July is traditionally Taiwan’s hottest movie month. The annual high season in box office sales gets an extra boost when thousands of students flock to the theaters to celebrate having survived the grueling high school and university entrance exams. This is the most important time of the year for film distributors to gauge what’s selling and what’s not. Last summer, the message was clear: the top-drawing movie on the island was Disney’s The Lion King, which set local records by running seventy days and earning nearly US$2 million in ticket sales.
The scene was quite different in theaters showing the newly released Red Lotus Society by local director Stan Lai (賴聲川), a film that juxtaposes the ancient and the modern by contrasting a young boy’s quest to learn a mythical form of flying kungfu against a backdrop of today’s “magic”—gambling, stock market speculation, and advertising hype. The movie, despite being on its way to compete in the Tokyo International Film Festival last September, drew such thin crowds in Taiwan that theater owners yanked it after just seven days.
The contrast between Hollywood hits and sparsely attended local films is nothing new in Taiwan, but the gap has become more frustrating for filmmakers in recent years because the situation has not changed despite growing recognition for Taiwan movies in overseas film circles. In 1994 alone, the island picked up nineteen awards at international film festivals. Vive l’amour, directed by Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮), won the Golden Lion for best picture at the Venice Film Festival and awards for best director and best actor at the Nantes Film Festival. Lee Ang’s (李安) Eat Drink Man Woman was named best picture at the 1994 Asia-Pacific Film Festival in Sydney, while The Wedding Banquet (which won a 1993 Golden Bear for best picture at the Berlin International Film Festival) was nominated for a U.S. Academy Award. A Borrowed Life, directed by Wu Nien-jen (吳念真), won the Thessaloniki Film Festival in Greece, and Edward Yang’s (楊德昌) Confucian Confusion was selected to compete at Cannes.
And the winner is—Film stars Joan Chen and Liang Chao-wei win 1994 Golden Horse awards for their respective roles in two Hong Kong films; White Rose, Red Rose, and Chungking Express.
The high quality and stylistic variety of these new films are as impressive as the awards. “Local films have made much progress in lighting, art design, and directing techniques,” says Jack Liu (劉煥忠), a professor in the film department at National Taiwan College of Arts in Taipei. The refreshing diversity in themes also marks a break with the movies of the last decade, which tended to stick closely to serious historical dramas with narrow local or “nativist” themes. “The local films of the eighties were marked by reminiscences of the past, reflections on history, and humanistic concerns,” says film critic Edwin Huang (黃建業). “The films of the nineties are distinct because they’ve shaken off the heavy subject matter.”
In Vive l’amour, for example, director Tsai Ming-liang collages fragments of the everyday lives of three urbanites in current-day Taipei. The characters try to give meaning to their blasé lives with love, or at least momentary passion. The effect is alternately funny and sad. In Confucian Confusion, Edward Yang uses extensive dialogue, interlocking plots, and swift transitions to show how Confucian virtues are being challenged and distorted in modem urban life. With its crisp, Hollywood-style rhythm, Lee Ang’s comedy Eat Drink Man Woman features the interaction between a chef and his three adult daughters, who are each struggling with complicated love lives.
But back in Taiwan, the international acclaim and sparkling trophies have not translated into widespread support. In fact, the wave of award-winning films has been met mainly with empty theaters and grim prospects for investment in future films. “Taiwan’s film industry appears from the outside to be prosperous, but the view from the inside is dismal,” says Yang Chung-fan (楊仲範), director of the Department of Motion Picture Affairs of the Government Information Office (GIO), which oversees public funding for films and regulates the film industry. “The fact is, the number of movie theaters in Taiwan is dwindling, and so is annual film production,” he says.
Yang I-ping, president of the Motion Picture Association of Taipei, says Taiwan audiences have a healthy appetite for foreign movies—“Box office sales of Hollywood films tend to be even better now than three years ago.”
Taiwan’s film industry was in a far different situation a generation ago. During the fifties and sixties, filmmakers turned out between two hundred and three hundred syrupy romances and grade-B kungfu films a year. These movies enjoyed widespread local audiences and had a strong following in Hong Kong and in Chinese communities throughout Southeast Asia. But today, production of Taiwan films has fallen to between twenty and thirty per year, and few of these films are shown off the island. As film production has diminished, the theaters showing them have begun closing down. For example, over the past ten years, the number of movie theaters in Taipei has fallen from 87 to 60, according to a survey by the Taipei Theater Association. Many of these were forced to close because, under government regulations, they can only show local films—defined by the government as those made in either Taiwan or Hong Kong. Only twenty-four copies of any foreign-made film can be imported and circulated on the island and only approved theater chains can show them. This year, the number of chains approved in Taipei was increased from six to nine.
According to film distributors, it is only the theaters showing local films that are suffering. They say theaters have not been hurt by the rapid development of viewing alternatives during the 1980s. “When pirated copies of videotapes, MTV [movie viewing] parlors, and cable TV movie channels became rampant, many people in the business expected movie theaters to fall out of public favor,” says Wolf Chen (陳鴻元), sales and marketing manager of the film division of ERA International, an entertainment company with interests in film production, video distribution, and cable TV. Instead, people simply began watching more movies through different methods. “Each medium has its own unique attributes which prevent it from being eliminated,” Chen says.
“Following a fixed schedule of release—to theaters, then video rental houses, video parlors, TV stations, and cable TV—film does not suffer from the other entertainment media,” says C.S. Hsu (許金順), chairman of the Taipei Theater Association. “Theaters coexist with the downstream distribution network.” Many theaters are owned by film distribution companies that also operate video rentals and other downstream businesses.
In fact, Taiwan’s box office sales show that interest in movies is growing, not shrinking, at least for certain types of films. U.S. blockbusters such as Jurassic Park and The Lion King have recently set new records. “Box office sales of Hollywood films tend to be even better now than three years ago,” says Yang I-ping (楊翌平), president of the Motion Picture Association of Taipei.
Forrest Gump does Taipei—With competition from a steady supply of Hollywood blockbusters, local films are often rushed in and out of the theaters.
And when American films aren’t filling the theaters, Hong Kong action flicks and slapstick comedies are. The colony has long supplied local theaters with a steady stream of movies, building up huge local followings for stars such as Jackie Chan (成龍). While production of Hong Kong films has dipped slightly in the past couple of years, due in part to spiraling wages for top-name actors, the colony still far overshadows Taiwan in film production. Today, 60 to 65 percent of movies shown in Taiwan are foreign-made, most from the United States. Among the remainder, which are categorized as local films, about 80 percent are actually released as Hong Kong movies.
The dominance of commercial movies over films with artistic merit is par for the course, among film industries worldwide, but Taiwan seems to suffer more than most places. In a strong film industry, a spectrum of different types of movies can be produced, from light comedies and action thrillers to avant-garde experiments. For example, in the United States, the success of the mainstream movie business paves the way for the development of more daring, alternative films. But Taiwan filmmakers enjoy no such benefits. Because the commercial film industry has been squelched by competition from Hollywood and Hong Kong, many Taiwan filmmakers have little interest in making films that directly compete with these blockbuster imports. And makers of non-mainstream films must operate without the support system of a healthy commercial industry.
Another problem is that, with a population of 21 million, the island’s movie-going population is too small to support an alternative film industry, distributors say, and Taiwan has not built up significant audiences overseas. “Producers and investors are market-oriented,” says Hsu Li-kong (徐立功), a producer with the Central Motion Picture Corp. “Without a market, they don’t invest in a film.” ERA’s Wolf Chen puts it more bluntly: “There is no need for Taiwan to build its film industry. The local market is too small to make money.”
Yang Chung-fan, director of the Department of Motion Picture Affairs of the Government Information Office—“Taiwan’s film industry appears from the outside to be prosperous, but the view from the inside is dismal."
But film critic Peggy Chiao (焦雄屏) of the daily China Times Express dismisses such analysis as shortsighted, pointing out that Taiwan films oftentimes do not sell as poorly as reported. “Box office sales should include theater income, copyright sales for cable TV, video and LD rental and sales, plus TV use and overseas markets,” she says. Chiao also charges that theater owners and film distributors often misreport ticket sales—a feat that is easy to do because most theater sales are not computerized. “Local box office sales remain a mystery,” she says. “Film distributors make up numbers to embezzle profits.” Yang I-ping of the Motion Picture Association, who is also a theater owner, says owners often underreport ticket sales because they feel squeezed by the government’s entertainment profit tax. “We cannot but make up our balance sheets,” he says, “because the current taxes are too high.”
Yet another hardship for filmmakers is the boom-and-bust method of releasing movies in theaters. As soon as a new movie is released, the island’s nine main theater chains flood the market with the new film for a week or so, then switch to another movie at the first hint that ticket sales are slowing. Taiwan films are thus shown alongside—and must compete against—the latest Hollywood thrillers and Hong Kong kungfu flicks. Ding Nai-chu (丁乃竺), an actress and general manager of both the Performance Workshop drama troupe and a new cable television station, Supertelevision, calls the distribution system “insane” and says it is “one of the most serious problems of the local film industry.” She points out that, unlike in the West, where non-mainstream theaters often specialize in a certain type of movie in order to build up a following, no such tradition exists in Taiwan.
In the face of these constraints, directors have set their sights on international markets. “Local films can’t merely rely on the local market,” says film critic Edwin Huang. “Art films may have poor ticket sales for the first run period, but the copyrights for overseas markets can bring in steady and long-term profits.”
Director Yee Chihyen—“The film industry is not attracting investors, so there is no money coming in, no big investments, no projects.”
But thus far, selling overseas remains a distant hope for most filmmakers. Southeast Asian markets for Chinese films are dominated by Hong Kong, and releasing in the mainland brings insubstantial returns since the mainland government offers filmmakers a flat fee—usually US$10,000 to US$15,000 per movie—and there is a high risk of piracy. Attracting Western markets is difficult because most Taiwan filmmakers lack international marketing expertise. Except in the case of a handful of recent films, even the quality of English subtitling remains low. Yang Chung-fan of the GIO compares film companies to traditional street vendors who simply wait for customers to come to their stalls. “The people responsible for promotions don’t even speak fluent English,” he says. For most filmmakers, marketing consists of holding a press conference or attending international film trade fairs.
Perhaps the biggest difficulty facing the film industry is the growing brain drain, or talent drain, into Hong Kong and Mainland China. Hsu Li-kong of the Central Motion Picture Corp. describes the rise and fall of the industry. “In the late sixties to early seventies, Taiwan films had a market in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, but when a large number of nativist movies quickly exhausted the same subject matter, the market shrank,” he says. “Meanwhile, the Hong Kong film industry began importing advanced equipment and built up a talented pool of actors by offering many on-screen opportunities.”
Not only have Hong Kong action movies long dominated local theaters, but the colony is now attracting growing numbers of Taiwan film companies to produce higher-quality films there. Local producers simply establish a branch company, then take advantage of Hong Kong’s talented film personnel and the mainland’s many scenic locations. Since the relaxation of cross-strait travel regulations in 1989, about one hundred and forty Taiwan-funded films have been shot in the mainland—more than the total number shot on the island during that time.
“We don’t shoot films in Taiwan mainly because we can’t find the big-name actors or skilled technicians,” says Tsai Sung-lin (蔡松林), president of Scholar Films Corp. “Besides, in the Southeast Asian markets, films released as Taiwan films are never as popular as those released as Hong Kong films.” The company produced sixteen films in 1994, all in Hong Kong or Mainland China. His yearly production schedule alone represents significant losses for the local industry—production fees for one 1994 release filmed in mainland and Hong Kong, Ashes of Time, totaled US$8 million.
Space at a premium—One factor that sends producers to Hong Kong is Taiwan’s limited film equipment. A single Taipei company, Hong Rong Film Co., rents studio time to 80 percent of local filmmakers.
Ho Shin (何欣), producer of Five Women and a Rope, which was also filmed in Mainland China, says Taiwan is overshadowed by the better human resources in Hong Kong and the superior natural resources and cheaper manpower in Mainland China. The attitudes of Taiwan directors, Ho says, are another reason producers have left the island. “Film companies are unwilling to invest in local filmmaking because they think the directors don’t consider what the audiences want, that their style is too personal,” he says.
Some motion picture firms invest in Hong Kong and the mainland to work with directors who already enjoy widespread fame. “It’s a global market that we are aspiring to reach—that’s why we are cooperating with filmmakers from Mainland China, such as Zhang Yimou (張藝謀),” says Wolf Chen of ERA International. “He has international recognition.” ERA has backed two of Zhang’s films, Raise the Red Lantern, which won the Silver Lion award at the 1992 Venice Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award, and To Live, which won the 1994 Grand Jury Prize at Cannes.
Many of these collaborative films have won international acclaim, but in many cases, Taiwan has not been recognized for its involvement. For example, Raise the Red Lantern was funded and produced through the Hong Kong branch of a Taiwan company, but was released as a mainland film. Taiwan-funded Farewell to My Concubine was also recognized solely as a mainland film when it won the 1993 Golden Palm at Cannes. Making the sting even more painful for Taiwan are government regulations that initially banned both these productions from local release. The ROC government forbids the showing of films if the mainland residents in the cast and crew number more than half. However, both these films were eventually shown locally because of a clause allowing movies that break the “50 percent rule” to be released if they win major international awards.
Given the growing shift of local money into Hong Kong or mainland films, the outlook for improving the industry seems bleak. “The local film industry is riddled with problems, from upstream to downstream—from film study, to production, to ticket sales,” says UCLA film-school graduate Yee Chihyen (易智言). Yee finished the final production on his first film, Lonely Hearts Club, at the end of 1994. “In terms of film education, all the local schools lack qualified teachers and equipment,” he says. “The film industry is not attracting investors, so there is no money coming in, no big investments, no projects. It’s hard to recruit qualified people. Everything depends on the efforts of individual filmmakers, but the achievements of a few filmmakers can’t substantially help the industry.”
Film critic Peggy Chiao urges moviemakers to take advantage of the media attention for film awards—“The most imperative thing is for the local industry to act now and use this opportunity to explore the overseas market.”
“The hardship for local filmmakers is that there are few professionals to work with,” says Emily Liu (劉怡明), director of the newly released The Kangaroo Man. Liu, who spent several years in film production in Hollywood, says Taiwan’s film industry is caught in a Catch-22. Actors and film technicians have little chance for professional training because movie production is falling off, and movie production is down because filmmaking expertise can’t compete with Hong Kong.
Local actors also suffer from pressures not found elsewhere. “In Taiwan, an actress can’t make a living only shooting movies,” says Yang Kuei-mei (楊貴媚), who starred in Eat Drink Man Woman and played the female lead in Vive l’amour. While at work on a film, most local actors are expected to appear as well on TV shows and, in the case of those who double as singers, to promote new music releases. Some even work on several films simultaneously. Such fragmented schedules influence their performances. “It’s impossible for actors or actresses to do any preparation before the camera starts rolling,” Yang says. “There’s no time for things like getting familiar with each other’s facial expressions and gestures, learning each others’ behavior and habits.”
Perhaps most surprising in a place with an increasingly strong international reputation for high technology goods is the poor quality of Taiwan’s film equipment. The Central Motion Picture Corp. (CMPC) has the most complete film production system, but most of it is timeworn and old fashioned. The CMPC offers the only full set of post-production equipment in Taiwan, for example, but it lacks the computerized film editing system considered de rigueur in Western film companies. All local post-production cutting is still done by hand.
Film distributor Wolf Chen—“There is no need for Taiwan to build its film industry. The local market is too small to make money.”
Six private companies also rent out film equipment and studio time, but filmmakers must often compete with advertising companies for equipment time and their equipment is limited. For example, while remote-controlled “flying cameras” are common in film circles elsewhere, they were not available in Taiwan until director Stan Lai imported one from Australia for the shooting of The Red Lotus Society. Other directors who want aerial shots must send their cameramen on risky jobs in helicopters or on cranes. Director Yee Chihyen sums up the situation this way: “Taiwan’s film industry is still in the manual labor phase.”
The local film industry hit a low in 1992. That year, filmmakers produced just twenty-three films. Taiwan theaters were almost entirely booked with Hong Kong films—each of the ten top-drawing movies shown that year were made in the colony.
Government funding seemed the only hope left for the industry. In late 1991, the GIO held a national conference to solicit input from producers, filmmakers, actors, and critics. Based on these recommendations, the office set several goals including promoting films internationally by sponsoring fifty-nine films to enter forty-eight overseas film festivals and trade fairs. Many won international awards.
To help ease financial strain, the GIO is negotiating with state-run banks to offer low-interest mortgage rates for film companies, and as of last June, filmmakers have been exempt from the 5 percent business profits tax and are required to pay only half the 1.5 percent entertainment tax. Filmmakers also got a boost when the private Motion Picture Development Foundation of the ROC agreed to subsidize 80 percent of the import tariff on foreign-made film equipment. The GIO is now negotiating with the Ministry of Finance to cut all import tariffs on such equipment.
Most significantly, 1993 was designated National Film Year, and film critic Peggy Chiao was hired to organize and plan activities. A budget of US$6 million was set aside to cover promotions of films internationally and locally, an exhibition of film history, and funding for a comparative study of film production in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China. During the year, the government also sponsored an islandwide festival of local films and one of foreign films, plus a festival of Taiwan films in Southeast Asian countries.
Film star Yang Kuei-mei says local performers are rushed during filming and must often work on several movies at once—“It’s impossible for actors or actresses to do any preparation before the camera starts rolling.”
“The most significant thing that National Film Year did was to promote young directors’ films, such as Tsai Ming-liang’s Rebels of the Neon God,” says film critic Edwin Huang. He also credits the programs with giving directors opportunities to create short experimental films, and he supports the review of local film history which was published during the year. But Huang and others criticize the government for discontinuing the promotional activities after one year. “The programs started during the National Film Year should have been continued. It is a shame to stop the programs because of lack of funding,” he says.
Government funding for local filmmakers dates back to 1976, when the Motion Picture Development Foundation began offering grants of around US$12,000 for ten selected movie scripts per year. The GIO took over the awards in 1986 and, in 1992, extended the program to accept scripts from overseas Chinese. Then in 1990, the GIO began giving a second set of grants, totaling US$1.2 million, to filmmakers. Two years later, the fund was increased to US$2 million—three grants of US$385,000 and five of US$153,000. Funding will likely be increased to US$4 million in 1995.
Nearly all the recent award-winning films have been supported by either or both of these grants, including Lee Ang’ s Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet, and Eat Drink Man Woman; Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day; and Tsai Ming-liang’s Rebels of the Neon God and Vive l’amour. But controversies have arisen over how the grants are awarded. Film producers and distributors have pressured the government to choose films with potential box office draw. “The government always gives the funding to art movies, which might win awards in international festivals, but their box office sales at local theaters are disastrous,” says Yang I-ping, president of the Taipei Motion Picture Association.
Director Emily Liu—“The hardship for local filmmakers is that there are few professionals to work with.”
But some scholars and film critics believe the awards should be designated for films with cultural or artistic merit. “A film should surely have two elements: culture and commerce. But these should be discussed separately,” says critic Peggy Chiao. Only movies offering cultural value should be supported by the government. Commercial films are only commodities in the eyes of film distributors. They should be responsible for their own profits or losses.”
Others in the business take a middle road, arguing that films should be judged on quality rather than categorized as either commercial or films. “With the film selected for government funding, I don’t insist on the discrimination between art films and commercial films,” says drama troupe general manager and actress Ding Nai-chu. “As long as it’s a film with originality and quality, it is qualified to win government funding.” But she adds that, except for Lee Ang’s recent films, most local directors have failed in their attempts to produce quality commercial films.
In response to pressure from private film companies, this year, the GIO ceded more than one-third of the jury seats for funding awards to members of the Motion Picture Producers of the ROC, and the selection criteria were modified to emphasize both artistic merit and commercial value.
High-tech Taiwan lags behind international standards in its film equipment. None of the island’s production companies has an online post-production editing system.
The GIO programs to subsidize selected local films to compete in international festivals and to grant winning films extra award money have also sparked controversy. Many film critics complain that the funds go to films representing Hong Kong, rather than Taiwan, in international competitions. In some cases, films supported by GIO funds have even been banned from release in Taiwan because of the government’s “50 percent rule” on mainland cast and crew members.
Those in the business stress that the next five years will be crucial to the local film industry as it strives to take advantage of the recent international acclaim it has received and to build audiences and develop financial support both at home and abroad. “The most imperative thing is for the local industry to act now and use this opportunity to explore the overseas market,” says film critic Peggy Chiao. Given the problems surrounding the industry, perhaps filmmaker Ho Hsiao-hsien( 侯孝賢 ) sums up the situation best when he calls Taiwan’s award-winning films “flowers blooming from barren soil.” Will these flowers wither? The world is watching.