A Chinese friend recently showed me a movie online that she thought might interest me. I don't know the name of the film and that really isn't important. One thing that did cross my mind though when watching it was that, unlike most movies viewed online in China, it was probably legal to watch this one because it wasn't a traditional feature film. Instead, its what's known as a micro-movie - a short, low-budget, film shot on digital video and usually intended primarily for online viewing.
Several days after watching this film, I came across this article about micro-movies in China. There are several interesting things about Chinese micro movies. First, as I mentioned above, they are generally made legally available online. You can find most movies online in China including American and other foreign films by using Baidu (百度; China's most popular search engine) or various video websites such as Youku (优酷; China's most popular video sharing site, similar to YouTube). However, these sites generally lead you to illegal viewing sources which basically means the copyright owner of the film has not given permission for the film to be viewed through the particular website. These websites don't pay anything to the copyright owners, even though most of them make money through online advertising. In contrast, most Chinese micro movies are made to be exhibited freely online in return for some type of advertising revenue. Many also use product placement as an income source and some are really more like slightly disguised commercials.
Another unique feature of micro movies in China is that they are (at least so far) free from government censorship. Traditional feature films to be shown in movie theaters in China are subject to approval by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT; 国家广播电影电视总局; pinyin: Guójiā Guǎngbō Diànyǐng Diànshì Zǒngjú) as well as China Film Group Corporation (中国电影集团公司; Zhōngguó diànyǐng jítuán gōngsī). Censorship not only tends to limit creativity in film-making, but can also add substantially to a film's production cost since the script has to be approved before productions begins and post-production editing must sometimes be done to get approval for theater release. Since micro movies are becoming so popular, I think its only a matter of time before the Chinese government imposes some type of regulation over them, but in the meantime, Chinese directors have a lot more creative freedom in this film-making vein.
Micro movies have become so popular in China that even the biggest Chinese movie stars are appearing in them, often for much less money than they traditionally make for film roles. For example, Fan Bingbing (范冰冰), arguably China's most currently popular actress, starred in the micro movie Unfollow, a 2-minute micro movie supposedly with a theme of independence and being yourself. I find the theme a bit ironic since, in the video Fan Bingbing dresses like a man, while she's known in China as the ideal female beauty (allegedly accomplished or at least enhanced by cosmetic surgery).
Anyway, movies don't have to be realistic and neither does advertising. Yes, as you might guess from the movie poster above, Unfollow is actually an advertisement for Nokia (诺基亚; Nuòjīyà), specifically for Nokia's new N9 smartphone. Here's the short film/ad with English subtitles.
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