Text: Li Wei. Editor's note:
Behind the strong rise of domestic films is the audience's growing demand for spiritual and cultural consumption.
Only by allowing the film industry to flourish and compete can we better meet their needs and further enhance the competitiveness of Chinese films at home and abroad.
This Spring Festival, have you watched the movie? ”
Behind an ordinary holiday greeting is a string of fiery numbers about Chinese consumption.
According to the statistics of Lighthouse Professional Edition: The total box office of the 2024 Spring Festival file ** week (February 10-February 17) is 801.6 billion yuan, 16.3 billion people, all of which set a new high in film history, refreshed the record of the Spring Festival stalls in Chinese film history, and increased by 18 percent respectively compared with the box office and number of people in the Spring Festival stalls in 202347% and 2636%。
Watching movies for the New Year" has become the choice of more and more people for the New Year.
As of February 27, "Hot and Hot" and "Flying Life 2" have exceeded 3 billion box office, reaching 3.3 billion and 3.1 billion respectively, and "Article 20" has also broken through the 2 billion mark.
Jia Ling's **100 pounds a year" and other movie-related topics were talked about by everyone during the Spring Festival, and even brought a new fitness craze.
The enthusiasm of Chinese audiences for movies, especially domestic films, is not only reflected in the box office and moviegoers during this year's Spring Festival, but if you pay attention to the data for 2023, you will find that this trend has actually become more and more significant last year.
According to the statistics of M big data: the total annual box office of the Chinese film market in 2023 will be 5491.5 billion yuan, 460 of which are Chinese-made films0.5 billion yuan, accounting for 8377%, the top 10 at the mainland box office are all domestic films; The number of moviegoers hit a four-year high of 129.9 billion, ** The proportion of people with many films has also hit the highest level in the past 4 years, and according to the total number of moviegoers, per capita film consumption has rebounded to 109 yuan.
At a time when people are keen to talk about weak consumption, consumption downgrading and other topics, we have seen strong consumption power in the film field, especially domestic films, and box office records have been constantly refreshed.
Let's take a look at the following list of the top 20 total box office in mainland film history! Only one Hollywood blockbuster "Avengers 4: Endgame" was shortlisted, and the others were all domestic films, and the box office continued to break records.
Table 1: Top 20 in the total box office list of mainland film history
Data**: Compiled from public information, data as of 2024-02-27
Remember? Once upon a time, we often went to the theater to feel the "speed and passion" brought by Hollywood blockbusters, but now why do domestic films almost dominate the world in the box office market? Have we changed or have times changed?
Table 2: Top box office champions of mainland films from 1994 to 2023.
Facts**: Collation of public information.
From Table 2 "1994-2023 Mainland Film Box Office Champions", we can see this trend more clearly:
From 1994 to 2000, American blockbusters were definitely the box office darlings of the Chinese film market, attracting the public to the theater to experience a luxurious visual feast; After 2000, with the rise of well-known local directors Zhang Yimou, Feng Xiaogang and others, blockbusters from the United States, Chinese mainland and Hong Kong were "divided into three parts" in the Chinese mainland film market; Since 2015, domestic feature films, war films, and comedy films have firmly secured the position of box office hegemon.
In addition to the box office champions, the top 10 domestic box office players have also shown a similar trend in recent years: in the top 10 box office in 2021 and 2022, domestic films occupy 8 seats; In 2023, it will go one step further, and the TOP10 will all be domestic films.
In addition, as mentioned earlier, domestic films will account for a staggering 83% of the annual box office in 202377%, compared to 53 in 20173%。
Although some people question whether the rise of domestic films is because we have restricted the import of Hollywood blockbusters or reduced their publicity efforts, if we study the policy changes in the introduction of imported blockbusters in China, and combine the analysis of the aforementioned data, we will find that"It's not that our opponents are weaker, it's that we're stronger."
A brief review of the history of the opening up of Chinese films, as early as August 1994, the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television issued a document clearly mentioning that 10 excellent foreign films would be imported every year, and Hollywood blockbusters were mainly introduced at that time.
The introduction of these blockbusters has brought huge economic benefits to all parties, and at the same time opened the eyes of the Chinese people, so they have been widely acclaimed. In a sense, we can also say that Hollywood blockbusters have contributed to the rise of the Chinese film market.
After China's accession to the WTO in 2001, the pace of introduction was further accelerated: in 2001, China pledged to introduce 20 films a year in the form of account sharing; In 2012, on the basis of the 20 films pledged to join the WTO, China's imports of account-sharing films in 14 high-tech formats (IMAX and 3D) were added every year, and the proportion of imported blockbusters in China increased from 13% to 25%; In September 2015, China and the United States signed a new batch of ** agreements, in which the introduction of films promised to increase the number of imported batches (i.e., one-time buyout of copyrighted films).
In 2016, the number of buyout films increased significantly, reaching 47 films in early December (the past practice was about 30 films per year), plus 34 overseas films, the total number of overseas films introduced that year exceeded 80.
In 2019, the number of imported films introduced by China reached a peak of 122, and the box office reached 23 billion, accounting for 35 percent of the total box office of Chinese mainland films93%。
Since 2020, although the number of imported films has been lowered due to the impact of the epidemic, with the gradual recovery of the market, the number of imported films is also rapid**, and the number of imported films in 2023 will increase from 59** in 2022 to 76, and the trend is expected to continue in 2024**.
If it weren't for the fact that there are fewer blockbusters we have introduced, then what exactly has made domestic films usher in their own "** era"?
In essence, the competitiveness of Chinese films is constantly increasing.
Recalling 2015, in the face of a new round of opening up of the film market, domestic filmmakers once showed a lot of worries, in the words of the well-known director Ning Hao, in the face of the menacing Hollywood super blockbuster, "everyone was still thinking about survival that year".
Unexpectedly, in 2023, when domestic films compete fully with imported films, the market share of domestic films will exceed 80%. Whether it is from the continuous emergence of the new generation of directors and actors, or from the perspective of the content ecology of action films, dramas, war films, science fiction films, funny films, etc., domestic films have truly shown strong competitiveness.
More importantly, with the strengthening of competitiveness, domestic films are also quietly changing the consumption preferences of Chinese audiences, and driving demand through supply-side changes.
We can think about it, why do you pay so much attention to the recent popular domestic films?
Taking Jia Ling's "Hot and Hot" as an example, although there are many controversial voices about the plot of the movie, we will still be deeply moved by Jia Ling's sincerity and efforts behind the movie after personally **.
You can say that Jia Ling grasped the hot topic of "****, and ignited the box office with the shocking effect of "**100 pounds a year". But Chinese know Chinese better, isn't it the innate advantage of domestic films?
"Flying Life 2" and "Article 20", which have also attracted much attention, also won the hearts of the people because the director and screenwriter grasped the hot spots or pain points we paid attention to, and supplemented them with sincere enough performances.
In contrast, the stereotyped special effects and heroism of Hollywood blockbusters have made many audiences more and more aesthetically fatigued in recent years, and their interest in watching movies has also decreased.
Under the action of multiple factors, the market efficiency of imported blockbusters has declined, and it has become normal for major theaters to reduce their schedules from the perspective of economic interests.
However, despite the tremendous progress made in recent years, there is still a lot of demand that needs to be met.
From the perspective of audience groups, the following groups of people have a stronger thirst for excellent domestic films:
One. The young audience represented by China's "Generation Z" pays more attention to personalized content and the expression of their true emotions, and they hope to see more excellent domestic films that express their hearts;
Two. In the face of workplace pressure and confusion in urban white-collar workers and middle-class people, they prefer to watch profound films that reflect realism, or high-quality films that can project their hearts and let them be released and soothed.
Three. In the newly rising wider sinking market, with the popularity of movie screens, the former potential audience has become a real audience, and they also want to see their movies that they can understand and understand, more down-to-earth domestic films.
The needs of audiences are diverse, and only by allowing the film industry to flourish and compete with a hundred schools of thought can we better meet their needs, and at the same time further enhance the competitiveness of Chinese films at home and abroad.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle facing Chinese filmmakers is the belated arrival of China's "film classification system", which has a profound impact on the film industry, and we can learn some lessons from South Korea's experience.
In the early stage of the development of Korean films, they have been deeply affected by censorship, whether it was during the colonial rule of Japan and the United States, or after South Korea entered the "Restoration Generation" in 1972, the military regime imposed strict censorship on films, requiring that films that conform to specific concepts must be made, making film production and distribution tend to be unified, the development of Korean films has been greatly curbed, the subject matter and expression of films have been greatly reduced, and the entertainment of films has been completely destroyed.
In addition, the distribution channels of Korean films have been "monopolized" by the United States for a long time, and the United States has used South Korea as a market for dumping Hollywood films, and a large number of imported films are released in the domestic film market, and the living space of domestic films is getting smaller and smaller.
It was not until the 80s of the 20th century that Korean films began to "thaw" under internal and external pressure: in 1984, South Korea made the fifth revision of the "Film Law", abolishing the strict film distribution quota system, changing film production from a licensing system to a registration system, encouraging the participation of small film companies and independent producers, and laying the foundation for the commercialization of the film industry.
In 1993, Kim Yong-sam pointed out in his annual report that "the revenue of the Hollywood movie "Jurassic Park" is equivalent to the profit of the Sonata of 1.5 million Hyundai cars", "If Disney's annual turnover is comparable to IBM's, then why don't we go all out to develop the film and television industry?" ”
As a result, film has become a major development direction of South Korea's key cultural industry, and it supports the development of film in terms of legislation, administrative organization, and financial support.
But what really played a key role in the prosperity of Korean films was Kim Dae-jung** and his "film classification system".
In 1997, Kim Dae-jung ran for **, and during the election campaign, he made a statement on the film industry"Support, but non-interference".The promise to abolish film censorship and finally deliver on its promise.
In the Basic Act on the Promotion of the Video Industry promulgated in South Korea, the film censorship system was changed to a film classification system, and films are divided into five categories (G and above, 15 and above, 18 and above, and restricted (R)).
According to South Korea's Film and Video Act, film operators should apply to the ** Rating Board (KMRB) for the release of their films before the release of the film, and the KMBR Film Committee is composed of film critics, university professors, performance directors, journalists, festival planners, film producers, film directors and other professionals with different backgrounds, which is mainly responsible for grading films. The KMRB also has an ex-post management committee and a supervisor to conduct hierarchical post-event management.
In the classification of films, the committee fully considered the following factors: theme, pornography, violence, lines, fear, drugs, and the danger of imitation.
In addition, specific factors such as ideology, religion, customs, race, and ethnicity are also taken into account. Grading is based on the acceptance of each age group.
After the implementation of the film classification system, Korean filmmakers have been given full respect and choice in film themes and forms of expression, and more excellent and profound Korean films have emerged one after another.
In terms of box office, the share of Korean films in the domestic market in 1993 was only 159 per cent, and by 2001 it had exceeded 50 per cent.
At the same time, the overseas influence of Korean films has also increased greatly, in 1996, the export volume of Korean films was only about 400,000 US dollars, and in the 21st century, the export volume of Korean films has increased significantly, reaching 76 million US dollars in 2005, 190 times that of 1996, and by 2016, it will exceed 100 million US dollars.
South Korea's film technology has also been greatly improved, and the Chinese market has become the largest exporter of Korean film technology.
In addition, due to the relaxation of censorship, Korean films have become richer and richer in subject matter, and the level of production has been continuously improved, such as "Old Boy", "Oasis", "The Crucible", "Train to Busan", "Parasite" and so on, while winning international film awards, they have also won more market reputation.
Chinese filmmakers have also been campaigning for the "classification system" to be implemented in China. Nowadays, due to the lack of a classification system, Chinese films are available to the public, which actually poses a great restriction on the subject matter and expression of films.
In addition, due to concerns about the over-censorship of films, Chinese filmmakers are often engaged in self-censorship, which is actually a great restriction on their artistic creation. As an artistic creation, it is very necessary to give full play to the space of film.
From the perspective of economics, the market is an effective way to allocate resourcesWhen we have achieved a high degree of marketization on the demand side and handed over more choices to the audience about what movies to watch, we will further liberalize on the supply side.
Through the "classification system", filmmakers are truly given more creative choices, and I believe that under the baton of the market, our domestic films can play a more wonderful ** and leverage the consumption power of more Chinese films "hot and hot"!
The author is associate dean and professor of economics at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business