(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
- We made it under the budget and according to the schedule, says Rob Cohen, director of The Mummy: The Dragon Emperor's Tomb, about filming in China.
– We shot there for almost 60 days, and we have almost only positive things to say about it, he continues.
The Mummy 3 is a classic Indiana Jones-style adventure about hunting for historical treasures in exotic parts of the world. More interesting, however, is that it is the latest in a series of American films that try to appeal to Chinese moviegoers, with both locations, a lot of actors and action from there.
The middle class in China is steadily growing, and will soon pass 100 millions. These people also get more time and money to spare for leisure activities, like going to the movies. Well-crafted spectacular stories with local roots have an added appeal. Furthermore, in these Olympic times, interest in China is overwhelming worldwide.
People are curious about what is happening and what has happened in the Middle Kingdom. The motivation for making films about and from China is greater than ever before.
Snow White and the seven Shaolin monks
The animated film Kung Fu Panda is one of the summer's biggest audience savers in Europe. In China, interest has been beyond expectations. But is it really that strange? The action is tailor-made for the Chinese market with the national symbol itself, the panda, as the protagonist of a film about Kung Fu, a sport of Chinese origin.
The concept of Chinese animals practicing martial arts is simple but brilliant. Chinese manufacturers are still scratching their heads wondering why they themselves have not managed to cough up something similar in the past. The likelihood that we can expect more Chinese variations on the theme is not very small.
Recently, Chinese-born Hollywood directors Ang Lee and John Woo each made their epic in China. Taiwanese-American Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, which went to the cinema earlier this year, is a gangster film from WWII Shanghai. While action director John Woo has just completed Red Cliff, where a crucial historical battle during the Han dynasty in the 200th century AD. forms the backdrop. There is no shortage of strong stories from the Middle Kingdom. A film adaptation of Jung Cheng's award-winning novel Wild Swans is underway. While Bruce Beresford will direct the story of one of Mao's ballet dancers who jumped off to the United States.
Blockbusters such as Mission Impossible III (2006) and the recent Batman movie Dark Knight (2008) also have important scenes from China, obviously to increase the appeal.
At the same time, we see that Chinese actors are becoming more and more common in Hollywood movies. Big names like Joan Chen, Li Gong, Jet Li, Yow Chun Fat, Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Bai Ling all have Chinese backgrounds. This helps to make the interest in films as great in China as in the United States.
Steven Spielberg was the first Western filmmaker to make feature films in China. Empire of the Sun (1987) was recorded in Shanghai, and has opened the doors for other western recordings.
A couple of years ago, Walt Disney Pictures also had the idea of making a Chinese-adapted Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, with the sounding title Snow White and the Seven Shaolin Monks! It sounds like a parody, but in that case says a little about the willingness to meet the Chinese audience at home.
Can do anything
But after all: it may seem like it is very important to have insight into the Chinese language and culture to be allowed to film there. The mummy 3-current Rob Cohen has it, and even has a son who studies there. These have been contributing factors to his being allowed to shoot the Mummy 3 there.
"At one point we had a staff of 2000 Chinese in three important locations, with a distance of hundreds of miles from each other," he says.
– I have never worked with people who are more willing to do a job. Even when I came up with the idea of reproducing the construction of the Great Wall of China, they said, "Can do, director!" They immediately put 200 people on the task. It was like that all the time. I never heard a "no, it's not possible". They were there to learn from us, and we were the ones who eventually learned the most from them.
Strict censorship
Although Chinese moviegoers often devour Hollywood clichés, the Chinese government is not always as open-minded. Around 20 American films are shown in the country every year. There goes the authorities' pain threshold. It takes little for a film to fall into discomfort, or be taken off the poster. Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (2007) was censored because the Chinese pirates did not appear as it should for a Chinese. How many pirates on film have ever been politically correct?
Hollywood movies starring the US military also tend to fall out of favor with the Chinese government. When the Americans bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo war, Saving Private Ryan (1998) was removed from Chinese cinemas. A heroization of the US Army was not exactly what the Beijing government wanted to see.
Censorship still hits hard. No official explanation has been given as to why the Da Vinci Code (2006) was not allowed to go to the cinema for a long time. But it was certainly for reasons other than that its view of Jesus was controversial in the Vatican. According to some rumors, it was the danger that Christian groups could gather on the occasion of screenings of the film, which worried the government.
"China Wood»
China itself as a film production country is probably not quite ready to take on the competition with Hollywood. For now, they must try to learn the lessons of Western productions made in China. But the facilities are at least in place.
Hengdian World Studios in Zhejiang Province, where parts of the Mummy 3 were recorded, is the world's largest studio. The sizes correspond to two Hollywood studios combined. An important advantage compared to Hollywood is the low cost that goes to set workers.
In just a 10-year period, Hengdian has been developed from a poor agricultural area into a huge studio. Both models of palaces and temples, as well as copies of historical sites, are offered. Among the most spectacular sets is a 1: 1 copy of The Forbidden City in Beijing. Tourists flock to Hengdian to see the replicas of the historic sites. In many ways, Hengdian studio can be seen as a symbol of Chinese ambition: It is huge, it has everything and the almost impossible can be accomplished there. It's fascinating and a little scary at the same time.
