Joy and Sorrow

    It's Zhang Yimou's tortured heroes and Feng Xiaogang's romantic urban nobodies that have lured audiences back to the cinema and helped China's film market maintain a decade-long steady growth. Since 2002 the box office has registered an annual growth of over 25 percent. The total box office figure for China's mainland in 2008 was RMB 4.3 billion, an RMB 1.014 billion increase over 2007 and growing at a rate of over 30 percent. Meanwhile, we also see diversified genres that go beyond comedies and action films. Assembly (2007), for example, gave audience food for thought on warfare. Holiday films today have shaken off past formulas in search of new ideas.

    New Year's films over the years have undoubtedly brought abundant delight to Chinese audiences as well as tremendous commercial rewards to their makers. It's predicted that the box office for the 2009-2010 holiday season will be upwards of RMB 2 billion, combined with an annual domestic box office set to reach beyond RMB 5 billion.

    However, behind such staggering records, there lies a hidden concern over a stagnation in the industry. Only a small number of films lead the market, while so many others vanish in obscurity. Unlike the well-scheduled Hollywood Christmas season, Chinese holiday fare is a mix of various styles jammed into a short period. This results in perfectly good films getting lost in the shuffle of the heady festival box office, while beyond this season there is a dearth of choice. So film attendance levels drop off during a kind of "down time" of the year when fewer people splurge on the cinema. Furthermore, the Chinese film industry still lacks a rating system, another situation that needs remedying in order for the audiences to grow.

LU ZHU is a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University.