As 'Avatar' conquers world, Fox also eyes local releases in Asia

my gf told me a rumor about Avatar in China, where people who viewed it got depressed about their own lives in that country and it happened to enough people that Avatar was pulled from theaters. anybody heard of anything like that??

I've heard that, but I don't believe it's true. I think Avatar was pulled to give domestic films a chance to make a few yuan. This article suggests that the government of many countries have protectionist policies to promote home grown films.

In wealthy Japan

newsflash: japan ain't that wealthy anymore

The government is upset that it's domestically produced and financed 'Confucius' isn't popular.

Also, if people only in China are getting.... It's called propaganda.

>Fox executive said the company is developing a project with Hong Kong native John Woo and up-and-coming Chinese filmmakers. He declined to give details. Avatar is alot better than Ｒｅｄ　Cliff. Avatar was a sci-fi movie, Red Cliff looked historical, except for the soldiers jumping 20ft-30ft into the air. I wish John Woo stop making movies about people flying or jumping in the air. If he is going to make a good historical movie, stop making main characters flying in the air. If he made a Hitler movie "Hitler" would be flying in the air.

Funny how he doesn't mention anything about art, acting or story. Only thing he said is "big local market share". So therefore anyone who pays to see Fox 's drivel is nothing more than a mere money oozing consumer unit - a peanut!

memyself: I like that concept - it's The Flying Hitler show! Should go down a treat with the likes of Fox.

It ain't conquered me yet.

you tell those pieces of .... that Jacky Cheung, Nicholas Tse, Daniel Wu and Rene Liu aren't chinese, they're us citizens. tell the us market with it's default bs caucasian-is-the-ideal racism to accept them as truly central actors rather than token nobody minorities in the periphery first before going on to another country in another part of the world.

I believe these Hollywood big wigs are only responding this way because China has a quota on how many foreign films can be shown on their big screens annually and India is..PROUDLY INDIA. Japan and the rest of Asia should follow suit and drive out the 'white and sometimes black Hollywood names' from our households until we take back our respective identities instead of worshipping Europeans who on the contrary, consider us to be no more than fools.

Uh, NationalistRE, I kind of sympathise with your disgust with the Hollywood tripe that gets fed the world's masses, however, there is one slight flaw with your argument. Japan has very few world class directors. There is no reason for Japan to not have a vibrant film culture, but how many Miyazaki Hayaos or Akira Kurosawas does Japan produce? Very few.

Japan's problem is not the foreign invasion of Hollywood tripe, or some inherent inability of the Japanese to produce art. The problem, at its root, is a society that has sold its soul in order to achieve economic growth. The Japanese are completely estranged from themselves, from their own souls. How can you have a vibrant culture if there is no self, no sense of who or what you are underneath it? This is happening in a different way in the US. The US has become heavily militarised, and this is reflected in our culture, a culture of war. The movies produced in America today are pretty feeble if compared to the incredible films we made in the 1970s.

Perhaps it is decline in many parts of the world. Chinese films on the other hand are pretty amazing. They seem to have far superior production values to anything found in the US, never mind Japan.

The Japanese, as a race, are completely lost. They are adrift. They need to dig within and find their true spirit. There is a lot of talk of this in Japan, the true spirit, etc. but it is all just talk. It takes boldness and action to break free of the stagnation of Japan. I hope Japan becomes a little more active and vibrant like China and Korea.

One thing that would help would be if the Japanese would stop looking at themselves as superior or inferior to other cultures. They need to find a place as an equal among equals in the world.

The US is a nation that has lost it's identity as well NationalistRE. What does it mean to be American anymore I don't know. What exactly is an American anyways as what does it mean to be Japanese? If you want to blame somebody blame corporations which are the plague of the world along with the media. You base your idealism on that and take it out on the American people. Just like in government the people don't have much say as to what big business does. Many Americans are upset at Hollywood and how they are misrepresenting the west. They want to be seen in a better light and have the world see the true America which Hollywood tends to exaggerate. Many Japanese base their views of Americans due to Hollywood as has so unrealistically been portrayed. Believe it or not just as an example some independent film makers have wanted to take on the somewhat sensitive topic of suicide in Japan and it' effect on pop culture.

Isn't it strange as to why would America care on doing such a film on Japan, interesting. You look at the film Babel which garnered Japan it's first supporting Actress nomination in 50 years with Rinko Kikuchi playing the part portrayal of a Japanese mute teenager living in Japan. On the flip side if a Japanese director or Chinese director were to do an American film you would say the same just because they are who they are. Japanese Americans are still Japanese. I frankly think this is a step in the right direction. There are some great foreign films out there and don't assume their aren't people out there who don't care about Japan and are not trying to seal their identity. Japan needs to stop looking at itself as being the only victim in existence as a sort of living Pandora. We all have something to learn from each other. Film is the one medium that has the potential to do that for better or for worse. It would be great to see more international film collaborations on all sides which I hope we get to at some point.

I think this is a great idea! It would be nice to see Japanese films being made with better budgets and a worldwide audience in mind! It's rare to see such attention brought to movies here. 20th Century Boys and Death Note were great, rare jewels. But so much of japanese cinema is plagued with bad writing and bad acting. Maybe this can raise the bar!