Sexy Chinese Content: Slipping One Past the Censors 苹果陈 @loora8888

I have been spending a lot of time in Asia. To support myself? I do several things - a number of them under the banner of “teaching”. One organizing principle of my “teaching”? Trying to figure out how stories are being told and shared using new motion picture tech. How does that manifest in my life? I try to find (paying?) opportunities to share what I’ve learned in Asia watching things online - like the Hong Kong protests or web content in China. 

So? 

I saw loora8888. 

I’ll admit, the apparent street photography coupled with fearless beauty and a sexual connection to the camera is where my fascination started. But from that first connection flowed other questions. 

Who are they? What’s with their physical intimacy? Are they gay? 

Not likely. 

In China right now gay stories are banned - and an author of gay-erotica was recently sentenced to 10 years in jail. 

So? 

It seems they are sisters. 

Ok. That part makes sense. Even though, in my life, I’ve only known a few sisters whose connection was truly that exhilarating. I get who they are. And it gets them past the Chinese censors. In other words? Their intense connection, coupled with their intoxicating playful sexual confidence on camera, now made sense to me as a China-watcher and supporter of civil rights for gay people. 

But then my producer-self asked - who or what is paying for all this? 

The answer? 

They are marketing the clothes they design. 

Truly? Next level stuff. And? For me? This is yet another example of how some major obstacles (Chinese censorship) and the new tools are inspiring amazing work that contributes to the ongoing democratization of motion picture production.

Love and the Producer: Big Money From Interactive Storytelling That Targets a Key Demographic in China - Young Women

The future of interactive storytelling might be emerging right now in China via a (new at the end of Dec. 2017) romantic mobile game.

"Love and the Producer" takes all those Western dystopian fantasies about men dating shapely androids and turns them on their head - by making the female (!) player in this relationship game an ambitious executive with 4 comely men to keep on a string as she tries to build her TV production company.

And the real world cash being collected - mostly apparently from young female players - of 恋与制作人 ("Love and the Producer") is rumored to be approaching successful indie film levels - and growing. 

That massive popularity, its appeal to young women, and the way "Love and the Producer" is straying into areas once reserved for films and TV series, might suggest that this Chinese sensation deserves a look from future motion picture makers.

Without delving too deeply into the gameplay: "Love and the Producer" unfolds as the tale of MC - a female TV producer - who must pay attention to several story threads, with each player trying to level up as MC.

There's...

1) A business storyline, that concerns MC trying to make her media production company successful through canny hiring, etc.

2) A love storyline, that requires collecting different cards from 4 dreamy guys.

3) And a supernatural powers storyline (with the superpowers known as evol), with each of the 4 guys having a unique power.

According to TheBeijinger.com, "The game, which went live on all platforms on December 20, [2017] is expected to pocket RMB 50 million (USD 7.6 million) in revenue during its first month."

Also, it's kind of hot:

Has China Stopped Returning Hollywood's Calls?

Just as suddenly as it heated up, Chinese investment in Hollywood has cooled off.

The demise of the deals that Hollywood had depended on is roiling the major studios and other show business related deals in Hollywood.

For example, as reported in a Nov. 12th, 2017 LA Times article, Paramount Pictures had announced in January 2017 that Bejing's Huahua Media was going to to invest $1 billion in Paramount’s movies. That deal is now not going to happen - thanks to the "Chinese government’s clampdown on foreign investment in entertainment and other industries" outside China.

And, in October of 2017, Athens Group, the US development partner working with Beijing's troubled entertainment biz giant Dalian Wanda Group, officially called it quits on a $1.2 billion development project that would have provided new hotel rooms and condos in pricey Beverly Hills. Wanda Group had been on an "overseas buying spree" including major investments in Hollywood real estate while promising to pour money into production companies like Legendary - but now that Chinese firm's ability to obtain financing has been called into question.

Chinese IP: The Oddness of Mainland Web-series

Lately the motion picture industry press in the West has begun to explain the "screeching halt" in Hollywood's deals with China as the product of a cash crunch in China mixed with concerns about regulatory oversight.

Those elements undeniably exist.

But there is also the (harder to explain?) divergence in what seems to be working on screens in China and the rest of the world.

From my perch in Asia, I've tried to get a grip on Chinese tastes. But, while trying to learn as much as I can about the booming online entertainment business in China, I've not made much progress in anticipating what kind of content to expect.

I really want to be an expert - but the original web-series that have been scoring in China are just too alien for me to understand.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems that the gulf is actually widening as China's production capabilities rapidly ramp up.

To me? It's as if Chinese tastes are finally being satisfied by Chinese content - and this Westerner doesn't have a clue as to what the audience wants - or how mainland cultural currents are being reflected in online popularity.

To be honest, the more I learn about what works in the mainland, it seem to me that rest of the world (Hollywood, etc.) is operating in a different (barely parallel) media universe.

The strangeness to me of Chinese taste and content online - accessed I'll admit by the unscientific method of peering over shoulders on public transport - which may not be the best way to get a bead on what is actually happening, but it's how I'm sampling what people are watching on their phones - is extreme.

The sensation I have - sharing a few fleeting moments of viewership with a local - is disorienting. It's like gazing through a portal into another universe. The colors. The costumes. The characters (human-animal hybrids?).  To say nothing of the indecipherable plots.

Apparently I'm not alone. My alienation is apparently shared by at least some Chinese transplants. 

Check out this breezy post Sept. 26th, 2017 post from elephant room - a blog run by Biyi (London School of Economics) and Yan (University of Oxford) - that recaps of some of what has recently caught on in the mainland.

China Cracks Down on Social Media

In a Sept. 26th, 2017 post to Tech in Asia, Eva Xiao writes about the latest fines levied against the leading social media platforms in China - yet another sign of the efforts by Chinese authorities to prevent the spread of messages that are deemed unacceptable by the state.

"This year, government regulators have rolled out a number of new rules, like holding WeChat group owners responsible for content shared in their chat groups. In September, authorities arrested a man for complaining about police raids in the app.
Celebrity gossip social media accounts have also been muzzled. In June, 60 accounts were closed as China’s cyberspace authorities told tech firms to “actively propagate core socialist values.”
Earlier this year, the Chinese government ordered domestic telecom carriers to enforce a ban on virtual private networks (VPNs), which help users circumvent the “Great Firewall.” In July, Apple removed VPN-related apps from the China App Store to comply with Chinese laws."

Why is the NFL's Play Into China Being Called Back?

Western content creators know that making deals and getting revenue out of China can be tough.

And it isn't just the little guys.

In December 2016, the National Football League trumpeted a deal to stream NFL games directly on Chinese online platform Sina Weibo (often called "China's Twitter"). 

By June of 2017?

That deal might be off - even before the 2017 pre-season's first kick-off.

In a statement released by China's all-powerful State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television on Thursday June 22, 2017, Sina Weibo and two other major Chinese online portals were told to "shut down" all of their audio-visual program services.

As reported in Bloomberg: "Unsurprisingly, Weibo Corp. dropped in New York on volume almost four times the 20-day average. The stock, down 11 percent at one point."

Why is the NFL's bold play into China being called back?

China-watchers have noticed a definite trend as the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party approaches in October of 2017. 

President Xi Jinping is consolidating power.

And, apparently the next few months are going to be tense ones for potential targets for increased official scrutiny - like Chinese University administrators and China's major global media players - even if the new attention temporarily distresses Chinese sports fans or roils the markets.

Will Chinese Investment Still Flow Into Hollywood? Uncertainty at the End of 2016 as President-Elect Trump and China's Biggest Film Investor Both Talk Tough

In a question and answer period, following prepared comments for a December 10th, 2016 business forum (where he gave a speech about exporting Chinese culture), one of China's richest men - and the biggest mainland Chinese player in Hollywood - Wang Jianlin - acknowledged issuing a warning to the US President-elect about any re-balancing that disfavored Chinese media business investment in the US: "If something goes wrong, [...] 20,000-plus people might be out of jobs."

As a candidate, Donald Trump had threatened such a rebalancing - including 45% tariffs and a currency war with China - based on (outdated? and misleading?) claims that cheap Chinese labor was stealing U.S. jobs and that China was manipulating its currency in ways that disfavored U.S. businesses. 

Shortly after the election, tensions between mainland China and the U.S. heightened as President-elect Trump accepted a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen on Friday Dec. 2, 2016, a move that ruffled feathers on the mainland as it marked a shift in four-decade old protocol (respecting China's claims over Taiwan). In subsequent tweets, President-elect Trump made it clear he wasn't too concerned about Chinese feelings or a nuanced interpretation of the Chinese reaction to what China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi characterized as a "小動作" ("Xiǎodòngzuò" or "little trick").

According to a transcript provided by his company, Wang Jianlin (the Chinese media tycoon who founded Wanda Group, and owns AMC Theaters, Legendary Pictures and a big chunk of Sony and Dick Clark Productions) responded to a question from the moderator at a weekend meeting of business leaders in Beijing by saying that on Friday Dec. 9th he had personally asked the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America - former U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd - to relay a blunt message to Donald Trump: "[I]n the film and entertainment industry, you have to understand that English-language films are relying on the Chinese market for growth."

Your Online Choices (Including Your Taste in Motion Pictures?) = Evidence to Be Used By Thought Police?

In George Orwell's classic novel 1984, telescreens allow the "Thought Police" to monitor "unapproved thoughts".

Apparently that dystopian vision is being realized in China - where choices made via cellphones (ubiquitous mobile telescreens?) are being used to compile dossiers that could alert police to suspicious activity - even before a crime has been committed.

For example, an overuse of electronic payments for bus trips in a single day could suggest criminal intent to the police - who might proactively identify an (innocent) person as a potential pickpocket.

As described in an Oct. 25th, 2016 post to marketing-interactive, the founder of China's biggest e-commerce site has come out in favor of this method for targeting potential criminals, terrorists and subversives within society - using the data that his apps collect to tip off the the authorities when app-users might be engaged in anti-social behavior: 

"Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has weighed in on the matter and urged Chinese officials to use big data to stop would-be criminals. He announced his ideas [Oct. 21st, 2016] in a televised speech to about 1.5 million domestic security and legal officials. The speech was also published on the Chinese Communist Party’s Commission for Political and Legal Affairs’ WeChat account on Saturday, according to Bloomberg. “It’s normal for one person to buy a high-pressure cooker, a timer or even some gunpowder and steel ball bearings [separately], but it wouldn’t be normal if one person bought all that stuff together at once,” he said in the speech, explaining how big data could help link tip-off authorities to potential bomb makers.""

Film Incentives to Shoot in China

If you've got a big-budget film or TV show that could shoot on soundstages - or that needs Chinese locations - then you might want to add another city to your list of possible locations.

Qingdao.

Why should Western producers consider a city on the coast of China that many will have trouble locating on a map - or pronouncing?

Because the owner of a vast new studio there, known as the Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis, has apparently arranged a 40% rebate for every dollar spent there!

If the rendering of Wang Jianlin's dream on the Yellow Sea (below) doesn't get your attention, visit this link to an eye-popping 3D model of that still-under-construction facility.

What about the cash rebate? 

As first reported by Patrick Frater in an October 14th, 2016 post to Variety: Wanda chairman Wang Jianlin has arranged "a 40% subsidy – aka a production rebate – for projects that shoot at [his new motion picture production] Qingdao complex. Wanda’s so-called “development fund” will cover both feature films and TV shows."

40% of what you spend to be returned to you in cash?

That level of rebate will certainly get a lot of attention from Hollywood types.  But, to be eligible, motion picture features must be officially Chinese government-approved co-productions ≥ 60 minutes (IMAX and other large formats ≥ 45 minutes). And TV shows must also be pre-approved by the Chinese authorities (the government bureau known as SARPPFT or SARFT) and have seasons of 10 or more episodes, with each episode ≥ 30 minutes.

For a more detailed description of those rebates, you can consult the Wanda website.

Amblin and Alibaba: Hollywood Continues Its Journey to the East

On October 9, 2016, China's e-commerce-giant Alibaba (lead by Jack Ma, left above) and Hollywood's Amblin (lead by Steven Spielberg, right above) announced a partnership to co-produce and finance films for global and Chinese audiences. 

According to The Hollywood Reporter: "Under the terms of the deal, Alibaba Pictures will acquire a minority equity stake in Amblin with an Alibaba Pictures representative joining Amblin's board."

As a result of this new deal, the Spielberg-directed The BFG - which was a crushing box office disappointment in the US, when it opened to under $19m over the July 4th, 2016 holiday weekend - will get a splashier Oct. 14 release in China.

21st Century Wars: Fought Over Islands or Script Approval?

A Sept. 30, 2016, NY Times article about a Chinese investor and Hollywood didn't use the word "war".

Instead it referred to "geopolitical conflict".

But a new type of "war" is exactly what has some US politicians concerned.

While the US military can muster (and has recently deployed) planes and ships to counter China's expansion in the South China Sea, what tools are available for the US to respond to China's growing soft power (financial stakes that translate into controlling interests) in global media companies?

“Should the definition of national security be broadened to address concerns about propaganda and control of the media and ‘soft power’ institutions?”

Will the the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or Cfius, an interagency group that is supervised by the Treasury Department, move to restrict the flow of yuan into Hollywood?

Or will the Wang Jianlin's Dalian Wanda Group (and others) continue acquiring stakes in media companies.

Ultimately, which victory is more important?  

Who controls the Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands... or who decides what gets made for billions of global screens?

NOW WTF 25 - fans being fans? participatory culture? cultural appropriation? copyright infringement? protected parody?

thanks to Emily Chang for the link...

How to Avoid Being Scammed By a Chinese Company

With the unprecedented rise of China's movie industry, and the vast wealth that has been accumulated by some Chinese entrepreneurs, doing business with Chinese partners is now a part of what it takes to be a mogul in Hollywood.

But, in the last couple of years, even the most experienced Hollywood deal-makers have found that doing business with Chinese partners can be... challenging.

I'm not saying that more due diligence would have saved former ICM topper, agent Jeff Berg, from embarrassment. But when Berg announced that his free-spending Resolution Agency had obtained much-needed financing from Bison Capital, a Chinese partner... there were some of us who were not entirely caught off-guard when Berg's supposed bridge to China rapidly collapsed.

Here is a link to some (beginner level?) tips on avoiding similar embarrassment.

QQ Music Had RMB Billions in 2015 Revenue and Is Profitable: Maybe Spotify Just Isn't Doing it Right?

Spotify showed a net loss of close to US$200 million last year, but, according to a July 29th, 2016 post to Mashable, "China's version of Spotify, QQ Music, is actually making money."

How?

Well, first, back in 2014, Tencent, owner of QQ, used its vast active user base (in 2014, around 500 million active monthly users, now - mid-2016 - that number is roughly 700 million active monthly users) "to its advantage, striking exclusive Chinese distribution deals with large music producers the likes of Sony, Warner Music and South Korea's YG Entertainment." 

Second?

"[T]he majority of Chinese users are [already] plugged into [QQ's] ecommerce system, where they already buy tickets and book cabs cashlessly through WeChat. This allows QQ Music to offer products like concert tickets, providing an additional line of revenue to its freemium model of advertisements and paid subscription."

Third?

Per a March 17, 2016 Tencent Press Release: QQ plans on building their paid services by maintaining "traffic leadership in multiple online media categories, such as video, sports, music, news and literature, via partnering with premium content providers, such as the NBA, HBO, Paramount, Warner Music, and Sony Music, and investing in original content."

And in the future?

Expect Tencent to grow their digital content subscription services via continued leveraging of its social platforms and stores and by expanding its dominance in premium digital content (that already includes video, sports, music, news and literature) by merging QQ Music with two other bigtime Chinese music services, Kugou and Kuwo.

Ghostbusters and China: Are Chinese Regulators Scared of Ghosts? Or is "Super Power Dare Die Team" Not on Chinese Movie Screens for Another Reason?

As reported in The Hollywood Reporter on July 13, 2016, Sony's Ghostbusters 2016 reboot - to be known on video in China as 超能敢死队 (Super Power Dare Die Team) - will not be seen on movie theater screens in China.

The PG-13 comedy-action film - despite a promising start at US box offices (boxofficemojo.com is predicting a US $50 million opening weekend) - will not earn one of the 34 slots available each year for non-Chinese theatrical features under China's existing quota system. 

And the reason? 

Could it be those pesky ghosts?

As unlikely to Westerners as it might seem, Chinese guidelines include a prohibition on movies that "promote cults or superstition." And those rules (if inconsistently applied) have been the excuse for denying prior Hollywood films a shot at China. For example, in 2006 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest was unable to enter China's airlock. Like the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot, the 2006 Pirates movie was denied passage into China (because of the Pirate's ghost ship and cannibalism?).

Paul Feig's female crew reboot of Sony's action-comedy franchise (rumored to have cost Sony around US $144 million after incentives), in addition to Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones, does have a number of mischievous once-alive-but-now-dead characters. And the producers clearly knew that their ghosts might present a problem to Chinese regulators. That's apparently why the Chinese word for "ghost" (鬼) does not appear in the film's Chinese title. This title change was made, even though the original 1984 Ghostbusters went straight to video in China with the character for "ghost" proudly in its title - 捉鬼敢死队 or Ghost Catcher Dare Die Team.

So if the 32 year-old original can have a ghost in its title...?

Why is Sony getting shut-out (relegated to a laser-containment grid?) with what Western critics are saying is a fun update of a classic special-effects comedy that has extreme characters causing mayhem - arguably in ways that have worked in recent Chinese box office champions, like Monster Hunt and The Mermaid?

Why are Chinese Walter Pecks shutting down the the power supply to the grid and denying Sony's Ghostbusters access to the world's second biggest market? 

It may not be a fear of ghosts, so much as a business decision made by Chinese theater owners. 

With no theatrical track-record for the franchise, and no measurable demand for a Ghostbusters film in China (no matter which Western stars were in it or what it was called in Chinese)... perhaps the smart business move was to pass on Ghostbusters 2016. From a Chinese perspective, denying Ghostbusters Chinese screens meant more screens for new local product. And, even though I haven't read much about it in the West, a Chinese-Korean co-production - a horror film that coincidentally has the word "ghost" in its English language title - is premiering in Chinese theaters on July 15th, 2016: When Pen Ghost Meets Plate Ghost stars Kang Sung-goo, Shen Caier, Liu Xiaoqi, and Yan Weier. (Pen Ghost and Plate Ghost refer to the supernatural Chinese fortune-telling tools, similar in practice to the Ouija board, which have been used to conjure spirits for perhaps 1000 years...)

Hmmm. 

Maybe it isn't the ghosts after all.

One thing is for sure. Being locked in a protection grid, and not being allowed to run wild in China, is not good news for the Ghostbusters franchise or for Tom Rothman's Sony - which stuck with Ghostbusters (at a reduced budget) even after the Sony executive who originally championed the project, Amy Pascal, had departed. 

Theatrical success in China may still only return roughly one half of what the studios are used to earning on similar box office in the rest of the world. But Chinese theaters still can have an enormous impact on the bottom line. For proof? Look no further than the June 2016 release of Legendary's Warcraft. A flop everywhere else, Warcraft raked in more than one half of its revenue in China: In excess of US $220 million in the Middle Kingdom alone. Those eye-popping Chinese numbers may not have saved that film's financiers from a small loss. But it could have been a rout. Warcraft reportedly cost US $160 million to make. Toss in marketing expenses, and Warcraft needed China very very badly. 

Note: To date (July 15th, 2016), Warcraft has earned around US $430 million worldwide - with roughly 5 times as much revenue in China as in the US. Why? The mystery of Warcraft's over-performance in China may be explained, at least in part, by the support the film received in China from China's biggest theater chain, Wanda, which not so coincidentally acquired Legendary in early 2016.

Online Movie Ticket Sales Are Huge in China

Meriah Doty wrote a piece for The Wrap on June 15, 2016 explaining that 80% of all movie ticketing in China happens online.

Why?

"Internet portal Tencent, online marketplace Alibaba, and web services company Baidu currently dominate the online ticketing space in China. Shockingly, they’re all [offering discounts and] losing money in their online ticketing activities - on purpose. The companies are forfeiting short-term profits to gain valuable new users and customer data, using the lure of movies as a kind of loss leader. The hope is that new customers will make other purchases on their respective sites." 

Consequently, "[i]t’s a whole lot cheaper to buy tickets online in China."

Even though (because?) there is heavy discounting of movie tickets online, China's box office will soon overtake the US as the biggest in the world. 

This is going to come as a shock to many observers in the West who continue to lament the effect of the internet on traditional audio-visual businesses, but the internet (specifically online sales of movie theater tickets) is actually a key pillar supporting the boom in movie attendance in China.

Because online companies selling movie tickets in China are capturing all sorts of valuable information - the tickets can be sold at a discount - and the Chinese movie-going audience is benefitting from cheaper seats and a 21st century service-oriented approach. 

One question: Now that Chinese investors are buying up US movie theater chains, will Western movie-goers also be offered better options online - like discounts, specific seat selection, pre-ordering concessions, etc.?

China's Movie Business By The Numbers

Product Placement Lawsuit Reveals Just How Craven Hollywood Has Become

Feel like they couldn't have fit one more ad into Transformers: Age of Extinction (aka Transformers 4)?

Well...

Perhaps the producers should have tried...

As Katharine Trendacosta writes for gizmodo: "Wulong Karst Tourism, a state-backed travel company, is arguing that Paramount and the Chinese co-producer of Transformers: Age of Extinction, China Movie Channel, failed to live up the obligations of a deal they had. The tourism company says it paid $750,000 for a logo with the Chinese characters for “China Wulong” to appear in the movie." And Paramount and China Movie Channel failed to deliver. 

Now a court in Chongqing city will hear the case.

For those of you who think of movies as works of art where characters experience life's most challenging questions in deeply moving ways...  and not as ad-soaked previsualization for theme park attractions (replacing what Meyerhold described as "lofty destiny" with the up-and-down gut-churning logic of roller coasters), Ms. Trendacosta's April 28th, 2016 post to Gizmodo might serve as a memorable signpost, marking just how far movies have plummeted toward a Chinese government-backed abyss.

In other words, if you bought a ticket to Transformers: Age of Extinction, and it felt to you like a race away from meaningful entertainment and into some fresh ad-infused hell... well, you might be more than a little right.

According to Ms. Trendacosta, the failure to stay on Wulong Karst's good side "turns out to be a major screwup since the people who originally paid $750,000 are now suing [the studios] for $27 million."

Amazing Short Film About One Man's Legacy in Datong, China

隨它吧 (Let It Go)?: Are Chinese Regulators Freezing Out More Western Content?

Disney (like Apple?) is apparently encountering new hurdles in getting their content into the hands of Chinese netizens.

On April 26th, 2016, the Wall Street Journal reported that "DisneyLife, an online content service [that launched in China in December 2015 with China's e-commerce giant Alibaba as a partner "under a multiyear licensing agreement with Walt Disney Co."]...  is down for a service upgrade and that it is issuing customer refunds. A spokesman for Alibaba declined to elaborate. A Disney spokeswoman declined to comment, referring questions to Alibaba."