Pirated movies vanished all of a sudden from video stores before the Olympic Games. Life became more suffering and dull, until 2 days ago, I found they are now all coming back. Life is full of hope again. You may say this is wrong, I should not buy pirated movies. But please hear me out first.
1. I’m just not as rich.
It costs 70 RMB to watch a film in a theater. Annual per capita disposable income in Beijing is 22,000 RMB in 2007. That is only 183.3 RMB per month. Not enough to watch 3 films if you don’t have any other expenses. I make 3,800 RMB per month (well, when I was being employed) after tax and other deductions. I pay 2,000 RMB for rent. The rest is just enough to cover other expenses like transportation, clothing, dinning, and sometimes money for the homeless. I must have some kind of special reason to go to a theater, such as my birthday.
2. I’m a big fan.
Like most of the young generation, I cannot live without a regular supply of movies. It seems impossible for me to become a filmmaker myself now, then I have more right to watch more I guess. Recreation is dull and expensive for most young people in Beijing, especially when they are stuck with overtimes. Watching movies at the comfort of home before going to bed is the most common recreation.
3. I’m no fan of the government’s censorship system.
One of the most important factors that constraint local filmmakers’ creativity is the out-dated, extremely stupid censorship. Not all major blockbusters can be officially imported, not to mention the ones that are not so mainstream. They only way of seeing the world cine is to buy pirates.
4. I’m also not a fan of the legal copies.
Surprising you may find, the legal film discs have lower definition then the pirated ones. And it is funny that the anti-piracy promo they force you to watch before the movie in the legal copies claim exactly the opposite. Instead of trailers and special features in the pirated copies, they force you to watch commercials in the legal ones. You cannot skip them! And, they are 2, if not 3 times more expensive.
5. It doesn’t hurt.
Most pirated movies are the overseas ones that cannot be imported legally anyway. Since there’s no legal way for them to make a dime in mainland China, why not make some buzz through pirates. Actually a lot of local “underground” filmmakers distribute their films through illegal channels. They themselves sell the films to pirate manufacturers. This way they get even more return than theatrical release (bear in mind the cost of marketing, it’s very often more than the production budget) and their works get more audience. Let alone the possibility for the director himself or herself to become really popular.
Imagine bagging yourself 10 high definition, trailer and special feature jammed movies for only 70 RMB (10 dollars). Would you do that if you were me?
Hahaha…The movie director will kill you when they read this article,hehehe. In Indonesia, you can find so much pirated stuffs (inc.movie). Sometimes, I buy it, Sometimes, I go to theater when my friends have a kind heart to pay my ticket (hahaha) and sometimes, I just wait the movie to be played in television,hahahaha….
Wow, movie tickets are very expensive in China compared to income. Your movie ticket is equal to 3.5% of your rent. My rent is very low by American standards but 3.5% of my rent would be $23.17. I can’t imagine paying that for a ticket! haha, even on my birthday!
So how much does a pirated movie cost? Here in America you can buy a legal dvd of a popular movie for about $10-$20 - the same cost as one or two movie tickets.
The whole piracy issue is very complicated in China, huh. Thanks for giving your point of view.
haha… we also wait for television releases but it takes like forever to see a blockbuster, and most of them are not so perfectly dubbed, which makes it awkward…
Thanks for your reply, Suzy.
It costs around $1 for a pirated dvd here, lower if you buy in bulk. The legal ones cost around $2 to $4, but really limited choices and bad quality. We rely on pirated movies to stay up to date with the world 
I’m very curious about what kind of “legal” copies you are able to get your hands on. It makes no sense to say that a copy of an original can be of better quality.
While I agree that it is wrong for the movie producers to force you to watch commercials on a movie that you purchased, I doubt they dumb down the DVD quality.
Do you mind expounding upon how you came to this conclusion?
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Hi Josh, thanks for your comment and the question, the conclusion comes from real life experiences :). Whenever there is a high quality domestic made movie, we go to the cinema or buy legal copies as a form of support, for example, we purchased a legal copy of last year’s hit Crazy Stone after watching it in theater.
The legal copy we bought is jammed with unskippable commercials and no extra features. But a pirated copy we watched at a friend’s place comes with all the behind the scenes stories and trailers of similar movies. It has a definition of D9, the legal one is only D5. The packaging of the legal copies is cheap and also jammed with ads, whereas the pirated comes with detailed information of the film, and they give you a packaging set that you can later put the disk into a plastic box and fix the packaging onto the box. Sometimes they also come with small posters you can put on your wall.
The overall quality of pirated disks is higher than the legal ones. The manufacturers of pirated copies just put more thought into it. And, consider the price difference, most would go for pirated copies.
Have you visited video stores in Beijing? The most famous one is at Xinjiekou, you’ll know what I mean once you are there.
Thanks for the answer. DVD shops out here in Xinjiang have no legal copies to buy, so I have nothing to compare. If what you say is true, it makes no sense why they would sell at D5 instead of a D9 as a legal copy, but even still, if the D9 is a copy of a D5, the quality would still be just as bad.
I guess I’m so used to thinking of “legal” copies as those we would buy in America. They still have those annoying commercials, but at least it’s the best quality you can find (audio & video) and it has all the extra features. Doubt I would buy a legal copy in China if it didn’t have all those things as well.
Josh’s last blog post..Thanksgiving Turkey in Xinjiang, China: The 3 Year Quest Ends