Abstract

The Chinese film industry experienced more than twenty years of reform that has brought undeniable success, however, it has been confronted by a dilemma in the context of globalization: The “coming in” of foreign films and investments is becoming increasingly convenient and profitable, whereas the “going out” of domestic films stays in a stagnant or even retrogressive situation. This issue results from an essential factor: the government’s intervention, as well as its policies. This article endeavors to study the duality of the government’s role in the film industry. First, it generally creates a favorable economic environment, which coincides with Stiglitz’s judgement about the government’s positive function in promoting industries. Marvel films provide us with an example to support this point of view. Second, the inadequacy of the incentive and protective policies denotes the opposite direction taken from the propositions of Michael Porter, who himself is strongly against the direct involvement of the government in the production process, during his demonstration of the diamond model referring to competitive advantages. This paper implies that the government’s intervention should be assessed by new paradigms, for the reason that classic theories, with focus on factor conditions, might not be applicable anymore for neither sophisticated industries, like the film industry, nor such an enormous entity as China.


Keywords

competitive advantages, domestic films, film industry, foreign films, government’s role, industrial policies

Please login first to access subscription form of article

Read Full text in PDF

Browse By

Kritika Kultura
Department of English
School of Humanities
Ateneo de Manila University

The Philippine Commission on Higher Education (CHED) declares Kritika Kultura as a CHED-recognized journal under the Journal Challenge Category of its Journal Incentive Program.

International Board of Editors

Jan Baetens
Professor
Faculty of Arts
Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven (Belgium)

Joel David
Professor of Cultural Studies
Inha University (South Korea)

Michael Denning
Professor of American Studies and English
Department of English
Yale University (US)

Faruk
Faculty of Cultural Sciences
Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia)

Regenia Gagnier
Professor of English
University of Exeter (UK)

Leela Gandhi
John Hawkes Professor of the Humanities and English
Brown University (US)

Inderpal Grewal
Professor of Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies
Professor of South Asian Studies, Ethnicity, Race and Migration Studies
Yale University (US)

Peter Horn
Professor Emeritus and Honorary Lifetime Fellow
University of Cape Town (South Africa)
Honorary Professor and Research Associate in German Studies
University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

Anette Horn
Professor of German Studies
University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

David Lloyd
Distinguished Professor of English
University of California, Riverside (US)

Bienvenido Lumbera
National Artist for Literature
Professor Emeritus
University of the Philippines

Rajeev S. Patke
Director of the Division of Humanities
Professor of Humanities
Yale NUS College (Singapore)

Vicente L. Rafael
Giovanni and Amne Costigan Endowed Professor of History
University of Washington (US)

Vaidehi Ramanathan
Department of Linguistics
University of California, Davis (US)

Temario Rivera
Professorial Lecturer
Department of Political Science
University of the Philippines

E. San Juan, Jr.
Philippines Studies Center (US)

Neferti X.M. Tadiar
Professor of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Barnard College (US)
Director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race
Columbia University (US)

Antony Tatlow
Honorary Professor of Drama
Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)