Shades of the macabre haunt box-office numbers

Movie ticket sales in China have generated more than US$1.5 billion this summer. Yet that is nearly half of last year’s record total of $2.89 billion.

The figures were released by the Film Data Information Network, an institution directly controlled by the Central Propaganda Department.

Summer is usually one of three lucrative periods for China’s movie sector. But industry analysts, observers, and customers pointed out that a slower economy and a lack of creative domestic films are to blame for the decline.

Would-be moviegoers explained why they are staying home this summer. One posted on social media: 

The impact [of] last year’s economic downturn officially appeared this year. Everyone thinks 40-80 yuan [$5-$11] per ticket is expensive.

“Many movies in theaters in July are on streaming services in August. We’d rather watch them at home than go to the theater,” another posted.

A Beijing moviegoer, known as Ms Yu, told Voice of America, that the market is sluggish because of film themes. She said streaming services allow everyone to watch movies at home without spending money:

Everyone’s life is already miserable, so we don’t want to watch sad movies.

Although streaming services have become movie theaters’ biggest competitors, the economic downturn may be the main reason for the ticket sales plunge. Shenzhen-based film director Zhang, who did not want to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, told VOA:

The spending power of young people and parents has decreased. One [reason] is that young people don’t date, and parents whose income has been reduced are under great pressure to raise children.

“So, they naturally cut the consumption activities except eating and drinking, not just movies,” Zhang said.

China’s economy has struggled since the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Bank reported, with growth falling to 3% in 2022 before a moderate recovery to 5.2% in 2023. The global lender expects that to drop below 5% this year, while youth unemployment has surged.

Youth unemployment

The National Bureau of Statistics removed students from its calculations after youth unemployment hit a record 21.3% in June 2023, prompting Beijing to temporarily suspend publication of the data.

Darson Chiu, the director-general of the Confederation of Asia-Pacific Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Taiwan, told VOA there were also other reasons behind the lackluster box office numbers, adding: 

China has a very strict censorship system. Cultural activities need creativity, and it must be bottom-up. But it is obviously a top-down [censorship] mechanism, so it [the Chinese film industry] is not as creative as it is in other more open and free economies.

Lee Cheng-liang, an assistant professor of communications at National Chengchi University in Taipei, stressed that China’s cinemas mainly show domestic movies, which are struggling to find investors:

The economy is declining; investors are more cautious to minimize risks. So they diversify the movie themes they invest in. 

“If you focus on the Chinese market, you will not necessarily make money unless you are at the top of the pyramid,” Lee told VOA.

Director Zhang said the Chinese summer comedies Successor, which critiques the social education system, and Upstream, which portrays delivery drivers, failed to “empathize with the general public.”

Commercial movies are often condescending, he added, with hypocritically fabricated plots to show the suffering of people at the bottom:

It is, actually, a very deformed route.

Great work

Yet other film critics found Upstream a great work with increasing favorable audience feedback. The movie uncovers China’s immense economic problems and the struggle of its army of gig workers.

State-run Xinhua News Agency reported that Successor, which grossed nearly 3.2 billion yuan as of August 20, accounted for almost 30% of China’s summer box office sales.

Zhang noted that comedy films become popular the more depressed the social and historical period is. The audience, he said, wants to feel “dreamy and painless.”

Still, despite the poor summer box office figures, not all critics are negative about China’s film industry.

Michael Mai, a film critic based in Taipei, told VOA:

The ticket sales are not good this summer, but it does not mean that [China’s] movies are bad. Their audience is hard to please. Why? Because their appetite is too big. They have all kinds of movies.

Mai also pointed out that there are three major periods in the Chinese movie market, such as the Lunar New Year in January and February. There is also the summer season between June to August and the weeklong National Day period from October 1.

Ticket sales always have seasonal ups and downs, Mai said, so people should be focusing more on long-term trends.

Lin Nai-Chuan is a producer at Voice of America.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.

This edited article is republished courtesy of Voice of America. Read the original article here.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of China Factor.