Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Are There So Many Chinese Anime Co-Productions These Days?
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4 Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
|
Ryo Hazuki
Posts: 363 Location: Finland |
|
||
There are many Hong Kong directors, who started their careers in Hong Kong but now work at least partially in China, like John Woo, Tsui Hark, Derek Yee, Stephen Chow, Peter Chan, Johnnie To, Gordon Chan, Jacob Cheung. None of these are really new names but all of the Chinese voters in Sight and Sound's 2012 poll have apparently also seen more than just propaganda and Hollywood blockbusters: http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/sightandsoundpoll2012/voter/870 http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/sightandsoundpoll2012/voter/1201 http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/sightandsoundpoll2012/voter/1202 http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/sightandsoundpoll2012/voter/919 |
|||
|
|||
leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
||
That's true. But Hong Kong is not China. The Hong Kong government doesn't go blocking movies with some whitelist of acceptable movies though, which is how the Hong Kong directors can create better-quality stuff. But yeah, if these movies are allowed to be watched in China, they should be able to build a foundation on at least that. Do Hong Kong movies get wide release in China? |
|||
|
|||
|
Nacirema
Posts: 58 |
|
||
It also important to point out that Hong Kong movie industry went downhill when it was handed over to to Mainland China. Really the only Chinese areas where the entertainment industry has been successful have been Hong Kong and Taiwan, areas where there are a strong emphasis on democracy and human rights. There a quora post that explain what happen to Hong Kong entertainment industry. https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Chinese-popular-culture-not-as-popular-internationally-compared-to-Japanese-and-Korean-popular-culture Also Mainland China would probably have a more successful entertainment/animation industry in the first place if they were a democracy and have better human rights. While Japan were building up their animation industry, China was going through the Cultural Revolution and to this very day, there crackdowns on what kinds of stories to tell. For example, there are no crime shows because the government think it going to make China look bad. As long as the current situation remain the same, it going to be a shackle that going to prevent much success for their animation industry. |
|||
|
|||
|
leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
||
|
Thanks for the link; it was quite helpful in understanding why I don't hear much about Hong Kong cinema anymore. But I still wonder: What is it that the Chinese government is doing differently from other totalitarian governments like Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia? I mentioned it before, but both of those regimes have produced high-quality, well-liked movies (not a lot, but they're there, and Leni Riefenstahl won an Oscar for Triumph of the Will)), whereas hardly any good entertainment comes out of China, and neither of theose regimes were particularly known for democracy or human rights.
|
|||
|
|||
|
Nacirema
Posts: 58 |
|
||
There are definitely other factors as well that preventing China from being successful. Many people, including a lot from Hong Kong and Taiwan, see Mainland China really negatively. For most of it history, the government end up sabotaging any progress in Mainland China, which was really agrarian and poor. Also there a lot of sleazy behavior going on in China like knockoffs. With Germany and Soviet Union, there were both European societies with a artistic base. The two countries got a lot more to build with when those governments were established and have a reputation for craftsmanship. With China they pretty much threw their own culture under the bus and try to mimic Soviet Culture. People who were talented in producing art in traditional Chinese way were pretty much sent to the farms. The other countries didn't demonize their own countries exactly that way and more focused in rooting out the Jews and capitalists influence. Also, it important that even though Germany and Soviet Union has a lot of talented people, many of them spent their time producing propaganda films for the state. |
|||
|
|||
|
leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
||
|
Ah, that actually makes a lot of sense. I hadn't thought about how China, under the communist takeover, attempted to start their culture over from scratch, and I can see that affecting their creative minds too, whereas the other regimes kept at least some of their traditions.
(I would say that propaganda can be well-written, well-produced, and well-directed--Triumph of the Will is one such case, and we got The Great Dictator from the other side of the conflict--which is why it was strange to me that so little quality film or television comes from China, even stuff aimed at their own people. But it definitely makes sense if the government has been interfering with domestic creative processes.) |
|||
|
|||
|
Nacirema
Posts: 58 |
|
||
|
Yeah, I definitely agree with what you say about propaganda. They are some very interesting Soviet cartoons and many of them can be classify as propaganda. Even Miyizaki were [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuriy_Norshteyn
]inspired[/url] by a Soviet animator. China is popular, it just happen that when people talk about Chinese content 99% percent of the time they are talking about Hong Kong or Taiwan. The Chinese areas with a heavy-handed gov. tended to just distort the artist vision. Notice how in a lot of these totalitarian government, the art look really gaudy to the average person like in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, North Korea, etc. China is running into a similar problem. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/21/inside-china-anti-japanese-tv-propaganda-dramas-ba/ Every country has talented artists, but what determine their success is how they are treated. |
|||
|
|||
|
mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
|
||
The Nazi regime did not last long enough to create a new generation of creative minds. The big difference between the USSR and China (which have lasted long enough to carve how the creative process works) is that the former was attempting to win the battle for "hears and minds" and promoting the arts is key. TBT they succeed, therefore the worldwide student protests of 1968. Meanwhile china has no interest in exporting their political system or culture (they think their culture is superior and only fools would think otherwise) and nowadays are far from talking about how the lower social classes should fight the elite (since nowadays that would blow out in their faces). So with no interest in waging a war for the worlds "heart and minds", what is left is a bureaucracy interested in preventing the status quo from being put in jeopardy. i.e. Whan Attack on Titan was prevented from streaming, the gore comes to mind as the reasoning behind that decision, but TBT the idea that a small group of people could think they have a chance to defeat titans (aka the communist party) is terrifies them. At the end of the day the communist party feels that they only need a strong military (to bully the weak and annex whatever country they desire (Korea might be the next target instead of Taiwan) since the battle for hearts and minds did not produce profits for the USSR. . |
|||
|
|||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group