Scroll To Top
Arts & Entertainment

Art-house films repackaged as porn in China

Art-house films repackaged as porn in China

The cast and crew of Maiden Work waited six years for their underground film to surface in China. They never thought it would. On finally seeing the packaged product, they almost wish it hadn't. "The first to reveal the biggest controversy in Chinese film--homosexuality," blares the DVD cover hyped by distributors, depicting two women entwined in an embrace. The women do not appear in the film. In fact, it has no love scenes. Maiden Work is a perfect example of what Chinese tabloids have termed "art films repackaged as porn." In a country where people watch far more films at home on disc players than in the cinema, Maiden Work is one of many thematically risque pictures that never stood a shot at the big screen. But after a bit of sexing up by unscrupulous DVD producers, the film has finally found its niche, an improbable twist of fate for a low-budget art-house work battling for market access. China has prudish content guidelines and no movie ratings, let alone art houses. Filmmakers often opt for self-imposed exile, showing their work at film festivals abroad rather than face likely rejection by the censors. The DVD strategy is risky but legal. It reflects how forces of commerce can overcome those of ideology and sex can smooth over political commentary in one of China's most spottily policed industries. But at what cost to directors and producers? In Maiden Work, amateur actors play young bohemian types in post-Mao Beijing. The film self-consciously probes the trials of a lesbian couple and a painter of nudes but, most revealingly, the filmmakers behind the scenes. Repackaged, renamed, and edited to accentuate the same-sex liaison, the DVD's lurid veneer gives little hint of the raw experiment inside. "Minors under the age of 18 barred from viewing," the cover stresses. A synopsis on the cover suggests a nonexistent love triangle. The movie also has a new title, roughly translating into "Women of desire, body to body." "We just wanted to promote our work after all these years," Li Dayu, one of Maiden Work's producers, who was not told of the changes. "Now they're marketing it like a triple-X movie." This way, distributors contend, sales are much stronger. They had no exact figures. But one of the video agents involved, Guangdong Tianyu, said its first 50,000 copies had been moving fast around the country since being released in late April. "It's not that graphic, is it?" said Tianyu sales chief Liu Gaofeng. "Anybody in any other trade would do the same. If it was really a triple-X film, it would never have been approved." Hollywood films rule China's DVD market, where piracy makes the latest blockbusters available for about a dollar. But private video outfits and more venturesome state publishing houses are also warming to edgy mainland films, formerly left out in the cold. Needing well-connected backers for mainstream release, producers sometimes cede distribution rights for paltry sums. For publishers, it's a calculated gamble. Unlike cinema releases in China, authorities vet DVDs only after they hit the market, and in many cases, not at all. But if the film makes a splash, pirates wipe out most of their profits. To avant-garde film makers, it can present a dilemma: Either don't sell, or sell out. "That's probably the only way they can sell them...because there's no marketing," said one industry insider. Legal skirmishes have created a minor media flap. In the most publicized case, the director of A Dream of Youth, a Stockholm Film Festival winner about a love triangle, has a $12,100 defamation claim pending against Beijing Spring and Autumn, at the forefront of the repackaging practice. Ironically, A Dream of Youth cleared the film bureau. But the DVD plugged it as having been banned for three years. A spokesman for the State Press and Publications Administration said audiovisual regulators knew of the sexed-up releases and had demanded they be reprinted with cleaner covers. Big Goose Rice Shop, the tale of a family ruined by greed and lust before the Communist Revolution, was to have reached theaters in 2003 after being banned nine years ago. But authorities abruptly pulled the plug again after only a few screenings, provoked by posters flashing a wild roll in the rice between lovers. Illegal video copies proliferated instead. Maiden Work's makers never bothered tempting the censors for cinema release. Shot in three weeks for $100,000, it languished in obscurity after screenings from Vancouver to Rotterdam five years ago. Then last year, Li got a call from Spring and Autumn, which offered around $1,200 for rights to distribute the film. Figuring he had nothing to lose, Li said, he accepted. Among the shots expurgated for domestic audiences was battlefield footage from the Chinese civil war and a peek at male lead Ye You's backside. Ye said: "My only fear is that people looking for sex scenes will feel cheated."

Advocate Channel - The Pride StoreOut / Advocate Magazine - Fellow Travelers & Jamie Lee Curtis

From our Sponsors

Most Popular

Latest Stories

Outtraveler Staff