ONCE UPON A TIME IN SHANGHAI

Mark Parascandola

Cofounders: Taj Forer and Michael ItkoffCreative Director: Ursula Damm Copy Editors: Nancy Hubbard, Barbara Richard

© 2019 Daylight Community Arts Foundation

Photographs and text © 2019 by Mark Parascandola Once Upon a Time in Shanghai and Notes on the Locations © 2019 by Mark ParascandolaOnce Upon a Time in Shanghai: Images of a Film Industry in Transition © 2019 by Michael Berry

All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-1-942084-74-7

Printed by OFSET YAPIMEVI, Istanbul

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of copyright holders and of the publisher.

Daylight BooksE-mail: info@daylightbooks.orgWeb: www.daylightbooks.org

4

5

6

ONCE UPON A TIME IN SHANGHAI: IMAGES OF A FILM INDUSTRY IN TRANSITION

Michael Berry

THE SOCIALIST PERIOD

Once upon a time, the Chinese film industry was a state-run affair. From the late 1940s well into the 1980s, Chinese cinema represented the epitome of “national cinema.” Films were produced by one of a handful of state-owned film studios—Changchun Film Studio, Beijing Film Studio, Shanghai Film Studio, Xi’an Film Studio, etc.—and the resulting films were dubbed in pitch-perfect Mandarin Chinese, shot entirely on location in China by a local cast and crew, and produced almost exclusively for mainland Chinese film audiences. Foreign films were limited primarily to titles from the socialist block, like North Korea, Albania, East Germany, and the Soviet Union, where an entire generation grew up with classics like Lenin in 1919 (Soviet Union, 1939) and The Flower Girl (North Korea, 1972) alongside classic Chinese socialist films like The Song of Youth (1959) and The Red Detachment of Women (1961). While films played in traditional theaters in urban

centers, even more screenings took place in auditoriums of various “work units,” as well as open air screenings in many rural areas. Admission was often free and tickets were distributed to employees of various hospitals, factories, schools, and other work units. While these films were an important part of popular culture during the height of the socialist period, film was also a powerful tool for education and propaganda—in fact, one could argue that from 1949 (the founding of the PRC) until 1978 (the end of the Cultural Revolution), there was a blurring of what we might describe as popular culture, mass culture, and political culture. During this period, the entire film infrastructure, from the Beijing Film Academy’s curriculum to the structure of the state-operated film studios, was all heavily modeled after the Soviet Union. Films were certainly made to entertain, but their greater mission was to instruct, indoctrinate, and inspire.

7

THE REFORM ERA

The 1980s marked a time of renewal, reinvention, and transition for the Chinese film industry. Deng Xiaoping’s Open Door policy led to a period of artistic experimentation and rejuvenation, which culminated in the “culture fever” of the 1980s. In poetry, there was the innovative literary journal Today and the rise of the “Misty Poets”; in art, there was the Stars Collective; in literature, there was the Scar movement, which examined the horrors of the Cultural Revolution; in music, Cui Jian emerged as the father of Chinese rock and roll; and in film, there was China’s first New Wave—the Fifth Generation. Directors like Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou made a mark on the international film scene with standout works like Yellow Earth (1984) and Red Sorghum (1988), which began to bring Chinese cinema to the international stage. Alongside the formal experimentations with film language, style, and form that the Fifth Generation were engaged with, the 1980s also welcomed a much broader palette of film genres—the reintroduction of martial arts films (Shaolin Temple, 1982), science-fiction films (Death Ray on Coral Island, 1980), and suspense films (Murder in Room 405, 1980), and eventually paving the way to a new breed of commercial comedies like The Trouble Shooters (1989). At the same time, foreign films from around the world began to flood into Chinese cinemas (and televisions, which were suddenly beginning to appear in Chinese homes) with films like the Japanese thriller Manhunt (Japan, 1976), which swept China and broke box office records when it was released there in 1979.

The early 1990s was a period of transition and experimentation for the industry. Riding on a string of major prizes at international film festivals in the late 1980s, the leading proponents of the Fifth Generation began to branch out into new areas, exploring provocative periods of Chinese history, from the decadent world of Shanghai gangsters during the 1930s (Shanghai Triad, 1995; Temptress Moon, 1996) to the political violence of the Cultural Revolution (Farewell My Concubine, 1993; To Live, 1994; The Blue Kite, 1993). With this new, broader historical canvas also came a new production models, the casting of a pan-Chinese cast in order to appeal to audiences in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas, as well as more sophisticated funding and distribution networks that began to challenge the traditional “national cinema” model. To Live was funded by Chiu Fu-sheng’s Taiwan-based Era International; Farewell My Concubine was adapted by a novel by Hong Kong writer Lilian Lee, produced by Hsu Feng from Taiwan, and featured Hong Kong actors like Leslie Cheung alongside PRC actors like Gong Li. As the Fifth Generation moved into new global territory, the 1990s also saw the rise of the Sixth Generation, a group of independent-minded young filmmakers who appropriated a documentary-inspired aesthetic to record the dramatic social changes around them and the lives of marginalized individuals whose fates had been intertwined with those changes, including artists (The Days, 1993; Bumming in Beijing, 1990; Frozen,

8

1997), actors (Quitting, 2001), rock and roll musicians (Beijing Bastards, 1993), the queer community (East Palace, 1996; West Palace, Men and Women, 1999; The Old Testament, 2002), pickpockets and criminals (Xiao Wu, 1997; Blind Shaft, 2002), and homeless children (Along the Railway, 2001). By largely circumventing the censors and the state-sponsored studio system, the Sixth Generation cultivated an independent spirit that revealed a side of China previously hidden from the camera’s eye.

As the Fifth Generation went global and the Sixth Generation went underground, a new breed of commercial cinema was quietly rising in the mainland. Cutting his teeth as an art designer for Beijing Television Art Center and later as a screenwriter, Feng Xiaogang would eventually emerge in the late 1990s as one of the most important pioneers of new commercial cinema in China. Through a set of highly successful comedies released during the Lunar New Year, Feng Xiaogang created and conquered the hesui pian, or “Chinese New Year Film” market in mainland China. With a string of hits like The Dream Factory (1997), Be There or Be Square (1998), Sorry Baby (1999), Sigh (2000), and Big Shot’s Funeral (2001), Feng redefined Chinese comedy and commercial film. At the same time, Feng’s frequent production partner Huayi Brothers, founded in 1994 by Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei, was emblematic of the rise of a new group of multinational entertainment companies in China that began to wrestle the market away from the old state-owned film studios, many of which became intertwined with new private equity firms.

ENTER THE DRAGONThings were gradually evolving and the Chinese film market was slowly opening up to new commercial genres, but it would take a more seismic shift to truly shake up the industry and set China on the path to becoming the true juggernaut that it is today. The first step in that shift came in 2000 with Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Although not strictly a PRC production, the film’s unprecedented record in the international box office set the Chinese film industry on a quest to reduplicate its success. One by one, China’s leading filmmakers set to making big-budget martial arts fantasy films featuring A-list pan-Asian casts, astonishing wirework and computer-generated effects, stunning costumes and set designs, classically inspired scores featuring the likes of Itzhak Pearlman and Yo-Yo Ma, and increasingly sophisticated production models to produce, distribute, and market these films. Almost overnight, the Chinese blockbuster was born: in quick succession, films like Hero (2002), House of Flying Daggers (2004), The Promise (2005), Curse of the Golden Flower (2006), and The Banquet (2006) attempted to replicate the Crouching Tiger model. The Chinese film industry entered a new era, and in order to shoot these new spectacle-laden films (along with an ever-increasing slate of television miniseries) a new series of mega-studios began to pop up all over China.

Among this new breed of mega-studios, the most visible during the early 2000s was Hengdian World Studios, a privately-owned production facility, which would eventually be declared the largest film studio in the world. Founded in the 1990s by Xu Wenrong, Hengdian World Studios has continued to expand and has served

9

as the backdrop for countless films and television miniseries. As the Chinese film industry continued its commercial expansion in the 2000s and 2010s, more studios were built, with many of them doubling as tourist attractions or theme parks, such as Zhang Jizhong’s Monkey King theme park, Shanghai Film Park, Zhongshan TV and Film City, and Changchun Movie Wonderland. Perhaps most notable among these mega-studios is Wanda’s Oriental Movie Metropolis, a sprawling production center in Qingdao that was announced with great fanfare in 2013 and slated to overtake Hengdian as the largest studio in the world, however, just as construction on the nearly $5 billion facility was nearly complete, financial challenges forced Wanda to sell off portions of the studio—a telling parable about the mythic rise and unforeseen challenges faced by the Chinese film industry.

As the nature of the Chinese blockbuster continues to transform, from martial arts fantasies (Hero) to Republican kung fu films (Yip Man, 2008; Let the Bullets Fly, 2010), and from monster adventures (Monster Hunt, 2015; Mermaid, 2016) to sci-fi spectacles (The Walking Earth, 2019), so the appetite for new sets, studios, and production facilities will undoubtedly continue to expand. As the Chinese box office continues to grow and the seemingly unstoppable power of Chinese commercial cinema leaves both its socialist roots and the independent spirit of 80s and 90s behind, what is often invisible to outsiders are the massive production facilities that are responsible for creating the images we see on screen. Like Shenzhen, the mega-city in southern China with a population of 12.5 million people, which began as fishing village four decades ago, the astonishing growth and expansion of these production studios (and the Chinese

film industry in general) is nothing short of remarkable. From 2012 to 2017, there were an average of nineteen new screens a day going up in China; and in 2017 a propagandistic action film, Wolf Warrior 2, earned an astonishing $874 million dollars at the Chinese box office—making it the most profitable film in Chinese cinema history and speaking the future potential of China’s film market.

Once Upon a Time in Shanghai renders China’s expansive film production facilities visible. Through his images, Mark Parascandola captures these sites and people that inhabit them, offering us fleeting images of classical Chinese costumes dramas, modern war films, Republican Shanghai, and the socialist past. It is also through these images that contradictions lurking beneath the surface emerge as we witness a side of China that is both classical and modern, genuine and staged, glamorous and mundane, new and old, deeply tied to history yet continually being remolded.

Michael Berry is Professor of Contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies and Director of the Center for Chinese Studies at UCLA. He is the author of four books on Chinese cinema, including Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers (2006) and A History of Pain: Trauma in Modern Chinese Literature and Film (2008). He has served as a film consultant and a juror for numerous film festivals, including the Golden Horse (Taiwan) and the Fresh Wave (Hong Kong). He is also the translator of several novels, including Wild Kids (2000), Nanjing 1937: A Love Story (2002), To Live (2004), The Song of Everlasting Sorrow (2008), and, most recently, Remains of Life (2017).

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

116

117

118

119

120

121

122

123

124

125

126

127

129

130

PHOTOGRAPHING BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE CHINESE FILM INDUSTRY

Mark Parascandola

Five years ago, while I was living in China for a few months, I read that the sprawling China Film Group back lot, just outside Beijing, was open to visitors. The next weekend I found myself on the lot exploring deserted streets of old Shanghai, traditional wooden houses set alongside flower ponds, and incongruous classical monuments with grand columns and staircases. The place was eerily quiet, apart from a few crew members and a wardrobe van outside one of the houses where a costume drama TV series was being filmed. It was my first introduction to a vast world of mainland Chinese cinema culture that, apart from a handful of art films that made it to western screens, I knew almost nothing about.

Since then, I have been researching, visiting, and photographing movie production sites around China: Hengdian World Studios, purportedly the world’s largest production facility, the 1930s-era streetscape of the Shanghai Film Park, the rustic Western Film City on the edge of the desert in Ningxia Province, the

old Beijing Film Studio lot, a cathedral built for Zhang Yimou’s The Flowers of War, and the bizarre theme parks of Changchun Movie Wonderland and Huayi Brothers Movie World. Over a dozen sites are represented in the photographs here, and there are many more around the country.

My previous book, Once Upon a Time in Almería: The Legacy of Hollywood in Spain (Daylight Books, 2017), explored a bygone era of Hollywood glamour amid the geopolitics of the Cold War. Once Upon a Time in Shanghai, in contrast, looks toward the future. In 2018 China produced over 1,000 films and 15,000 TV episodes. The Chinese film industry now makes more movies than Hollywood, and China is rapidly taking over as the world’s largest motion picture market.

Across the country, entire towns have been constructed around making movies. Local governments provide financing for these movie towns in hopes of attracting business and tourism. The scale is unparalleled. Movie sets in China

131

are not plywood facades, but monumental fortresses, mazelike palaces, and complete towns and urban neighborhoods of multistory buildings. They have more in common with Cecil B. DeMille’s City of the Pharaoh of a century ago than with today’s digital production factories.

The movie towns are in a constant state of flux. The larger sites often host multiple productions at once, while at the same time tourists mill about taking selfies and couples pose in period dress for engagement photographs. Light construction hums in the background, as streets and palaces are reconfigured and storefront signs and architectural details are swapped out. In revisiting these sites over time, I have seen them torn down, rebuilt, and decked out for the next show.

There is a formula at work here. The large-scale outdoor sets reflect specific episodes in China’s history—ancient battles of the Warring States Period,

costume dramas of the Qing dynasty, conflicts of the nineteenth century Opium Wars, gangsters in 1930s Shanghai, or resistance under the Japanese occupation. Because so many movies and TV dramas share the same backdrops, filmmakers are able to reuse these locations, instantly recognizable to Chinese audiences, over and over. Historical settings are so prominent, in part, because ongoing censorship in China limits the scope of acceptable themes.

I am especially intrigued by the tension between truth and fiction in these movie towns. Films and photographic images can provide a vivid sense of reality, even when they are based in fiction. Yet these film sets are mere phantoms of the real world. They are constructed from a hodge-podge of incomplete cultural fragments devoid of context—props, architectural details, signs, and billboards. They were not designed to stand on their own, but simply to suggest a narrative, extending only far enough to sustain the illusion. In the end, they are brought to life by the stories that are projected onto them.

132

Shanghai

Beijing

Ningbo

Yinchuan

Changchun

Hengdian

*Locations are approximate

Huayi Brothers Movie World

Beijing Film Studio

Shanghai Film MuseumShanghai Film Park

Xiangshan Movie & Television Town

Hengdian World Studios

Zhongshan Movie & Television Town

China Film Group

Zhenbeipu Western Film City

Changchun Movie Wonderland

Shiqiu Film & Television Base

West Taihu Film & Television Base

Huzhou Film & Television City

Nanjing

Guangzhou

Selected Film Production Sites, Mainland China*

133

BEIJING FILM STUDIOThe original studio in central Beijing was used for classic films such as The Last Emperor (1987) and Farewell My Concubine (1993). The back lot is now closed and slated for demolition, though some sections of the sets remain, rapidly decaying and overgrown with weeds.

CHINA FILM GROUP STATE PRODUCTION BASEThe China Film Group Corporation is the largest state-owned film production and distribution company in China. It is the only official importer of foreign films to China and has had a hand in numerous large scale co-productions bringing foreign stars to China, including Matt Damon in The Great Wall (2016) and Keanu Reeves in Man of Tai Chi (2013). The production base in Huairou, outside Beijing, includes state-of-the-art digital production facilities, sixteen sound stages, equipment and props warehouses, and large outdoor studio lots. One of the

newest additions comprises several city blocks of a North African streetscape built for megahit action film Wolf Warrior 2 (2017), in which a former elite special ops soldier saves a group of Chinese nationals caught up in a rebel attack in an unnamed African country. The set was reused for the less-acclaimed China Salesman (2017), with Mike Tyson and Steven Seagal.

HENGDIAN WORLD STUDIOSReportedly the world’s largest film production facility, Hengdian World Studios is made up of several distinct film villages, including a full-scale replica of the Forbidden City, a massive ancient walled fortress, traditional lakeside towns, and a neighborhood of Hong Kong and Guangzhou colonial streets. A once-remote small town, Hengdian has exploded in the past ten years. The majority of the studio’s revenue comes from tourism—an estimated 12 million, mostly domestic, tourists visited in 2016. The Guangzhou streets came first, constructed for the

NOTES ON THE LOCATIONS

134

1997 historical epic The Opium War, backed by the central government and the most expensive Chinese production at the time. The heavily fortified Qin Imperial Palace was used for director Chen Kaige’s The Emperor and the Assassin (1998), Zhang Yimou’s Hero (2002), and the Silk Road action film Dragon Blade (2015) with Jackie Chan, John Cusack, and Adrien Brody. The re-created Forbidden City is most known today as the location for the TV drama The Story of Yanxi Palace, the world’s most Googled TV show in 2018.

HUAYI BROTHERS MOVIE WORLDFounded in 1994 by brothers Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei, Huayi Brothers Media Corporation is a Chinese entertainment conglomerate including film and television production studios, a talent agency, a record label, and a movie theater chain. Huayi Brothers opened their first theme park in July 2018 in Suzhou, China, after six years of construction and at a cost of over $50 million. Similar to Disneyland or Universal Studios, the park is based around the company’s major creative properties, including the Detective Dee film series. Huayi Brothers has announced plans to open up combined film studio and theme park sites in other cities around China.

SHIQIU FILM AND TELEVISION BASEThe local Shiqiu town government, outside Nanjing, took on the cost of constructing a Roman Catholic cathedral for Zhang Yimou’s Flowers of War (2011) with Christian Bale. While the site apparently failed to attract other large-scale productions, the cathedral remains among landscaped green lawns and is now used for weddings and special events. The war-torn Nanjing streetscapes have since been demolished.

SHANGHAI FILM PARKThe Shanghai Film Park is based around a full-scale replica of Nanjing Road, Shanghai’s famous shopping high street, circa 1930s. An oddly diverse set of film and video productions have made use of the set, including Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution (2007), Kung Fu Hustle (2004), The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), video artist Isaac Julien’s Ten Thousand Waves, and even a Prada commercial directed by Chinese artist Yang Fudong. The park remains a go-to site for spy and gangster TV dramas set in early twentieth-century Shanghai.

135

XIANGSHAN FILM AND TV CITYThe Xiangshan studios opened in 2005 on an undeveloped peninsula of fishing villages south of Ningbo for The Return of the Condor Heroes (2006), based on the Wuxia novel by Jin Yong. The site was also used for Chen Kaige’s historical drama Sacrifice (2010) and for the popular TV series Nirvana in Fire (2015). A Republic of China section added later was used in the ill-fated WWII film Air Strike (2018) with Bruce Willis. The production was hampered by delays, cost overruns, and a tax evasion scandal involving actress Fan BingBing before it was widely panned by critics.

ZHENBEIPU WESTERN FILM CITYConstructed on the ruins of an old fortress outside Yinchuan, in northwestern China near the edge of the Gobi desert, the Western Film City has been used in numerous epic historical films. Writer Zhang Xianliang first promoted the site as a film location after spending time laboring on a nearby farm during the Cultural Revolution. The 1982 film The Herdsman, based on a story by Zhang, was the first feature film made here and one of the first Chinese films to get international

recognition. Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum (1988), starring Gong Li, and Wong Kar-Wai’s Ashes of Time (1994) were also made here.

ZHONGSHAN MOVIE & TELEVISION TOWNLocated in Guangdong Province next door to the childhood home of Sun Yat-sen, first president of the Republic of China. The town is based around landmarks from Sun’s life and travels, including a London police office, an English church, the San Francisco Chinese Expats Club, and the family’s residence in New York. It was created by the local government for the shooting of a 2001 biographical TV drama.

136

LIST OF PLATES

CoverLive Action Movie ShowHuayi Brothers Movie World, Suzhou

Pages 4–5Shanghai circa 1937 Film SetHuayi Brothers Movie World, Suzhou

Pages 10–11Yangsong Town Welcome SignHuairou, Beijing

Page 12Changchun Film Production Studio SignChangchun Movie Wonderland, Changchun

Page 15EntranceChina Film Archive, Beijing

Page 16Music Video ShootChina Film Group State Production Base, Beijing

Page 19Chairman Mao ImpersonatorXiangshan Film and TV City, Ningbo

Pages 20–21Tour GroupPalace of Ming and Qing DynastiesHengdian World Studios

Page 23Enthroning of the First EmperorPalace of Emperor QinHengdian World Studios

Page 24Meridian Gate Palace of Ming and Qing DynastiesHengdian World Studios

Pages 26–27Gate of Supreme Harmony Palace of Ming and Qing DynastiesHengdian World Studios

Page 28Photo StudioPalace of Ming and Qing DynastiesHengdian World Studios

Page 31Story of Huang Feihong Tourist ShowChina Film Group State Production Base, Beijing

Page 33Filming for TV Drama SeriesChina Film Group State Production Base, Beijing

Pages 34–35Between TakesChina Film Group State Production Base, Beijing

137

Pages 36–37 Waiting for the Entrance CueChina Film Group State Production Base, Beijing

Page 39Hengdian Micro FilmPalace of Ming and Qing DynastiesHengdian World Studios

Page 40ExtrasQing Ming Shang He TuHengdian World Studios

Page 41ExtrasQing Ming Shang He TuHengdian World Studios

Page 42PropsChina Film Group State Production Base, Beijing

Page 43AlleyShanghai Film Park

Page 44Lighting GearChina Film Group State Production Base, Beijing

Page 47Extras on BreakXiangshan Film and TV City, Ningbo

Page 49Tourists Palace of Emperor QinHengdian World Studios

Pages 50–51Nanjing RoadShanghai Film Park

Page 52The Sincere Company Department StoreShanghai Film Park

Page 55Roosevelt HotelShanghai Film Park

Page 56CinemaXiangshan Film and TV City, Ningbo

Page 57Department StoreXiangshan Film and TV City, Ningbo

Pages 58–59Willie’s TheatreShanghai Film Park

138

Page 60Story of Huang Feihong Tourist Show SetGuangzhou and Hong Kong StreetsHengdian World Studios

Page 63Stunt ShowHuzhou Film and Television City

Page 65PropsShanghai Film Park

Page 66Gangster TV DramaShanghai Film Park

Page 69Green ScreenShanghai Film Park

Pages 70–71Lunch BreakShanghai Film Park

Page 72Street SceneGuangzhou and Hong Kong StreetsHengdian World Studios

Page 73Waiting for ActionGuangzhou and Hong Kong StreetsHengdian World Studios

Page 75 Between TakesXiangshan Film and TV City, Ningbo

Page 77Photo ShootShanghai Film Park

Page 78Wedding Photo ShootShanghai Film Park

Page 80Streetscape West Taihu Film and Television Base, Changzhou

Page 81Streetscape West Taihu Film and Television Base, Changzhou

Page 83Classical Facades Xiangshan Film and TV City, Ningbo

Page 85Kungming WWII American Air BaseXiangshan Film and TV City, Ningbo

139

Page 86Military Rally SceneXiangshan Film and TV City, Ningbo

Page 89ExtrasXiangshan Film and TV City, Ningbo

Page 91ExtrasXiangshan Film and TV City, Ningbo

Pages 92–93Space LabyrinthChangchun Movie Wonderland, Changchun

Page 95Detective Dee Themed Area Huayi Brothers Movie World, Suzhou

Page 96Hong Kong Welcomes Queen Elizabeth II Guangzhou and Hong Kong StreetsHengdian World Studios

Page 97Kwong Sang Hong, Ltd. BuildingGuangzhou and Hong Kong StreetsHengdian World Studios

Page 99Dream of Bund Film Park (Under Construction)Hengdian World Studios

Page 101Crown SalonWest Taihu Film and Television Base, Changzhou

Page 102Shanghai Circa 1937 Film SetHuayi Brothers Movie World, Suzhou

Pages 104–105Shanghai Circa 1937 Film SetHuayi Brothers Movie World, Suzhou

Page 106Photo StudioZhongshan Movie & Television Town

Page 107Shanghai Circa 1937 Film Set Huayi Brothers Movie World, Suzhou

Page 109House from A Herdsman’s StoryZhenbeipu Western Film City, Yinchuan

Page 110Village SetGuangzhou and Hong Kong StreetsHengdian World Studios

140

Page 111DioramaShanghai Film Museum

Pages 112–113Treasure Hunter Movie SetZhenbeipu Western Film City, Yinchuan

Page 115Dragon BonesZhenbeipu Western Film City, Yinchuan

Page 117Fortress WallsXiangshan Film and TV City, Ningbo

Page 118Africa StreetsChina Film Group State Production Base, Beijing

Page 120Winchester Cathedral, from Flowers of WarShiqiu Film and Television Base, Nanjing

Page 121English CathedralZhongshan Movie & Television Town

Page 123PropsBeijing Film Studios, Beijing

Page 125Sound Stage 15China Film Group State ProductionBase, Beijing

Pagea 126–127Set Construction Outside Sound Stage 6 China Film Group State Production Base, Beijing

Page 129Ruins of Studio Back Lot Beijing Film Studio, Beijing

Pages 140–141Dream of Bund Film Park (Under Construction)Huayi Brothers Movie World, Suzhou

141

142

143

144

I am grateful to many friends, colleagues, and family members who have helped me get to know China and its culture, especially Liz Yuan for bringing me to China to work. The China Culture Center in Beijing helped me to make connections and gain access to the art and film communities. Katt Wang and Kuai Sim Ho provided research and translation help. Thanks to Frank Van Riper, Glen Echo Photoworks, Blackrock Center for the Arts, Shangtuf Image and Art Club and the Naiman International Photo Festival for supporting and exhibiting this work

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS