MOVIES WIN ACCLAIM

    This year also saw a feast of films as China's movie industry grew rapidly. The number of Chinese films produced in 2006 is expected to reach a record 330.

    Three big-budget films by award-winning directors, all martial arts epics -- Chen Kaige's The Promise, Feng Xiaogang's The Banquet and Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower -- all captured public attention.

    In September, director Jia Zhangke took home this year's Gold Lion award for best movie with Still Life from the 63rd Venice Film Festival.

    Another winner, Zhang Yuan scooped an award at the Berlin International Film Festival 2006 for his movie Little Red Flowers.

    Later director Zhang Jiarui won the Best Film award at the 30th Cairo International Film Festival for The Road.

    Low-budget movies, such as Ning Hao's black comedy Crazy Stone and Chen Daming's One Foot off the Ground, also won critical and box office success.

    Experts say Chinese movies have begun breaking away from the traditional planning mechanism and made an increasingly powerful punch on the international stage.

    Commercial films also helped the Chinese box office break free from 10 years in the doldrums. Before 2003, home-made movie box office takings sat on a constant one billion yuan (128 million U.S. dollars).

    In 2004, Chinese films pulled in 1.5 billion yuan (192 million U.S. dollars), rising to two billion yuan (256 million U.S. dollars) in 2005 with 1.6 billion yuan (205 million U.S. dollars) coming from overseas.

    This year, with eight Chinese films boasting budgets exceeding 100 million yuan (12.8 million U.S. dollars), takings are expected to hit a record 2.6 billion yuan (333 million U.S. dollars).

    However, experts warn that despite the seeming "prosperity" of China's movie industry, the films themselves remain outside the mainstream theaters of the Western market.

    From 2000 to 2004, China imported 4,332 film and TV products, but very few Chinese movies were sold abroad.

    Zhang Yu, general manager of China Arts and Entertainment Group, said China is not sophisticated in developing and marketing its cultural products.

    "The market share of Chinese cultural products in the United States is close to zero," he said. "Most exported Chinese TV plays are old fashioned and poorly packaged by international standards, which are doomed to be failures."

    Many experts also blame the industry for a lack of creativity. "Low quality, outdated ideas and the repetition of similar stories... have reduced Chinese movies' competitiveness in the international market," said Yin Hong, a professor with Qinghua University. 

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