天價片酬 (tiānjià piànchóu):Sky-high remuneration

Nie Chenxi, head of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, recently said the authorities have expedited the process of revising the ordinance of movie regulation and are exploring effective measures to curb sky-high remunerations for top actors.

This is not the first time the authorities have talked about strengthening legislation to curb sky-high remunerations for actors. Even during the review of the Movie Industry Promotion Law, members of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, had discussed ways to regulate the payments for top actors. But since the legislators were in favor of allowing the market to decide how much an actor should be paid and didn't want to be seen as interfering in the market, they did not make the issue part of the law.

The law was approved on Nov 7, 2016. It will take effect on March 1 this year. But without reasonable pricing standards, some Chinese actors' have received astronomical amounts of money in recent years for their roles in movies even as the overall quality of Chinese films has remained far from satisfactory.

According to sources in the movie industry, actors' remunerations account for 20 to 30 percent of a movie's production cost in Japan, the Republic of Korea and the United States; in China, however, they account for more than 50 percent. And according to media reports, the remuneration for two leading actors in a TV series is as high as 150 million yuan ($21.68 million).

The sky-high remunerations for actors force producers to spend less money on other aspects of a movie, which seriously affects the quality of Chinese productions. No wonder most observers believe the sky-high remunerations for actors undermine the healthy development of China's movie industry.