VIRTUAL REALITY BECOMING REALITY
A record 44 billion yuan's worth of tickets were sold by cinemas in China in 2015.
The flourishing of the Chinese film market can be at least partly credited to market liberalization in 2003, when annual box office in China reached a mere 1 billion yuan.
In that year, authorities doubled the number of foreign films cinemas could show to 20 and allowed foreign enterprises to invest in Chinese cinema chains. China's film market has since posted an average annual growth of 30 percent.
Last year, taking in 27.1 billion yuan in ticket sales, or 61.58 percent of the country's total, domestic films maintained clear dominance in China despite fierce competition from Hollywood.
The industry looks likely to continue its boom.
Growing customer demand and investments have served as the "twin engines" for the industry's success. Next, it will harness new technology like virtual reality, as well as making more use of the Internet, said Liu.
With China aiming to increase the value of its creative industry to 100 billion yuan by 2020, insiders agree it is only a matter of time before the country overtakes the United States to become the world's largest film market.
FILM A CULTURAL AMBASSADOR ABROAD
As well as growing the market at home, authorities are hoping Chinese films can win more commercial success abroad.
On Feb. 8, when "The Monkey King 2" made its debut in Chinese cinemas, audiences in a dozen other countries, including the United States, Britain, Germany, Australia and Japan, could experience the charm of the film at the same time.
The SAPPRFT has organized for at least one Chinese movie to be simultaneously released in China and other parts of the globe every month.
"It's the right time for the Chinese film industry to reach out more to the world," said SAPPRFT film bureau head Zhang Hongsen.
Chinese films currently seem to have little appeal abroad. Their overseas sales were up 48.13 percent in 2015, but the films' takings of 2.77 billion yuan equaled just one tenth of box office sales in China.
Things may start to look up, especially after Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group announced its acquisition of leading Hollywood film producer Legendary Entertainment for 3.5 billion U.S. dollars in January.
"Promoting Chinese movies overseas is not easy right now, just as the film industry reform launched in 2003 was not easy. However, we have faith and know we will make it in the end," said Zhang Hongsen.
