Introduction
Hello everyone, I'm Zhang Neixian. We meet again. After the previous dozen or so episodes of the show were broadcast, the view count of each episode was only about a thousand. I think my channel on YouTube is very niche. Although the number of viewers is small, they are of high quality. There are a lot of comments, and some of the questions from the audience in the comment section are very interesting. If I just reply with a few words in the comment section, I feel it's a waste. So I recorded this episode to answer the audience questions from the past few months in a concentrated manner. These questions are either left in the comment section or sent to me by email. Through this episode, we can share the Q&A content with all the audience. I think everyone will gain something new. Of course, I won't answer all the audience messages, just a selection. The selected questions are diverse. For the smoothness of the show, I have slightly classified them. Some questions are about entertainment and the film and television industry, and the other part is about politics and social phenomena. Today's show will first talk about entertainment and then politics. Because if all these questions are mixed together, it will be very chaotic to talk about.
Entertainment and Film and Television Industry
The Future of Film
The first question is from a viewer who seems to be from mainland China and may be a half - colleague. He is very concerned about the Chinese film industry. He asks why, although I always say that movies will eventually disappear due to the development cycle of film, Hollywood and India are still constantly producing excellent movies with both high quantity and quality, and the output of Chinese movies has not decreased.
I explained that the decline of the Chinese film industry is determined by the historical cycle, not mainly related to the censorship system. The global film industry's golden age was before the 1970s, and this decline trend has continued for more than half a century. The decline is caused by the evolution of media, which is irreversible. For example, in Japan, the game and animation industries are booming, while live-action movies are decreasing. Many movies are released online instead of in theaters.
The aging of movie audiences is the most terrifying signal of industry decline, which is particularly evident in Japan. Young people there are mostly ACG fans and are not interested in the real world, so they only watch animations or Marvel movies, which are essentially animations. In the United States, with the development of artificial intelligence, the actor profession may be replaced by digital humans. Although the US has the world's most developed media and entertainment industry, theater box - office revenue accounts for a small proportion. With the rise of streaming media platforms like Netflix, more and more viewers watch movies or TV series through OTT. In India, although the film output is the highest in the world, the profit is getting lower. The Indian film industry is also transforming to streaming media, and its OTT market is growing rapidly globally.
As for China, the reason why it seems that there are still many movies being released in recent years is because of the bubble caused by over - investment in previous years, and there are still a lot of stocks that have not been consumed. For example, "Operation Fox Hunt" starring Tony Leung and Duan Yihong, which was released during this year's Qingming Festival, was actually filmed in 2019 and was originally scheduled to be released in 2021. It was finally released after being shelved for 4 years, but the box office was still very poor. I think the main reason is that it was hidden for too short a time. In the future, Chinese movies should be buried in the ground for at least 10 years after being filmed.
Taiwan Film Industry
The next question is from a Taiwanese viewer who noticed that some well-known Taiwanese directors seem unable to make movies without government subsidies. Taiwanese movies have high artistic achievements, but from a market perspective, the local film industry has hardly made money and has always relied on government subsidies. The golden age of Taiwanese movies was also in the 1960s. Although Taiwanese directors like Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang have won many awards at international film festivals, the market is shrinking.
For a movie to cover its production costs, a certain number of viewers are needed. For example, in the contemporary era, according to Hollywood standards, a movie with a budget of less than 10 million US dollars is a small - cost independent movie. Even with such a low budget, assuming a ticket price of 5 US dollars and no theater sharing, at least 2 million viewers are needed to barely break even.
In recent years, the Taiwanese version of "More Than Blue" has the highest global box office among Taiwanese movies, reaching 4.8 billion New Taiwan dollars. However, the local box office in Taiwan only accounts for 5% of the total. The second-highest-grossing Taiwanese movie is "Our Times," with a box office of 2.5 billion New Taiwan dollars. The local box office in Taiwan is relatively higher, but the total box office is only about half of the former, indicating that the ceiling of the local movie box office in Taiwan is too low due to the small population base. To make money, Taiwanese movies can only rely on internationalization. In the local Taiwanese movie historical box office rankings, the top 18 are all Hollywood movies, and the first Taiwanese movie, "Cape No. 7," only ranks 19th. Among the top 50 movies in the box office rankings, there are only 7 local Taiwanese movies, and the remaining 43 are imported shared - revenue movies. In 2023, the movie "Chou Chu" was very unpopular in Taiwan but had a global box office of 3 billion New Taiwan dollars, exceeding "Our Times" and ranking second in history, but it was not included in the Taiwanese movie global box office rankings for some reason. The most popular Taiwanese movie in the same year was "Marry My Dead Body," a very heartfelt warm comedy, but its global box office was less than 500 million New Taiwan dollars. So Taiwanese filmmakers are having a hard time in recent years, and it may be even more difficult in the future. They can only rely on government subsidies.
Film Industry and Money Laundering
The next question is from a viewer who is interested in the capital operation of Chinese movies and asks whether movie production is also a way of money laundering. In the past few years, the Chinese government's special action against money laundering has had a huge impact on the cultural and entertainment industry, especially the art auction market and the film and television industry. The value of artworks and the remuneration of stars are ambiguous and difficult to evaluate. For example, in the art transaction industry chain, it is easy to launder money through artworks. In the film and television industry, the cost of movie production is also difficult for ordinary people and the government to accurately assess. A movie with an investment of 100 million yuan may actually only spend 50 million yuan on production, and the remaining half is laundered into foreign exchange.
Politics and Social Phenomena
Political Satire in Entertainment
The next question is why political satire is the mainstream content of many foreign variety shows, and why there were also many political jokes satirizing leaders among mainland Chinese people when the viewer was a child. When we were young, there were indeed many political jokes circulating among the people in the 1980s and 1990s when the social atmosphere was relatively open. These jokes were not published in print but spread by word of mouth. For example, the classic joke about Deng Xiaoping's inspection in the countryside. In fact, these jokes were not original to the Chinese but were adapted from Soviet jokes. The original Soviet jokes were widely spread around the world and had a high level of comedy creation.
Chinese political jokes also include some dirty yellow jokes that are not related to politics, with characters like Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. These yellow jokes were originally created by ancient Chinese people, mainly from the Ming and Qing dynasty joke collection "Xiaolin Guangji." Comparing the styles of Soviet jokes and "Xiaolin Guangji" can lead to many interesting conclusions, which are actually the differences between stand-up comedy and cross-talk.
Taiwan-related and International Political Issues
The next viewer asked four questions: why some people say that Chinese people become more patriotic when they go abroad, whether China can surpass the United States or become one of the two poles of G2 within 50 years, how many people really want to "recover" Taiwan, and whether China is currently in the period of Emperor Wu or Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty. I think using ancient emperors to describe the leaders of the Communist Party or using ancient Chinese allusions to describe contemporary international competition is a way of thinking that is out of touch with modern politics.
I told a story about a speech at a documentary academic exchange event. I first mentioned the "shocking惨案" in 1989, which made the audience nervous. Then I revealed that it was the self-immolation of Zheng Nanrong in Taiwan to protest against the Kuomintang's military dictatorship. This incident was the导火索 of the Taiwan independence movement and became the spiritual totem of the Democratic Progressive Party. However, both Chinese and Western academia often ignore this event. In mainland China, although Zheng Nanrong can be searched on the Internet, the introduction is very brief, and he is simply defined as a "Taiwan independence element."
Regarding the question of how many people really want to "recover" Taiwan, I think this is a collective unconscious state. In fact, the possibility of a military "reunification" is very small. War is based on civil hatred, and there is no such hatred between the mainland and Taiwan. Although there are constant verbal battles between the two sides, there has never been any violent conflict at the civil level.
I also mentioned some interesting anecdotes about the relationship between the mainland and Taiwan, such as the reactions of Taiwanese tourists in Beijing and the humorous interaction between a bartender and a Taiwanese girl in a bar in Beijing. And I also gave a tip to Taiwanese people who come to Beijing: if they encounter embarrassing situations, they can say "I'll treat you next round" to ease the atmosphere, but they must not leave any alcohol unfinished.
Conclusion
This episode has answered a series of audience questions. I will continue to answer everyone's questions regularly in future shows. Remember to like, share, and subscribe. I'm Zhang Neixian. See you next time.