Hengdian - Chinawood

我是路人甲I’m Somebody

Introduction

There is a town called Hengdian, which is located at the middle of China. With the investment from the Hengdian Group, there has a largest film studio in the world. It attracts different production team from all over the world. As a result, people started to call Hengdian as the “Chinawood”. Until now, there have been already taken around 1500 movies.

No doubt that, there have a market demand on “walk-on” in Hengdian which means that the character is in a small role with no dialogue. In order to become a real actor, many Chinese who have the dream on this come to Chinawood for find a job, including the main charter, Wan. With the same goal, Wan ignore the advice from his parents and get on the bus to Hengdian. Although Wan become the walk-on, low salary and long working hours makes Wan feels very tired. He fight for his dream and hope that one day will become a real actor.

This movie is taken from the real story and the real actor since the leading character are all walk-on and directed by Derek Yee Tung-sing.

Reflection

Through this film, it can fount that different traditional culture of China and characteristics of Chinese.

1. Traditional Culture

At the beginning, Wan’s parents do not support Wan’s decision, to being an actor and go to Hengdian. The reason that they object this because they think that Wan should stay at home and inherit the family business. This is based on the traditional culture, being satisfied. From the view point of Wan’s parents, they think that their child should follow father’s work and try not to make any changes. This is because change is always involve risk. For the other meaning, no change, no risk. As a result of the culture, their parents are trying very hardly to stop their child.

1. QuanXi

Although walk-on is a low salary job, the tier one artist can earn the billions of dollars. It is the dream for actors and also apply on these walk-on. To fight for their goal, they want to have more shots of camera in order to increase exposure. They think that it is the chance to get aware from the directors. Therefore, in order to doing this, they need to build up the QuanXi with the assistant director. For example, some walk-on in the movie would buy a meal for the assistant director. Therefore, the assistant director would plan a more important charter for these walk-on.

What keeps these walk-on to stay in Hengdian

1. Dream

They think that Hengdian is the largest movie production base in the world. There must have many great opportunities for them to achieve their goal. Moreover, as the China want to promote their soft power. Movie production must be a key industry in the future. If they can hold on, they think that they will have a great future.

1. No money

There have some workers that give up their goal. However, they still work on Hengdian due to lack of money. Therefore, they stay at Hengdian and hope that they can have the enough money to back to the home. The reason that they cannot earn enough money is because of:  

• Low job opportunities

• Although there have many movie production are work on here, this do not mean that the whole year is in the peak. Mostly, only the spring is would be the peak season. For the others time, the weather in Hengdian is not really suitable for the movie production. As a result, walk-on need to work hard at spring and may need to work for other jobs during other season.

• Low salary

• It is a hard job for act as the walk-on in China. With the long working hour, they can just earn RMB40 per day. Moreover, they do not have a stable job. For the first job of Wan’, he needs to wait outside of the union at 4 a.m. Then, the assistant directors will come and select the people that they think suitable. For the one that did not chose, that means they do not have a job on that day. Therefore, walk-on cannot provide the stable life for the workers.

1. Low cost of living

Some people would treat Hengdian as their home because of its living. Although Hengdian is the largest film studio, it does not mean that it belong to a high tier cities. Hengdian belongs Dongyang City which is a tier- 4 city. Therefore, the cost of living would be low. More than that, Hengdian is well-developed on the facilities. Compare with their home cities, Hengdian may be a good choice to live.

1. Face

For the actress, Wong. She is the one who does not want to lose her face. Therefore, even her brother call her to back home, Wong still refuse that because she think that she had promised to her family to do a great actress. However, she stay almost for 2 years but still gain nothing. It reflects that another traditional culture in China, save the faces. Chinese never show the weakness to the others. They love to act like strong even though they are not.