Special feature of 1905 film network After 18 years, revisit the classic of healing.The 4K restored version was announced to be released in mainland China on December 2nd. The film tells the story of Matthew, a talented music teacher, who came to a boarding school and influenced a group of problem of juvenile with love and music.
The film won the box office champion in France in 2004 and the best film award in the Golden Globe Award in France in 2005, and the douban score in China was as high as 9.3 points.
At the same time, the global box office champion of the 2022 love movie is being released in China, and two imported masterpieces — — The best actress award-winning film of Cannes Film Festival and the German high-scoring film will also be shown on the special line of the National Federation of Arts, scheduled for December 2 and December 16 respectively.
In the current film market, there is a scene in which foreign classic old films are shown again and new works with high reputation are supplied in two lines. Since 2018, the introduction of reruns and two high-scoring new films has won the support and love of domestic audiences. In the following four years, there have been continuous renovations of imported old films and exquisite new works.
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According to the statistics of 1905 Film Network, from 2018 to now, a total of 20 foreign classic high-scoring films have been introduced to the mainland of China.
On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of its release, My Neighbor Totoro landed in the cinema in China for the first time with a digitally restored version, which was also the first time that a film was released in the mainland. The film finally won 173 million box office, realizing the wish of countless fans to enjoy My Neighbor Totoro in the cinema.
Studio Ghibli President Kenji Hoshino once said that during the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, Ghibli was exhibited in the Japanese Industry Pavilion, and they found that so many China fans came to buy peripheral products. Since then, they have started to think about bringing Ghibli animation to China.
After the successful introduction of My Neighbor Totoro, domestic filmmakers smelled the business opportunities of Miyazaki Hayao’s classic animation, and then introduced and respectively in 2019 and 2021.
As the world’s first animated film that won both the Academy Award and the Berlin Golden Bear Award, Spirited Away’s charm remains after more than ten years. The film also launched a series of release measures: the introduction of Chinese dubbing version, such as,,, and so on; Invite to cover the Chinese theme song; After the My Neighbor Totoro China poster was well received, Huang Hai designed it again.
The volume of publicity doubled, and Spirited Away finally got nearly 500 million box office, showing a bright performance. Miyazaki Hayao animation has also become a popular choice in introducing classic foreign films. This year, Guanwei was opened. This work, which was shown in China 30 years ago, may be expected to meet the audience again in a restored version.
Among the classic high-profile films introduced, there are both the first landing in the mainland cinema and the re-screening after many years.
Especially from July to August, 2020, and the first batch of re-released films, which had achieved good results in 2016 and 2017, helped the cinema market to recover at the beginning of the resumption of work in national cinemas.
Subsequently, Nolan, who has a large audience of domestic fans, directed the film, and also continuously replayed his two explosive blockbusters and. The fans have also ushered in, once again entering the magical world, and the popularity of watching movies has not diminished.
Among them, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Interstellar contributed the most to the market, with 192 million and 121 million box offices respectively. In 2021, the global phenomenal blockbusters made a comeback with a brand-new remastered version, with a total box office of 375 million, surpassing Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone to become the top box office of the remastered movies.
Avatar takes the audience back to Pandora to experience the wild adventure 11 years ago. In the same year, the series trilogy was released back-to-back with a 4K remake, which also allowed the audience to enter the world of Sino-Turkish War again. The total box office of trilogy reruns reached 150 million.
Created by Cameron, director of Avatar, landed in mainland China twice. In 2012, it was re-released in 3D version and won over 900 million box office, ranking second in domestic box office that year. Next year, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of its release, the film will be replayed in many places around the world in 3D/4K/HDR HD remake. I wonder if it will be introduced to China for the third time.
Among the types of classic foreign films introduced, most of them are high-scoring films from Europe and Japan.
Some have won 22 international awards, some are classic romantic films, and some are the best foreign language films at previous Oscars. Almost every movie has earned tens of millions of box office, and legend of 1900 has even exceeded 100 million.
These films are basically the top-rated works of Douban TOP250, and they are universally acknowledged masterpieces. Perhaps the next imported works will be born from them.
It can be seen that in the hearts of the audience, classics are never out of date, always appealing, and also beneficial to the current creators, so we can learn from the replayed films. Tan Fei, a film critic, said in an interview with China Film Report that "both old films and new films compete in the market at the same time, which also puts forward higher requirements for current film creation, because they are competing with classics and must show better performance."
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Overseas classic films have improved the picture quality and sound effect through restoration technology, and have been refurbished and replayed, thus amplifying the artistic value. On the other hand, small and beautiful overseas award-winning masterpieces are introduced into China, and there are often surprises.
Japanese movies are a small dark horse in the market in 2022. Their portrayal of young people’s love relationship and ideas is deeply rooted in people’s hearts, and they won the box office champion of introducing foreign romantic films this year with nearly 100 million box office results.
Last year, the British film Douban, which won the Golden Rooster Award for Best Foreign Language Film, scored 8.6. At the same time, it was shortlisted for the best foreign language film. It was adapted from the real events in the concentration camp of World War II. Although it was a small film, it still stood out with high reputation, and the box office score of more than 36 million exceeded expectations.
Compared with those who won the Golden Rooster Award for Best Foreign Language Film this year, the result of entering the cinema market is very bleak, with less than 200,000 box office and only more than 5,000 people watching movies. The film was released on the special line of the National Art Federation, and the Art Federation also admitted that due to the tight schedule and insufficient preparation for the release, there were few films in the early stage of the release.
"A Long Way to Find Children" landed on the National Art Federation Line through the opportunity of "Excellent Film Broadcasting Activities in Central and Eastern Europe in 2021", and other films were also introduced and released in 2021.
However, in the end, these films only took hundreds of thousands of box office. There are many reasons for the poor market performance, such as limited publicity funds, insufficient strength, and the spread of distribution. Middle East films are inherently unpopular, and the content of their works is not enough to attract most audiences to enter the theater for support.
Take the Art Federation as an example. Since its introduction in 2017, the best box office in five years has been 99 million, and the best performance of the Art Federation in distribution and publicity cooperation is Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, who won 65 million box office in 2018.
These films are all Oscar-winning films, including those imported in 2019. Under the operation of co-producer Alibaba Pictures, the film quickly landed in mainland cinemas, causing a movie-watching craze and winning 478 million box office, which became an excellent case of imported films in recent years.
Ali’s director of film selection once said that the film is based on "small and big" (small people, big feelings, positive energy) as the standard of investment and introduction, which proved to be in line with the evaluation standard of domestic mainstream audiences for good movies.
In addition, the award-winning films of Cannes Film Festival are also easy to win favor. The Thieves Family released in 2018 and the one released in 2019 have won word of mouth and a very high attendance rate.
Spring of the Cowboy Class was re-released, and two overseas literary masterpieces, Little Joe and Who Stole My Pink Rabbit, were finalized. It is expected that more foreign classic films and award-winning new works will be introduced to China in the future, which will enrich the colors on the screen and meet the diverse viewing needs of the audience.
