A touch of Seoul in Chinese films

Joint productions by Chinese and South Korean filmmakers, such as Miss Granny, is a win-win for the movie markets in both countries.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Fan Xiaoqing, a professor of cinema at the Communication University of China and an adviser to the Busan International Film Festival, calls this an ideal mode of coproduction.

"To better attract the Chinese audience, the lead scriptwriter should be Chinese," she says, while referring to the failure of last year's joint venture Mr Go, in which a baseball-playing gorilla plays the main role. The moviemakers overlooked the fact that baseball isn't a popular sport in China.

That' why even though Miss Granny is based on a ready script, CJ E&M still invited local writers to build on the original story by adding in details that cater to local audiences, according to Lee.

"But South Korean writers could be included because of their storytelling skills," Fan says.

Lee agrees that currently the South Korean movie industry is still ahead of China's in terms of scriptwriting, thanks in part to the South Korean audiences' changing taste in movies. In the past decade, the audiences there have moved on from movies that sold on star power alone to films that make a compelling storyline the attraction.

The growth of young South Korean scriptwriters is also being encouraged in that country.

A society of well-trained scriptwriters is part of the reason why South Korea today has Asia's most diverse movie market, with genres ranging from sci-fi to horror to art-house features.

In July, China's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, and the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, signed a film coproduction agreement to promote closer bilateral ties.