Made In China

Is the Chinese film industry concentrated in Hengdian set to overtake Hollywood?

- Zigor Aldama

Coming from the ultra-modern megalopolis of Shanghai, nobody would believe that a four-hour bus ride through eight lane expressways, followed by a bumpy, mostly unpaved road would lead to the Chinese version of Hollywood. Hengdian, a city of around 200,000 people in the eastern part of Zhejiang Province is where, astonishingly, around 20 percent of all Chinese movies and TV series are filmed.

“In the 20 years since filming activities started, some 1,800 titles have been produced here, including big hits such as Zhang Yimou’s Hero and Hollywood’s The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” Hengdian Group’s spokesman Zeng Yuling says. “At any given time, up to 40 stories can be taking shape in our hundreds of sets. Last year alone, 250 directors worked in the city, where more than 50,000 people are registered as actors.”

It soon becomes clear that Hengdian is no ordinary city. In fact, its architecture seems tailor-made for movie sets. Its buildings form a collective of 5,000 years of Chinese history: palaces from every dynasty, which once allowed former emperors to entertain concubines without the interruption of anti-corruption campaigns; lavish European colonial-era mansions, which once harboured gangsters and libertine women; the cobblestone streets where Kuomintang flags were not banned, where atrocities committed by Japanese imperial soldiers were witnessed. Finally, there is the contemporary addition of Mao Zedong’s portraits rising on “new” China’s edifices. If that wasn’t enough, a replica of Beijing’s old Summer Palace has just been built. The city also plans to add a “traditional Shanghai” street and a European mini-city.