Pros and cons
The increase of film imports, especially big-budget ones, is a deja vu of the time when Hollywood blockbusters started arriving in China in 1994.
There were cries of wolf and predictions of the demise of Chinese cinema. But, as we all know now, the truth is much more complicated.
The recent readjustment of the import quota will have different impacts on different players in the movie industry.
For film exhibitors, or, movie houses, this is great news. More films will bring in more audiences. And China is building Western-style movie cinemas at a rate of eight new screens per day, and you'll need more content to fill these screens.
Of course, it is similarly good for moviegoers, who will have more choices. (Sure, the choices are far more online, but then the prestige of watching on a smaller screen is lower.)
For distributors, the rise of the share taken by the foreign producers from 13 percent to 25 percent means the Chinese side will make less money per ticket.
But more foreign blockbusters may mean higher total revenues for these Chinese distributors.
Overall, I'd predict the pros will outweigh the cons for the two distributors that are licensed to import foreign movies.
Economically speaking, the disadvantage of increased import will mostly fall on Chinese producers - and not just any filmmaker but those with the strategy to counter Hollywood with China's own blockbusters.
Suffice it to say, the market is limited in these kind of attention-getting capital-intensive undertakings. A hit like Avatar may hog the nation's screens for weeks or months, effectively pushing any competition, domestic or international, to the sideline.
As a matter of fact, there are rumors that homegrown productions not favored by the powerful distributors are sometimes deliberately placed on the same schedule as a major import to ensure its clean and quick death.
From the avalanche of interviews I have been giving over the past week on this topic, people seem to be worried about the fate of small independent pictures vis-a-vis stronger competition.
That fear is misplaced, I believe, as small movies are less the victim of big-budget pictures than of piracy.
Art-house favorites, such as The Piano in a Factory - arguably the best reviewed Chinese film of year 2011 - tend not to lose much when viewed on a smaller screen, and are thus more vulnerable than their beefy cousins to online streaming, legal or illegal.
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