Prepare a mountain of Blu-Tack because a massive China-related poster exhibition is coming to Beijing

There was a time when Chinese youngsters liked to cover every inch of their bedroom walls with movie posters, a habit that continues in many Western countries.

Sadly, as the film market continues to grow ever larger in China, the charming hobby is fading here - until now.

Julian Fisher, the British founder of a Hong Kong registered organization named Movie Art China, aims to recreate the nostalgic fun in Beijing by recalling some long-cherished silver screen memories in cinematic history.

The mood will be ignited in an exhibition in Sanlitun of as many as 2,000 movie posters from Oct 15 to 24, telling cinematic stories from over a century. Some of the posters date back to as early as 1920s, Fisher claimed, and will be shown for the first time in the Chinese mainland.

Visitors will also be able to take the memories home with them, as all the posters will be put on sale at their original prices - expect a range of options, from 200 yuan to tens of thousands of yuan.

To merit more attention, all movies at the exhibition will have a Chinese flavor - either being directly China-related, made in China, set in China or about China - including approximately 200 mainland movies, 250 Hong Kong and Taiwan movies, 1,000 American movies and many others from various countries.

The oldest Chinese mainland movies represented will be Woman Basketball Player No 5 (1957) and Threshold of Spring (1963), which convey distinct beauty to Fisher, who has the steadily conceived notion that posters of old movies outshine modern counterparts with unsurpassable artistic beauty.

In his pursuit of quality, Fisher has decided to display the poster of Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), though the story itself has little connection with China. Fisher said the poster scene of cigar smoke swirling into a female figure impressed him so much that he considered the work as "the best design ever".

Other posters will include old Hollywood productions such as The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969) and The World of Suzie Wong (1960). Though they depict the much-disputed stereotypes of Chinese people, Fisher said he wanted to show "how integral China and Chinese movies have been to the global history of film".

To fulfill that goal, he will scatter information pointers all over the exhibition hall, guiding the audience through the cinematic timeline of change in China's image as seen in Western movies and more importantly, the development of Chinese cinema.

Fisher's interest in collecting China-related movie posters started five years ago in England when he won an online auction on Jia Zhangke's award-winning work The World (2004), with just one dollar.

Later, when he began to ask local cinemas for similar China-related posters, he was surprised by the positive response. It was then that he formed the faint idea of making an exhibition.

After he came to China five years ago, Fisher sped up his purchasing power.

"I don't trust online sellers," he said, noting that he prefers to exchange genuine posters with other passionate collectors.

By "genuine", Fisher refers to posters distributed by film studios to cinemas for promotional purposes.

"Usually the posters are returned to studios," he said. "I'm sure many of them are destroyed after that."

Fisher said because of the material and paint used, he can often tell a genuine poster just by touch.

According to Simon Fowler, a magazine editor and long-time fan of Chinese cinema who has just finished a film guide to be released at the exhibition, "posters are a unique connection between movies and their audiences."

To further this bond, Fowler is recommending 101 Chinese movies that he said, "everyone must watch before they die". Many of the movies recommended will have their posters at the exhibition.

"What I want from the exhibition is that, after seeing a poster, a visitor might shout 'that's the movie I watched'," Fisher said.

China Daily

(China Daily 09/15/2010 page)