<keyword id="20142841" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Dev-Patel" source="keywords">Dev Patel</keyword>'s directorial debut, <keyword id="20142840" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Monkey-Man" source="keywords">Monkey Man</keyword> has been hailed as a gripping revenge thriller with profound social commentary and has stirred anticipation worldwide. However, it sadly remains conspicuously absent from Indian screens — the very country its story is rooted in. The film, starring Patel as a vigilante seeking his mother's killers, tackles sensitive themes like corruption, poverty, and the caste system, all set in a dystopian vision of India. Inspired by Hindu mythology, Korean thrillers, and action classics like Bruce Lee films and The Raid: Redemption, Monkey Man promised a thrilling ride for action movie enthusiasts. However, the film's release seems to be stuck in the web of India's <keyword id="20140954" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Central-Board-of-Film-Certification" source="keywords">Central Board of Film Certification</keyword> (CBFC). While not officially banned, a Hindu report suggests the CBFC has refused to screen Monkey Man for its advisory panel, effectively delaying its release indefinitely. As per reports, the movie was to be screened for the CBFC’s Examining Committee on April 19. <keyword id="20168654" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Universal-Studios" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Universal Studios" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Universal Studios">Universal Studios</keyword>, the film's distributor, reportedly made alterations to comply with the censor's demands. Scenes highlighting the "nexus between religion and politics" were trimmed, and the colour of political banners was changed from saffron to red. Despite these efforts, the film hasn't been reviewed by the CBFC, exceeding the five-day deadline for such decisions. This is not the first time the <keyword id="19939714" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Censor-Board" source="keywords">Censor Board</keyword> has attempted to curb content that critiques the country’s political climate. In recent years, several Western documentaries and films that highlight the far-right’s ideologies have been a consistent source of frustration to the CBFC and politicians as well. While ensuring films are suitable for different age groups is important, having a Censor Board susceptible to government influence and possessing authority to request edits or deny certification is problematic. History demonstrates that censorship decisions often prioritise moral, religious, sectarian, and political considerations over the legality of the content itself. This frequently restricts both creators' and viewers' choices and their right to express themselves. In India, the right for films to be able to exercise freedom to create their art without undue legal or conventional constraints was affirmed by the Supreme Court under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. To seriously consider reforming India's censorship system in a way that broadens options for creators and viewers while reducing political interference in film content and dialogue, experts propose a marketplace approach to film screening. This would necessitate a comprehensive restructuring of the CBFC through legislation and granting more authority to private film certification bodies. Until these reforms come into place — if they do — we can only wait and see if we get to enjoy movies like Monkey Man, which is a story of an underdog street fighter who rises to become a symbol of hope for the oppressed. For now, it is obvious that before he can fight villains on screen, the Monkey Man must win the battle it is locked in with censorship.

Indian Censor Board continues to hold Dev Patel's ‘Monkey Man’ hostage and we can’t help but feel FOMO

When your AI girlfriend says she loves you

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5d9ce942e8815b09ba0e923f-2400/ap16286627247328.jpg" border="0" alt="NBA Commissioner Adam Silver at left shakes hands with a Chinese official before a preseasons NBA game between Houtson Rockets and New Orleans Pelicans held in Beijing, China, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2016." data-mce-source="AP" data-mce-caption="NBA Commissioner Adam Silver at left shakes hands with a Chinese official before a preseasons NBA game between Houtson Rockets and New Orleans Pelicans held in Beijing, China, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2016." />APNBA Commissioner Adam Silver with a Chinese official before a pre-season game held in Beijing in 2016.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>After the general manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted out his support of protesters in Hong Kong, the Chinese Communist Party's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-reacts-nba-daryl-morey-hong-kong-tweet-2019-10">retribution was swift</a> and came from all sides, including from parts of the NBA.</li><li>It is yet another example of how the tightening grip of Chinese President Xi Jinping's authoritarian regime is testing the values of corporate America.</li><li>As the Chinese Communist Party becomes more assertive and aggressive about its values, so too must American businesses. Hopefully, they're up to the task. So far, things don't look encouraging.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul>If, after the days-long backtracking by the NBA over Houston Rocket GM Daryl Morey's <a href="https://www.axios.com/china-nba-corporate-america-hong-kong-protests-cf9af430-4f8f-4968-aca3-c4b90fb5b2d1.html">deleted</a><a href="https://www.axios.com/china-nba-corporate-america-hong-kong-protests-cf9af430-4f8f-4968-aca3-c4b90fb5b2d1.html"> tweet</a> supporting protesters in Hong Kong, you feel like American companies are looking pathetic in China, it's because you're right. They are.American companies have been allowing China to pull their strings for years, and as the country becomes more bellicose, this private matter is starting to spill into public view.This is partly because China, under President Xi Jinping, will give critics no quarter. After Morey's tweet, and despite some muddled attempts by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to smooth things over, China's state-run broadcaster CCTV halted <a href="https://t.co/forkoajThF?amp=1">NBA broadcasts</a> to its <a href="http://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJwlUduu4yAM_JryRsStafLAQ3V69jciEtwElQACs1H365e0kuWRx5Yv48UgrDG_dYoFSS2QJ2e1FEpIYrWyfLgOxJXpmQF247zGXIGkOnu3GHQxnOWcX4Uim-7NYuZejk8uGHDO2Ax8VJzx5QbS9oqcQyZTrYOwgIa_kN8xAPF6Q0zlIu8X8afZcRzdM-YZSrfEvRHFIZQTNx_3WFKuYW2hYHxswOTpVHNhNnTZXGgeIrWQ4dViE1aK5gWF1kJdKM4CbZWFplo2ipHuLUkb8QKcjff0iNnbQtskpCmm6k2mJcWMn_XkYLlSRlz5zARx-tyi3XoTUgxKdbz75fJxvz9G1vfqZxjvF8X2VXSlzgXN8jpvIln7mOBf510ARGgl6ynvJ9fUnRruNTh8TxDM7MF-hcfvnz464juBDnAUf3bIX_L8hhzYrSdtnI2tZ9C7QSwYvYf8H4fPp3o">640 million NBA fans.</a>That is because it is not willing to compromise on what it considers a core value - the unquestionable and all-encompassing power of the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP, over all the territories it claims (and that includes Taiwan).And make no mistake, China just attempted to censor speech here in the United States in violation of one of this country's core values. And in response, some high-profile members of the NBA have done little more than <a href="https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/warriors/warriors-steve-kerr-doesnt-give-opinion-daryl-morey-china-controversy">play dumb</a> and make milquetoast statements about democracy. It finally took almost four days before Silver set the record straight."I want this to be clear, and I think there's been some confusion around this: We are not apologizing for Daryl exercising his freedom of expression," <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/10/08/nba-commissioner-adam-silver-says-players-executives-are-free-comment-china/">Silver said.</a>The CCP has been in the game of exerting its influence over American businesses hungry to access the Chinese market for decades now, but as its relationship with the US government has become more antagonistic and its own domestic <keyword id="6358883" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="politics">politics</keyword> more authoritarian, that influence is starting to chafe.That means American businesses (much to their distaste) will have to make a choice in public: Either stand up for American values or allow China to impose its values on America.This shouldn't be a hard decision to make, in theory, but after years of American investment under the delusion that China's political and economic systems would start to match the US on their own, it's going to be difficult in practice.<h2>Player, play yourself</h2>First off, cow-towing to the Chinese Communist Party isn't limited to the NBA. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/western-companies-apologize-china-communist-party-list-2019-10">A slew of companies</a> such as Marriott, Coach, and Calvin Klein have all been browbeat by China into making public apologies over supposed faux pas.On Wall Street you can please the party with some good old-fashioned nepotism. Back in 2016, JP Morgan paid a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/17/502445734/jpmorgan-chase-paying-264-million-to-settle-allegations-of-nepotism-in-china">$264 million fine</a> to settle allegations that it hired the friends and family members of Chinese government officials to win business in China.<a href="https://t.co/W51X9ibbUV?amp=1">When it comes to tech</a>, CEOs are torn between playing ball with the Chinese government, making money, and forfeiting intellectual property or sitting out and losing a chunk of global market share. This is a conversation that has played out openly in board rooms and onstage at conferences for years now.Back in 2017, at CNBC's Delivering Alpha conference in New York, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/there-is-no-plan-for-americas-economy-2017-9">Business Insider sat through one</a> such talk with Jim Breyer, the billionaire CEO of Breyer Capital - a California venture-capital firm that was an early investor in tech giants like Facebook - and Tom Siebel, founder of software company C3 IoT.During the talk, Siebel laid out the trade off tech companies had to make to get access to China's market. To him, there were too many."We are not actually going into China," Siebel said. "We are visited by a Chinese company every week, by State Grid, South China Grid, we were visited this week, by China Mobile and so we're kind of swarmed by the Chinese ... it is probably a third of the market opportunity globally as it relates to this space. But basically, what's going on in China, due to the mandates of the 12th and 13th five-year plan, and I know this is politically incorrect, but I don't offer political correctness, is a massive, state-sanctioned intellectual-property theft."Breyer countered that the Chinese government's investment in achieving its goals in the technology space has led to some amazing investments for his firm. That, and the country's massive population, has made investing in China a must-do for US multinational corporations for years now."These are not mutually exclusive statements. I am certain that is true," Seibel said.That is to say, China has been a market too delicious to pass up, despite the the heavy hand of the CCP forcefully guiding US businesses.However, the more China's economy closes off to Western ideas, and the more aggressive the country becomes about pushing its agenda on the world stage, the more tradeoffs there will be for American business to make.The perfect example is Hollywood. For years, China was in violation of a <a href="https://www.uscc.gov/Research/directed-hollywood-edited-china-how-china%E2%80%99s-censorship-and-influence-affect-films-worldwide">2007 World Trade Organization agreement</a> because it refused to allow more than 20 US films into the country. After a deal cut in 2012, it allowed 34. In 2015 it promised to open up even more, but that came with strings. Back in 2015, the government laid out what those strings look like in a report called <a href="https://www.uscc.gov/Research/directed-hollywood-edited-china-how-china%E2%80%99s-censorship-and-influence-affect-films-worldwide">"Directed by Hollywood, Edited by China."</a>From the report:Hollywood relies on China's film market for revenue, but the process to get films into China is arduous due to strict and opaque regulation of film imports. China's regulations and processes for approving foreign films reflect the Chinese Communist Party's position that art, including film, is a method of social control.As a result of these regulations, Hollywood filmmakers are required to cut out any scenes, dialogue, and themes that may be perceived as a slight to the Chinese government. With an eye toward distribution in China, American filmmakers increasingly edit films in anticipation of Chinese censors' many potential sensitivities.In this way, the CCP doesn't need to ask to get its way on the silver screen. Hollywood will go ahead and do it for them.<h2>Can we afford this anymore?</h2>The question now is can American businesses continue to afford the tradeoffs they've been making to do business in China.To understand how the relationship between China and the US works, it's better to look back before 1978 and Richard Nixon and Deng Xiaoping - even before Mao. It's better to look at the 19th century and early 20th century, when US forays into China were often at first welcomed and then met with violence."China goes through these cycles of opening and closing again," Anne Stevenson-Yang, cofounder and research director of <a href="https://www.jcapitalresearch.com/">J Capital Research Ltd.</a>, a China-based investment advisory firm, said in an interview with <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2019-01-02/the-big-story-of-2019-will-be-china-s-economy-crashing-radio">Bloomberg Radio.</a> "It opens when the country needs cash, and that's what happened through the 1990s and the 2000s to date ... now the cost is getting higher than the benefit and so you'll see China closing again."Consider for a moment that China may be closing before our eyes <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-financial-crisis-economic-stimulus-closed-the-economy-2019-2">(as the numbers do in fact suggest)</a>. Welcome, then, not to a nation that is adapting to Western political norms but to Xi's China - a place where past politics are present and the struggle of the party is perpetual. In the current China, differing views are not to be tolerated domestically or as imports. The NBA could fire 100 general managers and it would never be enough to satisfy this aim.Xi's China is one that is being attacked from all sides. In a speech to his cadres earlier this year, Xi said those attacks are "political, ideological, economic, technological, social, and <keyword id="6356001" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="international">international</keyword> threats, as well as those from within the party." And <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/2183541/communist-party-ideology-chief-wang-huning-raises-risk-alarm?utm_source=mailchimp&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=190129&amp;utm_campaign=GME-O-TradeWar&amp;MCUID=55a0465e77&amp;MCCampaignID=ffed176bf2&amp;MCAccountID=7b1e9e7f8075914aba9cff17f">so he told the CCP</a> to prepare for a "worst-case situation."These are not the words of a man willing to compromise or see both sides. In his worldview, any departure from his consensus - even from a random tweet - is part of a system that directly threatens his power. No amount of apologizing will change this mindset.Groveling will not do you any better either. In fact, it will only make you a party to Xi's system of authoritarianism- another example of the West being brought to heel. There is no in-between. To avoid becoming tools of Xi's system, American companies need to show they have no fear of being thrown out of it.This isn't the '90s anymore. Now we know the reality is that China is not here to trade values with corporate America, so corporate America shouldn't trade values with China either.This is an <keyword id="6356002" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="opinion">opinion</keyword> column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author(s). <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/vanderbilt-university-45-year-study-intelligent-children-success-2017-5">A 45-year-long study discovered trends in successful hyper-intelligent children</a></h3> <div> <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/ECqNPtb1-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script> </div> </div>

If American companies seem pathetic when it comes to China, it's because they are

<img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5ddea765fd9db205ad665b48-2400/erin-hatzikostas2.jpg" alt="Erin Hatzikostas" />Courtesy of Erin HatzikostasErin Hatzikostas.<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.bauthenticinc.com/about">Erin Hatzikostas</a> is a former corporate CEO turned career coach, speaker, and podcast host. She is the founder and CEO of <a href="https://www.bauthenticinc.com/">b Authentic inc</a>. You can listen to her offbeat career podcast, "<a href="https://www.bauthenticinc.com/podcast">b CAUSE with Erin &amp; Nicole</a>," or you can start pumping up your career with her free guide,"<a href="https://bauthenticinc.mykajabi.com/pl/74108">10 Simple Steps to a Rich Career</a>."</li><li>She writes that women's business conferences are a "noble idea" - but gender diversity still persists as a big issue in many workplaces. While improving them won't solve the issue at large, looking at their problems is helpful.</li><li>These conferences can be dominated by jargon. They don't offer up enough women who have actually done it, and often end up being a time suck for the women they're trying to support. </li><li>Instead, give women the tools to change up jobs, and make conferences more creative.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul>In comes a new email from your boss. The subject reads, "You are invited … "Your stomach flutters with anticipation. What could this possibly be about? You open it up to learn … your boss is sending you to a "women's conference."Every year, hundreds of women-focused business conferences are held across the globe. This is great, right? At first blush, it certainly feels great to be selected for one. Wow! They must think a lot of me to choose me to participate!Awesome! Who will I be able to mix and mingle with?(Secretly) What will I wear? I need to stand out. But pretty soon reality sets in.Hang on. I'm already slammed. This is going to throw another monkey-wrench in my schedule.Wait, why is Janice invited? She leaves every day at 4:00.So, what are all the men doing that day?What exactly are the chances that I'll be volunteered to help organize this thing?Women's business conferences are a noble idea. If you've been to one, it's hard not to be in awe of the passion, sophistication, and attention to detail demonstrated by the organizers and attendees. But if there are so many amazing women's conferences, why is gender diversity still such a massive issue in the corporate workplace?Obviously, this is a complicated question. Improving women's conferences isn't a silver bullet, but considering how they miss the mark can shed some light on the problem as a whole. My podcast cohost and I recently drew up a list of all the things we've generally disliked about the over 25 women's conferences we've collectively attended. Here they are:<h2>1. They are too politically correct and vanilla. There simply isn't enough plain speak and authentic, hard-earned perspective. </h2>Suggesting that women's conferences should be less politically correct immediately brings to mind a <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/women-ernst-young-how-to-dress-act-around-men_n_5da721eee4b002e33e78606a">recent HuffPost article</a> that shared an insider look at a particularly egregious (and politically incorrect) conference held by Ernst &amp; Young. When I read this article, I gasped. And then laughed. The gist of it was a completely ludicrous education about how to rise in your career by working within the gender stereotypes of the 1960s: Eschew anything masculine (but don't flaunt your body), approach men deferentially, avoid being assertive, and above all, avoid being authentic. This is not the kind of political incorrectness we need. Instead, what we need is less jargon and more real talk. We also need to laugh more; we face a lot of ridiculous things in the average work day, and sometimes simply laughing together about it helps us get through it all. Cut the crap. No more phrases that have been done to death such as "lean in," "executive presence," "speak up," etc. These are all solid ideas, mind you, but they've become meaningless with overuse. For example, the term "executive presence" infers that women have to change who they are to succeed. The result? Many of the most qualified women decide to opt out of the bigger roles. Women need authentic examples, preferably interesting ones, not buzzwords.<h2>2. There are too many professional facilitators and consultants and too few women who have actually been in the trenches</h2>Consultants have their place, and conferences definitely need facilitators to start - and keep - the balls rolling. But relying on academic advice from people who have never personally navigated the landmines of rising through the corporate ranks leaves a lot of expertise on the table. Conferences need to do more than pay lip service to the idea that women can be leaders by allowing them to actually lead. Encourage them to share their experiences, their ideas, and their solutions. Another common issue with these conferences: Focusing on problems women are assumed to face without enough timely, tactical, or tangible advice on how to solve them. If we want women to be leaders, we must make sure that the conferences aimed at that goal are interactive and offer opportunities to put those skills to use.<h2>3. Organizing conferences is often a time suck for the very people they are supposed to be supporting </h2>Too often, organizing a women's conference falls to a woman who is already working her butt off in a leadership position. And although helping each other rise is a noble and worthy goal, the women leading the charge are generally forced to shoehorn the planning into an already tight schedule filled with all the other responsibilities of the job. One wonders: How many male executives spend hours on end organizing events for other men? According to McKinsey's latest <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/gender-equality/women-in-the-workplace-2019">"Women in the Workplace" study</a>, companies' commitment to gender diversity has gone up 13% since 2015. However, only half of employees think that gender diversity is a priority in their company. Could this be because it is left to women alone to lead the charge?<h2>4. The conferences are too darn formal</h2>Generally, a women's business conference looks and feels like a conference designed for a very uptight, stuffy, unapproachable man. Everything - from the agenda to the seating - screams button up and mind your manners. Is this really an environment that fosters the authenticity and vulnerability required to bring your best self to bear? We think not. Why not customize the experience to the attendees? What's wrong with comfy couches, bean bag chairs, or (gasp) yoga pants?To be fair, many icebreakers are not formal. In fact, they can be cheesy and sometimes downright offensive. This isn't true across the board, but we've definitely experienced some doozies. Women may prefer comfortable clothes and humor, but we aren't children. Drop the dumb games. <h2>5. Women's conferences only include, well, women </h2>Though the intention behind female-only conferences is good, they still perpetuate the myth that women need to learn how to behave in order to become leaders. This is simply not true. The same leadership skills that work for men work for women as well. We need conferences designed to challenge the idea that there is one right style of leadership - and that that winning style can only be achieved by straight white men. Yes, women must be included in these conferences, but so must leadership. How can we drive change without all the leadership in the room?So what do we do?<h2>Don't try to change women for the job. Instead, enable them to change the job. </h2>Though the EY conference is an extreme example, it highlights one of the biggest issues we have. We give advice to women focused on how to act just like those before them - whether male or female. For some reason, we believe there is only one way to be in order to be successful. That couldn't be further from the truth.When I was initially tapped for my first corporate executive position, I actually said, "No thank you." I feared I'd have to become someone I'm not. I feared I would have to compromise my family, my health, and even my identity to be successful. It took a while to realize that I have unique qualities that I could exploit (humor, humility, and the ability to inspire) and that the things that I wasn't so good at (extensive travel, detailed operations) could be addressed by strengthening the team around me.I love the <a href="https://thriveglobal.com/stories/abby-wambach-you-dont-have-to-be-perfect-to-be-a-great-leader/">quote by soccer legend Abby Wambach</a>, "Imperfect men have been empowered and permitted to run the world since the beginning of time. It's time for imperfect women to grant themselves permission to join them."We have got to stop pretending that there is a linear formula for being a successful leader. Instead, we must help women celebrate and exploit their unique, positive qualities.<h2>Go ahead, hold women's conferences, but shake them up … significantly </h2>In our perfect world, there would be no need for women's conferences or talk of gender parity. We're making progress toward this goal: The <a href="https://womenintheworkplace.com/">number of women rising to a top CEO spot has increased 24%</a> over the last five years. But obviously, we're not there yet. So, until we arrive at the nirvana that is true gender diversity (of all kinds, mind you), women's conferences offer a unique opportunity for us to learn from each other. However, that only happens if the women attending and leading are allowed to show up as their authentic selves. Showcase speakers that tell it like it is. Give real-life actionable examples of women who've crushed their careers without selling their souls, and play some fun music while you're at it. A few weeks ago, my <a href="https://www.bauthenticinc.com/podcast">podcast cohost</a> and I experimented with something like this. Imagine a conference that kicks off with dancing and lip synching into a room packed to the gills with high-powered and successful women in the financial industry. Not sounding so bold? One of us was wearing a bedazzled tracksuit, and we may have had props, parody videos, and cheese cubes. And, it wasn't just a show. We got real down and dirty about the things that helped us rise into executive positions. The crowd left incredibly inspired to be more of themselves, both in work and in their personal lives.If we can't shake up a conference, how can we hope to shake up the workplace?It is time we start acknowledging that we must get much more creative in our approach to gender diversity if we ever want to have a shot at reaching parity.We need to start asking the tough questions:<ul><li>What is working and what isn't? </li><li>What bold moves do we need to make to go from looking at gender diversity as a problem to solve and embracing it as an organic source of strength, especially in the corporate world?</li></ul>Whether you're a decision-maker or low down on the totem pole, one thing is clear. It is going to take all of us thinking well beyond the current conference box to get where we need to be. <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-jay-z-and-diddy-made-millions-off-of-cheap-alcohol-zack-omalley-greenburg-2018-3">How Jay-Z and Diddy used their fame to make millions off of 'cheap grapes'</a></h3> <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/qhWHAjCo-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;"></iframe>

5 big problems I see with women's conferences, and how we can fix them to actually fight gender inequality

<div class="image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/52b9b5a6ecad042d42253010-1200-600/zhao-wei-china-6.jpg" border="0" alt="Zhao Wei china" />Kin Cheung / APActress Zhao Wei appears at a pro-government rally in Hong Kong.</div></div></div> 
THE buildings on the studio lot of <keyword id="1334" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="China">China</keyword> <keyword id="681" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="film">Film</keyword> Group, a vast government-owned company, are grey, windowless and identical. The air, even 20km outside Beijing, is heavy with pollution. Inside, Jiang Wen is filming his newest movie, "Gone with the Bullets", about a dance competition in 1920s Shanghai. He is standing on a stage with sequined dancers. Around 400 extras in black tie look on from a Gaudiesque theatre, built for the shoot. Mr Jiang, in a grey T-shirt and 3D glasses, scurries up and down the stage giving directions. Mr Jiang has been known to hold up a white board with "Sexy" written in red marker pen, and show the dancers how it should be done. Cameras swivel around the dancers, capturing their gyrations and the audience's reaction.
Mr Jiang, an actor as well as a director, is one of the stars of China's film business. His 2010 movie, "Let the Bullets Fly", attempted to invent a new genre: the Chinese Western. It was about a bandit who poses as the mayor of a remote Chinese town. The government did not appreciate its portrayal of an illegitimate leader gulling the masses, but the film was wildly popular. If everything goes smoothly "Gone with the Bullets", which is being shot in 3D, will open in theatres in China and around the world by the end of 2014. In terms of cost, the film is pushing the boundaries. It has a budget of around $50m, a princely sum by Chinese movie-making standards. A Broadway choreographer and American dancers have been brought in. On stage right near the dressing rooms, Keith Collea, an American 3D expert, sits in the dark watching his screens. "China is where it's at," he says.
Last year China overtook Japan to become the second-largest film market after America, with box-office receipts of around 17 billion yuan ($2.8 billion). Some people think it will be the world's biggest in five years' time. Young people, flush with cash, are eager to get out of the house. Films have become central to Chinese courtship and consumption. Enormous IMAX screens and 3D films are the rage, and in big cities carry a similar ticket price to America. Screens are flickering on around the country. More than ten a day were erected in 2012; today there are around 18,000, more than four times the number five years ago. "Journey to the West", an adventure film released in 2013, has grossed more than 1.2 billion yuan ($205m).
Most Chinese movies lose money: only around a quarter make it into theatres, and piracy means there is no legitimate DVD market. But then many films in Hollywood and elsewhere are unprofitable these days: according to a report by the British Film Institute earlier this month, only 7% of British films turn a profit. Chinese people like films and they like to gamble, so money is racing into the movie business. In September, for instance, Wang Jianlin, China's richest man, announced he would build the world's largest film-studio complex, for an estimated $8.2 billion, in Qingdao.
Hollywood is also trying to push in. Only 34 big-budget films, and a handful of independent foreign ones, are allowed into China each year, and foreign producers are allowed to keep only a small share--usually less than 25%--of box-office revenues. Even so, foreigners are desperate to get their product into China. Sometimes films are specially adapted for the market: four extra minutes of footage, featuring Chinese actors, were added to the Chinese version of "Iron Man 3", made by Disney's Marvel.
To gain a foothold in China, Hollywood studios are helping finance films or co-producing them. Mr Jiang's "Gone with the Bullets" has backing from Sony, a Hollywood studio; DreamWorks, which made cartoon hits like "Shrek", has set up Oriental Dreamworks, a joint venture with Shanghai Media Group, a state-owned studio, and two other firms, to make animated films for the Chinese market. There are risks to working in China as Relativity Media, a Hollywood studio, discovered in 2011. It got flak from the Western press for shooting a movie in Linyi, an ambitious city in Shandong province, when Chen Guangcheng, a well-known human-rights activist, was being held under house arrest in the city. But the lure of the Chinese market tends to outweigh reputational risk, and Relativity is financing a new film located in the city of Linyi (see box).
American influence in China's film business is nothing new. "Everything we learned, we learned from Hollywood," says Yu Dong, the boss of Bona Film Group, one of China's largest independent studios. In some ways China's movie industry resembles 1930s Hollywood, when studios controlled all business lines--from talent to production to theatres--before a 1948 Supreme Court ruling forced them to divest. In China, this is called "being a dragon from head to tail". Huayi Brothers, one of China's largest studios, whose name evokes the fraternal Warners, oversees actors, production, distribution and cinemas.
Yet the differences are more obvious than the similarities. China's film industry lacks Hollywood's technical sophistication. Even costly Chinese movies often look amateurish. "I fell asleep," confesses a woman when the lights come on at a Beijing cineplex. She had left work a few minutes early to catch a late afternoon screening of "Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon" in 3D. During some scenes the special effects looked like a 1990s video game. The plot and dialogue were not much slicker.
China's movie business also lacks Tinseltown's glamour. Mr Yu's small office is on the 18th floor of a dingy Beijing tower block above a busy road. Smoke from his cigarettes fills the air; honks rise from the street below. There is no Hollywood-style party scene because stars tend to keep out of polluted Beijing. They treat club openings as work events and expect to get paid to turn up.
But the big difference is in the location of power. In America power lies with the studios; in China with the state. The government controls which films are made and has a hand in every aspect of the film business, from production to exhibition. China Film Group produces movies and distributes Hollywood and Chinese films. The government rewards independent producers for making films it approves of--Desen International Media, a production company, received a bonus of 3m yuan for "Full Circle", which promoted filial piety, for instance--and blocks Hollywood films during national holidays, to help Chinese ones.
Hollywood has always been the world's dream-maker, but China's government wants the country to make its own. A communiqué released after the Central Committee meeting of the Chinese Communist Party in 2011 announced that "it is a pressing task to increase the state's cultural soft power" and to "build our country into a socialist cultural superpower". When Shanghai Media Group signed its deal with DreamWorks last year, Xi Jinping, then vice-president and now president, attended the ceremony in Los Angeles.
The government has twin ambitions in fostering the film industry, one domestic and one global. At home, it wants people to see films that will inculcate Chinese values and culture. And it wants them to go voluntarily: the party used to force people to watch propaganda films, but even it saw that this was like winning an ice-skating medal after beating up the competition with a bat. Abroad, the government wants to spread a more attractive image of the country. Hosting the Olympics was one attempt at this; but film premieres can happen more often. Yet China punches well below its weight in the film world: it has won the Palme d'Or at Cannes only once, 20 years ago, for Chen Kaige's "Farewell My Concubine"--which was banned in China at the time. The government wants to change that, and has recently helped organise events to showcase Chinese films in places as diverse as Fiji, Cambodia and New York.
As with the Olympics, the government does not feel comfortable leaving creative elements to chance. Except during the 1930s, when China had a thriving independent film industry centred in Shanghai and operating with relatively little interference, the political climate has defined and confined its films. Private studios were dissolved after the Japanese occupied Shanghai in 1937. When the Communist Party came to power in 1949, it recognised that movies could be useful. Government studios made films packed with peasants and propaganda, and wheeled mobile projectors to rural areas to ensure they reached millions. Tickets were given out at work, and everybody had to attend. Independent movies started again in the 1970s, and then sputtered along. Now a few independent studios operate within the constraints of a state-controlled system.
<h3>If it's entertaining, cut it</h3>
"The Chinese producer is the best producer in the world," claims Mr Yu. "He has to negotiate the Chinese government and the market." China does not have a sex-and-violence ratings system of the sort that operates in most of the rest of the world to protect children and young people, but films cannot be screened until they have been signed off by censors at the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. Film-makers must submit a draft of the script in advance of shooting, and later a final cut of the film. The censorship board, which has around three dozen members, objects to violence, sex, drugs and anything critical of the party, either explicitly or implicitly--in other words, every ingredient that might be used to fill seats. Success comes from predicting what censors will object to, and writing scripts in such a way that they do not. Overt political commentary is unacceptable; that is probably why so many films are set in the past.
Censors often ask for multiple script revisions before giving the go-ahead, and, after seeing the final cut, request that scenes be eliminated. Film-makers' reactions to these restrictions range from acceptance to outrage. Zhao Wei, a famous actress and the director of "So Young", a drama about college in the 1990s that came out this year, had to axe a masturbation scene. She considers herself lucky: movies can be held up for years. In April the China Film Directors' Guild honoured Feng Xiaogang, a director. In his acceptance speech he complained about the "torment" of censorship. Even when films have been given a green light, censors sometimes change their minds. Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" was pulled from theatres after a few days.
While producers in Hollywood try to drum up as much interest as possible in their films, those in China keep them quiet, so as not to pique censors' interest or suspicion. Your correspondent visited the set of a movie that had gone through around 20 versions of the script before it was approved. The censors signed off on it only after a sympathetic communist hero was written in. A crew member confided that the censors were still going through the script, even though shooting had begun, and were trying to get the final, climactic scene eliminated. When some of the producers heard a journalist had been on set, they were horrified, lest the movie's name be printed.
Some say that the censors are loosening up a bit. A racy scene was cut from "So Young", for example, but several abortions were left in. "No Man's Land", a sinister thriller, was held up for more than two years because censors thought it was "too dark" and "too distant from real life". But after what are believed to be significant modifications, it was released in early December. "Hunger Games: Catching Fire"--this autumn's Hollywood blockbuster, in which a totalitarian regime sacrifices its young for the entertainment of the masses--was, to general astonishment, screened in Chinese cinemas. Popular online video sites, such as Youku, host original movies, called "microfilms", which are not subject to the same censorship process, but this is probably an oversight rather than progress.
The government uses subsidy as well as censorship to get the kind of films it wants made. It forks out increasing sums for propaganda films, which account for an estimated 10% of movies being made each year. "The Founding of a Republic", a 2009 film celebrating the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, was a glossy Hollywood-style epic featuring so many stars that some had to be cut out of the final version.
Yet for all its efforts, the government is not really getting what it wants from its film industry. Far from inculcating the masses with Chinese culture and values the party approves of, successful films are often adaptations of Hollywood hits. "Lost in Thailand", a comedy about male friends reminiscent of Hollywood's "The Hangover", did well last year, as did "Tiny Times", a film about four materialistic friends in Shanghai and their luxurious lifestyle, which has been described as a cross between "The Devil Wears Prada" and "Sex and the City" (without the sex). A saccharine tribute to materialism, "Tiny Times" did particularly well in smaller, less-developed "tier 3" and "tier 4" cities, whose citizens aspire to be rich and fashionable but want to watch characters that feel home-grown. Ann An of Desen International Media, one of the producers, says the film appealed to stressed, overworked audiences. "We provided a two-hour dream for them." A film-maker says the head of the censorship board has privately described the Chinese films being made today as "trashy".
Nor do Chinese movies travel well. "Lost in Thailand" grossed around $192m in China, but a mere $60,000 in America. Even audiences in Taiwan and Hong Kong do not have much interest in mainland films. The plots tend to be blunt and the acting melodramatic. "Flowers of War", a costly movie about the Nanjing Massacre starring a Hollywood actor, Christian Bale, was intended to go global. But it fell flat outside China and failed to win the awards or critical acclaim officials had been hoping for.
Too many films are both too foreign and too familiar for audiences abroad: "Finding Mr. Right", for instance, is a romantic comedy about a woman who goes to Seattle at the behest of her married lover to give birth to their baby, and finds love there. The story feels relevant and modern to Chinese audiences, but to foreign ones it has no surprises and too many echoes of "Sleepless in Seattle", a Hollywood classic.
A lighter touch by the censors might produce films that were more authentically Chinese and artistically interesting. It would also avoid embarrassing incidents. The Chinese film that has garnered most attention in the West lately is "A Touch of Sin" by Jia Zhangke--a gloomy art-house portrayal of modern China that won the award for best screenplay at Cannes this year. The government has banned it from cinemas and journalists from interviewing Mr Jia. More Westerners have probably seen reports of this in recent months than have watched a Chinese film.
The head of the censorship board has privately described the films being made today as "trashy"
 
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