Discuss how Chinese films enter the different foreign territories.

Hello,

I have wrote methodology and literature review two part, please according these two part to finish the whole dissertation. I have wrote 10000 words, the other parts should include 5000 words. So you shoud write 5000 words, and the whole dissertation should have 15000 words.

thanks

The topic of my dissertation is distribute film in Chinese film market.Initially,I want to this topic includes two aspects:
• How Chinese films enter the different foreign territories(international film markets)
• How foreign films enter the Chinese markets.

Methodology
Research questions and specified aim
The main objective of this paper is to study how the Chinese films enter the international market film. The study also focuses on studying how foreign films enter the Chinese film market. This included the challenges that the Chinese films face when entering international film market and the challenges foreign films face when entering the Chinese film market. In studying how the Chinese films enter the international market, the study focuses on the stereotypes resulting from the perception of the western people, and how this has affected the Chinese films. The study will apply stereotypical representation theory to address the research questions, which are addressed below.
1. How are the Chinese films represented in the foreign markets, such as the United States?
2. How are the relationships between the American and Chinese films?
3. Have the stereotypical representations of the Chinese film in the international market and foreign films in the Chinese film market changed over time? If so, how?
Research design and methodology
According to Kumar (2008), a methodology is very important in every research as it helps the researcher to deal with the study questions systematically. In every research study, the researcher should always have a research design. A researcher can use comparative design to offer a framework, which is used for the collection and analysis of collected data. The study will explain why I used discourse analysis in the gathering and analysis of the study.
The study aims at studying how the Chinese films enter the different foreign territories or international film markets and how foreign films enter the Chinese markets. The paper approaches these two major areas using two major types of methods, which are archive analysis and interviews. The main reason the research decided to use archive analysis is because in understanding how the Chinese films enter and rate in different foreign territories, it is important to understand the history of the Chinese film.
The archive analysis method plays a very important role in developing the basis of the study and the object of the analysis. Archive analysis is used to study the history of the Chinese film from the mid-1980’s to date. Archiving the original materials provided the researcher with primary sources. The main objective in studying archives about the film industry in China was to find information about the production fact of the films and the primary legislative issues. The legislative issues concerned both the local and foreign legislative issues.
Since most of the writing and research on the Chinese films has been on studios, the reports about the production of the films kept in documentary archives do not provide much information about the film industry in China. The most significant hurdle of the research was the lack of substantial data. However, the enthusiasm for the film industry in China has increased, which has resulted in industry players and known celebrities having their stories and profiles on the internet. In using the available resources and by comparing and combining them, the study was able to come up with an outline of how the Chinese film has entered the foreign market and how it has performed.
One of the easiest ways of carrying this out is data collection, which has become relatively easy in recent times. However, when conducting a documentary study, an essential concern is the credibility of the source. In several instances, the statistics referring to the same area of study are different in different publications. Some of some data, including data from official publications is not clear. Thus, it was important for me to read the records in an interrogative method rather than reading them naively. Therefore, I was required to find many sources of information and compare all the collected versions. Thus, although the statistics collected for the study might not be as accurate as needed, they give an account of the actual situation of the film industry in China when aggregated and analyzed carefully.
One of the major areas included in the search zone is the legislative area, where I was required to study legislative documents. Some of the major files collected were from the local government, regulations of the State Film Bureaucracy, analysis link to film policies, secondary data of published commentary, and cinema censorship. All these documents were relevant to my study. The archival materials with the above information were found in academic journals, book publications, and websites of government ministries and agencies.
Research design: comparison over time
The research questions of the study are centered on explaining how something is, and not explaining why something is. The research questions suggest a descriptive study rather than explanatory study. This research paper represents a qualitative research that studies how the Chinese films enter the international film market and how foreign films enter the Chinese film market. I decided to use comparative design as the research design of the study. We compare how the Chinese films enter the international film market and how the foreign films enter the Chinese film market. A comparative design can be explained as the study of several cases using identical methods. Comparative design incarnates the comparison logic, where it implies that human beings can understand the social phenomena if they can be compared in contrasting situations and cases (Bryman, 2008).
In discussing how the Chinese films enter international film market, I chose three films that were produced in different periods. These are Rush Hour (1998), Big Brawl (1980), and Marlowe (1969). I chose the three films in different periods to show the stereotypical images of the Chinese films in Hollywood and their similar feature in Chinese. The three movies were used to show the contrasting cases of how the Chinese films enter the international market, which was useful in analyzing the changes of stereotypical Chinese characters. I was able to analyze the characteristics of the Chinese characters and their relation to the American characters.
Rush Hour is a hybrid movie, a fusion of comedy and martial arts. The main Chinese character, Jackie Chan, acts as a detective inspector. The movie was a hit in the international film market in the 1990s. It was screen in over twenty countries. It also had great box office returns. The success of the movie catapulted Chan into a great height in his acting career, resulting in him becoming a representative of the Chinese culture in Hollywood and an international movie star. Marlowe is also a hybrid genre movie that combines martial arts with detective, with the Chinese character being played by Bruce Lee, who is a very dangerous mob henchman in the film. Since he is not the main character, he makes only two appearances. However, his deterrent style of language and exaggerated body language, also known as Kung Fu, are distinctive in the movie. There are several reasons why I chose this film for the thesis. The first reason is that during the production of the film, Hollywood movies did not use Chinese characters. I needed to know how the Chinese films entered the Hollywood film markets during this period when the Chinese actors were not known across the region. The second reason is that Bruce Lee was the first actor from China to have success in Hollywood. Lee became a Chinese icon in America and other parts of the world, which means that he can be described as the person who represented the Chinese people and culture internationally. I wanted to know the influence he had in the perception of Chinese films in the international market. Thus, it was important to study his first film in America, which reflected the nature of the Chinese actors in the 1960’s.
The Big Brawl movie is also a hybrid genre, which mixes comedy features and martial arts. The film also has Jackie Chan as the Chinese character, who acts as a Kung Fu person. The film uses Kung Fu as a comedy tool, which alleviates the impact of violence effectually. This was the first attempt by Jackie Chan to break into the international film market. Through this movie, Jackie Chan takes the relay baton given to him by Bruce Lee to continue improving the nature of Chinese films in the American market. Chan became the new Chinese icon in America, which suggests that the film can be used to study the nature of the Chinese people and the Chinese films in Hollywood in the 1980s. The main reason for choosing the three Chinese characters to help in the analysis of the study is because they had a great influence on the international market, and their movies represent different period in which Chinese films were entering the international market.
Use of discourse analysis on the films to get primary data
In this study, I focused on learning how the Chinese films entered in the international film market and how foreign films entered the Chinese market. I used film analysis to record the communication and behavior such as emotions and expression of the people in the relative region towards the new films. For example, the reaction of the Chinese people towards the foreign movies and the reaction of other countries towards the Chinese films. Thus, to investigate this, I needed to collect specific aspects from the selected films, with the easiest way of collecting data being direct from the movies. In analyzing the chosen films, I did not rely much on data from magazines and newspapers because they are based on the subjective views of the authors on the films. Using the subjective view of other people could influence my interpretation, which would have resulted in producing subjective and less credible information.
How foreign films enter the Chinese markets
In studying how the foreign films enter the Chinese markets, the study used data on American-based films screen in the American cinemas in 2012. The dataset of the study is built from four major sources, which are filmratings.com, boxofficemojo.com, chinafilmbiz.com, and Enbase, which is maintained by a Beijing-based consulting firm. Previous studies were done on the same used boxofficemojo.com as a source of data. In 2012, 659 films were released in American theaters. Of the 659, 129 were also released in cinemas in Hong Kong. The study had to exclude movies not produced by an American studio, which left 516 films in the dataset of the study. The observational unit for all the box office and regressions is the film title.
Much of this study will be based on current literature that explains in details the policies that the Chinese film industry adopted. The data collected from China Film Yearbook, China Statistical Yearbook, Film & Television, and State Administration of Radio will be used in this thesis to study how China’s film industry has developed commercially. The research thesis aimed at studying the history of the censorship system in the Chinese film. Studying the historical background of the censorship system made it easier to understand the situation of the Chinese film industry. It also helped to study how the censorship system affected the entry of foreign films in the Chinese markets. In studying the censorship system, I aimed at studying how it has affected the entry of foreign films, and how having a system in the country affects the film industry. The following are the research questions that I used in the research process.
Question 1- What are the function of the censorship system, the standard used to censor the imported movies in the country, and the disadvantages and advantages of the censorship system towards the imported films?
Question 2- How does the film censorship system in China treat the movies imported into the country? What are the changes in the attitude of the Chinese governments towards imported films?
I conducted case studies and document analysis to address the outlined research questions. My major area of concern was towards the changes that have taken place in the Chinese film industry and analysis of the current film industry. I analyzed documents from secondary and primary sources. The primary sources that I used included Scripts/ Outline Record, government documents, for example, Film Management Regulations, and Film Administrative Provisions. Apart from the primary sources filed by the government, I also depended on press releases from professional organizations, corporations, and the involved hoc entities.
My second concern of the study was towards how the certain Chinese and foreign films are censored, and the phenomenon used during the process. I chose three films to be specific, two movies from the Chinese film industry and one film from the American film industry. The chosen films were “The Flowers of War” and “Hero”, both directed by Zhang Yimou in 2011 and 2002 respectively. The chosen foreign movie was the Titanic, which was imported from America in 1997, where I also used its 3D version produced in 2012. I compared the content of the three films and the attitude of the governments towards them. Titanic and Titanic 3D is the same story, with the only difference being a more advanced technology used to turn it into a 3D version. However, when the 3D version was imported into the film market in China, the government cut one scene. The case study of the 3D version of Titanic shows some of the challenges that foreign movies face when entering the Chinese film market. The case study shows the attitude of the Chinese government towards foreign films imported in the country.
Dependent variables entering the Chinese film industry
Since the Chinese government does not authorize the publishing of quota slot allocations, the study used a combination of sources such as boxoffice.com, chinafilmbiz.com, and Enbase data to identify the imported movies. I used the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) to verify that the origin country of the movie was not China. This was also involved working from the film list published by fire deep and Cain. I then created binary variables, which are flatfee and revenue sharing in the Chinese box office data. The variables created were equal based on the quota slot of the film. The study also required me to create the enter-china variable, which helped me in identifying whether a movie received any quota slot from the Chinese market. The enter-china variable has 44 observations while the revenue sharing variable had 30 observations. The films observed represent the films from the American films pool, which was released in America in 2012 that were set to be screened in China. I dropped the revenue sharing movies from other countries, as well as movies that were released in 2011 but were not screen in China until 2012.
Independent variables
Hong Kong box office and cumulative US box office by the film were gotten from boxofficemojo.com. The box office figures have high possibilities of being with fewer blockbusters generating huge revenue. As a result, I had to maintain the box office variables, keeping with the past research on the same.
Cultural variables
I created a couple of genre dummy variables from the boxofficemojo.com. The genre corresponded to action, drama comedy, adventure, romance, horror, thriller, science fiction, and family. The films produced individually may belong to multiple film genres. The study also required me to create dummy variables for the MPAA rating for every movie. These dummy variables were, r, pg, and pg 13. The Data on the MPAA rating was gotten from filmratings.com.
Political variables
I wanted to study various political motivations behind the entry of foreign film in the Chinese film market. I created dummy variables that corresponded to the three minor and six major Hollywood studios with the studio data being derived from boxofficemojo.com. I created four variables that reflect the use of keywords that signal offensive content in the MPAA ratings. These are violence, substance abuse, language, and vulgar content. The violence variable has a value of key phrases and keywords such as brutal, gore, martial arts violence. These words and phrases are present in the rating description of a film. The substance abuse variable is studied when a movie contains smoking, alcohol, and drug abuse. In this study, the movies that involved gambling were also included in the substance abuse. This was done because gambling is mentioned in the same line with substance abuse in the SARFT circular in 2008. Just like the name suggests, the language variable indicates movies with profanity and swearing. The vulgar content variable indicates the movies with crude humor, nudity, and sexual content. I grouped the keywords in this manner to study how the Chinese government categorizes offensive content that would prevent a movie from being screened in Chinese theaters.
Data sources
One of the databases I used as a source for my data is Enbase, which is an online database marinated by EntGroup Inc., a Beijing-based firm that specializes in the movie Industry in China. Enbase is also used as a source of data by various magazines across the world, a good example being Variety, which is Hollywood’s trade magazine. The database shows that the database has not been used in scholarly research. However, its client profile suggests data reliability, mainly because it includes data about the major studios in Hollywood, Chinese studios, and international firms. The major Hollywood studios as discussed by the database are Sony, Paramount, Fox, and Warner Bros. the Major Chinese distributors and studios include PolyFilm, Bona, and China Film Group. International firms include Ogilvy and JP Morgan.
The database has two major advantages. The first advantage is that it updates the data on the box office performance of individual films, including the imports from other countries such as America and the domestic Chinese films. The second advantage is that the database contains detailed information on producers and distributors. Thus, it is possible to understand the co-production partnerships and the trade restrictions that the Chinese government places on the US and other countries such as Korea.
Another important database that was used to collected data is the Chinafilmbiz.com, a blog maintained by an American-based consulting film on the film market in China. The American-based firm that maintains the blog also maintains a clientele list that includes China Film Group and Hollywood studios. While the blog posts contain discursive observations about the events or trends relevant to the film industry in China, they are supplemented by tables and graphs that report the box office and market share. A post I saw important for the study discussed how China was handicapped in the importation of Quota Slot, which reported the box office figures and titles of revenue-sharing films. The list contained data about the movie on the box office, including its country of origin.
I also used data from CARA, which contains the movies that have been rated by the MPAA. The data contains the variables title of the film, and the year produced, the rating, and the reasons for rating. It also contains two variables, which indicate the procedures of special ratings. The membership guidelines of the MPAA require the registered studios to submit the rating for films, which means that all the blockbusters in America are rated. Since my analysis was about the movies entering the Chinese film market, the under presentation of independent studio films and documentary was irrelevant. This is because the number of independent studio films and documentaries entering the Chinese film market is not big.
In carrying out the methodology of how foreign films enter the Chinese film market, with the biggest focus going to the American films, I encountered a major limitation. The main limitation was the small number of recorded observations of foreign films that successfully entered the Chinese film market. The only way I could overcome this limitation is by expanding the timeframe of the study, which would have resulted in the research paper taking more time. However, the Enbase’s Chinese film data can only be accessed back to 2011. The Chinese box office data offer more extensive data, which requires the scholar to pay for the subscription service. Another limitation that I faced is the lack of quantifiable data on how individual films represent the Chinese culture. If I wanted to generate variables that capture representation, I would have been forced to access first-hand research or scripts of the complete database, which had 516 movies in the dataset. The two methods were far beyond the scope of the study.
The movies released in the Chinese markets have several outliers that were likely to affect the results of the study. For example, of the revenue-sharing films, only three can be classified in the love and romance genre. However, of the three, the highest-scoring movie at the box office was Titanic. The Chinese government has allocated a quota slot to DreamWorks Pictures for its animated blockbusters. However, despite the number of foreign films entering the Chinese film market being small, the observations could not be dropped because it would have affected the results.
Model and Empirical Specifications
The Chinese government allocates the foreign movies quota slots based on several things. The first factor in allocating the quota slots is the predicted revenue of the Chinese box office. The second factor in the allocation of the quota slots is the absence of offensive or obscene content. Other factors include the producing studio of the film and the positive portrayal that the foreign film has on the Chinese culture and value. The limited data made it impossible for me to include the variables that study how the foreign films represent the Chinese culture. As a result, the following regressions only take the predictors of the studio, offensive content, and Chinese box office into account.
Probability of Entrance
In studying how the variables affect the probability of a foreign individual film entering the Chinese film market, a performed six probity regressions. The first two variables, which are enter-china and revenue-sharing, regressed on MPAA rating, genre, the producing studio, and the four tag variables for content. The other four regressions were the variations of the first two major variables. In the remaining regressions, I omitted the select independent variables, where I had to gauge how different variable groups correlated. The variables MPAA rating and genre helped in predicting the Chinese box office. The content variables of the MOAA indicate the compliance of the movie with the SARFT circular in 2008. The studio variables helped in capturing how the studios affect the relationship of foreign films
How Chinese films enter the international film markets
In this part of the study, I had to focus on how the Chinese films enter foreign or international film markets. For this to be done, I had to use the never or rarely used primary sources in China, and in one foreign country. I decided to use the United States of America as the preferred foreign country because the Chinese films are popular in America than in other countries. The primary sources that I used in the study were found mostly in archives. First, I located the American official documents of the Department of Commerce, which is located at the National Archives. The official documents used deal with the export of films in the Chinese market, correspondence between motion picture equipment companies and American diplomats, trade organizations, trade opportunities, and film distributors. The next step was to examine the records of the big movie companies in China and the United States. This included the special collection of the United States Artists records.
In the next step, I studied the film trade magazines in America, a good example being Variety. I studied the film trade magazines to find out the discourse of the film industry in the distribution of Chinese films in America. I also studied popular American newspapers like the New York Times, which offered great information that helped in the analysis of the public discourse of Chinese movies in the region. The New York Times offered viable information on how the Americans thought of the Chinese movies in their country. Finally, I used unpublished documents about Chinese and American directors, a good example being D.W. Griffith Papers 1897-1954. However, the unpublished documents were used sparingly.
The primary evidence of the research study was from China, which I got from visiting the major archives in the country. Some of these archives include Beijing Film Academy Library, the China Film Archive, Nanjing No. 2 Historical Archive, Shanghai Municipal Archive, and Shanghai Municipal Library. Some of the old documents that I used include a 1927 Yearbook of Chinese cinema. Others included some old fan magazines, such as The Stage and Screen, The Movie Guide, Photoplay Pictorial, The China Film Pictorial, The Story World, The Photoplay World, Cineograph, and the Movie Magazine. In the archives, I also found a collection of plot sheets used for films in Beijing Theater in Shanghai. The materials that I collected helped me to reconstruct the popular and urban discourse about Chinese movies in Hollywood. In addition, I collected some ancient magazines in America. I utilized the articles I found on films in the two countries to come up with a public discourse regarding Chinese films in America and Hollywood movies in Shanghai.
In my collection of primary sources, I also collected commercial documents about the advertisement of films in China and the United States. The commercial documents talked about the fundamental regulations of films in the two regions. These materials helped me come up with the social and political discourse surrounding movies in China and the United States, especially after considering the movement of people from China to America.
The secondary sources that I used for the study include some bodies of scholarship. I first consulted sources in the historical and social context of China and the United States. Second, I studied the scholarship of the American print culture, where the Chinese films were advertised and explained. I also studied theoretical or more general works on the impact of printing on the culture and society in both America and China. I also studied both the American and the Chinese history on silent film, which made me develop a better understanding of how films are produced in China and America, how they are distributed, and the exhibition pattern used in their production and distribution. I also studied how the exports of Chinese films to the United States and other countries have changed in the production for domestic distribution. Studying the Chinese history of the silent film helped me understand how the American films affect the Chinese national films. The impact of the American films on the Chinese national films was also because Chinese film industry reacts to American films. The study on the history of the silent film helped me understand the reception of the Chinese films in the American film market.
Another theory that I used in this study is the reception theory. In using the reception theory, I invoked the dual strategy as discussed by Robert Darnton, which combines both empirical research and rhetorical analysis. In doing this, I referred to the method of studying social discourse according to Nina Baym, which is through the analysis of reviews done in journals and newspapers. I studied the comments and reviews done about Chinese films and Hollywood films from different pundits and critics in popular journals, newspapers, and fan magazines. I studied how different Americans welcomed the idea of having Chinese films in their culture. Additionally, the published essays and memoirs that touch the reception of Chinese films by the Americans have been included in the literature.
The other body of literature that I studied concerns the visual culture. In this area, I focused on the Chinese films themselves. The visual culture includes fan magazines, artifacts, film advertisement in newspapers, and film plot sheets. The other part of the literature is the social consumption and construction of celebrity of advertising as newspapers, fan magazines, and films from intertexts, which are used to sell the Chinese values to the America. In doing this, I was able to put the social consumption of the Chinese films in America in a larger geographical and historical context.
I also used discourse analysis as a method of study in the research paper. Discourse analysis is very important in media study, especially when studying media language. Discourse analysis is also very important in the study of how the society perceives the media. In this research paper, I used discourse analysis to study the stereotypes that the Chinese people have on foreign films getting into the country, and the stereotypes of the Hollywood people on Chinese films, especially the martial arts films. I also used an analytical framework in this study, where I analyzed the collected data. I connected the analytical framework to the theoretical background and the research study questions. I was able to generalize two aspects of how the Chinese films are taken in international markets.

Literature Review
Introduction
The increasing production costs of motion picture products have made overseas market essential for national and international movie studio’s survival and competitiveness. As such, it becomes paramount for moviemakers all over the world to depend on systematic research when customising media products and communications depending on the cultural settings of the target market. The need for this approach has been adequately illustrated by USA’s Hollywood. Because of the increasing costs of production, the average movie production cost is US$60 million, whereas in the 1980’s it was US$9 million. In addition, the average costs of marketing a movie have reached US$40, which is a significant increase from US$4.3 million in the 1980s (Meiling, Lin and Li, 2012; Huiqun, 2010). The Chinese Movie Red cliff cost an estimated US$ 80 million, and to guarantee returns, the producers had to sell it to United Kingdom, United States, and Canada, amidst the challenges facing China’s movie exports in the international markets.
These developments indicate that the international market is quintessential in increasing the number of film production consumers. Baltruschat (2010) argues that to fully exploit the potential of international markets, it is relevant to understand the factors that determine films’ success with regard to regional or national determinants. According to Finney (2010), research illustrates that some movies have achieved overwhelming cumulative success overseas, while they failed in their domestic countries. As such, to optimise the success and returns of films in the international markets, a global marketing strategy is indispensable, since culture, as Li (2011) postulates, demands a combination of elements that determine product reception. This is because the entire process of movie production, from idea formulation to ultimate product delivery must in itself have the attributes of attracting a specifically targeted consumer market. As such, it is relevant for this paper to review literature on how foreign movies enter China’s film industry and how China’s films imports are disbursed in the international market. It is vital to note that China’s film market has been highly criticised because challenges overwhelm the success of the industry, an aspect that will be reviewed in detail. In addition, the paper will analyse determinants of international film success.
China’s Situation
The development of China’s film and television industry began in the middle 1980s. However, despite the short period, the film and television industry has grown significantly within the last 30 years. In addition, the foreign trade of film and television products has increased as well in a steady manner year by year. Moreover, the achievements and developments in the international market share have increased, but various challenges are prevalent with regards to production, international marketing, and trade value imbalances. However according to Fung (2013), the Chinese film exports have increased gradually, it was only in 2009 when there was a decline, which was attributed to the financial crisis. Prior 2005, the cumulative film, and audio-visual export remained around US$ 80 million, which represented only 0.1 per cent of China’s trade. In 2008, the exports increased to US$ 370.85 million (Fung, 2013).
It is apparent that for film and audio-visual trade, developments have been noted because of integration of the world culture, which has resulted in China knowing more about the world culture through the importation of film and audio-visual products. According to Fung (2013), the amount of film and audio-visual imports has been increasing slowly since 2003, as indicated by the 2008-2012 period, when the cumulative film and audio-visual imports reached US$3.7 billion (Fung, 2013). However, China’s film and audio-visual trade is imbalanced, and as mentioned, the imbalance in trade value is generally counterproductive to the development of the industry.
China has been comparatively unsupportive in terms of marketing media products, especially when compared to South Korea, Japan, and India. Even in China, stakeholders have not been able to customise and localise their products. For example, India and South Korea have been able to localise their products for their domestic markets, while China is still in the transition for open businesses practices and embracement of the foreign practices.
According to Finney (2010), culture influences a movie’s performance in three main ways. First, the performance of a movie within a specific country is contingent on a myriad of factors, including the film itself. Key film characteristics that impact reception include the genre, style, the extent of its symbolicity, and the symbol power (Finney, 2010). A nation’s culture determines the potential consumers’ perception of such movie characteristics, which culminates in an indirect impact of the response to its sales performance. Second, the awards a movie is given, certifications and rating by government and private entities, especially since film-related concretisation of an individual culture, determine success. Third, a film’s perception by potential overseas consumers is contingent on not only the movie itself and the host country’s culture and market, but also the films performance in the country of origin, a notion Simonton (2009) and Collins Hand Snell (2002) support.
For films to realise international success, Zhang (200) argues that, the strategies incorporated for success in the international arena usually revolves around three elements. First, the investments made in the production for international markets are significantly higher than those centred on a specific country are. As such, the high production values not only make films garner success, but also counter competition from rival industries in national and international markets. For example, an overview of the Hollywood’s international success illustrates that the quality race, started in the 1920s culminated in the European filmmakers not being able to establish as a profound competitor in the international film production and consumption arena (Hays, 2013). After the 1920s, leading United States studios invested more in individual films, but even more paramount was the vertical integration of organisations that controlled media products distribution and exhibition (at least in the countries of origin). With this advantage, moviemakers gained considerable control over their products access both nationally and internationally, especially when conducting business in countries with favourable trading conditions. When setting the budgets for individual films, leading film producers are able to make a widespread release in world’s most lucrative markets such as United States, United Kingdom, Germany, as well as China. However, because of lack of access to huge budgets, some moviemakers customise their products only for the domestic market, and lack the capabilities to cross international boundaries (Curtin, 2007).
According to Cain (2013), financial success of a media product, especially a film, is contingent on both the theatrical release and all other ancillary markets such as cable, broadcast TV, home video, soundtracks compact disks, and tie-in merchandising. This is supported by Marvasti and Canterbery (2005), who state that the only approach that ensures movies make money 95 per cent of the time is by ensuring all the avenues are optimised. As such, developing a brand name, exploiting franchises, and introducing new ones are pivotal. A standard approach is to invest significantly in production and cramming the productions with internationally appealing movie stars, and emphasising special effects optimisation over coherent dialogue and plots.
By extensive merchandising and licensing arrangements, infotainment TV programmes and popular magazines are utilised to guarantee the movies are a ‘must see’, especially to the trend-aware and trend-setting young generation, regardless of their location in the globe. In reality, Hollywood has been significantly successful in utilising this approach in international such as china and Taiwan (Walters et al., 2012). In this, glossy film magazines, Television, and other avenues are utilised to report on the upcoming movies in depth before their release. Indeed, even if the films never play in these countries depending on marketers preference and government interference, the promotional bus guarantees that people watch and be commercially rewarding, but in the form of pirated DVDs and VCDs, whose rate is alarming in China.
As abovementioned, the costs of marketing a movie have tremendously increased. This amount is even higher for blockbusters and high-end movies. Baltruschat (2010) states that business demands any manager to do all or nothing, indicating there is a lot at stake. In the film industry, the philosophy one has to spend money to make money is prevalent, whereby online marketing, ads and billboards and company-sponsored reviews, and behind the scenes coverage approaches are utilised to market a product, and no producer would want to be blamed because for underperformance, especially when spending a little less than competitor is discovered.
Second, the success of a media product in international markets is contingent on the employed networks of distribution and subsidiaries (Collins, Hand and Snell, 2002). Big companies have subsidiaries established throughout the world and dealing directly with the local promoters and exhibitors. For example, the American movie industry adopted new strategies, involving more markets, establishing subsidiary offices in individual nations and continents. As such, these companies can be able to create and control the international marketing environment in respective countries. For example, the presence of Universal, Paramount, and 20th Fox century subsidiaries in Asia, specifically China, promotes the marketing strategies produce by these film organisations in terms of marketing and product customisation, for example translation and use of local language subtitles. As such, these companies can tailor their products in a manner that competes with locally produced films, though not pre-empting them.
According to Simonton (2009), for a film to gain international acclaim, it must be more international in terms of theme and content, which increases its exportability attribute than others made specifically for a local market. This is because a film produced for a local market tends to be more deeply entrenched in the domestic cultural traditions, believes, and more so, prevailing developments. Collins Hand and Snell (2002) argue that international film products have been presented internationally with little emphasis as a geographical territorial product, the reason some of the products are widely assimilated in a diverse cultural contexts.
Eliashberg, Elberse and Leenders (2006) postulate that film actors whose careers were shaped on the American ideals, could have the products in which they were involved succeed in the international market. However, any conflict or misalignment with the target consumer market can be manifest, and thus their popularity with the audience is potentially destroyed. In addition, producers can customise a movie to fit a specific market. For example, characters and themes can be specifically created for a country’s audiences. When moviemakers want a movie that would capture China’s market, they introduce themes loosely tied to its cultural contexts, and sometimes use actors and producers from China. As such, for media products to achieve international success, the role of superior budgeting, extensive marketing, distribution strategic decisions, and the thematic composition and content of films is paramount.
Foreign Films in China
According to Lee (2009), the reason for high piracy is attributed China’s dense regulatory approach to combat the capture of the country’s market share by anything foreign, films included. The typical political perception of films as a tool of propaganda started in the 1920s when media became mainstream. In the 1920s and 30s, during the unstable political atmosphere in the country, cinematic nationalism was viewed as a way to propagate the myth of flawless national unity and rebuff westernisation (Lee, 2008: Viviani, 2014). The Chinese film industry is associated with conservation and safeguarding of national values and culture and resist westernisation, the government has been particularly leery of imported foreign films, especially those from Hollywood since they encompass and advocate western values.
The government is passionate in protecting nationalist sentiments and nationally accepted cultural values from being eroded by an influx of foreign movies. In reality, foreign movies, especially those from Hollywood were banned from year 1949-1994 (Fu and Lee, 2008). Despite the fact that liberalisation and rapid market growth has increasingly challenged the government in terms of audience control, the people’s republic of China still views the industry as a propagandistic one, and curtails the optimum performance of the industry.
Like in other countries where media products have propaganda utility, China is deeply enmeshed in virtually every aspect of its film industry. The country’s administration of radio, television, and film body, called SARFT, reviews all films to be screened in the country and outside the country and censors them according to the protocols and regulations (Oh, 2001). In addition, the government also controls how import quota slots are allocated for incoming films. Through this arm of the government, the state has introduced an effective monopoly approach in the entry and distribution of foreign films. Certain studios are strategically placed in the market, especially those linked to SARFT.
Censorship
China places significant emphasis on enforcing censorship because of lack of a rating system and the need to ensure compliance with the political interests (Su, 2010). Unlike the United States where movies are rated according to the select target audience, the censorship board does an overall review of a particular movie and judges it according to the general suitability for watching by the entire national audience. With around 40 members consisting of government officials, academics, filmmakers, interest groups representatives, the board reviews a script or a completed movie if the producers apply for a quota slot (Chu, 2010). If a film is considered for a slot, the board stipulates any edits to make the move qualify for release. In addition, the board reviews the finished product before allowing it for cinematic release. In 2008, the board circulated a listing of film attributes and content that would not be permitted in any imported films, such as murder, violence, excessive drinking, smoking, ghosts and supernatural, and terror.
Though the regulations are codified, they are not optimally and uniformly enforced. Disapproval and negative portrayals of the leading party, the Communist Party of China are totally prohibited, but some foreign blockbusters have been shown in Chinese cinemas, for example, The Hunger Games, The Expendables, and The Dark Knight Rises. In addition, offensive elements in the foreigner’s version of a film can be modified for Chinese viewers. For example, for Titanic 3D release, a nude scene was removed, and the film became one of the highest grossing in the country. However, the screening of Django unchained was stopped in less than 12 hours after its release, an action attributed to male nudity in the film (Davis, 2010). As such, selective enforcement and pre-release editing makes film producers abroad curious whether a film in their version could significantly effect on the SARFT’s decision to allocate a screening quota slot.
In 1994, after the ban of films from Hollywood was lifted, the Chinese’ government started regulating foreign films through import quotas (Huiqun, 2010). There are two types of quotas applicable to the foreign films: flat fee and revenue-sharing slots. A flat fee quota slot is awarded when a Chinese distributor pays for a film as a whole, and does not remit the box office receipts to the studio. In revenue-sharing approach, the film remits a specific percentage of China’s Box office to the foreign studio that produced the film. This percentage is usually significantly lower than remittances in other countries, for example, IN China it can be 15 %, while in European markets, it could be 50 % (Chung, 2011).
Initially, China used to import around 10 films from Hollywood on a revenue-sharing basis annually, but the slots were added to 20. After the 2012 US-China Film agreement, the import quota was increased to 34, whereby the 14 new slots were specifically reserved for film imports in IMAX and 3-D formats. Currently, blockbusters are screened through the revenue sharing slot, while low profile productions from smaller companies are offered flat-fee slots. Even if the flat-fee slots are not strictly capped, the number imported is almost equal to those imported through revenue-sharing movies. However, flat fee films comprise an almost insignificant percentage in the country’s market share. For example, in 2012, 31 low profile films accounted for only 5.4 % of the country’s total box office, while the big budget movies, those imported through revenue-sharing approach, accounted for 45.6 per cent of the total box office (Cain 2013).
Monopoly
According to Chung (2011), the world trade organisation ruled that China was violating trade regulations by allowing the government to have ultimate control and monopolising the distribution of imported films. Actually, China Film Group used to supply all films slotted through revenue sharing, while some were distributed in collaboration with Huaxia and no other distributor. This is because China Film Group is owned by SARFT, while Huaxia is owned by the state, with all its revenue being forwarded to SARFT (Huiqun, 2010). This monopoly approach to distribution is relevant to government because of profit incentive to evaluate the value and potential earnings of the imported films.
The 2012 agreement also increased the percentage of the revenues from the box office remitted to the production studios to around 25 % from 15%. In 2011, these 14 new slots generated around US$650 million, and are seen as reasons for the exponential market growth. After accounting for the share of exhibitors and taxes, the distributor rentals totalled to an estimate of 40 % of the total box office gross revenue. Therefore, in 2012 alone, the government of China made around US$ 260 million from the 14 quota slots alone, which is an indication that the government considers the expected box office when awarding the quota slots.
Studio Relations
During the late 1990s, China’s government, through SARFT, blacklisted Disney, MGM, and Sony for producing movies that represented the country negatively, thereby halting their operations in the country for a while. However, IMAX, DreamWorks Animation, and Fox have started production of movies in Chinese language, perhaps to appease the government. The result has been consistent winning of slots by these companies. For example, DreamWorks success in winning slots is attributed to the production and release of 2008’s Kung Fu Panda Film. This implies that the government is more likely to award quota slots to companies that have a comparatively health relationship with the government, than those that have negative one or none at all.

Blackouts and Competitive Scheduling
According to Chu (2010), China periodically executes blackouts, which are referred to as periods during which certain types of films cannot be screened in national theatres. These periods range from one to three months, and are meant to increase the market share of domestic movies and the box office. This is especially during holidays and summer when films’ traffic is at the peak. For example, in January 2010, Avatar, which was one of the top-performing movies in the country, was blacked out to avoid direct competition with Confucius, which is a Chinese-themed movie. In 2011, Transformers and Harry Porter were blacked-out from screening to prevent direct competition with the Beginning of the Great Revival. In reality, June has been referred to as the national film protection month because of the apparent foreign movies blackouts year after year.
China also curtails the commercial success of some films by ensuring that similar movies are screened in the same opening weekend. For example, in 2012 September, the Amazing Spiderman was pitted against The Dark Knight Rises, which was after a two-month blackout (Cain, 2012: Fu and Lee, 2008). Foreign studios, especially those in Hollywood, collaborate stateside to prevent head-to-head opening weekends for films having the same attributes whenever possible. This is meant to establish some advantage of temporary monopoly in the market with regard to the genre of the movie released, thereby maximising a films market share and earnings (He, 2014). This approach explains why films that rank better at the Chinese box office disappear on a weekly basis. In addition, it also illuminates on why some films that have enormous success in the opening weekends all over the world have a significantly muted debut in China.

Chinese Films in International Markets
Chinese films have had little success in foreign territories, with the exception of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, and the recent Monster Hunt. While China produces a significant number of films, its products do not have a substantial effect in foreign nations as other movies, especially those from Hollywood and Bollywood, have in the country. With the expectations of China becoming the globe’s biggest entertainment market in the future, home film production companies such as Huayi Brothers are looking for mechanisms to market their products to potential customers in both North America and Europe. This is because, despite the rapid technology advancements over the past several years, and the increase in number of movies, only a few Chinese movies have attracted a following internationally, which is attributed to deficiency in orienting the movies for international markets. In addition, Chinese-made movies have been unable to capture Chinese even in foreign countries. Davis (2010) argues that Chinese movies do not appeal to every entertainment lover because they tend to be artistic, which overrides their commercial objectives, thus reducing the potential market. Luo (2015) states that while Hollywood international movies, not American movies, China film industry capitalises on making Chinese culture-based movies, not that the potential foreign markets despise the movies or fail to understand them, which is a curtailing factor.
Cultural and Artistic Barriers
According to Chung (2011), one element illustrated in films that fail internationally is the lack of cultural discount when it crosses international territories, an argument that has been supported by Jin (2011) and Meiling, Lin and Li (2012). Cultural discount intervenes when potential viewers in one region find it had to understand and relate with the content, values, or themes of the imported product because of the differences in language or culture. In addition, it may be because of other ineffective approaches to customise, such as bad translations and dubbing, which can jeopardise the comprehension of the products by the consumers. Differences in social norms and cultural values can neutralise the appeal of foreign movies for local potential audience. These differences also contain technical aspects such as storytelling styles and narratives, which indicates that cultural values are deeply embedded in local films. Cultural discount reduces the potential for revenue generation in the international markets. This is counterproductive especially when such films do not realise success in the local markets.
From the narrative perspective, as Sun (2012) postulates, Chinese movies are ideally characterised by comparatively longer sequences of dialogue, silences, and stills, which are elements foreign to international market film consumers. In addition, these movies lack internationally acceptable humour, and even if it is present, it is mainly contingent on dialogue. Fung (2013) argues that humour based on regionally- understandable language is difficult for international audiences to understand, which even when translated, weakens the humour element. In addition, since most movies are formed within the Chinese context, the presentation, language and culture can only be understood by people to whom these elements are familiar.
Economic Element
Success of a global strategy is dependent on a stable and reliable distribution system. American movie industry illustrates that distribution and exhibition has significantly contributed to its dominance in the international entertainment industry. The paramount role played by the distributor is because they are in charge of flow of information to consumers, through positioning, promoting, and marketing. They also provide information to the investors as well. As such, their role is important in a global economy because it connects the local with the global, thereby creating significant cultural, political, and economic alignment. Because of this obstacle, success of Chinese films is challenged as they approach international audiences, especially with the intense competition posed through distribution and exhibition by international business majors. With the lack of distribution channels abroad, and the prevailing ones having insignificant effect in international markets, China’s films receive insignificant acclaim, resulting in an insignificant international market share.
Lee (2006) argues that the learning curve of Chinese film producers has been accelerated by co-productions and partnerships, the scarcity or lack of influence of promotional tools and marketing are other impediments when the films attempts to cross national and international borders. As Fu and Lee (2008) postulate, one important function of marketing in the controlling of cultural products is the reduction of uncertainty associated with the potential’ audiences reaction for creative endeavours in the consumer’ recognisable conceptual space of styles and stars. Even Chu (2010) states that brand loyalty may as well be attached to the director or actor. In China, there is deficiency of commercial directors and actors that can represent the country in international scale, even when compared to China’s or India’s professionals in the entertainment industry.
Politics
As China’s products try to garner international audience, they experience a politically instigated challenge because of the political consequences that obstructs, but in the same time, helps promote Chinese movies’ awareness and reputation internationally. For example, the 2011 Chinese movie Flowers of War almost scooped an international award, before the reviews turned negative by associating the movie with national propaganda and denial that Nanking massacre happened. Such occurrences force directors to first understand the political meaning of their productions as their chronological overview has revealed why serving the nation can be a concern and how the nation and cinema can never be detached from each other in the Chinese context.
This notion is echoed by Lee (2008), who states that the instrumental and social values of films have been a serious concern for the country’s leaders. The realism Chinese films want to portray has been centred on ideological and educational foundations that lie behind “the truthful reproduction of reality (Chen, 1990, p. 196). Although the economic change of China’s film industry has propelled the function of ‘market” and neutralised the role of politics in movie production, any film produced in the country still has the domestic purpose as the first priority: supporting the government, capturing the domestic market, as well as not interfering with the stability of the nation-state.
The review indicates that despite the increasing importance of China’s cinematic film industry, the regulatory mechanisms that allocate foreign films slot are not easily understood by anyone other than the government and those in business. Past studies concerning cinema and box office in the region have excluded the country information in their analysis because data is not available. The review has indicated that the allocation of import quotas and the specific model applied is determined by the government’s expectations of the predicted performance at the box office, the film content, depictions of the government or Chinese culture, and studios relationships with the government. Therefore, even when Chinese filmmakers try to create an internationally acclaimed film, they are mandated to not try too hard and overlook the conventions of the country. This is because an attractive project must be composed of the right mix of attractiveness to both the Chinese and the international context. Because there are many movies already conceived but have failed to convince and touch people, all the films created must be created in a manner that moves people, regardless of the size of investment and structure.