The reason, of course, is language. Chinese enjoy American, European and Japanese movies. They give foreign films a large share of their attendance. Language, however, is expressed only in subtitles, which are better than nothing but still woefully inadequate. The Chinese movies can be understood by all Chinese—or almost.
Actually they come in three languages: Mandarin, Cantonese and Amoy. Mandarin is the dialect of Peiping and the most widespread of the Chinese tongues. On Taiwan it is mandatory in the schools and thus is becoming the national language. The Cantonese sound tracks are made for the three million or more South Chinese who live in Hongkong and speak nothing else. Amoy is for the nine million Taiwan-born who may speak fluent Mandarin or almost none at all, but who still like to hear a movie voiced in their Amoy dialect.
If the Chinese movie market ended at Hongkong and Taiwan, it would have only about 15 million prospective customers. The other half of the audience—and perhaps the difference between movie profit and loss—comes from Singapore, Malaya, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, Korea and even the United States. Concentration is in Southeast Asia, where large numbers of Chinese reside. Indonesia once was included, but the Sukarno government now has compelled orientation toward the propagandized film product of the Chinese Communists.
Statistics about Chinese moviemaking are hard to come by, especially in the financial sphere. Without citing precise figures, larger moviemakers say that 60 per cent of export earnings come from Singapore and Malaya, where the Chinese standard of living is comparatively high. Taiwan is second at 30 per cent. Hongkong and Southeast Asia split most of the rest, with a fraction left over for Northeast Asia and the United States.
Chinese moviemaking is just four decades old. The first silent feature had the interesting title "The Orphan Who Saves His Grandfather." It was produced by the Ming Hsing Motion Picture Corporation in Shanghai in 1922. Nine years later the first sound picture, "Songstress Red Peony," came from the same studio. This was only about four years behind Warner Brothers' "The Jazz Singer," when Al Jolson's mammy singing sounded the doom of the silent picture.
Government Aid
Despite the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45, film production continued and improved. With austerity imposed by the necessities of the time, movies were immensely popular and the boxoffice return was good. A golden era seemed to lie ahead when Japan was defeated. More and better films were produced between 1945 and 1948, and able stars, directors and producers began to emerge. Then came the Communists, in 1949, and the industry was split three ways. A part obviously was compelled to remain behind and serve Communism. However, some of the most able people escaped the mainland to Hongkong and Taiwan. In the 13 years since, they have established and built the movie industries of free China and Hongkong.
The Government of the Republic of China, realizing the tremendous importance of films in a free and democratic culture, has sought to encourage Taiwan moviemaking and spur the free-enterprise studios of Hongkong to a maximum effort. Beginning in 1958, the Government Information Office has given cash awards to outstanding productions and those who helped make them. The 1961 honorariums amounted to US$20,000 and went to 36 directors and actors for work in 18 features and 2 documentaries.
This year a new step was taken: the first Chinese Film Festival was held in Taipei at the end of October. Its primary purpose was to accord the sort of recognition pioneered in the Academy Awards and since then extended to Europe and South America. Seven prizes were awarded for films and 14 for performances. For the first time, Chinese film personalities received something above and beyond their salaries, which are not to be spoken of in the same voice with those of Hollywood and even Europe. The Asian Film Festival has recognized Chinese talent, of course, but as part of competitions that involve the nationals of many other countries, including Japan, which has a highly mature movie industry.
Top acting awards went to Lucilla Yu Ming, twice winner of the actress trophy at the Asian Film Festival, for her role in "Stars, Moon and Sun," and to Wang Yin who played an honest man driven to crime in the successful "Pistol" Best director was Doe Ching of Shaw Brothers for "La Belle," and "Stars, Moon and Sun" doubled up with an award for Miss Chin Yi-fu's scenario.
Miss Yu Ming, a beauty and a consummate actress at 24, typifies the star system of Chinese movies. Her career began 10 years ago, when she was a middle school student. Her first contract with Shaw Brothers called for pay of less than US$100 a month and more than US$500 for a principal role. Now her salary is among the industry's highest, yet for the prize-winning "Stars, Moon and Sun" she received only about US$12,000. An active bit player in Hollywood will make far more than a star in Hongkong or Taiwan. However, the taxes are less and earnings in other endeavors also comparably lower. Unlike the United States, where salaries are publicized because of income tax law provisions, the Chinese industry believes that stars' earnings are a legitimate secret. The aim is not tax evasion, but avoidance of jealousies and salary inflation in filmmaking.
Assumed Name
Not unlike the featured players of other countries, Yu Ming has an assumed name. She is really Pi Yu-yi, which doesn't have quite so pretty a sound, in or out of Chinese. There is a difference, however, in the way she came by the screen name. Western stars usually call in the advertising experts. Yu-yi cast lots in order to become Yu Ming. As the astrologers assured, it worked.
A dutiful Chinese daughter, she shares her prosperity with three brothers and two sisters. Two of the boys are studying in the United States. As the eldest, she literally has no choice, yet in the Chinese family system would not have it any other way. Her father, Pei Yu-tung, is a well-known Cantonese opera singer.
Near-sighted despite her beautiful, sparkling dark eyes, Yu Ming leads a simple life when not in the studio or on location. She likes to read and strangely or not, enjoys the movies. As in the United States, she is the continuous subject of pictures and articles in movie and popular magazines. The interviewing gets tiresome sometimes, but her studio urges patience. In return, she is not called upon for sex-kitten performances. In fact, sex is softpedaled in most Chinese movies.
Country Girl
Yu Ming (right) is nurse in winning role (File photo)
Yu Ming's latest prize-winning role was as a country girl. The story takes place during the war with Japan. As with so many people in real life, conflict gives her the courage to leave the old era behind and find new horizons. She becomes an army nurse and serves happily and courageously until illness tragically cuts off her life.
Chinese audiences take to tragedy, and critics have remarked that Miss Yu Ming leaves not a single dry eye in the house. Her fans love it.
"Stars, Moon and Sun" also gives her the opportunity of feminine contrast. She is the simple but persevering country girl. The two others in the cast are a lovely but innocent middle school pupil and a strong, capable college student.
Some observers predict that this film will break boxoffice records before its rounds are finished. The reason extends beyond Yu Ming's moving portrayal. Having ended only in 1945, the Japanese war is remembered even by comparatively young Chinese. They have the opportunity to cast themselves in some of the situations.
Award winners Miss Yu Ming and Wang Yin (File photo)
If Yu Ming is young and widely experienced, top actor Wang Yin is middle-aged and has perhaps more important screen credits than anyone else in Chinese films. At 52, he has been making movies for 32 years. Although he no longer plays juveniles, he is handsome, masculine and has not yet been relegated to roles of the "older man."
In "Pistol" he is a good but proverty-stricken husband and father. For love of his wife and child, he becomes a criminal. His performance is polished and professional—but the movie itself lacks the universal Chinese appeal of Yu Ming's vehicle.
The film winners of Golden Horse awards reveal some generalities about how to make a successful movie for the Chinese audience. Besides "Stars, Moon and Sun," the top features included the Overseas Chinese Studio's "14,000 Witnesses" and the Shaw Brothers' "Yang Kwei-fei," otherwise known as "The Magnificent Concubine."
"Witnesses" tells of the inspiring anti-Communist fight of Chinese prisoners of war during and after the Korean conflict. Their determination not to go back to a life under Communism led the United States to jeopardize the chances for an armistice in order to protect them and the north Koreans who thought likewise. Subsequently they had to resist brainwashing tactics of the Communists at so-called explanation sessions near Panmunjom. Finally, they made it to Taiwan and a life of freedom that still continues. Because of strong local and anti-Communist interest, this production has been a hit on Taiwan.
"Yang Kwei-fei" is historical, ordinarily a surefire way to boxoffice success. Also, and not incidentally, it appeals to the strong but concealed romantic streak in the Chinese people. The story line is simple: an emperor loves his concubine so deeply that he devotes himself entirely to her, jeopardizes the realm and eventually incurs the strong disapproval of courtiers and soldiers. The concubine pays with her life. This only intensifies the emperor's love, which penetrates even to heaven and endures down through the ages.
Also helpful is the fact that this costume romance has been filmed in Eastman color that won an award at the 15th Cannes Film Festival. "Yang Kwei-fei" was shown at Cannes three times and attracted capacity crowds. It is playing Southeast Asia now and down-island Taiwan after a smashing run in Taipei.
Other Golden Horses went to the Central Motion Picture Corporation's "Under One Roof," which is a bid for mainlander-islander understanding on Taiwan, and three documentaries: China Studio's "Kinmen Today" and Taiwan Motion Picture Studio's "Taiwan's Education" and "Double Tenth Military Parade of 1961."
Star System
Sociologists usually observe that the Chinese are essentially conservative, and this is borne out in the screenplays they will pay to see. The story is always important, and the tradition of Chinese opera has laid a solid groundwork for costume pieces. Young people enjoy modern drama, however, and both young and old have contributed to the making of a star system that is just as dollar-worthy as Hollywood's—with one difference.
In Hollywood, the men do all right—from Cary Grant to Elvis Presley. Chinese audiences have decreed that feminine stars are much bigger draws than their male counterparts. On the average, top salaries of Chinese sweethearts of the cinema are six times higher than those of the heroes. The most a male ordinarily receives for a starring role is US$3,000. And if there isn't a femme fatale opposite him, the film probably will flop and lose everybody's money.
Fan interest follows the reflection of income. Movie magazines are full of pictures of feminine fluff, and the articles break down their lives into the smallest detail. Men receive little attention. This is perhaps a reflection of the same tendency in Chinese literature, which romanticizes the female but portrays the male rather pragmatically and often in all his weaknesses.
Old-timers in American movies often deplore the passing of the era in which stars were put upon a pedestal and tried, for better or worse, to live up to their position in the limelight. The contention is that glamour makes the star, and that stars make bigger, better and financially more successful movies.
Chinese fans are like the U.S. moviegoer of the before-TV era. They want to see their stars in the flesh, have their autograph books signed and exchange a few words to be treasured forever after. In Hongkong, fans haunt the ferries and sooner or later are rewarded: aside from small craft, it's the only way to get from Hongkong to Kowloon or vice versa. The Taiwan vantage point is the airport. When Yu Ming arrived in Taipei for the October festival, thousands of fans were on hand to greet her and they turned out again for her departure. Some waited as long as three hours for only a fleeting glimpse.
Improved Action
How good are Chinese actors compared to the Japanese, Americans, British and French? Critics say not as good but gaining. Agreement is general that lack of dramatic training provides a severe handicap. China lacks a legitimate theater, aside from Chinese opera, and has few professional schools and university departments of dramatics. The National Academy of Arts has a department of drama and motion pictures and there is similar study at the Political Staff College. Film companies organize classes themselves in order to find young talent. Most outstanding acting ability therefore emerges only through experience, and it suffers from lack of thorough training that cannot be given while cameras are grinding out expensive film.
Hongkong has the largest producers. Between them, Shaw Brothers and the Motion Picture and General Investment Company, Ltd., turn out about 50 features a year. They survive and earn a good profit in competition with the Chinese Communist output, which streams into Hongkong and is freely exhibited there. Although its resources are tremendous and its population numbers in the hundred of millions, the Peiping regime has the fatal difficulty of too much propaganda ruining even an otherwise creditable movie.
Taiwan has both publicly and privately owned studios. They include:
The Central Motion Pictures Corporation of the Kuomintang, free China's majority political party. It operates 12 theaters and studios at Taichung and Shihlin. With two large sound stages, it can make pictures in color or black and white. Some of Taiwan's top players are under contract.
The China Film Studio is under the political Department of the Ministry of National Defense. Eighty newsreels, documentaries and educational films are produced annually. Four full-length features were made in 1961. Use of color began in 1960.
Newsreels and documentaries also come from the Taiwan Film Studio, which is operated by the provincial department of information. Newsreels released overseas are dubbed in five languages. A newsreel exchange program is maintained with the United States, Japan, Korea, France, Mexico and Colombia.
Attendance Good
Private companies are the Overseas Chinese Film Company, Far Eastern Film Company, and Motion Picture Department of the Tico Company. They are primarily interested in features - and a profit.
Taiwan has 500 movie houses. Of the 21 in Taipei, five show Mandarin dialect films, four those in Amoy dialect (Taiwanese) and the rest screen whatever they think the Chinese audience wants to see. This includes imports, mostly from the United States. About 34 pictures a year come from Japan.
Except for a few turkeys, which any exhibitor may be stuck with on occasion, houses run from full to SRO for four or five showings a day, depending on feature length. Throughout Asia, tickets are sold for an individual screening and continuous showings are unknown. Movies are too popular. Theater operators would never get out of the house those who had come at 10:30 in the morning.
Also, admission prices are ridiculously low by Western standard: 35¢ for the best seats and ranging down to 20¢ for first-run showings. For even a lengthy production, such as "Spartacus," top seats will not exceed 50¢. Second and third-run theaters drop admission by about one-half. In rural and small-town Taiwan, admission will be only four or five cents. Seats are not fixed and the theater serves other purposes.
Low Gross
For the whole island, the annual boxoffice draw runs around US$12.5 million. Of this, about 130 Chinese pictures-including some reruns - claim around $2.1 million. For all Asia, Chinese films pull in about $7 million. In the light of such figures, the low salaries of the stars become understandable.
Hongkong admission run slightly higher but still low by Western comparison. The best first-run seats go for around 60 cents. Business is good despite Hongkong's venture into television. As in Taiwan, the bulk of exhibitions are imported from the United States, Japan and Europe.
Most Asian countries have had theatrical abuses, and steps have been taken to correct them. Ticket scalping is one. When a movie is excessively popular, scalpers line up, buyout the house and sell the tickets at prices that may be inflated by 100 per cent or more, depending on the demand. Hongkong has largely cleaned out the scalpers. Taiwan has not, partly because exhibitor competition is greater and houses like to be assured of a sellout, no matter who buys the tickets.
Ultimate Goal
Greater success has been achieved in keeping theaters clean, in barring children under six, in limitation of on-screen advertising and prevention of smoking. Similar efforts are being made in almost all Asian countries, and the motion picture house has become a thoroughly respectable place that is not off limits to either young people or the family group.
Next year's Asian Film Festival originally was to have been held in Taipei. Because the Taiwan film industry was not adjudged—by China itself—to be sufficiently mature, Japan was asked to take the 1963 event and permit Taiwan to host the festival in 1964. The aim of both government and industry is to have a professional, highly polished motion picture product by that time. Progress is being made with Japanese and Hongkong cooperation, as well as through the unilateral experience of free China's filmmakers and players.
The final objective is not to service 30 million Chinese who enjoy movies as much as any people on earth, but to prepare for the day when wholesome entertainment and cinema art will be conveyed to the more than 500 million people of the mainland. Chinese moviemaking has come a long way but it still has a long way to go. No one knows it better than those who make and exhibit the pictures. The Chinese Film Festival seeks to dramatize that awareness and speed the way to greatness in the language group that is spoken by more people than any other in the world.