CHINA BEAT: A Flirtation with Classification

Earlier this week, Chinese cinema exhibitor Beijing Bona Starlight Cineplex Management Co. Ltd. announced that it will start applying film classifications to films in the hope of providing better guidance to its patrons and improving box office performance. A subsidiary of film distribution giant Bona Film Group, the exhibitor currently only operates four cinemas in China, including two in Beijing, but has seven more venues in various stages of development. While this may seem like a pretty insignificant gesture, China currently has no official film classification system in place but there have been numerous appeals for one from throughout the industry. 

As it stands, any film that is passed for exhibition by China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television can be watched by audiences of any age. SARFT itself also operates without any official guidelines and the opinion amongst many filmmakers and distributors is that if a classification system was in place, SARFT would be more lenient in what it chose to pass as suitable viewing for the country's 1.3 billion inhabitants. The announcement was made by Starlight's General Manager, Huang Wei, and while the specifics of the proposed system have yet to be revealed, Huang suggested that Beijing Bona Starlight's ratings would be based on Hong Kong's current system. 

Here in Hong Kong, any film that is exhibited to the general public must first be submitted to and cleared by the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (TELA). Currently there are four ratings that can be awarded to a film, but only one of them has an actual age restriction attached. Category I means the film can be viewed by anybody, while Category IIA and IIB advise parental guidance. The general consensus is that IIA films are not suitable for children under the age of 10, while IIB films should not be viewed by anyone under the age of 14. However, there is no restriction attached to any of these and cinemas are perfectly entitled to allow young children into films awarded with either of these ratings. Category III movies, on the other hand, prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from seeing the film, whether they are accompanied by an adult guardian or not. Recent recipients of the Category III rating include Christopher Sun's 3D SEX AND ZEN: EXTREME ECSTASY and David Fincher's THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO and as expected it is most often applied to explicit sexual or violent content. However in recent years the Category III rating has been issued for other reasons, most notably to Johnnie To's ELECTION for its detailed depiction of triad societies, and Pang Ho Cheung's romantic comedy LOVE IN THE PUFF, for its gratuitous and relentless bad language.

If China were to implement such a system then the hope is that SARFT would relax its attitudes towards sexual and violent content in films, if it was confident that only audiences of a certain age would be able to see them. Such a system might also help distributors hone their marketing campaigns towards specific audience demographics, making them more efficient and cost-effective. Beijing Bona Searchlight's system, set to be implemented at the end of February, would only be advisory, and carry no legal weight, but it's certainly a fascinating move that we'll be sure to track in the months ahead.

Turning our attention to the mainland box office and the Chinese New Year holidays was dominated by the release of Guy Ritchie's SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS. The film opened on 15 January and by the end of its first week had taken RMB83.6 million ($13.26 million), almost twice that of Dante Lam's THE VIRAL FACTOR, which debuted in second place. A week later and both films were continuing to perform strongly, but had been knocked off the top spot by the arrival of Brad Bird's MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL. After just 2 days in cinemas, the Tom Cruise vehicle had taken RMB99.3 million ($15.74 million). With SHERLOCK HOLMES now at RMB151 million ($24 million) and THE VIRAL FACTOR on RMB102 million ($16.13 million), 4th place belongs to holiday comedy ALL'S WELL ENDS WELL 2012, with just shy of RMB63 million ($10 million) after 10 days on release. 

Derek Yee's THE GREAT MAGICIAN has proved far more popular north of the border than it did in Hong Kong and to-date has accumulated a healthy RMB158 million ($25 million) in just under three weeks, with hit animation PLEASANT GOAT AND BIG BIG WOLF now in 6th place with RMB147 million ($23.3 million). The success of this fourth installment in the popular PLEASANT GOAT series has prompted producer Imagi International Holdings Ltd. to commit to three more films in the coming years, including a mixed animation/live action adaptation in the hopes of broadening the films' appeal beyond children.

The success of PLEASANT GOAT AND BIG BIG WOLF 4 - MISSION INCREDIBLE: ADVENTURES ON THE DRAGON TRAIL (to give it its full title) was probably largely to blame for the relative failure of the other home-grown animated film of the season, THE MONKEY KING 3D. A restored, re-edited and retro-fitted re-release of a much older adaptation of the classic Journey To The West story, the film has taken RMB42 million ($6.64 million) in 19 days on release, barely more than a quarter of its rival's haul over the same period. Meanwhile, this week finally saw Tsui Hark's monster smash FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON GATE, as well as Giddens Ko's YOU ARE THE APPLE OF MY EYE both fall out of the Top Ten.