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<h3 style="margin-top:0;"><a style="font-weight: 500; font-size: 21px;line-height: 30px; margin-top:25px; margin-bottom: 10px;" href="http://u.osu.edu/mclc/2017/08/31/twenty-twos-popularity/" target="_blank">Twenty-Two’s popularity</a></h3>
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<p>Source: Sup China (2/28/17)<br />
<a href="http://supchina.com/2017/08/28/documentary-world-war-ii-comfort-women-might-become-profitable-chinese-movie-time/">Documentary on World War II ‘comfort women’ might become most profitable Chinese movie of all time</a><br />
<em>Pang-Chieh Ho gives you the latest news from one of China’s most dynamic industries.</em><br />
By Pang-Chieh Ho</p>
<p>When Twenty-Two (二十二 èr shí èr), a documentary that interviews 22 surviving World War II sex slaves, debuted in mainland Chinese theaters on August 14, nobody had expected that it would be such a big hit with Chinese moviegoers. Made from a paltry budget of 3 million yuan ($450,000), <em style="line-height: inherit;">Twenty-Two</em><span style="line-height: inherit;"> managed to buck expectations. Not only is it the first documentary to make more than 100 million yuan ($15 million) at China’s box office,</span><a style="line-height: inherit;" href="http://news.mtime.com/2017/08/19/1572637.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> </a><a style="line-height: inherit;" href="http://news.mtime.com/2017/08/19/1572637.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to</a><span style="line-height: inherit;"> </span><em style="line-height: inherit;">Mtime </em><span style="line-height: inherit;">(in Chinese), but if it ends up grossing 300 million yuan ($45 million), a goal that analysts are confident the documentary will attain, it will also become</span><a style="line-height: inherit;" href="https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/M7wufFjgAZEUt_ZhCpMuQA" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> </a><a style="line-height: inherit;" href="https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/M7wufFjgAZEUt_ZhCpMuQA" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the most profitable Chinese movie of all time</a><span style="line-height: inherit;"> (in Chinese).</span></p>
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<p>This dark horse of a film has had a somewhat turbulent production history. While filming and interviewing the octogenarian survivors took around two months, the movie was waylaid for several years due to a lack of financing, according to <em>The Paper</em>’s<a href="http://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1760118" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> </a><a href="http://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1760118" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview</a> (in Chinese) with <em>Twenty-Two</em>’s director, Guo Ke 郭柯. When financing finally came through, a large part of it was in the form of crowdsourcing, with over 7,000 people contributing 1 million yuan ($150,000) to the movie.</p>
<p>So how did this documentary — one that eschews sensationalism in favor of quiet documentation of the everyday lives these former “comfort women” are now leading — become a force to be reckoned with at the box office? <em>Yuledujiaoshou</em><a href="https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/QKMRa_GF4NCu3apuma99Og" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> </a><a href="https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/QKMRa_GF4NCu3apuma99Og" target="_blank" rel="noopener">points out</a> (in Chinese) that strong word of mouth and high critical ratings have been essential to<em>Twenty-Two</em>’s success, while personal recommendations from many industry figures, including director Feng Xiaogang 冯小刚 and actress Zhang Xinyi 张歆艺, who invested 1 million yuan ($150,000) in the movie, helped boost the movie’s exposure. Also, the movie’s shrewd choice of a premiere date — on the eve of the International Memorial Day for Comfort Women and the anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II — dovetailed with sentiments of patriotism and nationalism that had already been stoked by another film, <em>Wolf Warriors 2</em> (战狼二 zhàn láng èr).</p>
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by <a href="mailto:denton.2@osu.edu">denton.2@osu.edu</a> on August 31, 2017 </div>
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