Bona to introduce movie ratings to China

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Exhibition News

Chinese cinema exhibitor Beijing Bona Starlight Cineplex Management Co Ltd 北京博納星光影院管理有限公司, a subsidiary of Bona Film Group Ltd 博納影業集團有限公司, announced yesterday that it will introduce its own movie ratings system.

China does not currently have a nationwide film classification system and widespread industry calls to introduce one have not been supported by government agencies. Many ratings systems operating internationally are themselves industry-run.

The announcement was made on Weibo, China's Twitter-like micro-blogging service. While the initial posts have since been deleted, Starlight's general manager Huang Wei (黃巍) has since clarified the chain's position in local media interviews.

Huang stresses that the motivation is to help audience members make decisions about films that have already been approved for cinema exhibition by the State Administration of Radio, Film & Television (SARFT) 國家廣播電影電視總局.

He specifically emphasised the need to support children and elderly cinema patrons and stated that the system, whose details are still under discussion, will be modelled on the three-category Hong Kong system due to its innate simplicity.

Jin Bo (金波), marketing director of Bona Cineplex (博納國際影院), stated that the in-house system — which could launch in late February — will only give guidance and will not enforce any age restrictions.

There are signs that Chinese censorship has become more leniant in the past eighteen months, in what has proven to be a cyclical process over the past decade with SARFT reacting to films that have been perceived to cross a line.

With no hard-and-fast rules, the degree of censorship is somewhat dictated by the willingness of producers and distributors to negotiate over requested cuts. Several key figures in SARFT are former film-makers who can be sympathetic to applicants.

Examples of recent Chinese films with adult themes that might be age restricted in Europe and North America include JIANG Wen 姜文's Let the Bullets Fly 讓子彈飛 (2010) and LU Chuan 陸川's City of Life and Death 南京！南京！ (2008).

Film-makers that have come out in support of a classification system in the past include ZHANG Yimou 張藝謀, whose The Flowers of War 金陵十三釵 and Shanghai Triad 搖呀搖！搖到外婆橋 (1995) are both R-rated in North America.

There are persistent claims that the introduction of a classification system in China would boost box office as it would broaden the range of films produced and exhibited, and help target the marketing of individual films to specific groups.

For example, relaxed censorship has helped give birth to a local horror genre with Chinese cinemas currently screening bloody slasher Harpoon 驚魂遊戲 (pictured) starring Monica MOK 莫小棋 and South Korea's PARK No-shik 박노식 | 朴魯植.

At a Beijing Screenings 北京放映 forum in Sep 2010, USC professor Stanley Rosen stated that surveys indicate that 90% of the Chinese population support the introduction of a local classification system.

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