Ever since three reels of silent film were shot in a courtyard of a Beijing photography shop in 1905 of a Peking opera star doing "Dingjun Mountain," Chinese cinema has gone through peaks and troughs.

In 2005, China is celebrating its centenary. Saturday's China Daily run a commentary from a personal view on the logjam the centennial Chinese film industry is facing.

One "peak" is in 1977, right after the "cultural revolution" (1966-1976), when movie attendance across the country reached a record high of 29.3 billion.

It has been a downward spiral since then. In 2004, a year touted by media pundits as a "bright spot," attendance was 200 million, a mere 0.6 percent of the 1977 level. If exclude the three films "House of Flying Daggers," "A World Without Thieves" and "Kungfu Hustle," which made up the bulk of the figures of attendance and box-office receipts, it would be hard to deny that the industry is in prolonged doldrums.

If go around the country and talk to those who should be film-goers, one will find out that several factors have conspired to create a deadly force that is constantly bludgeoning the industry from different sides, the commentary said.

Piracy

Nobody can gauge the exact degree of counterfeiting in China's audio-video business. Estimates vary, but it is safe to say that piracy is rampant.

It would be easy to point the finger of blame at the Chinese side, but that would be simplistic. To put it into perspective, many New York streets are also filled with counterfeits, yet some shop owners there believe that local police are lenient because there are too many low-end jobs at risk.

Speaking of the source of "all evil," the original copies of most DVDs come from the US. When disks of a summer blockbuster are on sale in China before the movie debuts in American theatres, there are someone with access to a Hollywood studio - most probably not a Chinese - has passed it on intentionally, presumably making a tidy profit in the process.

Pricing

Empirical data show that prices for a movie ticket are so high in purchasing-power-parity terms that they consistently match or exceed those of live performances in the West.

A theatre in cities like Beijing or Shanghai usually charges 50 yuan (6 US dollars) or higher and the rate in a provincial-level city is around 30 yuan (3.6 US dollars). In smaller cities and towns, movie exhibition as a business no longer exists.

This does not mean every Chinese has eschewed the cinema experience for the comfort of home viewing. According to latest research, the demographics still with the yen for going out and catch a new release on the big screen are the younger generations, and this is more or less the same in every film market in the world. The result of the survey is quite revealing: Those who want to go to cinema cannot afford it, and those who can afford it wouldn't care to go.

Regulatory environment

In the days when a regular film was watched by hundreds of millions of people, it would be appropriate to make sure that nothing in the film would offend the sensibilities of a certain segment of the society. Nowadays, while books and periodicals have much more leeway in terms of content, a film, with fewer watchers than readers of some book titles, is still being scrutinized with yardsticks in terms of cultural and social values.

Take Stephen Chow's "Shaolin Soccer". It was denied release in the mainland market because the religious association and comedic style might have upset the delicate feelings of monks.

This line of thinking, when carried to extremes, would completely eliminate the business. In the very least, it will stifle the creativity of filmmakers.

Awards

International awards, which are meant to laud the achievement of Chinese cinema, are playing a perverse role in shaping up the industry structure.

Interviews with studio executives yield quiet complaints that talented filmmakers are not willing to do commercial projects. "Why is everybody fixed on the recognition of European festival jurors instead of the support of local audience?" they asked.

For the young generation of filmmakers, the chasing of international awards has become an end in itself. China's media is happily playing along. They automatically confer star-status on big winners while keeping oblivious of good movies that may not have caught the eye of the Western festival crowds. However, the general public does not take to such hyping. As a result, few festival winners can pass the litmus test of the home market.

Editor: Wing