Thanks for this interesting post! I was wondering if you could answer a question about Chinese blockbusters that I have been curious about.
The question is the opposite of the topic of this post: why aren't Chinese blockbusters widely watched outside of China?
I'm quite curious about this because I follow box office results as a hobby, and from that can tell you that many Indian blockbusters (like Pushpa 2) have been making good money in the American and international marketplace. Since this shows us that movies originating in emerging markets can be relatively successful in the US, it is strange that Chinese films that make so much money domestically barely make any impact in other marketplaces. You could say that the answer is that Indian blockbusters are just so much better than Chinese blockbusters, but I don't think that is the answer (in fact I think the opposite is true).
Chinese blockbusters have been steadily upgrading their quality and competitiveness, so why does that not translate into international competitiveness?
This question is all the more interesting to me because there is a huge market of diaspora chinese and overseas chinese students in places like the US, but cinemas do not seem interested in meeting that demand. In my country there might be one cinema in a major city playing one screening of a Chinese blockbuster, and that screening is usually 100% full. By contrast, I think the reason that Indian films do well in places like the US is mainly because of the diaspora Indian comminity.
Could you help answer this question? One good answer that has been suggested to me is that Chinese films struggle to secure overseas distributors, but then that just raises the question of why that happens, when Indian films can manage this easily.
That’s a really good question! I’ve been wondering about this for quite some time. Statistically, a couple of Chinese films (Creation of the Gods I, The Wandering Earth, Deep Sea, etc) in the past 2-3 years did a pretty good job in the North American and European market (especially France), but generally the box office of Chinese films still rely HEAVILY on domestic market.
You are right, Chinese and Indian film industry do share some similarities in their going global process. Based on my personal understanding and a little research i did on the internet, it seems the most significant hurdle is in “advertising and release” in the international market. Indian film companies like Eros and Yash Raj Films started their branches in the U.S. and U.K. in as early as the 1970s, and has been introducing and promoting Indian films to the local audience ever since. India did pay a lot of attention to going global from a very early stage and put great efforts in developing the industrial capacities of the sector. So India started off early, and it’s also worth mentioning the immigration wave of Indians to America from 2005-2015, which boosted the audience base overseas.
On the other hand, China only started its first overseas publisher, Chinalion Film, in 2010, and for a long time, there remain a kind of “disconnect” in communication between Chinese film producers and its overseas publishers. For example, the Chinese side usually didn’t leaves enough time for overseas pre-release advertising and has a strict censorship in changes made to its ad materials abroad. Plus the COVID, the cultural and language barrier and the decades-long void of international super stars like Jackie Chan or Jet Li, or like Aamir Hussain Khan. Compounded all these factors, in the past 10-ish years, Chinese film industry seems to have stalled in “going global.”
From my observation, the sector has been accelerating in development over the past five years. The sector has achieved progress in its industrial capabilities. Now we are seeing more sci-fi and saga-style blockbusters with global appeal. So my take on this is that China started off quite late after a long hiatus, and it is a complicated issue. So I’m optimistic about the future development. I think I'll write another article on the journey of Chinese films going global some time later. Thanks for your reading and questions again :-))
Thanks for this interesting post! I was wondering if you could answer a question about Chinese blockbusters that I have been curious about.
The question is the opposite of the topic of this post: why aren't Chinese blockbusters widely watched outside of China?
I'm quite curious about this because I follow box office results as a hobby, and from that can tell you that many Indian blockbusters (like Pushpa 2) have been making good money in the American and international marketplace. Since this shows us that movies originating in emerging markets can be relatively successful in the US, it is strange that Chinese films that make so much money domestically barely make any impact in other marketplaces. You could say that the answer is that Indian blockbusters are just so much better than Chinese blockbusters, but I don't think that is the answer (in fact I think the opposite is true).
Chinese blockbusters have been steadily upgrading their quality and competitiveness, so why does that not translate into international competitiveness?
This question is all the more interesting to me because there is a huge market of diaspora chinese and overseas chinese students in places like the US, but cinemas do not seem interested in meeting that demand. In my country there might be one cinema in a major city playing one screening of a Chinese blockbuster, and that screening is usually 100% full. By contrast, I think the reason that Indian films do well in places like the US is mainly because of the diaspora Indian comminity.
Could you help answer this question? One good answer that has been suggested to me is that Chinese films struggle to secure overseas distributors, but then that just raises the question of why that happens, when Indian films can manage this easily.
That’s a really good question! I’ve been wondering about this for quite some time. Statistically, a couple of Chinese films (Creation of the Gods I, The Wandering Earth, Deep Sea, etc) in the past 2-3 years did a pretty good job in the North American and European market (especially France), but generally the box office of Chinese films still rely HEAVILY on domestic market.
You are right, Chinese and Indian film industry do share some similarities in their going global process. Based on my personal understanding and a little research i did on the internet, it seems the most significant hurdle is in “advertising and release” in the international market. Indian film companies like Eros and Yash Raj Films started their branches in the U.S. and U.K. in as early as the 1970s, and has been introducing and promoting Indian films to the local audience ever since. India did pay a lot of attention to going global from a very early stage and put great efforts in developing the industrial capacities of the sector. So India started off early, and it’s also worth mentioning the immigration wave of Indians to America from 2005-2015, which boosted the audience base overseas.
On the other hand, China only started its first overseas publisher, Chinalion Film, in 2010, and for a long time, there remain a kind of “disconnect” in communication between Chinese film producers and its overseas publishers. For example, the Chinese side usually didn’t leaves enough time for overseas pre-release advertising and has a strict censorship in changes made to its ad materials abroad. Plus the COVID, the cultural and language barrier and the decades-long void of international super stars like Jackie Chan or Jet Li, or like Aamir Hussain Khan. Compounded all these factors, in the past 10-ish years, Chinese film industry seems to have stalled in “going global.”
From my observation, the sector has been accelerating in development over the past five years. The sector has achieved progress in its industrial capabilities. Now we are seeing more sci-fi and saga-style blockbusters with global appeal. So my take on this is that China started off quite late after a long hiatus, and it is a complicated issue. So I’m optimistic about the future development. I think I'll write another article on the journey of Chinese films going global some time later. Thanks for your reading and questions again :-))
Many thanks for this extremely insightful response!