Kung Fu Panda, the Hollywood hit, is prompting roars of laughter and bouts of soul-searching in China, where the film world is asking why it cannot get as much smileage out of the national symbol.
Despite nationalist calls for a boycott, critics, directors, classical artists and countless bloggers have given two thumbs up to the story of a chubby panda who dreams of becoming a martial arts superhero. The film topped the box office, having taken more than $20m (£10m) since its release late last month and continues to play to packed houses in the country's tightly regulated cinema industry.
Such is its popularity a parliamentary cultural affairs committee debated why a film with so many Chinese symbols and settings could be made more successfully in Hollywood. The Xinhua news agency said the committee concluded there were too many controls and too few producers willing to take the risks of a $123m film.
"Although there is no secret ingredient to film-making success the government ought to relax its oversight," the standing committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Congress was quoted as saying. "Opening more space for Chinese artists would allow more innovation, ultimately giving China greater cultural influence abroad."
The film mixes hi-tech and star power with Chinese traditional culture, including landscape painting, architecture, classical mythology, acupuncture, modern slang and the symbolic characters of the crane, snake, monkey, praying mantis and tiger - all styles of wushu (kung fu).
The lead character, Po, is an amusingly sympathetic figure who proves himself above mockery. But Hollywood's use of a panda was criticised by the artist Zhao Bandi, who uses the animal as a motif. In his blog, Zhao called on compatriots to shun the movie because it profits from a national symbol so soon after the Sichuan earthquake. Others have called for a boycott because the DreamWorks studio is part-owned by Steven Spielberg, who quit as an adviser to the Beijing Olympic Games over China's links with Sudan.
But the criticism has been drowned by the laughter. Typically mixed feelings were expressed by Mu, a Sina.com website blogger: "They manage to mix the Chinese elements into the film so naturally we cannot criticise the story as too simple ... although the 'theft' of the Chinese symbol of the panda gives us pain, at least it makes the Chinese movie industry consider why we are always one step behind in globalisation's war of creation."
source: http://film.guardian.co.uk
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