Transformation of the Global Film Industry: Prospects for Asian Countries

Abstract

The current rapid development of some Asian economies and the projected economic dominance of Asia in the 21st century are reasons enough to call it “the Asian century.” But will Asia’s economic growth entail an increase in political power and cultural influence? In this article the author looks at the topic through the lens of the film industry, a field of activity with a plethora of intertwined economic, political, and cultural factors. Cinema is studied here as an industry that produces “meanings” and is coupled with the concept of “strategic narratives.” According to some statistics, Asian cinema is becoming increasingly important in terms of the size of national film markets, but for a variety of reasons the U.S. remains the world’s most important exporter of motion pictures. The position of Asian countries in world cinematography is undermined by such global institutions as award ceremonies and film festivals that are held in the U.S. and Europe and tend to favor Western filmmakers. This article emphasizes the dramatic influence of digital transformation on modern cinematography and the opportunities it opens up for Asian film producers in creating a new, global streaming services market. Finally, the paper discusses development prospects for the film industries in four Asian leaders in this field—China, Japan, South Korea, and India. Japan and South Korea are likely to increase their cooperation with the U.S. in cinematography. There are great opportunities for cooperation between the film industries of India and China, but they are heavily dependent on political relations between the two nations. China’s film industry is expected to continue to develop rapidly.

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“Popcorn Diplomacy”: American Blockbusters and World Order

“…Therefore, the American film industry has firmly dominated the global blockbuster market (Zemaityte, Coate, and Verhoeven, 2018). Also, thanks to the latest technologies, streaming services are gaining ever greater popularity in the modern world, the most successful of which are also American ones, for example, Netflix (also a member of the Motion Picture Association of America) (Paksiutov, 2021); and the content they render is also predominantly "made in the U.S." (Moore, 2020).…”

The Competitive Advantage of the Indian and Korean Film Industries: An Empirical Analysis Using Natural Language Processing Methods

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“…Due to the growing well-being of Asian countries and the demand for cultural services, there has been a significant increase in Asia's share in the global film market [5]. The four Asian leaders-China, Japan, Korea, and India-account for most box office revenues in the Asian film market, and more than 35 percent globally [5]. These Asian film leaders not only contribute to the growth of film consumption internationally, but also to the film production that can even compete with Hollywood.…”

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