Australia is set to become a new hotspot for the Chinese film industry as production companies take advantage of the country's location, technical skills and rebates to satiate the Chinese audience demand for foreign films.
Officially foreign film studios can only release 34 films a year in China. This means a growing number of Chinese movies are being set and filmed overseas in order to meet the local audience's demand for foreign settings.
Kailuo Liu, president of Heyi Pictures, one of China's leading film studios and owned by Alibaba, said he was considering Canada and Australia for the location of his Jackie Chan film Bleeding Steel. In the end, Sydney won over because of its aesthetic appeal.
"It has a spectacular physical background and excellent support for the film industry, with strong film specialists," he said.
Mr Liu said it was inevitable more English films would be released in China.
"We can't control what the government will do with what they allow in. We just follow the rules and make as many good movies as possible," he said.
"From my point of view, the global culture will enter China, and at present there is a lot of interest in investing in English films. So overall, I expect China will allow in more and more English films."
Fresh locations
Bleeding Steel's Australia producer Paul Currie said Sydney was attractive to Chinese filmmakers and audiences who want fresh locations outside of major American cities. The film involved a 32-day shoot in Australia on top of 40 days in Taiwan and 41 days in Beijing, and features many of Sydney's iconic locations, including a scene of Jackie Chan on top of the Opera House.
"The Chinese audience are saying, 'OK, we've seen all that before, what are some fresh, new locations?' and that's fabulous for Australia," he said.
Mr Currie said as well as the location, government rebates – which range between 21.5 per cent and 45 per cent on qualifying spend in Australia – geographical proximity, technical skills and availability of interpreters made the country an attractive filming location.
Mr Currie has also worked on a Mandarin-language gangster noir film where Melbourne was turned into 1930s Shanghai and involved dressing up Geelong station to look like Shanghai train station.
He said by next year or the year after he expected to see between 20 and 30 per cent of film productions being collaborations with Chinese production companies, compared with under 10 per cent currently.
But Mr Currie said Australia would need to attract more production staff in order to meet the growing Chinese demand for co-production.
"The biggest issue is consistency. We can only support a couple of big projects a year so we need consistency which can help us provide technicians a solid earning pathway and maybe we can attract others who left for overseas or left the business during the harder times when there wasn't enough work," he said.
Growing interest
Screen NSW head of strategy, partnerships and industry development Grainne Brunsdon said she had seen a growing interest in NSW from the Chinese film industry, with four of five producers scouting for locations in the past couple of months.
Ms Brunsdon said geographical proximity, multicultural population and diversity of locations made Australia an attractive location for Chinese production companies.
In addition to Bleeding Steel and Dogfight, last year Chinese 3D sci-fi film Nest was filmed on the Gold Coast and a Mandarin-language version of US TV series Chosen is to be filmed in Sydney.
Film production companies were becoming increasingly keen to collaborate with Chinese film companies in order to reach the Chinese audience without having to compete for the 34 foreign film quota, she said.
"If you go to LA, all the big studios are doing things with China. With the quota on international films being released in China, it's more likely to be released if you do things with China and you can get to the extraordinary audience there," she said.
