WASHINGTON – On her way to catch a foreign film in Beijing, Ms Jane Yao bought a cinnamon roll, had ramen, visited a bookshop and dropped by a supermarket to grab some snacks.
Such an impulse splurge has become all too rare in China, where consumption growth is still far below pre-Covid-19 levels and poses a major hurdle for the economy.
Equally surprising was Ms Yao’s choice of entertainment – a rescreening of Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets – which drew a big crowd of mostly millennial viewers on a weekend afternoon.
A blockbuster run for many international films – old and new – stood out in a market whose overall box office receipts slumped to a decade low, excluding the pandemic. Though deeply conflicted about foreign cultural influence, China aired 93 new imported films in 2024, the most since 2019, according to China Movie News.
The latter is an outlet managed by a government body that oversees film approvals for local audiences.
President Xi Jinping’s government has been cracking down on anything perceived as too Western or immoral at the box office in recent years. But as officials try to boost consumer spending to support a cooling economy, there are early signs those constraints are easing.
“Chinese authorities’ attitude has been oscillating between the two extremes of nationalistic pride and liberal globalisation,” said Dr Wendy Su, an associate professor at the University of California, Riverside. She specialises in China film studies and Hollywood’s relationship with the country.
“Now that China’s economy is not in a good shape, China wants to amend the relations with foreign countries and bring in more foreign films.”
Moviegoers have a particular appeal since most of China’s cinemas are in malls, creating an opportunity for people to squeeze in some shopping on the side. Unleashing domestic demand is especially important as China stares down a growing possibility of a second trade war with the US after Mr Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Foreign films that garnered success at the box office also came from countries that Beijing has been mending ties with ahead of Mr Trump’s comeback, such as long-time adversaries India and Japan.
Tamil-language film Maharaja became the highest-grossing Indian movie in China in years. For the first time, a Japanese import fared better in an overseas market than at home, according to state-run Securities Times, with animated fantasy The Boy And The Heron reeling in 791 million yuan (S$147 million).
Fintech worker Guo Yuan said there were no decent seats left when she visited a cinema in Guangzhou to see Maharaja. “I’m a big fan of thrillers, and have a pretty good impression of Indian movies,” said the 27-year-old who had a meal at the shopping centre before the show.
Even as China’s box office haul plunged by nearly a quarter to 42.5 billion yuan, foreign films had their best tally since before the pandemic to raise their share to 21 per cent of the overall market, according to a report by Maoyan published in January.
In a rarity for China, R-rated Hollywood productions like Warner Bros’ Joker: Folie à Deux, a less gory sequel to the 2019 hit, were being premiered in 2024. China blocked the first film, which came out as protests roiled Hong Kong and where some demonstrators wore face coverings including Joker masks.
Independent New York-based studio A24 had its first opening in China with the release of Civil War, a dystopian blockbuster set in an America ravaged by conflict.
China’s motivations can be murky to outside observers and censors do not specify the reasons for their decisions. Still, the outlines of the new approach started to become more clear around the middle of 2024, when Mr Mao Yu, executive vice-director of the China Film Administration, pledged to bring in more global movies “with an open and accepting attitude”.
By August, the country made improving the supply of films part of a plan to get people to spend more on services.
After a year when foreign productions were absent from the list of the best grossing releases, two international blockbusters, including Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, cracked the top 10 in 2024.
The world’s second biggest market, which was once a gold mine for US releases, saw 42 American and 24 Japanese films debut in 2024, the most since 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from Chinese ticketing service Maoyan Entertainment.
“Instead of producing domestic films, the distribution and ticket sales have become an important source of revenue for the industry,” said Dr Wing-Fai Leung, a specialist in East Asian film and media industries at King’s College London. “That leaves the idea of importing more diverse films.”
Consumption has meanwhile become a key area of focus for the government in recent months as it embarked on one of its biggest stimulus efforts in years to reverse an economic slowdown.
But cultural imports have long been at the mercy of Beijing’s censors.
Walt Disney Co’s Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings attracted unwanted attention in 2021 because the protagonist’s father in the original comic books was Fu Manchu, a character viewed as perpetuating racist stereotypes.
In the end, the first Marvel superhero film to star an Asian actor in the lead role was never officially released in China.
Geopolitics can also shape priorities. Following clashes with Indian troops in a disputed border area in 2020, China approved no Indian movies for screening until two years later, with 11 permitted since 2022.
The chokehold on Hollywood has at times been just as tight, especially after ties with the US came under strain during the first Trump administration. In the years that followed, China tended to favour its own films and blocked numerous US releases including 2022 hit Top Gun: Maverick.
It did not clear the release of a single movie from the Marvel superhero franchise between 2020 and 2022.
Economics is increasingly becoming a factor. Mr Mao said in August 2024 that the “crisis is here” for the market, citing among reasons a lack of diverse and quality offerings and rising popularity of short streaming videos.
Apart from the annual quota for foreign films under a profit-sharing model that typically applies to Hollywood blockbusters, China has a more flexible system where distributors can import some 30 movies for a fixed fee while keeping the profits. Older movies usually are not subject to these limits when they are rescreened.
“The Chinese film industry alone does not have the capacity nor the stability to churn out enough titles to feed the domestic market,” said Ms Ying Zhu, author of Hollywood In China: Behind The Scenes Of The World’s Largest Movie Market. “China needs heavyweight Hollywood blockbusters as well as small international films to sustain its market.”
The consumer gloom that swept across China in 2024 added to the urgency for the authorities. Spending on non-essential purchases like jewellery and cosmetics all declined in 2024, according to official data.
More than a fifth of respondents in a survey by Beacon Research Institute said they scaled back on travel, dining out, clothing and offline shopping in 2024.
“When the economy goes bad, people cut spending on movies,” said Mr Eric Zhu of Bloomberg Economics.
China is pulling out all the stops to boost attendance at cinemas. The film authority introduced subsidies worth 600 million yuan for ticket purchases during the holiday season between December 2024 and February.
Local governments including in the provinces of Hainan and Hubei are giving out similar vouchers.
Cinemas are adding some flair of their own. The showing of Detective Conan: Crossroad In The Ancient Capital featured fake cherry blossom petals raining on the audience during its premiere in Shanghai, recreating a famous scene from the movie.
As China gradually cracks open its lucrative market to Hollywood, Imax plans to open as many as 25 new locations in the country over the next three years and upgrade 100 existing sites over a longer time frame.
The effort by Imax, known for its giant screens, would help bring more foreign blockbuster films and allow extra space for big-budget local productions.
Leveraging the success of foreign films will still be an uphill battle for China, however, especially with consumers continuing to hunker down.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, a new cinema in one of Beijing’s busiest and trendiest shopping areas was only about one-third filled for a screening of Paddington In Peru.
Some were unfazed.
“I’m a fan of the Paddington series, so I’m wasting no time coming to watch the third one,” said one of the viewers, who only gave her surname as Wu. Near the cinema, LVMH’s promised new flagship store remains fenced off. BLOOMBERG
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