William's essay

Does China need film classification?

With the rapid development of China, more and more things become integrated into the global market. It is a symbol of modern society. But, in China, we don’t have the film classification, which is replaced by film censorship system. This system had changed a lot of China’s film market;, bring lots of inconvenient to directors. Audiences are influenced by this system a lot. They can’t see the original movie in China. Most movies had been cut or change parts of plots. Audiences really feel confused about this. Compare to other countries in the world, most countries have the film classification. That means film classification had became a basic and popular system in the world. We need a revolution to change this situation. In my personal view, I think we should establish the film classification system as soon as possible. In this essay, I will introduce the film censorship system in China and talk about the advantages and disadvantages of film classification

In China, we have the film censorship system, which means film need to be checked before been showed in cinema. Some films need to cut part of plots or change some parts of the story, only after everything required had been changed, then the film can be showed to the audience. Unfortunately, some film will not allow to show in cinema because the specific plots. Others need to edit a lot of the plot or cut some of them. All these actions sometimes make the film hard to understand and divide the film to small parts. Audiences can't connect the plot together. It will make them feel very confused. In addition, directors will always think about this system before or when they are shooting the film. This gives a restriction to director. They need to change their mind to make everything right, everything are follow the rules. Even though, some directors learn to cut the film by their selves before they send the film to the state administration of radio, film and television. It sounds funny, but it's the truth. As all mentioned above, the film censorship system had changed the China's film market a lot, also change some directors a lot. Directors need freedom to shoot, audiences need to see the whole story without cutting.

As we can see, film classification had been used in lots of countries in the world. We can easily find the advantages of it. First of all, it will cancel the restrict to the director, they can shoot everything they want and don't need to consider about the rules they had to before. They can show the story originally, I think it is the most basic point of movie. Secondly, audience can see the whole story instead of the cut one . In the past, people always feel very confused about the cut movie. Actually, they can't understand the main idea that the directors wanted to show. It's a really terrible feeling when you see a cut movie and don't know what was the director talk about at all. After we had film classification, It will be very easy for audiences to understand the movie than before. They can see the whole movie without cutting or changing any plots. Further more, film classification is good for children's education. It will divide the movies in different level. Children are not allowed to see the sex and violence movie in cinema, their parents will feel happy with film classification(jialeilei,2005). They don't need to worry about their children anymore. In the end, film classification let Chinese films be brought in line with international practice and also enlarge the international market. Chinese films can enter the international market easily, More and more people can see the great films which made by Chinese directors

Because film classification is a tendency of world’s film market. I think it will appear in China finally. But, some people think there are some problems about film classification. Firsty, an analyst in china think some directors will deliberately shoot some sex & violence films to attract audiences. Because they are not really understand the meaning of film classification ,they think it means encourage them to shoot sex &violence movies(zhoubin,2009). Secondly, it will rise the cost of cinemas, because they need to pay extra money to limit the young person entered the cinema when they are not allowed to see the film. Finally, some film will lose tickets from young people who are not allowed to see it. I think that's the situation the company who made the film don't want to see.(zhoubin,2009)

Although there are some problems people think will come with the film classification. But, I don’t believe those will be problems. Begin with the children, They are not the mainstream audiences of cinemas, they are busy with study and don’t have enough time to go to the cinema. They are also not interest in some adult movies. After the film classification come in, more and more people will be attract into cinema ,and these people will recover the lost tickets of children. Turning now to directors, I think most directors in China had responsibility. They will make the different movies to different audiences. It won’t take any benefits to them if they shoot lots of movies about sex or violence. I think they will follow their own idea and create wonderful movies for audiences.

With the beginning of film classification. The boundary between adult and children will easily come out. As we all know, different people have different kinds of requirements. “zhaoxiaozhao”,a writer in china said:” Different age People have different understanding of the same plot”(zhaoxiaozhao,2007). We cut the movies in order to suit all aged people. But, it will be better if we show different types original movies to different age people. We can’t enforce the people adapt to the cut movies. We need to care more about people’s opinions, we need to care more about the development of our film industry. It won’t develop well with the film censorship system. The films beneficial to all ages can’t satisfy the requirements of different kinds of people. If we continue keeping the film censorship system, it will lead our film industry to a wrong way.

To sum up, film classification is a system which had been in operation in lots of countries in the world for many years and still working now. Although it is not a perfect system and some people have different opinions of film classification. But, nothing is perfect in the world. I believe the problems all can be solved in the future. The film classification will become more and more complete. We need change. We need a revolution of our film censorship system, which had already carried out a lot of problems not only to audiences but also to directors. Therefore, film classification must be carry out in the future.

Bibliography: Zhou bin(05,april,2009)”Analysis of film classification”

http://column.entgroup.cn/1864.shtml

Jialeilei(2005 vol.05) “hundreds schools of arts”

”Scale Instead of Scissors: The Distinction between the Movie Gradation and Examination”

http://qkzz.net/magazine/1003-9104/2005/05/245522.htm

zhaoxiaozhao(2007vol.12)”Reporters’ notes”

“China is calling the film classification”

http://www1.bookan.com.cn/helib/book_intro.aspx?listid=d524c16f-4214-4d50-bc4a-a8cc804e912f

Reference:

http://www.gotoread.com/article/?MagID=7611&wid=104089