In today's Daily News wrap-up (July 31), Dennis linked an article that probably won't surprise anyone. Hong Kong's Mei Ah Entertainment went from profits last year, to huge losses this year.
http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/6596/53/
A key paragraph in that piece:
Although Mei Ah is an investor in "Red Cliff" and recent "Empress and the Warriors" it described the film market for Hong Kong movies as "relatively stagnant." Piracy is eating into its video business. "Following the increasing popularity of copyright infringement behavior the business of sale and distribution of video discs has become difficult, it said.
We all know the film industry is "relatively" stagnant, though still capable of producing worthy films (obviously, I'll continue to argue that it's anything but creatively stagnant), and might remain that way for some time, a point currently under discussion in the "scrounge" thread.
And yet, the audience for new and old Hong Kong cinema has never been bigger thanks to piracy. A relevant (slightlly edited) Mike T quote from the other thread:
Mike Thomason wrote:Then, just as things were starting to recover, video piracy surged . . .If anyone's ever watched the interviews on the DVD of Gordon Chan's A1, Chan himself stated that, at that time, "HK movies have a bigger audience than ever -- they just aren't paying to watch the films anymore" and that's one of the most prescient statements I've ever heard made of industry. Look at You Tube, bit torrents etc etc -- there's maybe thousands of people or more that wouldn't even dream of paying to see a HK movie or importing a VCD/DVD like most of us here because they can just rip it off the 'net for free!
It's clear people want to see this stuff, and don't really want to pay. But that's true of film and TV media from every corner of the globe, and yet dozens of legitimate online downloading portals are growing by the day, and they're making a mint. Here in North America, many, many major service providers are providing film downloads at increasingly favourable prices, and many more sites have popped up to offer downloading of stuff the majors might not bother with, including Hong Kong cinema. Both major phone companies here in Canada recently launched movie rental/purchase downloading services, and even though I think their "buy it" prices are a bit high for new releases (especially with no extra features), I've no doubt that this method of "getting" movies will become the norm over the next few years. And any companies that continue to stick solely by DVDs and Blu-Rays without supplementing with online availability of their back catalogues are going to suffer. Particularly Hong Kong companies, just like Mei Ah. Get the stuff digitized and get it out there. Make it better than what YouTube and the bittorents can offer. It wouldn't be hard. And it would probably be cheaper, since only one file need be created to sit on each provider's server, rather than tens of thousands of DVDs, and all their attendant packaging, that might not sell enough to recoup replicaton costs anymore.
I think there could be a happy medium, though it probably won't be easy to achieve since the entire HK industry seems to have done little technologically to thwart the piracy epidemic from the get-go. Hong Kong distributors, particularly the ones who handle these massive back catalogues, are missing an still-early opportunity to make more of their titles available to download sites that charge for the service, even in the face of much of it being available for free from other portals in comparitively compromised versions.
Let's face it, in the coming age of downloading, there will be those who don't mind paying a reasonable (and preferably low and consistent) fee for quality. Hong Kong distribs seem to be throwing their hands up in the air as though it was too late to counter the fact that many of their films are broken into ten-minute blocks on YouTube, or available via various other streaming sites and bittorrents. Even though most illegal online versions of the films are nearly always sourced from DVDs and VCDs, thanks to the rather brilliant decision of Hong Kong distribs to forego any kind of copy protection (at the very least), the compression issues and viewing sizes are are often unbearable. In any event, there will still be a sizeable group of people in the coming years (including many of us here, no doubt) who want their downloads to look reasonably presentable on their televisions, not their computers, and who won't mind paying a fair price. Legit, copy-protected versions of these films would not discourage piracy, obviously, but it would provide a level of quality that streaming and bittorrents often do not, and the people that subsequently buy those quality versions will in turn generate income, any income, on both new and catalogue product. Plus, even at the $2 (to rent) to $5 (to own) range that appears to be the norm right now for older titles, that at least puts more money in the pockets of distributors and hopefully creators than the current models: DVD sales that are virtually dead; and rampant piracy on DVD-Rs--a product very much tied to the impending demise of the DVD--in Chinatowns around the globe that sees virtually nothing paid back to the creative talent while their films are being viewed by a record number of people. They might as well get something out of the deal. Making more of their catalogues available will probably increase the number of international viewers over time, in part because of the sheer convenience of it all. No importing. No discs to protect (and horde). And so on.
To be clear, I'm not pimping downloading as some kind of saviour to a current Hong Kong industry beset by multiple woes, but it is coming whether you like it or not, and I see no reason why these companies wouldn't at least try to get even a small slice of the pie, to at least earn a little revenue on their massive back catalogues and maybe even their new releases. It's better than the big fat "nothing" that could be staring them in the face in the near future if they stick to physical media.
And it sure would be nice to have a much bigger selection of HK cinema available online than what's out there now. Fortune Star and Celestial have already released several titles to Jaman, and the quality is fine, but they seriously need do upload more, and to more outlets. Such downloads would very likely enjoy a longer shelf-life, and spin more income, than Hong Kong DVDs will over the next few months! Imagine, Hong Kong cinema on iTunes someday! Could happen.