The world begins with Hong Kong movies

Chapter 315 Flagship Products
VCD players were definitely the most impressive consumer technology product that mainland China could boast about in the 1990s, in any normal timeline.

Don't be fooled by the numerous flaws and seemingly terrible aspects of the protagonist in various urban rebirth novels.

In fact, the emergence of VCD players in mainland China in the 1990s created an industrial cluster worth hundreds of billions or even trillions of yuan.

The key point is that the mainland still holds an absolute dominant position in this industrial cluster!
Several electronics industry giants emerged in mainland China in the 1990s through the production and sale of VCD players.

Although most of these electronics companies disappeared without a trace in later generations.

At the time, they were the only company that could compete with liquor companies.

Of course, it is an indisputable fact that many core technologies of VCD players are in the hands of foreigners.

However, at least most of the benefits brought by the VCD player industry cluster have gone to the mainland.

The numerous physical factories, hundreds of thousands of workers, and upstream and downstream supply chains likely provide over a million jobs.

VCD players are the only consumer technology product in mainland China where the mainland has gained a dominant position, which is quite remarkable.

As for the upgraded versions of DVDs and Blu-ray discs, they didn't make much of a splash in the face of the internet revolution.

In many urban rebirth novels that Wu Feng had read in his previous life, there were many stories that either joked about or looked down on VCD players.

He doesn't care about any of that!
In any case, the importance of a VCD player to me far outweighs the popularity of games developed by game companies.

It can be said that the VCD player can be used as a large platform to easily do many things that Wu Feng wanted to do but could not or even could not do due to environmental limitations, without attracting much attention.

As for later generations, some people attribute the decline of Hong Kong cinema and the most miserable decade for mainland cinema entirely to the emergence of VCD players and pirated discs, but that's a matter of opinion.

In any case, Wu Feng doesn't really agree with this view.

Hong Kong films follow the same formula, repeating the same patterns over the past decade or so, with the same old movie genres being made.

The glory days of the 1980s, besides the large influx of talent into the Hong Kong film industry, also included the fact that ordinary people in Hong Kong had few channels to access classic and high-quality films from the United States.

In fact, in the later era of the internet information explosion, the past glory of Hong Kong films was thoroughly exposed.

Many excellent films are simply imitations of American films.

At that time, ordinary viewers did not have much experience in watching movies and could not see the intricacies involved.

Of course, the filmmakers in Hong Kong in the 1980s were quite capable. They were able to successfully localize high-quality American films in Hong Kong, which was also a remarkable achievement.

Unlike later mainland filmmakers, who often adapted foreign masterpieces into completely different local films.

In fact, there is a very important reason why Hong Kong films declined in the 1990s, which everyone avoids talking about.

That means that money from Taiwan is no longer flowing into the Hong Kong film industry in large quantities, while the United States has launched a global campaign to conquer the film industry.

The 1990s were the golden age of American film industrialization. They had both scripts and technology. What could Hong Kong's small workshops do to compete?
In fact, by 2000, the box office figures for the top-grossing local films in Hong Kong were not bad. Blaming the entire blame on pirated DVDs seems a bit conspiratorial.

As for the mainland film market, it was a complete mess in the 1990s.

Local film companies operate independently, and the problem of underreporting box office revenue is quite serious.

Putting aside other things, the comedy films directed and starring Chen Xiaoer, the first generation of comedy king, were sold out every time, but the box office was dismal and they couldn't even recoup their costs. Who would dare to invest their life savings in movies?

In terms of comedic talent, are Feng Xiaogang and Chen Xiaoer comparable?

In 1998, the movie "Big Ship" raked in 360 million yuan at the box office in mainland China. Who would dare say that mainland residents don't like watching movies?
By the late 1990s, Feng Xiaogang was the sole pillar of the mainland commercial film industry, and at one point, art films even dominated, which seemed utterly absurd.

How many people in mainland China are willing to watch art films?
The famous film "Farewell My Concubine" only grossed less than 40 million yuan in mainland China. Surely it couldn't have been due to pirated DVDs?

Among the four generations of directors, Mr. Xie is adept at both commercial and art films. Although his film "The Opium War" failed to break even, it still grossed over 70 million yuan at the mainland box office.

In fact, the impact of pirated DVDs is on the box office performance of Hong Kong films in mainland China.

Unfortunately, at that time, very few Hong Kong films were able to be screened in mainland China, so their impact was negligible.

Besides, Wu Feng found the issue of pirated DVDs rather baffling and didn't know how it had developed.

In his later life, Wu Feng had read many urban rebirth novels!

There's one thing he doesn't understand: why the hell do they sell genuine cultural products for such high prices?
At the height of the cassette tape craze, a genuine cassette tape could sell for a staggering ten yuan, which was absolutely insane.

That was in the early 1980s, when the average monthly wage for workers in Beijing was less than 100 yuan, yet a single song cassette tape dared to be sold for such a high price!
The cost of a single song cassette tape is only a few cents.

State-owned audio-visual companies that release genuine song tapes do not pay any copyright fees to singers and songwriters; they simply issue free tickets with no cost to the artists.

But when it comes to releasing official DVDs, it's the same old story.

A movie is usually sold on two discs, A and B. The price of a genuine disc is around ten yuan, which was quite high in mainland China in the 1990s.

A pirated DVD usually costs no more than five yuan!

Unless you're extremely wealthy and don't care about the price difference between genuine and pirated discs, how could genuine discs possibly outsell pirated discs?
Whether it's a genuine or pirated disc, the cost is only a few cents.

Anyway, Wu Feng felt that this pricing of cultural products was deliberately designed to give up the pirated DVD market.

Damn it, according to his idea, as long as the price of genuine discs is reduced to a few cents higher than that of pirated discs, he can basically block the survival space of most pirated discs.

Besides, if it's not a truly popular movie, who the hell would bother with large-scale piracy? Don't they even want to make money?
Therefore, in Wu Feng's view, eliminating disc piracy is not difficult; the key is for distributors to be willing to spend money!
"Wu Sheng, the representatives from those factories you contacted through the military region have all come over. Would you like to meet them?"

The next day, a representative from the Yangcheng Military Region came and brought Wu Feng some good news.

(End of this chapter)