The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television is speeding up the drafting of a movie promotion law. It is now scheduled to be completed this May.

While the legislation is welcomed, there are still many obstacles hindering the development of the film industry. One of the biggest problems is the shortage of good and varied screenplays.

Particularly in the past few years, it seems that the variety of subjects for new films has grown narrower and narrower. Filmgoers are fed a steady diet of love triangles involving urban white-collar workers, relieved only by historical dramas. Audiences are suffering from movie malnutrition, and calling for newer, tastier and more varied fare.

Campus life: In the world of books, titles like We Were All Disappointed in Love When We Graduated, Green Days and Youngsters Here are all hot sellers these days. Yet the filmmakers who are graduates of the Beijing Film Academy and Central Academy of Drama are turning a blind eye to the box office potential of these novels. Maybe their own college days were so different that they have trouble understanding the tears and laughter of students today, because all they are showing us in the way of campus frolics are characters like Green Tea's Wu Fang, a sort of Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde postgraduate. Apparently we will have to wait for the seventh or eighth generation of filmmakers, who will linger in school and record those colorful campus days with their digital recorders.

Police & crime dramas: On TV we have seen a number of successful shows in this genre. True Qualities of the Police, Black Ice, Black Hole and Cloud in the Sky, Fog on the Ground are all insightful and penetrating stories depicting social realities. On the silver screen, however, the most recent release was The Missing Gun back in 2002. Chinese filmmakers lack the ability to turn serious crime themes into entertainment. Chinese audiences are really thirsty for films like the Taxi series by famed French director Luc Besson and Michael Mann's Heat.

Horror & the supernatural: Where would the world of film be without Freddy from Nightmare on Elm Street or the vampire from Blade? But it has been many years since films dealing with horror or the supernatural were made in China. It seems that all those deliciously scary and evil spirits vanished without a trace before we could even say hello. The horror genre here is as desolate as a haunted house.

Sci-fi: Not a single genuine science fiction film has been made so far on the Chinese mainland. Cultural and ideological differences between East and West make it doubtful that we will see the fifth-generation directors, like Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, make another 2100: A Space Odyssey. Zhu Bajie ("Pigsy") from Journey to the West is an unlikely challenger for Gollum of The Lord of the Rings fame. Our only hope is that more young and adventurous filmmakers will give free rein to their imaginations in making such motion pictures.

Love & romance: Nowadays, the frequent use of ambiguous criticisms such as "a film containing many scenes in bed" has become a sort of unintended promotion for films. But most audiences walk out of the theaters disappointed, feeling that they have been fooled by the film as well as by the distributors, since neither are the films as racy as portrayed nor do they approach the quality of such classics as Betty Blue by Jean Jacques Beineix or Lucia und der Sex by Spanish director Julio Medem. In the strictest sense, movies like Zhou Yu's Train and Baober in Love cannot be categorized as romance. Meanwhile, the amount of clothing worn -- or not -- does not determine whether a film falls into this genre. These problems are likely to continue until the film rating system comes on line, and fortunately it seems that that day is drawing near.

Disasters: The reason we lack wonderful disaster films is that domestic filmmakers always give top priority to praising the selfless hero who gives his all to rescuing the world from whatever calamity has befallen it. Reflections of the frailties of human nature or examination of the value of life are usually neglected.

Animation: The most recent mainland animated film, Lotus Lantern, was released in 1999. It failed to live up to the audiences' expectations and was widely criticized as lacking depth in both plot and characterization. Never mind comparisons with such foreign-language instant classics as The Lion King (1994) and Finding Nemo (2003): even the Hong Kong-made Xiao Qian: A Chinese Ghost Story (1997) and The Butterfly Lovers: Leon and Jo (2004) made by animators from Taiwan Province are much better than Lotus Lantern, touted as an "animation blockbuster." Chinese animators need to learn a major lesson in creativity, and as quickly as possible: cartoons are not only for children.

(China.org.cn by Li Xiao, April 7, 2004)