Text | Stonestone Business Review, Jin Mei | author
India has become one of the world's fastest-growing economies in recent years, with the IMF expecting India's GDP growth to increase to 7.3 percent in 2019 and further to 7.5 percent in 2020. India's economic structure has improved, domestic demand has been stimulated, foreign investment has grown tremendously, and the middle class and young consumers have grown rapidly, bringing new opportunities in various industries. Many Chinese companies have also tested the Indian market.
Corresponding to the introduction of capital, it is the "coming out" of Indian cinema, and there is no doubt that India has come ahead of us in this regard.
Previous Indian Bollywood films were roughly produced, the plot was absurd, "dancing without a word" and "opening and hanging without speculation", with a single and stylized style. There is also a slip of the tongue: "Chinese film news bulletins, Vietnamese film airplane cannons, North Korean movies cry and laugh, Indian movies sing and dance." However, over the years, Bollywood has been steadily determined by the quality of films, going abroad more and more frequently, and setting off a strong Indian wind around the world.
Mysterious Superstar poster
China has never been a hotbed of Indian cinema, but what is surprising is that through the market testing in recent years, the interest of Chinese people in Indian cinema has been rising. WrestleMania! "Daddy" eventually grossed 1.299 billion yuan, ranking seventh in the 2017 China box office list, and it was also the highest-rated foreign language film on the Douban movie list that year.
2018 was a blowout year for Indian films, with a total of 10 Indian films introduced, second only to Hollywood in share. "Little Lori's Monkey God Uncle" earned about 300 million yuan at the box office in China; "Mysterious Superstar" earned 750 million yuan at the box office, equivalent to nearly 10 times the local box office in India. What exactly did Indian cinema do to achieve such a leap forward?
The <h2>"birth" and "prosperity" of Bollywood movies</h2>
Bollywood is a film base established in Mumbai, India in 1995 and is the main brand of exports to overseas markets of the Indian film industry. While Bollywood doesn't represent all of Indian cinema, it has a large audience and the highest ratings. It is no exaggeration to compare Bollywood to an "Indian business card". With the continuous development of Bollywood, Indian films have received everyone's attention and attention. India produces more than a thousand films a year, still ranking first in the world, and Bollywood movies are viewed more globally than Hollywood in the United States.
Indian cinema began at the end of the 19th century, and in 1896, the Lumiere brothers, the world's first film shooters, brought their films such as "Factory Gate" and "Train Station" to Mumbai for the first time, known as "Bollywood", and the film began to take root in India. Immediately after, Jem raj Framji Madden, known as the "father of Indian cinema", founded Elfenstein Films, which had a near monopoly on the production and production of short films in India at that time. These short films mainly reflect the daily life of the Indian people, natural scenery, etc., and also appear some stage plays and mythological features with Indian song and dance characteristics.
After the success of the film "King Harish Chandra", Mumbai capitalists who smelled of capital also began to invest in filmmaking. With the wings of capital plugged in, Indian feature film production has increased year by year. After 1920, the Indian film industry gradually formed three major production centers: Mumbai, which was mainly Hindi, Kolkata, which was mainly Bengali, and Madras, which was mainly Taimi.
In 1947, with the independence of India, the Indian film industry ushered in a new development. In 1948, the movie "Chandrika" was interspersed with grand and spectacular song and dance scenes, which opened the era of Indian cinema "song and dance". In the 1950s, there was a wave of song and dance films, and some of them won international awards. In the 1960s, the film industry entered a downturn, and after the 1980s, the Indian government set up the Film Development Authority, and with strong government funding, new and old directors joined forces to create momentum for Indian films, while countries on all continents in Asia, Africa, europe and Europe began to import Indian song and dance films.
In a relatively relaxed environment, Indian films have formed very distinct cultural characteristics, and for a long time, "three threes" has almost become the customization of Indian films. "Three three three" is 3 hours (if the film is too short, the audience will think "not worth it"), 3 songs and 3 dances. At this time, although Indian cinema set off a certain boom, it was far from the achievements of today's Bollywood, and today's Bollywood films are the product of these achievements.
In 1992, the Indian government ended restrictions on imported films, and "Hollywood" films poured into the Indian film market, which frustrated the development of Indian films. But soon Indian cinema in adversity found its roots. In the mid-1990s, after returning home from studying film abroad, young directors began to abandon the form of song and dance and shifted their attention to real life. Since then, new Indian films have begun to explore and discover the problems existing in the real society of India, and at the same time, they have learned from Hollywood's production methods and integrated into India's unique ethnic, religious and other cultures, forming "masala" and "Bollywood movies".
According to the Indian government, India's total profit from film exports nearly doubled in the year from 1999 to 2000. By 2001, Indian film exports had taken the second place in the world. In 2002, Bollywood's global turnover was $1.3 billion, and although it was only a fraction of Hollywood's huge figure of 51 billion, it was not easy to survive in Bollywood compared to Hollywood's film industry pattern that swept the world.
In recent years, Bollywood movies have also frequently appeared in theaters dominated by the United States, and their achievements have even surpassed those in China. When the film Never Say Goodbye premiered in 2006 and grossed $3.28 million in just one and a half months, Bollywood dug its own ground internationally. According to Indian statistics, foreign films are undoubtedly the first in the American film market, and Indian films are undoubtedly the first.
Poster of "Three Fools Bollywood"
"Slumdog Millionaire" is undoubtedly the brightest star at the 81st Academy Awards, and the eight awards have successfully demonstrated the charm of Indian cinema to the world, so that Indian cinema is on the right track to internationalization. Half of the total box office in 2009 came from foreign sales, and the movie "Kite" jumped into the top ten of the North American box office in 2010, and Bollywood handed over a beautiful report card on the world market.
On the road of China's transition from a film power to a film power, domestic films have been eager to try, and have seen a slight improvement in the game of box office and word of mouth with imported films, but the success of overseas markets is rare, how does Bollywood do it?
<h2>The rise of the "god piece" is boosted by the country</h2>
The development and rise of the film and television industry love to talk about the system, and indeed due to the particularity of the product, the rise of the cultural industry and the correlation between institutional factors may be closer than other industries. There is no doubt that Indian cinema has achieved such an achievement, thanks in large part to the policy support of the Indian government. The rise of the Media in South Korea and the rapid sweep of the domestic "Korean Style" are also inseparable from the power of government advocacy. A relaxed and dynamic political and policy environment is a strong driving force for the development of the cultural industry.
Post-independence India basically accepted the relatively free film normative system of the colonial period. Since 1949, the Indian government has gradually established a relatively perfect film classification system through the continuous revision of the Film Law. In addition to the Film Act, the Indian film industry is subject to other relevant laws and regulations, which may seem complicated, but the production and screening of Indian films is generally very liberal.
The success of Bollywood was also the result of the liberalizing reforms of the Indian economy in the mid-1990s. Since the 1990s, successive Indian governments have attached importance to the role of the film and television cultural industry in the national economy and national soft power, and implemented a more relaxed free market economic policy for the film and television industry, whether it is the production, distribution and screening of domestic films, or the introduction of foreign films, or investment, appropriations, talent training, etc., the government does not have too many restrictions.
In 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the "Made in India" campaign to promote the sustainable development of the film industry, create jobs and make India the world's leading film tourism destination. In order to achieve this goal, the Indian government has raised the limit of foreign investment in the film industry to 100%, simplifying the procedures required for domestic and foreign filmmakers to shoot in India, making India gradually a popular filming location.
In addition, the Indian government attaches great importance to the holding of film festivals, holding more than ten international film festivals every year, and there are countless domestic film festivals. The holding of the film festival provides an effective platform for the export of Indian films and expands the influence of Indian films in the international market.
<h2>Why is the "god piece" so god</h2>
Beginning in the mid-1990s, the Mumbai-based Hindi film industry gradually became known as "Bollywood", constantly fighting against Hollywood in the international market. With the advantages of Indian overseas Chinese, religious practices, values and language and culture, coupled with the promotion of cultural diplomacy of the Indian government, Bollywood films with unique artistic styles have gained great overseas influence. The media and academics of the English-speaking world have borrowed the informal term "Bollywood" within the Mumbai film industry to refer to the film industry, emphasizing its similar globality to Hollywood.
The industrial chain mainly includes several main links of product production, distribution, sales and redevelopment, and the development of the industrial chain is a gradual process horizontally, and the core competitiveness is the film itself. Bollywood put more production money on the storyline and worked hard. Through remakes, co-productions, and studying abroad, we will learn the Western model and attract global attention. This self-contained "Indian industrial style" has become a unique weapon for it to stand firm in the wave of globalization.
In January 2002, Disney's former creative director Willard Carroll directed the official launch of Marigold, marking the first successful collaboration between Hollywood and Bollywood. At the peak of India's film development in recent years, India's Minister of Information and Information, as well as some Bollywood and television and entertainment giants personally led the team, the Indian government organized a government delegation to lobby in Western countries, including the United States, and has signed a series of cooperation agreements, such as Colombia, Paramount, Warner and other film production groups to attract foreign investment into the Indian film entertainment industry.
In the five years from 2003 to 2008, Bollywood began to transform into commercial films, taking Chopra's award-winning film "Fashion" as an example, China's Lenovo, world-renowned sports brand Reebok and other companies have carried out invisible advertising marketing in this film, which has made the film recover half of the production cost before it has been released. In addition, Bollywood has accumulated experience in film creation through active adaptations of Hollywood films. In 2008, "Unknown Death" was adapted from the Hollywood movie "Fragments of Memory".
From obscurity to fame, it took Bollywood almost a decade. This is a decade of rapid development of the Indian film industry, resulting in nearly 100 film studios, 13,000 cinemas, more than 500 film magazines and more than 300,000 film practitioners, producing nearly 1,500 films a year. According to the annual report of India's Central Film Certification Board, in 2016, the Indian film industry produced more than 1,600 films in various languages, which is about 2-3 times that of China and the largest in the world. They reduced production costs by producing high volumes, flooding the market with Indian films.
Stardom is undoubtedly a great magic weapon for Bollywood to learn from Hollywood. In WrestleMania! Before "Daddy", a considerable part of the audience was already familiar with Amir Khan. The films he has participated in or produced, such as "Once Upon a Time in India", "The Color of Basati", "Unknown Death", "My God", etc., have left a strong mark on the history of Indian cinema. He starred in his first film at the age of 8 and later became an Indian child star. It can be said that the vast majority of Indian film fans today have grown up and grown old watching Uncle Mi's films. Known as the "almighty king" of Bollywood, he starred, wrote, scored, sang, directed, produced, and could do anything, and led Indian films to the Oscars many times.
Amir Khan is a highly dedicated filmmaker who worked on WrestleMania! In order to meet the requirements of the character image, Amir Khan trained from a big fat man to a muscle man in three months. In order to play "Wrestlemania!" In "Daddy", the male protagonist's body changes at the age of 19, 29 and 55 years old, Amir Khan first gained 28 kilograms, ate himself into a middle-aged "fat dad" with a round belly, and spent 5 months sweating in the gym, losing 25 kilograms of extra flesh, practicing eight-pack abs, and debugging his body to the state of a professional wrestler. Who can match the domestic actors? In this madness, it also reveals the well-made atmosphere of the Indian film industry.
The maturity and development of genre films is the foundation for the prosperity of the film industry in a country or region, and the development of genre films is an important way for films to industrialize. Genre films are types of films created according to the requirements of different themes or styles, and are formulated on the basis of summarizing the filming experience of predecessors and combining the aesthetic needs of the audience. It frees the film market from the problem of relying on individual directors, peaks and plateaus, and forms "industrial processes" and "industrial products" with quality assurance.
The shooting of Bollywood genre films is to learn from Hollywood, but only by learning Hollywood, it is impossible to achieve a unique Bollywood. The popularity of hyper-realistic genre films has made the rise of Bollywood movies take advantage of the east wind. Combining Hollywood business skills with a focus on people's livelihood, grounding is the key to the rise of Bollywood. Love songs and dances have been replaced by sharp antagonisms between the poor and the rich, and have been replaced by topics that have global resonance such as tradition and modernity, gender inequality, and religious contradictions, and the thickness and depth of the content are better. The film has not only improved its grade in form, but also withstood the test in terms of ideological content.
Abandoning the shoddy manufacturing of the past, India began a nationwide "product upgrade". With the increasing maturity of the Indian film market and the addition of superstars and screenwriters, coupled with the support of wealthy film and television production companies and the upgrading of the entire industry chain, together they have created a role like "Wrestling!" Phenomenal movies such as "Daddy" and "Starting Line" have attracted a lot of applause. The subject matter is unconcealed, unrestrained and bold to face those sharp social problems, while asking the soul, Bollywood knocks on the door of the world.
Much of Bollywood's success is due to borrowing from Hollywood's production system and architecture. But now the winning factor of the film is not only the film itself, but also the Hollywood blockbusters that have opened high and low at the box office and have a good reputation on the street still maintain a stable huge income. There has been data analysis that only 30% of the final revenue of Hollywood films comes from the movie box office, and the remaining 70% comes from movie derivatives, including toys, games, pay TV, disc distribution and so on. As the most influential and commercially valuable IP in the world, "Transformers" began its popularity in China in the 1980s, but its popularity can hardly be said to originate from cartoons or from those toys that can dynamically deform.
Without multi-channel revenue generation, there will be no film profits, and films have begun to have a lot of commercial characteristics, becoming the foundation of post-film product development, production and sales. In 2007, the music, graceful dance and beautiful costumes in the Indian movie "Lover" suddenly became popular elements. Audio-visual products, clothing, fitness, dance training... These are derivative values created by Indian cinema. Meanwhile, with the help of Netflix, 1.7 million Indian immigrants have made the long tail of Indian cinema a reality.
<h2>Bollywood's global "screen dominance" approach</h2>
Stars on Earth
All the people are "water army", and the large-scale Indians have begun an Indian film brushing operation, which has spread across the world. Stars on Earth, Three Fools Bollywood and Wrestlemanship! Many "god films" including "Daddy", the audience ratings on the Douban network are outrageously high 9 points, and this phenomenon also began with a large number of Indian audiences on the Internet movie scoring base of IMDB can be called crazy brushing action. Since "Stars on Earth", india's enthusiastic audience has discovered IMDB, the most globally influential network window, because the Internet movie rating follows a simple rule of ID one vote, and the huge Indian audience has become a phenomenon on IMDB in recent years.
In India, local films occupy the main share of india's cinema line, and the low film ticket prices make Indians regard watching movies as a habitual consumption, which constitutes a local consumer group. At the same time, India is the second largest immigrant country after China, which makes Bollywood loyal audiences all over the world, accounting for about half of the "Bollywood" movie audience, so it seems that Bollywood movies stabilize the local market while also have a mass base to expand foreign markets. Bollywood has even begun to change its original strategy of prioritizing the domestic market and making great strides into overseas markets.
This alone certainly does not make Indian cinema the world influential. One of the highlights of India's internationalization is the Indian International Film Festival, which began in 1952 and has been held overseas since the New Century. In 2000, known as the "Oscars of Bollywood", the Indian International Film Academy Awards chose to go overseas and held the award ceremony in countries outside India, and Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Sheffield, the fourth largest city in the United Kingdom, have hosted this award ceremony. This not only enhances the international popularity of Bollywood films, but also provides a convenient channel for Indian films to enter overseas markets.
Looking back at the brand marketing path of Indian films, the popularity, reputation and loyalty are inseparable from the international awards won by their films. The Oscar trophy will focus the global eye on the country of the film, thus bringing a series of tangible or intangible returns to the production company, the country, etc. Indian films have been nominated for far more Oscars than Chinese films.
"Youth Invincible" set a number of box office records, "Three Fools Bollywood" global box office more than 100 million US dollars, etc., the award is the best proof of the brand. According to incomplete statistics, the Oscar-nominated film will earn an additional $1 million, and the film that wins the title of Best Picture will increase revenue by at least $2 million in the United States and at least $1.2 billion in the world.
Slumdog Millionaire
Due to the international influence of "Slumdog Millionaire" after winning the award, the achievements of Indian cinema in high-end commercial films cannot be underestimated. In 2009, at the Asian Film Awards ceremony, Indian actress Puyaka Chopra won the "Film Box Office Award", which made the public's expectations for the future of the box office focus on Indian films.
India's regional and cultural advantages have been tapped by Indian film companies, and the technology, creative brands and channels have been integrated to form large-scale film enterprises, making the Indian film industry more powerful to integrate into the global market. They reduced production costs by rising production dramatically, and Indian feature films, commercial films and art films began to appear on the world market. Bollywood also uses high-tech methods to broadcast Bollywood movies to nearly 100 countries in the world through digital channels, truly occupying a wide range of world market shares.
<h2>Is the industrialization of Chinese cinema too high or too low? </h2>
As another major film industry town, Hong Kong cinema was on a miraculous path to prosperity in the late 1970s and early 1990s. The development model of highly genre, commercialization and industrialization, and the emerging creative talents and creative vitality that lasted for many years won it the reputation of "Hollywood of the East", and even once the total output value of the film jumped to the second place in the world.
However, in 1993, the loss of the Taiwan and Southeast Asian markets, the impact of Hollywood films, the rampant piracy, the lack of talent, short-sightedness caused by the following and shoddy production, Hong Kong films began to decline from prosperity to decline. At the time of the decline of Hong Kong films, it is the quiet rise of Indian films, Hollywood's entry has also caused a huge impact on India, and the problem of piracy in India is no less serious than that of China, but it is not difficult to find that the only difference is that Bollywood's talent transportation and counter-trend "product upgrades" have given blood to its film industry.
We all know that the core of the content industry is content, and major media institutions are also working on content, but until today, Chinese films are still following the old path of the director-centered system, although they are constantly shouting producer centers, in line with industrial content production, but in the process of turning, movies have only become a tool for profit, which has been magnified by commodity attributes, and is still the old way before content production. Several of today's popular movies are still dotted splendor against the background of several "famous directors", "famous actors" and "famous screenwriters", and have not been able to form a plateau.
Light Media once exerted efforts on young directors, looking forward to forming a product matrix but at present it does not form a group effect. Several of Happy Twist's works make people seem to see the possibility of deep content cultivation in the Chinese film industry, and the recent "Jiang Lang Cai exhausted" style works make people sweat. It is impossible for Chinese films to rely on a few directors and a few actors to support themselves, and from this point of view, the degree of industrialization of Chinese films seems to be far from enough. After completing the quality assurance at the product level, Chinese films can go on an expedition to the sea. Chinese films have the ability to interrogate the soul in order to knock on the door of the world like Bollywood.
But when it comes to questioning the soul, someone will surely say that China's film censorship system, the content industry wearing "shackles" is not able to dance? In fact, what the film really lacks is not a free system, but a free soul. At present, the biggest constraint that binds the wings of the film is not policy, but capital. Producers who are blinded by capital and pursue the box office have lost the idea of calming down and questioning their hearts. Projects that are not optimistic about capital may not even be able to enter the theater, and a Chinese film industry that is too mature and perfect under the business model has squeezed high-quality content out of the door.
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