Greenhouse effect
However, even for Chinese filmmakers who will be negatively affected by buffed-up foreign rivalry, the long-term effect can be more beneficial than pernicious.
If you look at the 100-year-plus history of Chinese cinema, it performs better when the competition is tougher.
Complacency runs most rampant when the domestic industry is completely shielded from any battle for survival.
That said, certain measures of protection are necessary for the healthy growth of the local film industry, especially when it is attempting to take off. If you thrust a fragile rose into the wilds, it may well be swept up by a hurricane. But if you let it take root and grow awhile before it is moved outdoors, things might be different.
Looking back at the past 18 years, it seems wise to phase in competition by starting with 10 movies, and gradually raising the quota to 20 and now 34. It gives domestic filmmakers both breathing room and time to grow and learn from the competition.
China's film industry would not be at the level it has reached today if all imports were shut out.
Of course, the degree of protection or market access can be fine-tuned - or debated for that matter. But it is a better and more calibrated approach than a shock therapy of total opening or total seclusion.
Some gripe about the "infiltration of foreign culture".
That is quite shortsighted.
Culture, unlike a cultural product, is not intellectual property. It cannot be copyrighted. Hollywood grows by absorbing whatever it deems useful, and why can't we?
The resistance to learn from dominant players, such as Hollywood, lies in a deep-rooted fear that we may lose our cultural identity. The academe is rife with voices of opposition toward Hollywood and acceptance of the European model.
But the way of telling a story onscreen is not intrinsic to any country.
Our filmmakers can tell Chinese stories more effectively by broadening our realm of narrative dexterity and incorporating the much tested and extremely successful Hollywood techniques. Why reduce ourselves to the periphery by refusing to recognize what works in film and holding on to what doesn't?
In commerce and trade, one does not have to lose for another to win. The same is true of cultural exchange.
Film is a popular form of art and entertainment exactly because audiences are more able to make a story their own while watching it.
What experts fear as the "other" is often filtered out in the viewing process.
That is a cultural product that works.
By Raymond Zhou
Editor: Liu Xiongfei
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