Youzu, Now Making *The Three-Body Problem*, Knows Everything Wrong With China's Film Industry. But...

Youzu wants to revive Shanghai cinema and take on Hollywood. The market expects something simpler: make The Three-Body Problem well first.

At this year's Shanghai International Film Festival, Youzu Pictures, founded just nine months ago, unveiled a grand slogan at its launch event: "Shanghai Film Renaissance." Riding on that slogan, the company signed four directors in one go (Lu Chuan, Vincent Fang, Wu Shixian and Zhao Linshan), announced plans for nine new films including The Three-Body Problem, and brought in Gao Qunshu as chief content officer.

"Nothing new gets built without breaking something first," Youzu Pictures chairman Lin Qi said at the event. "China's film industry is backward, so we can't keep treating it gently. That's why we've come in." Lin hopes the company's internet background and young team will let it "enter this industry without being gentle" and bring visible changes to the industry's rules.

As Youzu sees it, the backwardness of China's film industry shows most clearly in how few genres Chinese films cover. "When comedy is hot, everyone goes off to make comedies. When youth films are hot, it's all youth films. That's not how an industry behaves. A complete film industry means there's every kind of film," Gao Qunshu told QDaily.

The 11 new films Youzu Pictures has announced include big productions made by Chinese and foreign teams together, such as The Three-Body Problem, King of Huaxia, Dragon and Phoenix Heist and Island Special. Youzu has also set up a new company in Hollywood to handle overseas partnerships and recruit Hollywood film talent.

From left to right: CEO Kong Xiangzhao, Oscar-winning actor William Hurt, and Han Wei, head of Youzu Pictures' overseas business

The launch event was loud, but Youzu Pictures CEO Kong Xiangzhao says that on a project this size, with more than 100 million yuan invested, he thinks harder and moves more carefully. Specialist areas such as overseas distribution and film finance and insurance, for example, he has handed to colleagues from Hollywood and big investment banks. In building the team and distributing films, "a lot of it is also low-cost trial and error."

Youzu Pictures has barged into the film and television business as an "intruder" and drawn attention for it, and Gao Qunshu and Kong Xiangzhao seem to understand the industry's ingrained habits well. But changing those "bad things" will not be easy.

What Gao Qunshu thinks is wrong with China's film industry

Q: You said earlier that one reason you came to Youzu was your dissatisfaction with the Chinese film market. What exactly are you dissatisfied with?

Gao Qunshu: Since 2003, every company has approached me about working together, and none of these big film companies thinks like an industry. They all believe that if bananas sell well, they can sell every kind of fruit well. Some companies reject realism and reject original work; they insist on adapting novels that are popular online. How could I work with that?

Others say a film has to be an event film, and films about characters don't make money. They never made those films work themselves, so they decide not to write them at all. They all have their biases, which harden into an empiricism that fences them in. That's why this isn't an industry. TV stations are the same: they air whatever is hot. These bosses won't try anything because they're afraid of failing. But in a mature company, even when one car is selling well, R&D continues, and the aim is to make the other cars sell well too.

Q: Isn't that just because the market is so good? Everyone is rushing to launch projects and cash in.

Gao Qunshu: Yes. So don't be fooled by how hot the Chinese film market looks right now. It's actually thin, lopsided and narrow, so narrow that it doesn't have enough genres to hold it up.

Many genres in Chinese film are simply empty, and nobody wants to make them. When comedy is hot, everyone goes off to make comedies. When youth films are hot, it's all youth films, and now that fantasy is the word, it's all fantasy. Everyone piles in at once. That's not how an industry behaves. An industry makes all kinds of cars, each for its own group of buyers.

What can China use to compete with Hollywood? Not youth films. Ours collapse at the first blow next to theirs: their youth is more brilliant, wilder and more open. Maybe your real youth is like that too, but on screen it comes out differently. The way Chinese people express emotion, and China's system, won't make our films stand out. To compete with Hollywood you need aircraft carriers, so to speak: films on a large enough scale. And China does have material. In science fiction, there's now The Three-Body Problem. There are the so-called 5,000 years of culture, with myths waiting to be mined, Journey to the West, Investiture of the Gods and much more, including fantasy and today's online novels.

Q: Everyone seems to understand these points, and the big film companies are making blockbusters too. They're all developing so-called IP, including turning popular TV dramas and variety shows into films, and you seem to have always disliked that.

Gao Qunshu: Where a film comes from doesn't really matter. It could be a game, a variety show, a painting, a line of poetry. But you can't just turn the film into that thing. A film is a film. It has its own rules, its own structure, its own measures. Film does that work; a variety show doesn't meet those measures, and it has simply been carried over. It hasn't entered film. The cinema becomes a container that plays the variety show one more time. That's the problem. Genuinely adapting a variety show into a film would be a good thing, but these adaptations never arrive at the idea of a film as a product.

What Gao Qunshu can bring to Youzu

Q: How did you decide to come to Youzu as its "chief content officer"?

Gao Qunshu: Partly it was dissatisfaction with the Chinese film market and wanting to build something. Partly I met the right person. Youzu is a fairly new company, and what defines it is youth. I'm the only one born in the 1960s; everyone else was born in the 1980s or 1990s. As the saying goes, old ginger is the hottest. So Lin Qi, the president, asked me to come and help him make products, which is something I'd long wanted to do.

Internet films don't carry the film world's ingrained habits, or that frightening thing, empiricism. Youzu respects the laws of business and of industry, not so-called laws of experience. Those laws come from consumers, not from my personal opinions about a product. We need to understand what Chinese audiences want at this stage, and that means market research and surveys.

Q: What will your main job be, and how is it different from your earlier work as a director and producer?

Gao Qunshu: Mainly I'm the gatekeeper on product. I'll also build strategy, probably one-year, three-year and five-year plans: which commercial blockbusters and genre films to make, and where the content comes from, whether novels, online IP or real events. That's the strategic plan. Then there's planning how many films we shoot each year.

Being a director and being a content officer are very different jobs. As a director you master the technical and measurable things: what makes good cinematography, what makes a good screenwriter, judgments about the technical process. As a director, I might be making a single apple. As a product officer, I need apples, mangoes, grapes and bananas all at once, and I have to keep them distinct.

Q: You've spent a long time in the traditional film industry, and most of your films dealt with serious subjects. Now you're at a young company that talks about internet thinking, and you'll be making science fiction. Are you worried you won't adapt?

Gao Qunshu: No, because I like every kind of film. When I make my own films, sometimes I'm not free to do what I want. People have misconceptions about me. What I most love making is comedy, Stephen Chow-style comedy. I also most love making wuxia, Gu Long-style wuxia. I'm a Pisces, so I can keep these sides apart. I walk on two legs, making both commercial films and art films.

Most directors say art films are made for experts. That's nonsense. Experts are people too. Making a film means grasping what people have in common. That comes first, whether you're selling cars or fruit.

How Youzu thinks it makes films differently

Q: Huayi Brothers, Enlight and LeEco are all signing directors and developing projects. What kind of people is Youzu looking for, and is there anything different about how you sign them?

Kong Xiangzhao: These directors have all made blockbusters, and each of those blockbusters had something that stood out. Youzu Pictures makes science fiction and fantasy the cornerstone of its slate and wants to build big IP, so we brought in these directors.

Each of Youzu's directors plays a different role. Gao Qunshu has very strong control over the product and makes sure it reaches a level of 75 or 80 out of 100. Zhao Linshan is an excellent commercials director, and we hope he'll bring the company more creative ideas, in video and in posters alike. Together they form the content team and take charge of content. We'll work with these directors for the long term and grow with them.

Q: How will the internet thinking Youzu talks about be applied to developing these projects?

Kong Xiangzhao: The internet allows low-cost trial and error. We can shoot a few cheap micro-films to scout the way for a feature project. The internet industry is far more standardized than film and television, whether in drafting contracts, managing teams or holding outside partners to their commitments. The traditional film industry is being standardized by the internet industry. Low-cost trial and error and iteration happen at the front end. At the back end, in marketing, distribution and online ticketing, the internet will help a great deal.

Q: If Youzu stresses low-cost trial and error, why not start with small and mid-budget films instead of going straight to blockbusters?

Gao Qunshu: Because what actually carries the film industry in Hollywood is the ordinary commercial blockbuster, from The Avengers to science fiction. As I said earlier, to take on Hollywood you have to use homegrown blockbusters of this kind, mainstream commercial blockbusters. For now we're starting with science fiction and fantasy, and perhaps war films too, both ancient and modern. Within commercial filmmaking, we want to cover every genre.

Kong Xiangzhao: Science fiction and fantasy can produce big IP, with character licensing and even landmark buildings. Anything you can think of is possible, a Three-Body monument, say. A youth romance is small IP with limited reach: at most you get clothing and jewelry, TV dramas and web series.

Q: That's a bit abstract. What about the film projects actually under way?

Gao Qunshu: The Three-Body Problem is shooting now, and next year we shoot King of Huaxia, which counts as a mainstream commercial blockbuster. For King of Huaxia, we'll produce the trailer this year, spending 30 million yuan on the trailer alone. Truly good science fiction and fantasy takes time and money. Reaching Avatar-level effects really does take time and money. You can't make a fantasy film in a year. The fantasy films being made now are suicidal; they come out and annoy everyone. This year we'll make only a trailer, spend 30 million yuan, and settle the character design, the world-building and the effects design. It has to hit certain benchmarks. Next year we prepare, and we start shooting in the Year of the Monkey.

We may also make something like League of Angels, based on one of Youzu's earlier, very influential games. It would be youth, action and adventure, a popcorn movie. You don't need to think too hard; it's just entertainment.

Four films have been announced so far, and the ones in planning add up to 15 or 16. There are also some co-productions with Hollywood, where someone else has a project that's already fairly mature and we come in as partners.

League of Angels is one of Youzu's best-selling games to date

Q: Beyond the films themselves, will Youzu build out a presence along the industry chain, as other internet companies have?

Gao Qunshu: A company whose cars sell well will certainly invest in R&D too. Film is the same. We'll look for directors who have come back from abroad, with a background and experience in the social sciences, and with work that shows their view of the world. We'll also sign novelists and train screenwriters. And we need an online distribution model: internet cinema chains, mobile cinema chains, that kind of thing. Opening up new possibilities.

Kong Xiangzhao: We must become a company that spans the whole industry chain, and we must do distribution. We'd rather the first few films earn less at the box office because our distribution was weak. Distribution, too, depends on low-cost trial and error. While our team isn't very strong, we may have three companies distribute one film, partnering with the two strongest, and cover only the Yangtze River Delta ourselves. Once we're as efficient as the other distribution teams, we'll expand.

Q: With so much to do, how many people do you have on the film side now?

Kong Xiangzhao: The company has 100 people now, with more than 20 handling film and TV production. The rest work in marketing and distribution, talent management and administration. Our administrative staff were all poached from the best companies. Turnover is very high right now, and with some of them I may have misjudged.

Q: Youzu's original business is games. When the film side develops projects, how does it relate to the games side? Do you have to serve both?

Kong Xiangzhao: Most of what we choose will serve both games and film. Take League of Angels: we held a meeting on it yesterday and pinned down the world-building and the characters' skills. Then people who watch the film will go back and play the game, and people who play the game will watch the film.

Gao Qunshu: Every project covers at least games and film. Those are the two minimum paths. Later we extend into web series, music, merchandise, stage plays, everything. First we secure games and film, walking on two legs. That is the biggest difference between Youzu and other film companies.

The film everyone cares about most: how is The Three-Body Problem going?

Q: What everyone cares about most is The Three-Body Problem. How far along is the film?

Kong Xiangzhao: Everything is going to plan. We've made no big mistakes on the schedule, and there have been no problems with the actors. There are certainly small problems, such as getting the Chinese and foreign crews to work together. With some piece of work, a Chinese crew might let it slide, but the foreign crew will insist it isn't good enough.

Q: What would make the Three-Body Problem film a pass, in your view?

Kong Xiangzhao: If we show the whole film to Americans and they say, hey, not bad. It's hard to produce a masterpiece on the first try.

Q: Beyond the film, you're also making spin-offs around The Three-Body Problem. A Three-Body restaurant has already opened, and a game is coming later, right?

Gao Qunshu: There will definitely be a game and a web series. The game and the film started at about the same time, half a year ago now. Mainly we're picking some elements from the novel and putting them in. For the web series, we're choosing a director now, but we need to finish the film first, and that's quite hard.

Q: You held a launch event together with Yulebao. What does it mainly contribute to this project?

Kong Xiangzhao: First, a lot of data support. In casting, for example, the data pointed us to Tang Yan, and that's how we came to work with her. Second, funding whenever and wherever we need it; it's practically a bank. Third, sales support for merchandise, which for now is also still low-cost trial and error.

360 chairman Zhou Hongyi will make a cameo in The Three-Body Problem

Q: Outsiders don't have high hopes for the Three-Body Problem film. Does that put you under a lot of pressure? What if it falls short and the box office is terrible?

Kong Xiangzhao: We've put several hundred million yuan into The Three-Body Problem. How could I not be nervous? I'm a very cautious person, and I've prepared for every outcome. People should expect a certain level of quality; otherwise I wouldn't have dared to do this.

We're still crossing the river by feeling for the stones. I haven't seen anyone do this especially well. We don't expect to make much money from the Three-Body Problem film either. Mainly we want to nurture the IP: five years to build it up, and maybe in year seven we harvest. Judged by normal expectations, the film should be fine. In fact, my involvement has already lowered expectations for it. Even if it fails, I can tell everyone what we learned from failing. I don't care about these things.

Q: So even if the first film does badly at the box office, you'll keep making them?

Gao Qunshu: We'll definitely keep making them. If the first one fails, the second and third absolutely cannot fail, especially now that I'm here. This really is China's first attempt at a science fiction film. We're trying to push expectations down now, since you all think it will fail. We're pouring a little cold water on it ourselves. It really is a first attempt, the so-called year one of Chinese science fiction.

Q: But people noticed Youzu because of The Three-Body Problem, and it's Youzu's first project. You've put a lot of effort into it and want to make it a showcase.

Kong Xiangzhao: Actually, beyond The Three-Body Problem, we've already started three or four films: King of Huaxia, Dragon and Phoenix Heist, and Island Special, a co-production with Hollywood. Once those films are under way, people may gradually forget that I made The Three-Body Problem.