Chris Berry5 percent of the total films passed. Over the next decade, although a high of forty features was
reached in 2005, making almost 10 percent of the total, the next year the total dipped to 17
again. Fortunes changed somewhat after the massive success of Wei Te-Sheng’s 2008 Haijiao
Qihao (Cape No. 7), which reignited the interest of the mass audience in certain Taiwanese
films. Fully 65 features were passed in 2011. However, 428 foreign films were passed in the
same year, including Hong Kong films (Taiwancinema.com 2012). So, although there has been
an improvement, the Taiwanese domestic industry is still a relatively small player with relatively
few exports.
In the case of Hong Kong, the industry had grown to produce well over 100 and some-
times as many as two hundred films a year until the 1990s, when it went into steady decline.
UNESCO statistics show an average of about fifty films a year were produced domestically over
the last decade with little annual variation (UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2014). In 2015, 59
Hong Kong films were released, but, much like Taiwan, the release of 273 foreign films indicates
the domestic industry is a relatively small player in its own market (Hong Kong Trade Develop-
ment Council Research 2016).
The statistics for the PRC were also alarming in the 1990s, and at first a similar pattern to
that of Hong Kong seemed to be appearing. After reaching a high of 170, output dropped to 88
in 2001, on the eve of accession to the WTO. However, instead of collapsing further, production
has grown ever since, reaching a high of 745 in 2012, and remaining at an impressive 618 in
2014 (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2016).
Accounting for the differing fortunes of the three locations is a complex endeavor, and
involves many more factors than can be discussed here. However, it is clear that the fates of the
three industries are not directly codetermining, because, despite the rapid increase in output,
PRC films are not often exported, even to other Chinese-language markets like Taiwan and
Hong Kong. In other words, although domestic production has declined in Hong Kong and
Taiwan, local movies there have not been substituted with PRC movies, but with Hollywood
features.
However, rather than continuing a three-way comparison between Hong Kong, Taiwan,
and the PRC, interesting and important though that is, in the context of the issues raised in
this chapter, it is more important to grasp that in the age of globalization and—in the PRC—
marketization, a more profound transformation has taken place. Indeed, the three industries can
no longer be so easily separated. The broad arena of Chinese-language cinema has been recon-
figured once again. The result has been the emergence of a transborder Chinese-language film
industry assemblage that is multi-sited and ever changing, but centered on Beijing. A number of
features of this latest transformation can be noted.
First, there has been a shift from the apportioning of studios to the provincial capitals of the
PRC that occurred under the planned economy to the current creative clustering of studios
in Beijing. This is the result of an economic shift from one that prioritized even development
across the PRC to one that is profit-driven. Under market-driven conditions, clustering is con-
sidered to promote efficiency and competitiveness in particular industries (Porter 1998). Beijing
has long been the cultural as well as political capital of the PRC. It is the home of the China
Film Corporation, which retains a virtual monopoly on imports and exports and dominates dis-
tribution and exhibition; the country’s leading film school, the Beijing Film Academy; and also
the Film Bureau of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television
(SAPPRFT), which censors all films. In these circumstances, it is not surprising that it has been
the magnet city for the film industry in the PRC.
Second, the clustering effect has extended across borders to encompass Taiwan and Hong
Kong. There are a number of reasons for this. As well as entering the WTO, the PRC has