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Updated Sunday, March 7, 2010 1:10 pm TWN, By Raymond Zhou, China Daily/Asia News Network

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It's time for China's film industry to get 'reel'

I guess there are good movies that fell through the cracks, but the flops I saw did not get any sympathy from me. They would have bombed in any time slot, with or without “Avatar.” “Storm Warriors” did not have much of a plot and it was made up entirely of actors grouching and posing against a digital backdrop. “The Treasure Hunter” imitated “The Mummy” and though the bar was not set high, it failed to clear it. The concept of pairing Taiwan's most charismatic male idol with its most titillating lady seemed a good idea. But you need a good script and directing to make it work.

Jay Chou's second outing this season fared even worse. In “True Legend,” the audience laughed whenever he appeared on screen, and it was not a comedy, at least it was not intended to be. The story was so poorly constructed that a separate one was tagged on at the end without any effort to congeal them into a whole.

The main selling point of “Avatar” is 3-D, but it is the story-telling technique that keeps one glued to the screen. To prove this point, 20 minutes of “True Legend” was in 3-D, and it was the most awful part of the whole movie. The background seems detached from the characters in the foreground. In one scene, people seem to fight two meters above ground.

Chinese film exhibitors grossly underestimated the power of “Avatar.” They had forgotten about “Titanic,” directed by the same James Cameron, or they had grown complacent because of the recent boom in the domestic film industry. They thought that by postponing “Avatar” two weeks after its U.S. release they could add a flourish to the season or at least avert a collision.

God, were they wrong! “Avatar” gobbled up all the weaklings and still is the Energizer Bunny that keeps on going. The only domestic release totally unfazed by the spell of “Avatar” was “Pleasant Goat and Big, Big Wolf,” a children's film with a huge built-in audience.

If Chinese theater chains had the foresight to schedule this juggernaut for a slow season, not only would it have hurt domestic competitors less, but it would have revitalized an otherwise seasonal backwater. The beauty of “Avatar” is it does not fear piracy. All bootlegs are simply free publicity and you have to go inside a theater, hopefully one with 3-D, to enjoy the full experience.

Movie seasons have evolved partly out of necessity and partly out of collective habits. There was no summer season for movies before Stephen Spielberg made “Jaws.” To open “Avatar” on Jan. 4 instead of, say, early spring, shows how far from “scientific” Chinese film moguls still are.

It is understandable that one wants to protect the domestic film industry. The key is not to keep out foreign competition, but to raise the quality of homemade products, and with a little more wisdom in planning, create a mutually beneficial situation.

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