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The Founding of a Republic: Zhang Guoli, Han Sanping, Tang Guoqiang

Most Chinese cinema-goers are buzzing about one film right now: Founding of a Republic (建国大业), which opened to the public last Thursday. The fact that it offers glimpses of some of the biggest stars in Asia is tantalizing even for those not interested in the Political Consultative Conference that takes up most of the film.

The producer and director of the film is Han Sanping (韩三平), who is also the CEO of the biggest film group in China, the State-owned China Film Group (中国电影集团). Han was interviewed by Southern Weekly (南方周末), who used the film as a penetration point into the film industry in China, asking him critical questions such as whether he thought China Film Group had more advantages than privately-run groups in China, and whether they had a monopoly on the industry.

A brief section of the introduction of Han from the Southern Weekly interview is below:

Including the films that only hit cinemas for a few days, in 2008 mainland cinemas only showed 77 Chinese-language films. Out of these, ten had the same name in the credits: Han Sanping. These ten films generated almost 8 hundred million in the box office, and made up a third of Chinese-language box office that month.

Han Sanping uses "tasks well accomplished" (功德圆满) to describe the contribution he has made to Chinese cinema. Neither he nor his secretary have given us a statistic about how often "Han Sanping" has appeared in the beginning credits of a film － but they can be sure that his name has appeared in the most number of Chinese films ever.

The full interview, translated below, touches on the films that China Film Group has produced, and on the investments that Han Sanping has made, good and bad, including Crazy Stone (疯狂的石头) and Mobile (手机), to the hundred million productions such as Red Cliff (赤壁) and Hero (英雄).

In the interview Han Sanping expresses some slightly disturbingly China-centric sentiment; he has been accused of having a "patriot complex" (爱国情结), investing in the film Tian'anmen as well as Founding of a Republic.

Commentary on the Internet, however, hasn't been wholly supportive, calling the film unwatchable and mocking its title. On the Independent Review blog, Xiao Han (萧瀚) wrote: "Han Sanping is good at making things, whether it's making a film or making compliments (kiss ass)" (韩三平还是挺会拍的， 无论影片还是马屁 suggestions at translating this welcome).

It's the overwhelming statics that makes the interview interesting, as well as Han's views on creating a "dialogue" with Americans and their film industry. In it, Han also talks about how the State apparatus supports the making of movies and fostering of young directors in China.