A Fascinating Peek Behind the Scenes of China's Movie Industry

Hi, a pleasure to be here; I am really looking forward to the event with RASBJ. This story began several years ago, at a time when I was living in China for a few months. I happened to read about the sprawling China Film Group back lot, just outside Beijing, and that it was open to visitors. I had previously published a photobook of film locations in the south of Spain, so I was immediately drawn to this place. The following weekend I visited what turned out to be an eerily quiet space. One turn and I found myself exploring the deserted streets of old Shanghai, except the next corner took me to a cluster of traditional wooden houses set alongside their flower ponds. 

There were also incongruous classical monuments with grand columns and staircases. I found little company other than a few crew members and a wardrobe van outside one of the houses, where a costume drama TV series was being filmed. Here I was, gaining my first introduction to a vast world of mainland Chinese cinema culture that I actually knew precious little about, other than the handful of arthouse films that had made it to Western screens.

That’s right. Since then, I have been researching, visiting, and photographing movie production sites all around China. In fact, the photographs that I am presenting at the event cover over a dozen sites, though there are plenty more nationwide. There’s Hengdian World Studios, purportedly the world’s largest production facility, and if you’re looking for vintage, you won’t want to miss out on the 1930s-era streetscape of the Shanghai Film Park. Western lovers will be enamored by the rusticity of Western Film City, teetering on the edge of the desert in Ningxia Province. There’s still the old Beijing Film Studio lot, now in disrepair and overgrown with weeds, the cathedral that was built for Zhang Yimou’s The Flowers of War outside Nanjing, and the bizarre theme parks of Changchun Movie Wonderland and Huayi Brothers Movie World. A legit map of wonders. 

In the West, we are usually knowledgeable about Hollywood, the mecca of cinema, and we make sure to get well acquainted with its tales of bygone glamour, set against the backdrop of the Cold War. Well, one reason that I am fascinated by the Chinese film industry is its enormous scope and ambition. Only in 2018, China produced over 1,000 films and 15,000 TV episodes. The Chinese film industry is actually making more movies than Hollywood. What’s more, China has been rapidly taking over as the world’s largest motion picture market, having surpassed the US box office for the first time in 2020.

Exactly. Across the country, there are entire towns constructed around this industry, financed by local governments in the hope of attracting business and tourism. We’re talking about an unparalleled scale here. Movie sets in China are no plywood affair. Instead, you get monumental fortresses, mazelike palaces, and complete towns and urban neighborhoods of multistory buildings. In that sense, they actually make me turn my gaze to a century ago, when Cecil B. DeMille constructed the "City of the Pharaoh". It’s very different from our current standard of digital production factories. 

It’s also worth mentioning that the movie towns are in a constant state of flux. It’s usual for larger sites to host multiple productions at once, and they do this while tourists mill about taking selfies; they even allow couples to take their engagement pictures in period dress over there. In fact, Hengdian now brings in more profit from tourists than from making films. There’s always some construction humming away in the background because everything gets regularly swapped out. Whenever I revisit any given site, I am a witness to this constant transformation.  

There is very much a formula at work here. As a matter of fact, numerous movies and TV dramas in China share the same backdrops, which is good news to filmmakers in that they’re able to reuse these locations over and over again. Large-scale outdoor sets tend to reflect fairly specific episodes in China’s history—think the ancient battles of the Warring States Period, Qing costume dramas, conflicts of the nineteenth century Opium Wars, gangsters in 1930s Shanghai and episodes of resistance under the Japanese occupation. These are already easily recognizable by Chinese audiences, but there’s an added element of familiarity via those ubiquitous backdrops. 

To be honest, it’s that tension between truth and fiction that intrigues me the most. Films and photographic images can provide a vivid sense of reality, even when they are based in fiction. However, these film sets are mere phantoms of the real world. They were not designed to stand independently, but rather are constructed from a hodge-podge of incomplete cultural fragments devoid of context—props, architectural details, signs, and billboards. They exist to suggest a narrative that extends only far enough to sustain an illusion. As such, they’re brought to life by the stories that are projected onto them.

If I had to pick one I would say the 1930s Nanjing Road set at the Shanghai Film Studio. There is one intersection, with an old tram and the Sincere Company department store, that has appeared in countless films and TV episodes, including international productions as well: Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution; Temptress Moon with Gong Li and Leslie Cheung; Merchant/Ivory production The White Countess; Hollywood film The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor; the patriotic film The Founding of a Republic; Looper with Bruce Willis. The same intersection even stood in for London in The Painted Veil. Even if you are not aware of it, I guarantee you have seen it! 

While local governments often provide support, hoping to bring in revenue from film production and tourists, not all of these investments are successful. There are also numerous abandoned film sets around the country. Also, it is unclear what the future brings. Audiences may want to see more contemporary films set in real locations. The growth of streaming services has shifted film production towards smaller, flexible crews working around real locations and digital production may increasingly replace real world sets. 

Covid did temporarily bring film production to a halt, though it has since returned to pre-Covid levels. Covid also had a tremendous impact on moviegoers, as cinemas closed and box office revenue plummeted. Moviegoing still has not recovered to where it was in 2019, and as people rely more on streaming services at home, it’s not clear that cinemas will ever regain the position they once had. 

The most fascinating and rewarding part of this project for me has been getting familiar with Chinese cinema. Relatively few Chinese films get a release for Western audiences, but there are many innovative and exciting films being made. I encourage people to watch some of the classic films as well as look out for new releases and independent films, which can often be accessed through film festivals or online. 

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