International survey examines Chinese films' impact overseas

Poster of Jackie Chan's Dragon Blade. [Photo/Xinhua]

A survey conducted in nine countries has recently been released by the Academy for International Communications of Chinese Culture.

It showed that while Chinese kungfu movies remain popular among foreign audiences, Chinese directors and actors still lack international recognition.

2014 was a good year for the Chinese film market, with the country's total box-office takings reaching nearly 4.8 billion US dollars.

The numbers are looking pretty for domestic markets, so what about the bigger picture?

Considering the Chinese film companies have been shouting for years how they want to go overseas and compete with Hollywood, just how successful have they been? Well this silver book is looking to answer that question.

Mainly divided into five parts, the book looks at aspects such as the content of Chinese films released overseas, the effects of such films, the diversity of distribution channels and core problems facing the industry.

A recurring theme of the report is that filmmakers willing to challenge the traditional channels of production and distribution could find success on the international market.

"The focus this year is on how overseas viewers are exposed to Chinese films. What we've found is that people tend to watch Chinese films through free channels instead of going to theaters. Most of the participants watch Chinese films online. The Internet offers fertile and challenging ground for Chinese filmmakers to exploit. And also kung fu and comedy are still the most popular types of Chinese films among overseas viewers," said Huang Huilin, Director of AICCC.