[Weekly Update] Going to the Cinema in China (Patreon)

Currently every friend is telling me to immigrate to Hong Kong, so I can see them easily, while also be able to continue doing YouTube.

It's very tempting, especially the food.

CHANNEL UPDATE

In a couple of days, I'll board my flight back to Canada, and channel upload will resume within a few days, depending on how tired I am. I'll try my best to get things going.

After a lot of hard work, I still am unable to acquired the two films I want on physical media. I'm talking about the first McDull movie, and Fat Choi Spirit. There isn't a big physical media obsession in China, so DVDs and Blu-ray are very difficult to find.

I did, however, manage to watch McDull on streaming, and it is so much better (and weirder) than I ever remember. It is one of the early example of the current Hong Kong "new wave" cinema, in which films from Hong Kong become much more about local life and culture. The film has a lot of hidden commentary and a lot of heart. Definitely something I want to talk about in the future.

Finally, in the whole month I'm been in China, there are very few Chinese movies being played in theaters, and even fewer people are interested in watching them. Now you know why I don't cover that many Mainland Chinese movies.

MEDIA TALK

So I went to a few movie theaters in China, and the experience is largely the same as American Cineplex. But there are a few interesting observations.

For one thing, there are actually a lot of theater brands, way more than I can remember. Because of this, most people don't actually buys tickets from the theaters own website or apps. Instead, there are other services that curate them for you. The lack of vertical integration seem like a pretty nice thing.

But, with a market this saturated and competitive, I'm genuinely surprised so many theaters can stay afloat. I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy 3, and the theater has only about 50 seats. Including me, there were only 6 people watching the movie. And that was a weekend!

Across the Spider-Verse is even stranger. The room has only 25 seats. It might as well be a private screening room.

A lot of movies are still in 3D and sometimes only in 3D in China. While the fad has largely died in the US and Canada, 3D still has a market. Surprising, honestly, considering how many people wear glasses here in China.

Also, most theaters are on the top floor of malls, and Chinese malls are like 7 stories tall, at minimum. The process of getting up there often builds excitement. It s a weird little side effect that turns the movie going experience into an event.

Finally, for reasons beyond me, all Chinese theaters I went to uses paper tickets. Even if you bought tickets online, you still use their machine to print the paper out. It's so counter to everything else in China, where digital is king.

I can't say exactly what conclusion I can draw from these observations, but these things were what I noticed. Can you see any patterns within thrse details? And how much does cinema differ in your country? Let us know!

That's the update! I'll see you when I'm back in canada!