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  […] May 14th, 2007 Chinese media reported on May 9 that Zhang Yimou 张艺thinks Spiderman 3 has snatched away the rice bowl of Chinese film directors. During China’s golden week (a holdover-national holiday from May 1-7 to celebrate International Workers’ Day, Spiderman 3 and a few other imports took over 90% of domestic receipts. Shanghainese actress Vivian Wu (Wu Junmei） complained: During golden week how is it we can’t see our own films? Wu’s film Shanghai Red 红美丽 irfwas first in inese language box office, yet trailed Spiderman 3 by a large margin. Shanghai Red is not even your typical Chinese film-it’s bilingual, directed by a foreigner/laowai, and stars (played by Richard Burgi, Terri Hatcher’s ex-husband/husband Karl on Desperate Housewives) as well as Wu herself, who has crossed over into Western films such as the gloriously awful Pillow Book. 500 prints of Spiderman nationwide pushed aside everything except the major popular Chinese films. The market doesn’t always rule in China, but it did here. According to a theater official, attendance at those other movies was sparse and everyone likes the Spidey franchise (except myself-it was truly bad). It appears Zhang Yimou and Jia Zhangke, two members of China’s filmmaker vanguard (excepting ZYM’s most recent sino-flashy period extravaganzas and his much-criticized involvement in the 2008 Beijing Olympics), may not have literally signed onto this lament but are supportive, being in the same predicament as their comrades. Jia Zhangke was in Chengdu preparing his new film, and said that he has also been bullied by the same holiday moviegoing market, but filmmakers don’t have the power to force theaters to change their ways. Jia believes China should cultivate the masses by learning from South Korea, which stipulates theaters must allocate a certain number of days per year to screen domestic films. Spiderman 3 also conquered Korea’s market, albeit at a much lower 30 percent. ZYM’s longtime partner Zhang Weiping believes that policy solutions are insufficient. Art-house/indie needs to learn to play on the same terms as the foreign behemoths, and develop marketing strategies and the like in order to really compete. […]

  14 May 2007, 17:37 pm