David Barboza wrote on New York Times:
HOMEGROWN blockbusters were supposed to be China’s answer to Hollywood. And, to some extent, the extravagant budgets and eye-popping special effects of “Curse of the Golden Flower,” “The Promise” and “The Banquet” did their job. For the past two years Chinese films have shattered box-office records here, while outperforming Hollywood imports.
Yet far from inspiring national pride, these films, from the well-known directors Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Feng Xiaogang, have sparked a heated, sometimes vituperative domestic debate about the future of Chinese cinema and whether the country’s leading filmmakers are true artists or merely politically savvy hacks.
In recent months critics and younger directors have accused some members of the venerable so-called fifth generation of filmmakers — a group that came of age in the 1980s and early 1990s with award-winning dramas like “Raise the Red Lantern” and “Farewell My Concubine” — of forsaking their socially conscious past and selling out to the government. Perhaps worse, their films are not just being called overly commercial, they are also “boring and hollow,” according to Cui Weiping, a professor at the Beijing Film Academy, the country’s leading film school. “Big-budget films can certainly exist, but they don’t have to be so ugly,” he said.
Even some elements of the Chinese government, which has largely supported the emergence of big-budget films, have taken a stab at playing movie critic, labeling the films obscene and morally bankrupt.
Despite the vitriol the filmmakers remain unrepentant. “China’s movie market is facing severe problems, as most of it has been occupied by foreign movies: Hollywood movies,” said Mr. Zhang, one of those fifth generation directors, whose films range from the low-budget “Red Sorghum” to the special effects-laden “House of Flying Daggers.” “If no one in China makes commercial movies, the entire market will be taken by foreigners, and then no one will care about Chinese culture and tradition.”
