Bloody Shadows Over China : After the uprising and crackdown, Beijing insists it’s business as usual with U.S. entertainment firms

Several weeks before the June massacre of pro-democracy students in China, the American producers of the $10-million “Shadow of China”--starring John Lone (the Emperor in the Oscar-winning film “The Last Emperor”) and Vivian Wu (who played the second wife in “Emperor”)--asked the Chinese government for permission to film in a village outside Beijing.

The sequence the producers wanted to shoot was of a young revolutionary escaping from China, an eerie coincidence in light of subsequent real-life events.

The movie, a fictional story, has Lone as a young revolutionary fleeing China at the end of 1976 and becoming a wealthy capitalist in Hong Kong. He is involved in corrupt activities until he makes an idealistic decision to return to China in 1989 as the country becomes more open to democratic influences.

Ironically, the independent production was in Hong Kong the night of June 3-4, filming the Lone character’s impassioned speech about wanting to return to China. “Someone came into the room and said, ‘They’re killing students in Beijing,’ ” recalls the film’s American producer, Elliott Lewitt.

A few weeks later, the Chinese government granted permission for the production to film in China, but the indignant cast and crew voted not to go. “They felt that shooting there would be part of China’s ‘business as usual’ pose, that it would be a betrayal of those who had died,” said Elliott. Instead, the production shot the escape-from-China scene in Japan and Hong Kong.

Elliott wasn’t surprised that Chinese authorities would permit filming an uncomplimentary scene about China on home territory. American film and television producers and distributors who have recently dealt with China say that entertainment bureaucrats in the People’s Republic are going out of their way to maintain active show-business relations with the United States.

It’s a curious situation. On one hand, China’s leaders have blamed “bourgeois liberalization” and Western influences for helping to foment the pro-democracy movement in China. On the other, the People’s Republic is clearly urging the United States to keep that bourgeois entertainment coming.

In response to faxed questions to the government-run China Film in Beijing, the agency’s Xiaolin Chen responded that “June 4th will not affect film production in China and the Sino-U.S. Film exchange will not be stopped and/or changed but will continue.”

In the People’s Republic hierarchy, China Film--which imports, exports, distributes and co-produces feature films--falls under the Film Bureau, a part of China’s Ministry of Radio, Film and Television.

“There have been no changes in the leadership of the Film Bureau, China Film, film studios and other film organizations,” Chen said. “No actors or middle level cultural officials have been arrested (as was reported in some publications) . . . Mr. Zhong Guo, deputy head of the foreign affairs department in the Film Bureau, told me that policies in the Chinese film industry have not been changed . . . The door is always open to people who are interested in making films in China.”

The U.S. show biz presence in China was at a high point when the Beijing bloodbath occurred.

Since 1985, when China Film began licensing and distributing U.S. movies on a regular basis, Chinese audiences have flocked to American movies ranging from relatively new hits such as “Superman” and “First Blood” (the first Rambo movie) to oldies like “Spartacus” and “Roman Holiday.” The oldies drew audiences of more than 20 million each, according to Chen.

Episodes of U.S. television series such as “Hunter” and “Falcon Crest” have drawn Chinese audiences as high as 400 million, according to Michael Salomon, president of Warner Brothers Television International, which handles Lorimar, Warners and Telepictures programs overseas.

Salomon has received “several faxes from Shanghai TV saying they are very anxious to keep the programs on the air and to keep doing business with us,” he said. “As far as I have learned, there was no order given by the government to take Western programs off the air. In fact, I was told that they want to encourage Western programming on the air because they want to show the Western world that really very little has changed in the country.”

Producer Mike Wise, who has an agreement with Tri-Star Pictures and Shanghai Studios to co-produce a movie called “Judge Dee” next year, said he has heard from a contact at Shanghai Studios “saying there’s no problem, and not to worry about anything. It’s business as usual.”

Despite the reassurances from China, some U.S. entertainment industry professionals are wary of the climate there. On Sept. 5, Chinese media reported that Minister of Culture Wang Meng, who was a force behind more liberal policies in literature and the arts, has been fired and replaced with a hard-liner, He Jingzhi.

“On the surface, it’s like absolutely nothing has changed (in the Chinese film industry),” said Canadian producer Nicholas Clermont, who has worked closely with Chinese film officials for several years as the producer of the upcoming “Bethune,” a Chinese/French/Canadian co-production about a Canadian physician who gave assistance to Mao Zedong and other Chinese revolutionaries during their struggle for power.

But, Clermont cautioned, “Nobody really knows how much things have changed and will change.”

“My optimism (about China) paid off until the students were slaughtered,” said Warner’s Salomon. In the massacre’s aftermath, he said, “It’s been very, very difficult to renew some (U.S. and Western) advertisers that we had.”

The advertisers, who had sponsored “Hunter” and “Falcon Crest” on Chinese TV for the past two years, fear that the consumer market for such Western products as film, toothpaste and watches may “be stagnated” in China for the next couple of years, according to Salomon.

“It’s OK for the stations to telecast our programs, but how many sponsors want to continue buying spots? My guess is not very many,” he said. (Salomon declined to name the worried sponsors, explaining, “It may be embarrassing for them and I don’t want to jeopardize something that has taken us two years to build up.”)

Salomon said he isn’t sure whether “Hunter” and “Falcon Crest” are airing now because, following the massacre, he shut down the Hong Kong office that handled the series in China, though he hasn’t given up on the People’s Republic yet. He’s hired a woman born and raised in Shanghai to check out the situation for Warners, and, he said, “I intend to go to Shanghai (in October) to see for myself what exactly is going on.”

Told of the moral stance taken by the “Shadow of China” group, he said, “You could take that attitude, but at the same time, we are in a business, you have to run a business. You have to ask yourself, ‘Is it important to keep Western programming on the air?’ ”

Lei Geye, a People’s Republic citizen and employee who is acquisitions director of China Film’s Los Angeles-based U.S. office, said she doesn’t think China will stop importing U.S. films, but added that censorship may be more strict now, at least concerning violence.

Even before the massacre, however, Chinese officials occasionally changed their mind about releasing certain U.S. films in theaters. In 1986, the Rambo movie “First Blood” was showing to packed audiences in China when officials--irritated by the movie’s violence--swiftly jerked the film from theaters.

One source close to China’s entertainment bureaucrats, who asked not to be identified, predicts that “Censorship will be stricter for those (film and video distributors) near Beijing and Shanghai, but for other provinces, it won’t be that strict. Beijing and Shanghai will be very, very strict because they are near the government, and you know all the things that happened there.” (Following the slaughter in Beijing, there were were also arrests and executions in Shanghai.)

For Mitsuo Yanagimachi, the Japanese director of “Shadow of China,” the decision not to shoot in China was “wrenching” for aesthetic reasons, according to the film’s publicist. But the producers of the production, which was financed by a consortium of Japanese investors, including Nippon Herald and Fuji-TV, were swayed by the multi-national cast and crew’s group vote not to go.

Said the film’s American script supervisor, Susan Malerstein, “I’ve been raised to believe that you must take a stand when it comes to political and ethical beliefs. . . . I could not go to China and in any way by my presence show support for the government’s heinous actions against the Beijing students.”

Meanwhile, “business as usual” is precisely the attitude taken by most U.S. film industry people with Chinese dealings. China Film has invited several U.S. film companies to participate in a “Film Executives Seminar” in November, joining hoped-for speakers from French companies and the U.S.S.R.’s Sovexportfilm, the invitation says. Faxed from Beijing July 11, five weeks after the massacre, the invitation states that the seminar’s purpose is “promoting cooperation and film exchanges.”

“I expect we’ll attend, “ said Bill Shields, chairman of the American Film Market. “Most of our members (who had pacts with China) are still doing business and I am myself.”

Shields is president and CEO of New World International, which he said has sold about $500,000 worth of entertainment to the Chinese since 1987.

According to Murray Schultz, a New World vice president, the New World sales to China include about 75 videos, such as the movie “Da,” and 12 TV series, among them “Crime Story.” Approximately 20 of the titles have been licensed to China since June 4. “I haven’t noticed any pulling back (on the part of buyers there),” Schultz said.

MCA, Paramount and MGM/UA are continuing to release movies theatrically in China through UIP, an overseas distribution company jointly owned by the three studios. UIP sales vice president Andrew Cripps, speaking by phone from Hong Kong, said the American companies are contractually obligated to continue their relationships.

“I don’t want this to sound like we’re not considerate of the (student deaths) but we are in a position where we have a legally binding contract,” Cripps said.

The contract, which began in 1987, calls for 21 films to be released through next year. It consists mainly of old movies (“Love Story,” “Coma,” “Network,”) but even the dated “Bathing Beauty,” a 1939 Esther Williams film, “has been incredibly successful,” Cripps said. “Our intention is certainly to talk to China Film about renewing the contract once things settle down and everything gets back to normal.”

Grace Ip, a Los Angeles-based independent movie and video sales agent who handles U.S. products being sold to China, has been busy as ever since the massacre, she said. Ip is hired as an intermediary by U.S. distributors such as ITC Entertainment Group because she is of Chinese origin and speaks and writes Mandarin and Cantonese.

While she was on the phone with a reporter, she received a call from a video dealer in Henan Province who said, Ip recounted, “We need more cassettes, we need more titles, could you just send me whatever you have.”

The dealer recently sold 2,400 copies of the Duke of Windsor-Wallis Simpson story, “The Woman He Loved,” she said. “That (sales figure) is very good.” (Starring Jane Seymour, the video aired here as a mini-series.)

Personal VCR ownership is rare in China, but videos are viewed in communal situations that amount to mini-theaters, attracting average audiences of 50 to 200 people.

“Two years ago, China Film was the only buyer in China for videos,” Ip said. “Now there are about 100 buyers (dealers in provinces throughout China).” Ip estimates that each dealer buys from five to 50 videos a year.

Since June 4, Ip also has sold several videos and two 1988 movies to China Film for theatrical release: “Without a Clue,” a satirical takeoff on the Sherlock Holmes legend, starring Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley, and “Stealing Heaven,” starring Derek DeLint and Kim Thompson in a fictional tale about the 12th-Century romance of philosopher-monk Abelard and nun Heloise.

“All the contracts are still operating as usual and we are getting through censorship,” Ip said. “But for the future, who knows?”