Can Grants Save the TaiwanFilm Industry?

"I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't happy to get that NT$10 million, because without it I'd have no capital to make my film," says longtime screenwriter Hung Wei-chien of the grant that is helping him direct for the first time. "With it, at least I have some momentum." Hung, who has worked in the film industry for 20 years writing screenplays for films such as Nanking, 1937, notes that the competition for grants is fierce. Last year, 37 proposals competed for six grants worth NT$10 million apiece, meaning that each winner had to prove itself worthier than 31 competitors.

Set during the repressive era of the "White Terror," Hung's film Forgotten or Forgiven is about a policeman ordered to find communist spies. Filled with remorse for a mistake he made in his youth that cost someone his life, he attempts to atone for his sin.

At the beginning of August a crew of about 20 began shooting on location at Taipei's Sungshan domestic airport. Hung called upon the connections he had built up over two decades in the film industry to cut a deal with Hong Rong Films and Taipei Motion Picture. Each company got a share of the film in exchange for the use of camera equipment and some personnel, as well as for developing the reels of film.

Generally speaking, if you want to shoot a drama in Taiwan with only basic technical demands and are making do with only the most essential equipment, you'll need about NT$16 million. "It will cost that much just if you want to record the sound and shoot the film simultaneously," says Hung. "Using big name actors will bring it up to NT$20 million." Of course, if you win a grant for only NT$5 million, then it's going to be just that much harder to scrape together the necessary funds.

Film's biggest backer

With money so scarce, the Taiwan film industry's greatest challenge over the past decade has been making films on low budgets. In fact, even in the 1980s, when the "new wave" of Taiwanese cinema was causing such a stir, film here was already showing signs of becoming a sunset industry.

In Film in Taiwan: Politics, Economics and Aesthetics, Lu Fei-yi, an associate professor in the department of Radio and Television at National Chengchih University, explains that although romantic dramas and kungfu films reaped great profits for the industry in the 1960s, these films soon "lost their charm" as they grew shamelessly derivative. Audiences found that over-familiarity with love stories bred contempt, and kungfu films gradually fell out of favor overseas. In 1975, more than 100 action films made in Taiwan were not shown in Hong Kong or Southeast Asian theaters because of slipshod production. From this point on, the Taiwan film industry began to lose its competitiveness, enabling Hong Kong to usurp its position of dominance in Chinese film.

In 1972 Taiwan's yearly total for films slipped from triple to double digits, and as of the late 1990s, only about 30 films a year are being produced in Taiwan.

In order to raise this number, the ROC Motion Picture Development Foundation in 1988 suggested that the government establish a "Domestic Film Fund" to support the production of Taiwan films. In 1990 the Government Information Office, the agency responsible for overseeing the film industry, began offering grants, which were worth a total of NT$30 million that first year. Gradual budget increases brought that figure to NT$120 million by 1998.

In 1996 five out of the 18 films produced in Taiwan got these grants; in 1997 15 out of 29 did; and in 1998 ten out of 21 did.

A grim decade

Over the course of the last ten years, the grant money has been steadily growing, and the domestic film industry has clearly come to rely upon it. First billed merely as "supplementary assistance," the grants have now come under attack for being entirely misguided: "The more grants are given," critics of film policy complain in their periodic denouncements, "the more film companies go bankrupt." Yet what exactly is it about these grants that makes them so controversial?

Ho Ping, a director who won an NT$10 million grant, points out that no film industry anywhere in the world today can compete with the Hollywood juggernaut. He is worried that someday-perhaps a century from now or perhaps in just a few decades-Taiwan's public will lack any opportunity to become acquainted with the thought of its own people and ancestors and instead only be able to experience McDonald's, Coca-Cola, The Titanic and the like. Therefore, film production grants subsidized by taxpayers ought to have a broad and long-term outlook, aimed at encouraging cultural creativity.

"The technology in the ROC film industry is downright backward," counters Wang Ying-hsing, head of Long Shong pictures. "These grants ought to be used to purchase better equipment." Film technology here is far behind the times-even for something as basic as theater sound systems. Wang notes that whereas all mainland theaters use four-track sound systems, some theaters in Taiwan showing local films still have only one-track systems. It's as if they haven't emerged from the era way back when most films in Taiwan were still shot in Taiwanese dialect. What's more, industry people argue that although art films from Taiwan win awards at foreign film festivals, some of the directors of these films overindulge themselves in personal aesthetic visions that turn audiences off. Year after year, as the judges award grants to art films, griping of this sort can be heard.

Apart from the question of what these grants should aim to accomplish, whether directors themselves should be allowed to apply for grants has also long been a point of contention.

According to film law, only production companies can shoot movies. Yet some directors argue that they are unable to apply for a grant unless they get a production company to sponsor them, even though they often oversee every aspect of a film-from working out the plot and writing the script, to drawing up the production plans and schedules. Newcomers and directors with unique artistic visions are put at a particular disadvantage. Restricting grant applications to film production companies, they argue, is unfair to the individuals who create films.

The "borrowed license" controversy

In 1997 the film industry's practice of borrowing licenses came under scrutiny when Chen Kuo-fu, who had won a grant of NT$10 million to make The Personals, wrote an open letter of protest to Central Motion Picture. Chen noted that he and his staff did all of the preliminary work on the film, from buying the rights to the novel and hiring a screenwriter, to drawing up the production schedule and plans. When the head of production at Central asked Chen to apply for the grant under the studio's banner, Chen said, they had agreed that if Central put up money to shoot the film they would use the same "independent" model they had employed on Chen's previous film Peony Pavilion. This meant that Chen could shoot with his own crew.

The grant-application regulations state that each film production company can only submit two films for grants per year, and Central was over the limit, so they approached Spring International and Taiwan Film about "borrowing their licenses." When The Personals won the grant, the two companies then signed an agreement allowing the shooting rights to revert to China Pictures.

In preparing to shoot the film, Chen Kuo-fu hoped that Central would provide NT$9 million of its own capital in addition to the NT$10 million grant. But Central Pictures was only willing to supply an additional NT$2 million, and it demanded that Chen employ Central technicians for his crew. The conditions of the two sides were so far apart that the deal nearly fell through.

Finally, Hsu Li-kung, the former vice chairman at Central, came forward to arbitrate. The dispute was settled when Central and Zoom Hunt International each agreed to supply some additional capital and Chen and Central both gave in on some of their demands.

Some people in the industry look askance at directors applying for their own films, arguing that if a director establishes a film company only to disband it the next year when his grant application is refused, this one-film company isn't going to help the industry. Nevertheless, in order to raise the status of independent filmmakers, in 1997 a few grants became available for applications from individuals.

A line between commerce and culture?

Whenever judges are selected to sit on the grant panels, winning films announced, or application rules made or revised, the same question is argued: Is it the art or the industry that needs saving?

In 1996, in a move designed to make peace between the artists and the businessmen, the government decided to divide the grants between artistic and commercial films. In each category five grants were given for NT$10 million each.

But it turned out that the films deemed to have commercial potential fared no better at the box office than the "art" films. In 1997 The Sexy Story and two other grant-winning "commercial" films took in no more than NT$600,000 each.

Chu Yen-ping, who has won separate grants of NT$5 million and NT$10 million for Pale Sun and The Sexy Story, is regarded as one of the few directors in Taiwan whose films frequently succeed at the box office. "Commercial films have a black mark against them," he says, "and the government has never given a grant to a truly commercial film." Both of his films that won grants had experimental and innovative aspects, and he holds that films which don't take full advantage of their commercial potential "can't be counted as purely commercial films." His box office successes such as Troublemaker "wouldn't need the grants, wouldn't apply for them, and wouldn't win them if they did apply."

The grants were attempting to draw a sharp line between artistic and commercial films, "but there are too many factors that can influence the way a film turns out that can not be seen in its production plan," notes Chen Chun-jer, a senior special assistant at the Government Information Office's Department of Motion Picture Affairs. The following year, the advisory committee for the grants admitted it was a mistake to try to distinguish between the artistic and commercial and scrapped the two-track system.

Up and gone

If neither putting art before industry nor giving culture and commerce "separate but equal" billing can cure the ills of ROC film, then what's the mattter?

"The biggest problem with the domestic film industry is that no one is willing to put up money to shoot films," says Chu Yen-ping. "Everyone relies too heavily on the grants, and if they can't get grant money, they won't film."

"If people are willing to take the risks to sell guns and drugs, then why isn't the Taiwan movie industry willing to gamble a little bit?" asks Chiu Shun-ching, president of Central, which is regarded as leading the domestic industry with its theme park, theaters and studios. When conversation turns to the problem of the industry lacking money to invest, Chiu argues that the biggest problem is "a lack of professional film companies."

"Look at the history of Taiwan film companies," says Chiu. "Which companies have had both equipment and trained technical personnel? Twenty years ago there were at least three: China, Taiwan, and Central. Now two of the three no longer exist or have been reorganized. There's no stability in movie production. The directors wield all the power, and there's no way to guarantee the investors a return on their money. What's more, Western movies are just too strong. With problems at home and strong competition from abroad, potential investors can see the score all too clearly. It's no wonder they're reluctant."

Wang Ying-hsing, who invested in Nanking, 1937 and The Great Conqueror's Concubine, both of which had budgets that exceeded HK$30 million, notes that Taiwan's new directors have no need for well-known actors. As a result, big stars like Lan Ching-hsia and Wang Tzu-hsien have moved to Hong Kong.

A few years back, a critic said, "The Taiwan film industry isn't declining for lack of money. The truth is that it has money going everywhere, it's just not staying in Taiwan."

Since the end of the 1980s, Taiwan film money has been flowing into Hong Kong and mainland China. Such films as Farewell My Concubine, Raise the Red Lantern, and Ashes of Time have all been made according to the model of "Taiwan money, Hong Kong skills, and mainland locations."

Yet even Hong Kong films have seen their take at the Taiwan box office decline by half in recent years. Meanwhile, the cost of making films in Hong Kong is rising rapidly, explains Wang Ying-hsing. Comedian Chow Shing-che, for instance, now demands HK$14 million per picture. Then there is the problem of pirating, not to mention the unreachable standards set by Hollywood's newest technology and special effects.

Video market in disarray

"When making deals, businessmen naturally hope for the greatest return on the smallest investment, so you can't blame them for being reluctant to invest money," says critic Yu Hui-chen. While there is some merit to the film companies' argument that subsidies should be used to support not only the production but also the screening of films, the government has to come up with a feasible plan. It can't just find some run-down theater and continually show Taiwan-made films there, or audiences will begin to feel that there's something vaguely unseemly about watching domestic films.

Last year when the grant committee met, there was a proposal to spend NT$15 million to establish a line of theaters devoted to the showing of domestic films in Taipei, but the plan was dropped when no theaters expressed any interest.

The quality of the theaters showing domestic films is a serious problem, notes Chu. "Now only the smallest theaters with the worst sound systems show domestic films." What's more, domestic films become videos too fast, sometimes appearing in the shops while the films are still in the theaters. The government should be paying attention to the channels of distribution: "They shouldn't just be leaving it to individual conscience."

The creators of films blame the government for not maintaining order in the market, but the government departments responsible hold that they have no legal basis for interfering.

"What everybody really loves," argues Chu, "isn't domestic films but rather government grants." The GIO can't simply dole out money and then do nothing to see what becomes of it. After winning a NT$10 million grant, ethical filmmakers might shoot a film for NT$12 million. But others might shoot the film for NT$7 million and pocket the difference.

Chu once suggested that there was no need for the grants to be all the same size. If the idea is to increase the number of domestic films, then why can't grants be given after the films are shot? Different grants could be given, some to encourage commercial success, other to reward excellent creativity, and still others to support new directors. But since the fear of risking investment money must be overcome first, both the artists and the studios were opposed to Chu's idea.

No storytellers

Domestic films' unreliable record at the box office is why so few film companies are willing to actually shoot films. How much responsibility should the creative artists shoulder for this situation?

A new director who won a grant for a film in 1999 says, "It's true that there are few opportunities to shoot films. It's a pity when there's a good script and ideas but not enough money to film. But when you look at the proposals out there now, there honestly isn't much worth regretting."

"Many Taiwan movie makers seem to reject the whole notion of a clear story line with a beginning, middle and end, let alone any sense of tension between the explicit and the implicit," says the critic Wang Wei. For instance, in every scene in Hou Hsiao-hsien's Goodbye South, Goodbye, there are long boring stretches that do nothing to advance the plot. Tsai Ming-liang's The River is another example of a film that lacks plot and anything else to keep the audience's interest.

Although the creators, the businessmen and the government administrators all blame each other, their common hope is that the film industry here will recover. As a result, they hold high hopes about the government developing a clear policy about promoting film.

During the 40 years of martial law in Taiwan, the government's film policy was very conservative, and the biggest controversies involved censorship. The focus of discussion was on what could and what couldn't be shot.

From censor to benefactor

In speaking about the flight of film capital, Wang Ying-hsing, head of Long Shong Film, describes the government's policies as downright wrongheaded and lays much of the blame for the industry's decline at its feet.. Government censors demanded that 21 scenes be cut from one film in which he invested: "You can't show someone killing a policeman or robbing a bank!" they dictated. "Retired soldiers aren't that poor!" And while being very strict about local films, they were notably lax about films from the West or Hong Kong. While they let Hong Kong commercial films establish a foothold here, they only allowed Taiwan filmmakers to shoot social realist dramas. So many of these were shot that eventually no one wanted to see any more.

The government finally replaced its censorship system with a ratings system in 1994 and has ever since has been relaxing its grip over films.

In June this year a citizens' group concerned about the development of Taiwan films invited government bureaucrats, scholars and politicians to a seminar. There, Frank Chen, director of the GIO's Department of Motion Picture Affairs, explained that the government's policies about films have moved from "control" to "support" in step with changes in society as a whole. Its position now is that what it doesn't need to control, it shouldn't control. Most of the govern-ment's earlier restrictive policies have been relaxed. For instance, when the Measures Governing Domestic Films Under the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of National Mobilization for Suppression of the Communist Rebellion were finally scrapped a year after the repeal of martial law, Taiwan filmmakers could finally go to shoot on the mainland.

Yet in light of the current funk in which the Taiwan film industry finds itself, DPP Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu argues that the changes in government policy have been insufficient. She hopes that bureaucrats responsible for films will try to step back and examine every step in the process of making and distributing a film: "Otherwise, we will forever be listening to the film companies presenting their arguments and the filmmakers presenting theirs."

Awaiting solidarity

Yet Wang To, another DPP member of the Legislative Yuan, notes that the hardest bureaucrat to be is a bureaucrat of culture, because it requires a sense of mission. As for the lack of capital, he points out that the Executive Yuan has the leeway to offer more money to government departments when special budget requests are drawn up, but he's never heard of the Department the Motion Picture Affairs submitting these. Instead, year after year, the GIO-like the Council for Cultural Affairs and the Ministry of Education-writes "same as last year" in its film-related budget requests. If it were willing to work hard and diligently put together a persuasive plan, he and many other legislators concerned about culture would help to fight for funding from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics. Culture is an area in which "everyone should work together."

People say that the arguments about the future of Taiwan film are becoming more and more like typhoons-sure to come several times a year. The truth is that there aren't earthshaking steps that can be taken to resolve the problems and bring peace. If the various groups that make up the Taiwan film community can't even work together, then how can NT$100 million in grants be expected to save it?

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Tsai Ming-liang on the set of The Hole, which describes the loneliness of people living in the crowded city. The film grants have been most successful in cultivating a number of Taiwanese directors with international reputations, including Tsai, Ang Lee and Hou Hsiao-hsien. (photo by Lin Meng-shan)

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The promoters of Bad Girl Trilogy held a rally before its premiere. Their hope was that song and dance routines might entice people to see its depictions of danger-courting and rebellious Taiwanese youth.

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Forgotten or Forgiven, here being filmed at Taipei's domestic airport, was one of the few domestic films to start shooting this past summer.

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The domestic film industry is beset with serious problems that run the gamut from government policies to narrative methods to marketing and distribution channels. It's a shame when projects find backers and get filmed only then to find no theaters willing to show them. The Government Information Office wants to continue to work with the industry to realize a plan that designates certain theaters to be devoted to showing domestic films.

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The industry held a "film carnival" in the bustling West Gate area of Taipei, hoping to drum up support among youths, who comprise the movie industry's largest market.

The promoters of Bad Girl Trilogy held a rally before its premiere. Their hope was that song and dance routines might entice people to see its depictions of danger-courting and rebellious Taiwanese youth.

Forgotten or Forgiven, here being filmed at Taipei's domestic airport, was one of the few domestic films to start shooting this past summer.

The domestic film industry is beset with serious problems that run the gamut from government policies to narrative methods to marketing and distribution channels. It's a shame when projects find backers and get filmed only then to find no theaters willing to show them. The Government Information Office wants to continue to work with the industry to realize a plan that designates certain theaters to be devoted to showing domestic films.

The industry held a "film carnival" in the bustling West Gate area of Taipei, hoping to drum up support among youths, who comprise the movie industry's largest market.