Seminar

Chinese Film & Television Market
Ms. ZHENG Kainan
CEO and Chief Producer, Vanke Film & Television Co.
April 13, 2003

Educated as an actress and film director in China's Central Academy of Drama, Ms. Zheng Kainan experienced impressive transition from an artist to a professional manager, during her nearly 2 decades of both successes and failures in the evolving Chinese Film & Television Market.

Born in an intellectual family, Ms. Zheng originally designed her own career as pure playwright and film director after her graduation from CCAD in 1980s. However, open-up of Chinese society made her immediately realize the importance of investment for her film. She turned to several private companies, and eventually she convinced Mr. Wang Shi, then CEO of Vanke Company, to cooperate with her on her films. Soon she became CEO of Vanke Film & Television Co.

Initial great success on films like "Pass the new year" and "For fun" brought enormous fame and confidence both to her and Vanke. She then invested heavily on Film "Warrior Lanlin", in the hope of success in overseas film markets. It turned out to be a huge shock to her: the over artistic style of the film did not won much audience, and the big debt resulted from the film became a burden for the company, which struggled with hardship for several years.

Finally, Ms. Zheng realized the difficulty of Chinese film market is due to the long-lasting Chinese culture, which is completely different from American's. Such kind of culture prefers TV series, which is a modern version of classical Chinese novel made of chapters. She then changed her focus to TV series, and enjoyed continuous reward from this prosperous market: "How Stele Refined", which was adapted from the famous soviet novel, arose heroic nostalgia among ordinary Chinese people; "Nothing in the Mirror", a love story of two sisters, attracted a lot of audience in Mainland China, Hongkong and even Singapore. Ms. Zheng was honored among "Top 10 Producer" in China.

Ms. Zheng is also a nice speaker, she explained the interesing detailed mechanism of current film and TV market, as well as the art analysis for some of her most famous films and some story behind the films. Audience also enjoyed cuts from her representative films after the seminar.