Publicity-shy Beijing Culture chairman Song Ge took to the stage at his company’s first-ever press conference to promote a film slate. He openly urged film directors to, for the sake of their investors, stick to material that would please the Chinese state.
“I think if you’re shooting an art house or smaller budget films, it’s no problem — say what you want to say and shoot what you want to shoot. But once you’re shooting with investors’ money, given the societal circumstances we have today, you should shoot films that reflect mainstream values,” he said.
He defined those as “ things that the state allows you to shoot! Things that the average people are used to seeing, that stabilize society,” declaring that “this is the place of commercial films.”
He also urged filmmakers to keep pushing to develop types of content not yet seen in the mainland. “Honestly, there are so many, many genres and subjects that have been done abroad but that China has yet to shoot. We can totally take those and shoot them ourselves,” he said.
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He summed up the tense political censorship climate by saying: “I’m not so sure if it’s the best moment for China film but it’s certainly not the worst,” and described his company’s mission in simple terms.
“We want to establish to make good films for our audiences and for the country, that make the government happy, and also that put money in our pockets.”
The company then announced a line-up of its four upcoming films that are nearly finished shooting or already in post, bringing the director and the main cast up for each.
“Dancing Elephant” is first up, hitting mainland theaters July 26. The comedy is directed by Taiwanese director Lin Yu-Hsien, whose 2011 Eddie Peng-starring “Jump Ashin!” has a Mandarin title that mirrors this one’s, though there appears to be no link between the two. It tells the story of a young girl who dreams of being a ballerina but is left in a coma after a car accident and wakes up years later to find that she’s become fat. She reconnects with her old dance classmates and they enter a dance competition. It stars newcomer Jin Chunhua as the female lead and single-monikered Allen (“Hello Mr. Billionaire,” “Kill Mobile”) as the dance coach who whips her team into shape.
Though it seems positioned as a feel-good film that celebrates different body types, Jin was repeatedly singled out for her weight. An video intro to a dance number by Jin described how many tons actual elephants weighed and how they could therefore never dance. And when Allen lifted her off the floor for a final photo op, the moderator laughed: “Now try holding that pose for ten seconds!”
Other films in the line-up included director Ding Sheng’s “S.W.A.T” and “The People Snatched By the Light,” starring Huang Bo and Wang Luodan. It is the directorial debut of screenwriter Dong Runnian, who wrote Ning Hao’s “Crazy Alien,” Guan Hu’s “Mr. Six” and “Break-Up Buddies.”
It tells a tale that sounds remarkably similar to that of the best-selling “Left Behind” religious novel series — which sparked film adaptations including the eponymous Nicolas Cage-starring feature that garnered a stunning 1% on Rotten Tomatoes and made $5 million in Chinese theaters — and Tom Perrotta’s follow-up “The Leftovers,” later turned into a well-received TV series.
But no mention was made of those works. “One day I was just scratching my head and wondering, what would happen if a beam of light came to earth and everyone who encountered it suddenly disappeared?” said Dong, whose film tells the story of the event’s aftermath.
“This premise really deserves applause because it’s really so inventive,” the moderator praised, while actress Wang exclaimed: “I can’t imagine how the director dug deep in his mind to write such a work.” Asked to explain why the disappearances occur, Dong said to consider the phrase “the last judgement” — baffling his Chinese audience, though perhaps not “Leftovers” fans.
Director Lu Chuan then took the stage to promote his “Bureau 749,” which is entering its last week of shooting.
He and his cast revealed very little about the plot, but admitted: “When it came to action, I used to think it a bit…well, let’s just say I didn’t understand it well enough,” he said. “Through this film, I’ll become an action director. There’s really a lot of action in this one.” The film was also quite personal, drawing on elements from his own youth in military school and later, his first job — at the government research department Bureau 749.