Chinese Money Coming to Korea in Droves
Of late, a hot issue in the Korean film world is Chinese money.
Although it is nothing new to Korean films, directors and actors spearhead into the Chinese film market, this year’s
Busan International Film Festival fueled interest in joint Korea-China production. Asian Film Market is at the center of it. Chinese film investors and distributors’ business was brisker than ever. iQIYI sponsored the opening party of the festival. iQIYI purchased an exclusive right to broadcast the Korean TV show ‘My Love from Star.’ The closing party was sponsored by Youku Tudou, the biggest Chinese video platform equivalent to YouTube of the U.S. Literally, Chinese money steadily displayed its power throughout the festival, Korean filmmakers’ interest in the Chinese market skyrocketed.
Then, tangible results came out. iQIYI visited the film jubilee to find quality Korean films, secured online distribution rights to approximately 40 films from Lotte Entertainment and about 50 films from Fine Cut. Next Entertainment World (NEW), one of the four major film distributors in Korea, induced an investment of 53.5 billion won from Huace Media Group, a leader in the Chinese TV drama and visual industry which is enjoying the largest share in the Chinese TV drama market. The investment went down in history as the largest investment in the Korean film industry by a Chinese company. A fundamental reason for an increase in investments between the Korean and Chinese film industries is that the Chinese film market is exponentially growing. Last year, the Chinese film market is valued at five trillion won. The market will more than double in the future.
According to The Financial Times of the U.K., the Chinese film market will grow to 11.34 trillion won, beating the U.S. market to be the world’s largest film market. Chinese internet companies with great financial power are taking the lead in promoting the Chinese film market. The video download market swelled a great deal, such companies are bent on securing quality contents. Naturally, for the purpose of securing film contents, they began to make big investments in production of Chinese films. But a big problem was that the Chinese film industry lacked excellent human resources who could make good-quality and commercially successful Chinese films even though film investment snowballed. Therefore, they are paying much attention to overseas joint film production in order to secure overseas human resources excellent at planning, developing contents and technologies. They are turning their eyes to none other than Korean cinema as their joint production partners.
Why did China decide to band together with Korea as its contents production partner? In fact, in line with the speed of the expansion of its market, Chine steadily partnered with Hollywood for joint production and investment projects. But now, they favor Korea over Hollywood. “Chinese people have a deep understanding of Korean contents. Therefore, they accept Korean contents than other contents more easily,” said KIM Pil-jung, the director of the Korean Film Council’s office in China about the reason. “Korea is also geographically close to China and the Korean culture is friendly with Chinese people. In addition, Korean has proved the excellence of its technology and human resources. These facts are leading Chinese filmmakers to propose working with Korean filmmakers. ”
A recent change in the political landscape played an important role in expediting joint Korea-China production and investment. That is the signing of the Agreement between the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of Korea Concerning the Co-Production of Films. The treaty sparked a boom in joint Korea-China production. The government takes the lead in film industry policies unlike Korea. Chinese filmmakers and film productions generally regard such an agreement as the government’s suggestion of the future direction of the Chinese film industry. This agreement is expected to put spurs to joint Korea-China production and investment.” But most of all, this agreement makes Korean films produced with Chinese investment from China’s screen quota system. Thus, such Korean films can play freely in China like Chinese films, which is very appealing to Chinese investors.
As if to prove this, big shots in the Chinese private and public sectors have been moving towards the Korean film industry at a high speed since the signing of the agreement. In addition to the above-mentioned investment, China Media Capital (CMC), a Chinese national fund, decided to invest 80 billion won in Korean cinema. Government-owned China Development Bank is the largest shareholder of the fund. China’s Alibaba, the world’s largest e-commerce company also decided to invest 100 billion won in Korean films and TV shows after the signing of the agreement. This sudden change is making people voice concerns about the Chinese money fever. “Chinese investors may steal accumulated technology from Korean filmmakers,” some media companies said, citing a case involving China’s Shanghai Motors.“Unlike automobiles, films do not have technical manuals. As they are cultural contents, Korean filmmakers are advised to give and take something from the Chinese market in order to realize win-win growth with Chinese partners,” director KIM emphasized. “Chinese people are more open than we in learning and accepting something worth learning.” In addition, at the same time, they are such business-minded people. It does not click for Korean filmmakers to make money by selling technology and human resources. Neither do crude projects. The nature of Chinese investors is that they leave Korean partners with nothing to regret when they judge that it is hard to work with them and to make money with them.
At present, a huge amount of Chinese money is flowing into the Korean film industry and countless contracts are being signed. Contract signing has been made easier than ever. Now, Korean filmmakers ought to muse over the end of their contracts, that is, the results of joint Korea-China production.
