China edges further into Hollywood
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Analysts have announced that China, with its soaring economy and rapid social growth, has become more acceptable for American society, which is being reflected by more Chinese elements included in Hollywood productions.
US President Barack Obama was in China last week, during which Obama and his Chinese counterpart President Hu Jintao agreed to jointly promote Sino-US relations.
Hollywood, the center of entertainment for US society has reacted to a growing China in its recent productions. Two days before Obama's arrival in China, Hollywood's latest blockbuster 2012 debuted on screens across the country with China and the US portrayed as crucial partners that jointly deal with a common challenge, a world-ending catastrophe. In the film China is the last place of salvation for human beings for the first time in a Hollywood disaster movie.
Chinese analysts said that the changing image of China in Hollywood movies could reveal that the country, with a rising international status, has become more acceptable for mainstream Western society.
Zhang Yiwu, a scholar at Peking University, said that from Kung Fu Panda to 2012, the Chinese image has never been so popular and it could reflect that people in the US are, to some degree, accepting China's status in the world.
2012's scenes containing pro-China messages, such as a US military officer saying that only the Chinese could build an ark of such a scale on time, have been welcomed by some Chinese moviegoers.
"I feel very proud to hear such surprising lines in a Hollywood movie," a person with an Internet name of yexinlianyi posted on douban.com.
Lines in the film such as "The Party and government will help us rebuild our homes" also embody a typical Chinese language style.
Director of 2012, Roland Emmerich said that he paid close attention to the devastating earthquake that hit southwest China in May last year, when he shot the movie in the summer.
Emmerich said he was deeply moved by the Chinese government and people for their bravery and perseverance shown in the disaster.
"It is easy to understand that Hollywood is trying to portray and tell Chinese stories and images in a more Chinese style because people in the US are paying more attention to China," commented movie critic Bi Chenggong.
However, other critics attributed Hollywood's goodwill to a purely commercial intention to sell more movie tickets among Chinese people.
The total box office revenue of the Chinese movie market in 2004 was less than 1 billion yuan ($147 million). In 2008, it had increased to more than 4 billion yuan ($585 million).
Bi refuted the idea of commercial intentions, saying that even though 2012 had already made 400 million yuan ($58.58 million) at the box office on the Chinese mainland, it could not be compared to that in the US.
For decades, Hollywood conveyed a negative image of China with its movies frequently connecting the country to the cold war, dictatorship and indecent characters. In recent years the situation has changed with Hollywood movies starting to pay more respect to and interest in telling Chinese stories.
Professor Men Honghua with the Party School of the Communist Party of China Central Committee said that from Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to Barack Obama, the US administrations have made a shift in their foreign policies for China in the context that the US holds a more rational attitude to China's rising.
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