Hollywood, Bollywood, now it’s Chinawood

CHINAWOOD – Hollywood is about to come under threat from a new mega-movie industry on the block – “Chinawood”.

The peasant farmers of the once tiny rural village in Eastern China of Hengdian are even calling it Chinawood.

A Sky UK TV report says that Chinawood – 10 times bigger than Hollywood – is where four square miles of movie sets have replaced the grazing land and paddy fields beneath the mountain range.

From the inch-perfect reconstruction of Beijing’s Forbidden City to the Waterfront in Old Canton, every corner of China’s glorious past is re-created here in stunning detail.

To the west of the town is the sprawling majesty of a Tenth Century Qin Palace. Built in just three months by 120 construction crews working round the clock.

It became the stunning set for the blockbuster Hero.

Sky UK China correspondent Peter Sharp said, “It is all down to the Imperial ambitions of a former silk salesman, Xu Wenrong.”

Looking across the endless vista of a Forbidden City of his own creation, Xu could be excused a degree of self-satisfaction.

“Foreign directors want new sets. Here at Hengdian we can build them anything, anything they want.”

And he had this warning for the movie moguls back on California’s West Coast: “Hollywood is very famous and has been around for a 100 years or so. But there are very few sets there.”

On a typical day there are 10 different crews working on sets at Hengdian and there are certainly no shortage of extras.

The local peasants and farmers have abandoned the fields for the cameras, and no one is complaining.

“It’s much easier being an extra than a farmer. It’s very difficult farming. Being an extra is like being paid for having fun,” said 65-year-old Mr Whang.

China is already the world’s third biggest producer of motion pictures, and could soon overtake the US.

And the lure of low price labour, cheap sets and a fanatical ‘can do’ approach will have Xu’s counterparts in Hollywood looking East with some concern.

The total revenue of China’s radio, TV and film industry increased 18% to 110 billion yuan (about US$14.4 billion) in 2006, said a report released by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television on Tuesday.

The number of China-made movies reached 330 in 2006, up 27 percent over the previous year. And China produced 82,300 minutes of cartoons, nearly double the 2005 volume, said the report.

Report from Sky TV UK