Trading devil Fish and Monkey kings: French and Chinese film industry policies and exchanges 1978-1993

ABSTRACT

In the first years of China’s Opening and Reform period, the China Film Corporation and a combination of French film institutions and individuals established a robust import/export exchange that sent dozens of film titles in both directions. These Sino-French connections have been largely overlooked in scholarly histories of both film industries at this time. This is, in part, because France and China each had more economically valuable and/or culturally proximate foreign partners. However, marginal global cinema flows offer their own valuable insights into the operation of media industries. This paper examines the conditions that allowed this connection to emerge, the ability for personnel on each side to strike mutually-beneficial deals, and the dissolution of the exchanges. It draws critical parallels between the mid-20^th century establishment of French and Chinese film policy frameworks and argues policy similarities and a new confluence of domestic and international film industry conditions enabled this rich connection between 1978-1993.

KEYWORDS:

• Film distribution
• media policy
• Chinese film
• French film
• transnational cinema

Acknowledgements

The germination of this article began while working as a graduate researcher for the UC-Santa Barbara Mellichamp Cluster under the very capable guidance of Prof. Michael Curtin.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Import records from the China Film Corporation during this period remain largely inaccessible to scholars. To verify which films were imported this paper combines scholarly and paratextual evidence. A 2010 Shandong University PhD dissertation by Li Jing titled “The Study of Film Imports with the System Evolution in the New Era” has extensive appendices professing near-complete records of imports in the era. This source is not impeachable, however. Thus, to confirm the reliability of the dissertation list, confirmation for film titles was sought from additional sources including annual Chinese Film Yearbooks, a book series called China-Foreign Film Stories (中外电音故事), a 1984 handbook for Chinese film personnel (中国电影手册), and extensive Baidu searches for physical film paraphernalia (posters, lobby cards, 16 mm prints, etc.) All import titles listed in this article were found in Li Jing’s dissertation and via at least one other confirmation method.

2. Several years after Zorro’s success, Jean-Pierre Belmondo followed his oft-rival’s lead with six of his own titles premiering in China over the eight years from 1985 and 1993, including five films from his production company, Cerito Films (Li 2010).

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Wesley Jacks

Wesley Jacks is Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. He earned his PhD in Film and Media Studies from the University of California-Santa Barbara and an MA in Communication Arts (Film) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research engages with global media industries, national media policies, Chinese-language film historiographies, and pirate humanities. He has presented his research across North America and Asia.