A number of incentives may cause Chinese and U.S. filmmakers to co-produce more films in the future. One recent co-produced film, The Karate Kid, is a great example of the benefits that both sides receive: Lower labor costs; the movie gets increased exposure and a bigger profit with a larger audience (only 20 foreign films a year are allowed for release in China). Co-produced films “are treated as domestic”, so there is no limit as to how many of these films can be released in China. This is a great opportunity for U.S. filmmakers. They can widen the cultural door and educate, or exaggerate, the workings of Western culture and cinema to Chinese citizens. China can showcase their magnificent landscape to the world. They can learn more about film technology from Hollywood. I think that there will definitely be film collaboration between China and U.S. in the future.
This blog is meant to be a space for the Austin College community to discuss issues related to China and the Chinese language. For author permissions, please write to Dr. Jennifer Thackston Johnson: jtj.at.ac –at- gmail.com. Austin College is a leading national independent liberal arts college located north of Dallas in Sherman, Texas.
We're going to talk a lot about this phenomenon when we get to _Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon_ (yes, that would be why it's on the syllabus), and then again when we get to _Hero_. I need to dig up a fascinating article from _The New Yorker_ from a couple of years ago about the people who scout ideas for co-production and run the projects: the highest ranking studio execs assigned to Asia usually have no knowledge of the language or the culture. It happens with more films then you might think: it's how _Internal Affairs_ became _The Departed_ and _Ringu_ became _The Ring_. For those of you looking for career options, there's an interesting (and potentially lucrative) line of work in this area.
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