007, was a historical fantasy about an evil emperor who is magically resurrected by foreign adventurers in 1946. The script was preapproved by China’s censorship board with only token changes – the emperor’s name had to be fictionalised, for instance. The censors also cautioned that the ancient ruler should not resemble Mao Zedong.
Studios are seeking out official co-productions, in which a Chinese company works with a U.S. studio in financing and creating a film, because they can bypass the Chinese quota system and bring their distributors a 43 percent share of ticket sales, rather than the 25 percent allotted to foreign-made films.
Co-productions like ‘Kung Fu Panda 3’ draw close monitoring by the censors at every step. Scripts are submitted in advance. Representatives of SARFT, according to Cohen and others, may be present on the set to guard against any deviation. And there is an unofficial expectation that the Chinese government’s approved version of the film will be seen both in China and elsewhere, although in practice it is not unusual for co-productions to slip through the system with differing versions, one for China, one for elsewhere in the world.
Questions about how Chinese forces are shaping American movies are now playing out in the making of ‘Iron Man 3,’ which is set for release on May 3. Disney and its Marvel unit want ‘Iron Man 3’ to gain co-production status, partly because the previous two “Iron Man” movies performed well in China. To work toward that distinction, Disney and Marvel made a deal last year for Beijing-based DMG Entertainment to join in producing and financing the film.
But they have taken a middle-of-the-road approach that appears intended to limit Chinese meddling in the creative process. A finished script was not submitted for approval and the companies have not yet made an application for official designation as a co-production. Rather, they are trying to show a heightened sense of cooperation in hopes the government will approve the status once that application is formally made in the spring. The producers made a presentation to censors early in the process, describing broad strokes of the story, the history of other Marvel and Disney movies, and plans to integrate Chinese characters into the movie.
In all, the standards would appear to clash with almost any American film, other than, perhaps, the PG-rated animated fare of a DreamWorks Animation. (Even ‘Kung Fu Panda’ provoked objections by some Chinese, who saw the lead character as profaning a nationally revered animal.) But some who have dealt with SARFT say the censors are often pragmatic, and appear to walk a line between the demands of viewers, who want more global fare, and those of politicians, who are out to protect the status quo.
For example, 20th Century Fox managed to get Lee’s ‘Life of Pi’ through with only the modification of the ‘religion is darkness’ line, despite the movie’s spiritual themes – which tread close to a prohibition against the preaching of cult beliefs and superstitions.
For Americans, the hard part is knowing what might suddenly cause trouble – initial approvals notwithstanding. In 2009, Sony Pictures and its partner, the China Film Group, submitted their script for “The Karate Kid” to China’s censors, and dutifully changed parts of the story to suit them. But the finished film was rejected, according to people who were briefed on the process, essentially because film bureaucrats were unhappy that its villain was Chinese.