A cultural wasteland . . .
Film Buff? Think you won't be able to see any decent films in China? Assume that if you can get any films they'll only be the big Hollywood releases dubbed into Chinese? Fear not...
The basics
Welcome to the wonderful world of pirate DVDs. China's full of them, despite lip service paid to intellectual copyright while WTO negotiations were ongoing.
A standard DVD here, will cost you between 6 and 12Y, depending where you are. These are known as D5's. There are also D9 editions (20-25Y), which come in a nice box rather than a plastic slip, and are more likely to have the special features the cheaper disks sometimes lack.
It's worth remember that although the digital copying means that quality of the encoding is rarely a problem, the places producing these do use cheaper disks, which scratch easily - it's worth looking at the disc before you buy it, and you can expect about 5-10% of the DVDs you buy to simply not work. Shops are usually happy to exchange these (they know the disks are low quality, and they'll probably sell it on to someone else anyway.) D9 editions are usually on better quality disks.
If you get a really low quality disk where the hole isn't even in the exact centre you risk damaging your player, but this is rare. When I get a dodgy disk I just use it as a coaster, as I can never remember which shop it came from, don't have the receipt and the journey there would cost half the price of the disk itself. Plus, I like using DVDs as coasters.
What's in store?
The biggest sellers, like anywhere, are the aforementioned big releases. These come out as soon as they hit the cinemas - the first editions on the streets will probably be filmed in the cinema on a handheld video camera, so you can expect lousy sound quality, a big hand covering up the lens whenever the guy filming thinks he might be spotted, and the woman in front's silhoutte standing up to go to the toilet as soon as the climax starts. Sometime you get lucky, and the early editions are a copy of a review or Oscar voting committee disk, in which case you get top quality apart from the scrolling 'Screening purposes only' message along the bottom of the screen every ten minutes or so. Personally I find the anti-piracy and ' phone this number to report illegal copying' messages just add to the fun, and occasionally phone the number and tell them how the latest Harrison Ford thriller ends, just to annoy them.
Regardless of the provenance of the intial copies, as soon as the movie is officially released on DVD a good quality edition will be available in cardboard boxes across China for the aforementioned pittance. What's more, the range of stuff available is astounding and DVD shopping can through up some real surprises.
One source of delight is the steady addition of TV favourites from home - when you are feeling low and want to recreate the 'evening in front of the box' feeling, just pop out and get The Simpsons, ER, Friends, Sex in the City and a BBC wildlife documentary, all for under 100Y (NB: I'm talking entire series here, not just episodes). Want something to put on while you make a cup of tea? Get the '100 best adverts' DVD. The films available range from Iranian art house flicks, to classics (I recently picked up ALL of Charlie Chaplins films), to wierd stuff you would never find on your hometown high street - want a documentary about Soviet musicals of the 1960's? No problem.
The fact that all of these are jumbled together in cardboard boxes just adds to the fun. It's not a case of wandering in off the street and asking someone if they have The Italian Job. You have to rumage through hundreds and hundreds and see what you can come up with - it's a bit like second hand book shops.
Want to know where to go?
There are three places you can go shopping.
- CD/DVD/VCD shops. The best place for actual in-a-shop DVD shopping I know about is Xinjiekou. Go to Jishuitan subway station and walk south. There are a number of shops along here selling pirate CDs, VCDs and DVDs. It's also a great place for clothes shopping, especially if you are female - infintely nicer than the Silk Market, much cheaper than shopping centres.
- Bars and Cafes. Many Sanlitun and Houhai bars will have binbags (literally) of DVDs for you to browse through. If they don't bring them over, ask for them. Sometimes the bar staff sell them as a sideline, sometimes they let someone else sell them in their bar for a percentage of takings.
- On the street. Anywhere you hear 'DVD' and see someone holding a pile of DVDs, basically. You don't need to find them, they'll find you, but don't expect them to be there if you want to return it.
But I'm in China . . .
So what's the point of going all the way to China just to watch ER? Fair point, and easily answered. There's also plenty of Chinese stuff available, from production line Hong Kong 'kick kick bang bang' movies to the latest Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige to revolutionary epics and cultural revolution opera (The Brave Soldier and the Hard-working Peasant Girl fight Spiritual Pollution is only one title I've made up). You will probably want subtitles for these, which can be a problem. HK flicks usually have subtitles even more amusing than the film - "You coward dog! I slap your face for you dismiss my sister!!" while dodgy subtitling can ruin films you really want to enjoy. I saw one edition of Michelle Yeoh's The Touch which had been dubbed into Chinese and then had the subtitles from some dodgy porn movie added in. It's worth checking in the shop to see if they have subtitles, and if they have subtitles, are the subtitles actually from that film and have they been translated by someone who actually knows what they're doing.
David Hasslehoff?
One of the other pleasures of DVD shopping in China is that there's some really weird stuff out there. One reason for this is that the makers of these DVDs aren't above a little deception - I got a copy of Spiderman which turned out to be one of the worst straight-to-video horror flicks ever made, all about a guy who actually turned into a spider. It was actually quite fun, as we went from 'wow, we've got a copy of Spiderman' to 'Hey, they've really changed the story' to 'Hang on, is this really Spiderman' to ' Damn, we're stupid' Admittedly the fact that Spiderman hadn't yet finished being made should have tipped me off.
You can also get hold of DVDs that show Osama Bin Laden, Marilyn Munroe and Godzilla on the front cover, and feature none of them. Beside this, the English on the covers can often give amusement. About 30% of DVDs sold in China claim to be Disney's The Kid at some point, and they also tend to quote reviews without realising that they're quoting really really bad reviews - ie 'Miss Spears is wooden and unlikeable' on a cover of Britney's movie Crossroads. I also have a copy of Hunt for Red October which features a picture of Harrison Ford and Sean Connery over the quote 'The Most Sexualized Relationship in Years' but I've not yet been tempted by David Hasslefoff in 'Jekel and Hyde - The Musical'.
What's a VCD then?
Besides DVDs, you can also get films on VCD, a format not much used in the west. Basically, this is one movie recorded onto two CDs. You can play them on DVD players, but the quality is not so good, and you can't turn subtitles on or off. You can't play DVDs on VCD players and unless you are the kind of person who is still waiting for Betamax to take off, get a DVD player.
Where can I get a player?
DVD players can be purchased for about 400Y upwards, and I've seen them as cheap as 360Y. I got mine from Carrefour for 600Y and it broke 5 minutes after the one-year warranty ended - but a years service for 600Y isn't bad. I've now got a 880Y Sony, and I'll let you know when it gives up the ghost.