Big Shot From Beijing: Feng Xiaogang's He Sui Pian and Contemporary Chinese Commercial Film

Abstract

The economic reform and commercialization of the cultural industry in the last two decades have greatly changed how film is made and consumed in contemporary China. From the in-flow of Hong Kong, Taiwanese, and foreign investment to the annual import of ten Hollywood blockbusters (starting in 1994); from independent film production companies to new regulations in 2002 which allow any citizen to apply to make a film; from film crew members getting involved in the production of TV soap operas and MTV to a new breed of underground art-house movies, the formal monopoly held by the state-run studio system has gradually disintegrated and the Chinese film industry, like other cultural sectors, is undergoing a profound transformation with more and more diversified products.

Product Placement in Chinese Cinema: From Resistance to Acceptance (1999–2009)

“…The appearance of products serves promotional purpose and it is made highly visible by the virtue of, for example, “the size and /or position on the screen or its centrality to action in the scene” (Gupta and Lord 1998, p.49). Nevertheless, certain visible scenes of brand products may be only for creating an aura of authenticity or arranged randomly by props masters (Lehu 2007). It is quite subjective to confirm whether a brand product appears at the center of frame.…”

“…Kaylene Williams, Alfred Petrosky, Edward Hernandez, and Robert Page (2011, p.2) explain the reason for this inconsistency to a certain degree by defining product placement as “the purposeful incorporation of commercial content into noncommercial settings.” Nevertheless, they advise that insertions should be conducted based on particular scenes (Williams, Petrosky, Hernandez, and Page 2011). By comparison, Jean-marc Lehu (2007, p. 23) holds a more positive attitude towards the issue of potential inconsistency, since for each insertion “there is no one placement, but multiple possibilities for stage direction, satisfying different objectives”. Arguably, although Hollywood as an industry considers the influence of product placement on film narrative, this consideration is not for the sake of confining the advertising practice.…”

“…Product placement becomes a means to balance production budgets or is used as a constituent part of settings so as to enhance verisimilitude. In most Hollywood filmmakers’ eyes, insertions could not render a film strange, simply because brands form part of our everyday lives and because they have, in fact, become necessary to the realism of certain scenes (Lehu 2007).…”

Genre Film, Media Corporations, and the Commercialisation of the Chinese Film Industry: The Case of “New Year Comedies”1

“…In other words, my approach will emphasise the effects of the production environment on products, in particular how the changing film industry structure dominated by media corporations has revived genre film, using New Year Comedies as a central example. This approach also distinguishes my paper from previous articles in English that describe Feng's New Year Comedies, including my own (Kong, 2003). While previous articles, such as McGrath (2005), still focus on the "content" of the movies, whether on their social relevance or their aesthetic and artistic aspects, this paper will instead focus on the external aspects of the New Year Comedies -that is, the material conditions that have made such commercial films possible.…”

“…In the process, the funeral becomes a ridiculous commercialised farce. What is intriguing is that the "sponsors" of the funeral depicted in the film are the real-life sponsors of the film itself (Kong, 2003). But the attitude of the filmmakers towards this whole commercial operation remains detached and self-consciously ambivalent due to their use of parody and black humour.…”