CRI听力:What's Key to Better China-US Film Co-production

Industry observers taking part in this year's Shanghai Film Festival are suggesting a number of key issues need to be dealt with to help better establish cooperation among Chinese and US film producers.

CRI's Liu Kun has more from Shanghai.

Reporter: The red carpet of this year's Shanghai International Film Festival saw a considerable amount of film casts combining actors and actresses from both China and the U.S.

Chinese movie mogul Jackie Chan showed up with American actor John Cusack to promote the yet to be produced 2015 film, "Dragon Blade".

Popular Chinese actress Liu Yifei graced the carpet as the leading actress from China-US co-production, "Outcast". Her American opposite, Nicolas Cage, however, didn't appear.

Ye Ning, Chief Operating Officer of Wanda Media, says to cooperate with and learn from the U.S. is a process that the Chinese film industry has to go through.

"China-U.S. co-production is a stage we must experience. It's a trend and nothing will be able to stop it. China's movie industry is still in a very early stage, so we should be ready to learn from others."

Ye Ning's company has just announced co-production plans with renowned American studio, The Weinstein Company, to make the movie "Southpaw".

Joe Aguilar, head of Drama and TV Department at Oriental DreamWorks, has been dipping his toe in China-U.S. co-production since 2012. Co-founded by American company DreamWorks Animation and Shanghai Media Group, Oriental DreamWorks' ambition is to produce the 3rd installment of "Kungfu Panda".

From his own experience, Joe Aguilar says both sides could benefit from the complementary nature of the partnership.

"We are bringing certain expertise to the process. But what we don't know is what the Chinese audience want, what is the best way to tell the story. And that's what we are looking forward and has been talking to several Chinese partners about cooperating together because we feel like we need their understanding of the market and they need our understanding of professionalism and making quality movies."

Zhang Zhao, chief executive officer of Le Vision Pictures, says he considers the following factors to be crucial.

"Why can cooperating with American film companies be difficult? Because the market model hasn't been established yet. Also, intellectual property and a user system are another two things that hinder the unification of a global market."

Zhang further explains that, at the beginning stage, mutual respect and a certain degree of blind trust are needed from both American and Chinese film companies for progress to be made.