by WEI AIAI
Economics Correspondent

Police deny the case has anything to do with Ai Weiwei

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – A well-known Chinese economist has lost his appeal against charges of artistic evasion.

Ever since renowned taxation pundit Lu Tao was apprehended at Shanghai airport last year, while boarding a plane to Macau to lecture on revaluation of the yuan, calls have been growing for the Chinese courts to overturn their decision to fine the rogue economist.

Many believe the true reason for the case was Lu’s inflammatory speech regarding the inappropriateness of Keynesian analysis for examining fluctuations in the market price of shale gas, delivered at the Harvard Business School last March.

The economist’s outspoken criticisms of flagship Chinese economic policies are believed to have angered finance ministers.

Although the chubby neo-liberal – nicknamed “Fatty” Lu – made a name for himself on the international economics scene long before his arrest, it was the decision to charge him with so-called “artistic crimes” that sent shockwaves through the media last year, and catapulted Lu to greater fame.

Although Lu himself says the charges were “frivolous,” Beijing has denied that the case is connected with Lu’s economic activities.

“Lu Tao’s arrest has nothing to do with his economic principles or his academic output,” a spokesman told foreign media in one of the government’s few official statements on the matter. “This is a legal case, according to local laws and customs.”

Beijing has instead waged a propaganda war against Lu through various mouthpieces, such as an editorial in the Hong Kong state-backed newspaper Wen Wei Po, which claimed that “Lu secretly pursued a painting career while posing as an economist.”

The anonymous writer claimed that police had found evidence of several “poorly-realized traditional Chinese landscapes on canvas,” adding that their “amateur draughtsmanship” represented a “deliberate insult to the aesthetic principles of our 5,000-year-old culture, as cherished and preserved by the Communist Party.”

Although friends say the paintings merely represent Lu’s amateur drawing habit and “aren’t bad,” that didn’t stop Beijing police from confiscating artistic materials – including paintbrushes, a pastels set and several sheets of stiff-backed parchment – from his university offices.

Lu’s wife Zhang Yuqin, who is believed to have sat for one of her husband’s incendiary attempts at Impressionist portraiture, was also questioned.

Wen Wei Po said the sketches were “risible” and “offended police” but fellow economics professor Lin Dehua told China Daily Show that “it is abundantly clear these ‘artistic evasion’ charges are not really about the fact that Lu is a famously atrocious illustrator.”

According to Lin, “this case has everything to do with the relevance of Hegelian theory in assessing the historical significance of the Gold Standard.”

Lu’s opposition to corruption is well-documented and controversial passages in his twelve-volume, banned bestseller Be More Like Belgium (2009) – asserting that trickle-down economics is only applicable to developed and centralized societies –are said to have infuriated senior officials.

“Lu’s pencil drawings may be relatively unaccomplished, but did the police just happen to hone in on a doodler who also has a flawless command of the intricacies of economic transformation in China’s post-socialist marketplace?” Professor Lin asked. “Please.”

Lin said that Lu was a public figure who frightened the Party.

“Let’s be honest,” he added, “if anyone’s going to be a figurehead for a Chinese revolution, it’s an economist.”

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By JONAS WHALE
Culture Correspondent

Conroy is now considering the consequences of his forgetfulness over a cigarette break

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – A foreigner who came to China to study the culture has admitted he “completely forgot” about last weekend’s Dragon Boat Festival.

American student Dwayne Conroy instead says he spent the last three days watching US television, instead of doing whatever it is the Chinese do to mark the holiday.

Conroy told China Daily Show that he has been “immersed in Chinese culture” for nearly six months but had still not been prepared for the annual summer festival.

“I completely missed it,” Conroy admitted, his eyes red with apparent emotion. “All the festivities. The traditions. All that shit… missed it all.”

Conroy blames his unusual lapse on the long-discontinued HBO series The Wire. 

“I happened to mention to a buddy of mine from the States, Carl, that I had never seen the show,” Conroy recalled. “He seemed personally offended that I hadn’t.

“The next thing, I knew he just turned up at my dorm Thursday night with a DVD box set, a carton of Cheerios and a bag of the good stuff. Then he said he wouldn’t leave until we’d watched at least two seasons.”

In the event, Carl stayed until Saturday, then fell asleep.

“Carl woke up at two that day, looked at his watch and bolted out the door. He left the DVDs behind, though, so I kinda ended up watching them.”

In the ensuing Wire-athon, Conroy admitted neglected both his studies and his girlfriend but says “all that’s under control” now.

“The one thing I can’t forgive myself for, though, is missing this ancient festival, which dates all the way back to 2008,” Conroy continued, looking sorrowfully out of a nearby window. “Man, I am such a doofus.”

Conroy admits his lapse of memory was particularly insensitive at the time, as the festival has only recently been retrieved by China after being stolen by the Koreans.

Conroy did at least make up for some of his remissions by preparing his own form of zongzi, the special glutinous rice dumplings usually enjoyed on Dragon Boat Festival, while adding his own “special ingredient.”

“I’m gonna bake it for my Chinese in-laws next year,” a bleary-eyed Conroy vowed for the third time. “It will most likely blow their minds.”

Conroy then paused to ask what he was talking about, before resuming his thread.

“I will totally get involved in next year’s festivities, whatever the hell they may be,” Conro enthused after a brief period of unconsciousness. “I’m trying to convince my Chinese family right now to race a home-made boat to Shenzhen.

“Man, I’m gonna love Duanwu Jie.”

As for The Wire, it’s unlikely the show will come between Conroy and his beloved cultural heritage again.

“It’s OK but it’s pretty darn slow,” Conroy complained. “I’ll probably just stick with watching quality stuff in future, like True Blood. Or maybe… no, I’ve forgotten.”

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by DONG FANGHONG
Culture Correspondent

A scene from one of the new plots that may or may not be a scene from one of the old plots

BEIJING (China Daily Show) –Three new plots have been discovered in the national film archives, China’s Ministry of Culture announced yesterday.

The discovery was described as an “unprecedented leap forward for the Chinese entertainment industry” and brings the total number of acceptable storylines up to seven.

While anecdotes, legends and documented events from China’s lengthy historical annals are plentiful, the Party has struggled to find contemporary plotlines deemed to be of ‘Red Star Criteria’ for its national playlist.

“Many so-called ‘modern plots’ contain the kind of themes contemporary Chinese audiences just aren’t interested in,” snorted film critic Hu Jintao (relation) of the Central Party School’s Education Through Cinema Department. 

“Lesbian gangsters, bent cops and debauched politicians” are typical examples of boring Western obsessions, he said.

“Simply put, the Chinese have an insatiable appetite for three-hour epics about the Sino-Japanese war,” shrugged Hu.

The addition of a trio of new plots to the official canon is sure to propel China into the cinematic superleague, experts hope.

“Today is momentous,” remarked Ministry spokesperson Wu Laigang. “We have almost doubled our national artists’ creative capacity by graciously donating them these new stories.”

The three plotlines include the full range of genres and styles, Wu added, predicting that the first – in which two Shanxi schoolchildren use their father’s moonshine to burn down a Japanese official’s family home– will have Disney “running for the hills.”

The new storylines will see a 15% decrease in TV films based on squad combat in an unnamed forest circa 1930

The second is likely to replace Romeo and Juliet as the world’s favorite love story within six years, Wu says.

The plot is a “sizzlingly harmonious” love story, set during the Nationalist White Terror of the 1930s, in which the protagonists never meet. 

“We’re calling it White Heat,” said Wu. “It’s never been done before.”

Industry insiders say the third new plot may be the most original. 

A cross between James Bond, a Rolex advert and the Quotations from Chairman Mao, the story relates an uncorroborated incident from the early life of Mao Zedong, in which the shirtless junior librarian garrottes the Kuomintang officer responsible for his second wife’s execution, using piano wire concealed in his Chinese wristwatch.

The plots will significantly bolster China’s four extant storylines, currently consisting of statutory rape in wartime; a rich girl marrying her boss; a platoon fighting in a forest; and a teenage boy dying a lonely virgin, as a result of a non-specific wasting illness.

While some have welcomed the additions, others say China will not be a true cultural powerhouse until it has at least 10 storylines.

Minister Wu was quick to reassure talent agencies, however, that there would be no change to the standard ‘three male, two female’ character stereotypes.

“Some things will never change,” Wu smiled. “Men can still pick from Saint, Traitor or ‘Fat ’n’ Funny,’ while women can be either Victim or Bitch.” 

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By FEI ZHOU
Culture Correspondent

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir wore a traditional Stetson during his national delegation’s marathon line-dancing routine

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – China has surprised aid agencies by announcing plans to restrict all further overseas aid only to countries displaying both “the ability and the willingness to sing and dance.”

The landmark policy shift was made by China’s State Council Wednesday. In the past, China has generally restricted its development aid to countries with rich natural resources.

However, with oil, diamonds and uranium now depleted in many regions, China has begun to look towards other commodities prized by its plutocratic leadership as a potential bargaining tool for impoverished nations.

“The richest untapped resources of Africa and South America, in particular, are the joyous, carefree dances of their amusing, fruit-hatted populations,” ran the official statement. “It is this cultural wealth which our nation would most like to develop and refine.”

The policy shift – dubbed ‘Rhythm for Resources’ – would explain the behavior of South Sudanese leader Salva Kiir at a recent summit with President Hu Jintao.

Salva led his delegation in a display of traditional Sudanese line dancing which the Chinese president applauded as “show-stoppingly quaint.”

The highly stylized routine, set to a bongo-based rehash of Dolly Parton classic Nine to Five, allegedly clinched a number of lucrative contracts, allowing China exclusive access to South Sudan’s oil wealth in return for an unspecified sum of cash.

The move comes as the country grows increasingly bored of the stale musical numbers regularly performed by the country’s 52 officially recognized “lesser ethnicities.”

As part of the country’s move to promote its soft power, while curtailing ‘undesirable’ foreign elements, the Ministry of Culture has invited the submissions of new, differently coloured minority peoples.

A special inspection committee has been assigned to remove sexually-suggestive dance moves, while setting traditional folk dances from around the world to a state-approved traditional instrument – the Yamaha PSR-19 synthesizer.

“We must move with the times,” Hao observed, during the nine-hour press conference. “Why not groove with the times?”

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Suspicions were first aroused after Yang demanded guests hand over their clothes, their boots and their motorcycle (Image: Lola)

By JONAS WHALE
Entertainment Correspondent

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – Questions were being raised about rising standards at China’s state broadcaster yesterday, after a top TV anchor was found to be a cybernetic organism sent from the future.

Until last weekend, Yang Rui was the relatively unknown presenter of CCTV show Monologue, in which Yang interviewed himself via a series of eclectic hand puppets.

That all changed this week, after faulty circuitry prompted an online diatribe against “foreign trash,” with the host accusing China’s foreign community of being secret GPS-mapping spies bent on the country’s destruction.

Alarmed bosses at CCTV ordered a product recall, where tests revealed rogue Terminator DNA.

“It explains a lot. The tight-ass demeanour, delusions of grandeur and absence of personality… just how many of China’s TV hosts are potential lethal killing machines?” wrote Grady Einstein, a known agitator for the anti-China US golfing magazine Fores.

Residue tests for talent initially came back negative but doctors were alarmed by traces of titanium alloy in Yang’s blood, it was reported.

An initial X-ray showed a microchip stamped with the Cyberdyne Industries logo. Further CAT scans failed to detect any brain activity, instead revealing a low-tech CPU and hard drive, both riddled with government propaganda and viruses.

“Yang’s CPU showed advanced deterioration in his circuitry, which can manifest itself in paranoid delusions of popularity,” noted a programmer. “He’s more machine now than man.”

Experts posit that Yang may have been a prototype sent back in time by Skynet as a test subject, then later abandoned.

“An early T-600 model would certainly explain his lack of charm,” the programmer said. “Personality was a later update used in the T-1000 – the silver morphing one.”

“We think his arrogance simply overrode his primary objective: to kill foreign bloggers in China,” a source closed to the project told China Daily Show. “Yang is convinced he is human and what’s more, believes himself to not only be an engaging TV personality but also the voice of every Asian person who has ever lived.”

Yang is currently being de-programmed at a secret facility in Seoul, where he will be joined this week by  a sympathetic Rui Chenggang.

“It’s been a traumatic process and there’s still a long way to go,” one doctor at the facility admitted. “We’ve had tantrums and sulks and even an aborted attempt to terminate the entire nursing staff.”

Not everyone is convinced by the explanation, however.

“Everyone knows that Judgement Day only happened because the machines became self-aware,” tweeted Einstein. “That’s one thing Yang clearly is not.”

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By TIANTIAN XIANGSHANG
Education Correspondent

Benvolio's image was once used to sell everything from Western-style cutlery to hair perming kits

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – The mystery behind the spread of “Chinglish” – an Asian version of English that commonly includes weird and wonderful verbal contortions – appears to have finally been solved.

The bizarre alternative language has been conclusively traced to Mario Benvolio, an illiterate Spanish-American teacher who emigrated to China in 1981, where he quickly became its foremost authority on English teaching.

At the height of his fame, Benvolio, the illegitimate son of an itinerant blonde hippie and a Chilean dictator’s son, was China’s top-selling author. In 1983, his Easy Learning is English series outsold Quotations from Chairman Mao by sixteen to one.

Benvolio regularly taught rallies of up to 50,000 students where his catchphrase –  “Now is time for punching the English books!” – became a national rallying cry.

Yet today, little is known of the millionaire linguist.

Documents seen by China Daily Show demonstrate that the man who would one day come to be known as “Big Nose Teacher” spent his formative years in a Mexican detention centre, where he learnt English from Spanish-language TV.

“It was his dearest wish to some day become a teacher,” said ‘Pablo,’ one of his former cell guards. “Probably because he never had one himself.”

Benvolio originally came to China to learn guitar, with the apparent hope of forming a Uighur prog-rock group. He ended up changing his plans, however, after being mistaken at the border for a Turkmenistani rebel leader and badly beaten.

“At this time, China was opening up and looking for foreign experts to come over and aid in their development, of which English learning was critical,” said Sir William Buckfast, a noted expert on China affairs. “But this was thirty-odd years ago, so they were accepting anyone. The teaching environment remains much the same today, in fact.”

On being released from jail, Benvolio agreed to teach English at Beijing’s top Communist Party School, where his fame quickly spread.

“I love English, in China is good, but also the applauding. Whereas, so happy now, it makes me smell,” he was quoted as saying in a 1984 copy of People’s Daily – by which time he was making upwards of 5,000 yuan a week in book royalties.

The linguistically-challenged pedagogue went on to marry four times, sire seven children and was interviewed in some of China’s most influential and respected publications.

“Now a days to learn English, it is necessary for the every people,” Benvolio told That’s Lanzhou magazine in his last interview, explaining  the popularity of his English-teaching textbooks. “Most of people use the English in foreigner. And as China is a ‘developer country,’ it also increases the life standing.”

After 1992, though, Benvolio gradually receded from public view, and was replaced by a succession of similarly inept teachers from developed countries such as the US, UK and Sudan. But the legacy of his teaching lives on in menus, street signs and posters across the nation.

As for Benvolio himself, the once-iconic English teacher has not been seen in China for over a year, having decided to return to the US to support Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.

The Republican nominee’s standing has since declined in the polls. Benvolio, meanwhile, has been detained indefinitely under the Patriot Act.

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Advice and tips from Easy Learning is English (1981)

Food: “In the USA, it is fine to eat with just the knife and the fork with the spoon, and maybe it is the pizza restaurant or a Japanese place or any restaurant is fine.”

Filial piety: “It is most important you to study hard learn English for futuring times, but also lovemaking with your father and the mother all the day.”

Studying: “Doing the examining when you are go to college. Please to say one day hope you speaking English as best as me!”

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Benvolio personally oversaw the English-translation work on much of China's modern urban signage

BY DAISY WU
Hollywood Correspondent

If 'Kung Fu Panda 2' doesn't win at least something, China's gonna be pissed. I'm telling you.

LOS ANGELES (China Daily Show) — It’s just over 24 hours to go until the stars begin walking down the red carpet at Hollywood’s Kodak Theater, and I, Daisy, start asking the really important questions – like, honey, what are you wearing?

But seriously, folks, forget The Artist. Forget Hugo. Forget George Clooney (I wish). The Iron Lady? I said – forget it!

I’m talking about whether our shorter cousins over the Pacific are in with a chance for an Oscar this year. I’m talking about China. Way I see it, they’ve got two shots: first up, summer bonkbuster The Founding of a Party, which– I’m told – is about some very old men in a room (yawn!) or The Flowers of Nanjing, which sounds like something a bit more for the ladies, starring dreamboat Christian Batman Bale and some other Chinese women.

To test the air, I hit the streets of LA for some old-fashioned “meet the public.”

Soon, I’m sitting in the bustling Hong Kim Seafood BBQ Restaurant, on Mei Ling Way, downtown LA, and let me tell you folks – it really feels like Chinatown here! Everybody is talking about one thing and one thing only –Jeremy Lin. But if they’ll just stop talking about basketball for one goddamned minute, it’s clear they also have one other thing on their minds: China!

“What do you think about China’s chances?” I ask one elderly diner. “For what?” he wonders, looking puzzled. It’s clear that no one’s told this senior about the big news this year. I slip him a dollar and move on.

“Are you excited about China’s chances for an Oscar,” I query a man calling himself “Josh” Wang, who’s smoking outside an office building. “Not really, I’m Taiwanese,” he starts to reply. Uh, what’s the difference, Josh?

Shaken by the somewhat bigoted – and often downright hostile – responses I keep finding on the street, I decide it’s time to talk to the experts. A short spin of my Rolodex (metaphorically, of course; these days I use an iPhone, made in… wait for it… yup, Hong Kong) and I’m in a cab heading over to the Hills for some top insider talk.

Sadly, when I arrive, I hit a wall: the reception is spotty, or something, because no one’s answering my calls. So step forward, Frank Marshall III Jr, who calls himself a “Sino-US Hollywood activist”. It sounds worryingly political! Frank invites me into his room, where he lays out the blueprints for an exciting proposal from the backers of that Founding of a Party movie, a company he calls “CCP.”

“We’d like to see them become investors in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and strengthen the bond between these two nations great, via harmonious cultural dialogue,” he explains over some jasmine tea. Hey, it all sounds like music to this reporter’s ears.

With a $5 billion sponsorship deal on the hook, the Academy would have to make a few changes – such as maybe renaming it the Golden Dragon Film Awards, maybe, that’s one possibility, there are others, cool it – but Frank insists the deal would in no way affect the impartiality of Academy members.

“They were already corrupt as hell before!” Frank laughs. “Don’t write that down. But seriously – Founding of a Party. That’s a great, great film. Did you see the bit with the Mao and the snowflakes? Pure movie magic.”

I haven’t, so I stay quiet. But I’ll watch anything with Christian Batman Bale, so it’s a dead cert I will at some point.

“This is a story about young love,” Frank adds. “A love between a charismatic librarian and his future wife. Between a traumatized nation and its future overlords…” Hey, Frank: stop talking about the Republicans. Daisy out…

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By CHUN GE
Spring Festival Correspondent

Ji bought enough fireworks to supply a Guangdong rebel village for a week

HARBIN (China Daily Show) – A Dongbei man has defended his decision to spend roughly half his family’s annual income on fireworks, amid criticism that the country’s orgy of New Year fireworks is growing ever-more pointless and environmentally dangerous.

Ji Guang, a 47-year-old food vendor and father of three, admitted he’d dropped nearly 2,000 yuan on a box of 25 Deng’s Delight Catherine wheels.

Ji told media he also spent 1,500 yuan on Roman candles, plus a hundredweight of Thunder King firecrackers – described by manufacturers as “guaranteed to delight neighbour, shock the Grandma and terrify dogs and small children.”

But Ji denied spending a further 3,000 kuai on a variety pack of luxury artillery shells, arguing the true figure was “more like 2,800.”

Ji said that his proposed Spring Festival show – which experts estimate will last between three to four minutes at best, not including a week of maddening, post-Chunjie firecracker displays – will provide vital memories for his children’s future.

Nutritionists point out that, without proper daily doses of vitamins and protein, his children may not have much of a future.

“Fireworks are a vital part of Chinese culture, which it has fallen upon me to protect,” said Ji. “The children will be fine – the suppliers threw in a box of traditional instant-noodles completely free, as I’d spent over 5,000 yuan by that time.”

And Ji added that his bulk purchase also qualified the family for a corporate gift: a specially commissioned, limited-edition, natural chrysanthemum stone that he received at no extra charge, other than postage, packaging and a reasonable handling fee.

“This is now a precious family heirloom. In the long run, financially, it’s bound to be worth skimping on pork and vegetables for a few months when you consider the stone,” said Ji as he cradled the misshapen item. “Just feel its weight:  the equity on this baby must be, literally, priceless.”

According to his neighbours, however, this isn’t the first time Ji has made an extravagant gesture around Chinese New Year. Last year, he ploughed much of his parents’ savings into a doomed caviar-dumpling enterprise, convinced the rural Heilongjiang market was ready for luxury chunjie goods.

Most of his sturgeon failed to spawn, however.

And a crate of General Wu Rebel Rockets (4,800 yuan/12) Ji provided for his village’s Year of the Rabbit celebrations proved something of a damp squib, with many failing even to ignite. As one eyewitness recalled, “We were promised a fireworks orgy – it was more like watching a bunch of eunuchs.”

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By LAO SHOUXING
History Correspondent

Lord Shang (390-338 BC) enjoyed the occasional slay ride

XIAN (China Daily Show) – He may be as American as apple pie and as much a part of Christmas as the latest Call of Duty but according to one scholar, the real Santa Claus was actually Chinese.

Using information found in his attic, and backed-up by extensive research online, historian and sanitation worker Lin Kang has traced Santa’s history to 223 BC – and the Middle Kingdom.

Lord Shang Ke was an ancient figure, famous as the first man to codify China’s legal system in his Book of Law. Santa Claus is most likely a Roman bastardization of ‘Shang Ke’s Laws,’ Lin believes.

Said to have roamed the country during the early Qin Dynasty, dispatching “bribes to those who were naughty and punishments to those who were nice,” Shang is revered in schools today as the father of Chinese autocracy.

But the draconian Shang was also famed for ramming dissenting scholars into chimneys and roasting them alive, and enslaving Japanese tourists – or “dwarf people” – to do his bidding.

Lin says these traditions were spoilt by Westerners, who instead made Shang – or “Santa” – an avuncular figure, whose elf-run workshops deposit Japanese-made electronic goods on the hearths of well-behaved children.

“Shang ran a sweatshop and he ran it good,” said Lin. “The irony is the tradition has now come full circle. We churn out cheap, lead-based goods to be consumed by gullible foreign children. As a consequence, we’re  the world’s number-one export economy. Shang would probably have approved –but if he didn’t, he’d have chopped your head off.”

The real-life Shang was eventually executed after falling out of imperial favor, and supposedly torn asunder by horses. Lin speculates this might explain the “reindeer thing.”

The tradition was most likely stolen during the chaotic civil war that followed the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, Lin says. Visiting executives from the fledgeling Coca Cola Company allegedly paid 400 taels for the recipe to an ancient medicinal brew called kela – the story of Lord Shang was later appropriated by the firm’s Shanghai advertising department.

“Foreigners stole our land, our precious artifacts and our tyrannical historical figures,” Lin lamented. “They can keep the vases but we want the good stuff back.”

Shang’s modern ancestors have announced they intend to sue Coke for copyright infringement but IPR lawyers suggest the family may be willing to settle the case for a large quantity of Sprite.

And while some experts have questioned the veracity of the claims, Lin says documents proving his theory have been authenticated by none other than historians Hugh Trevor-Roper and Gavin Menzies.

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By Ruan Shili
Cultural Correspondent

The new 'GI Wang' remake has left male critics "stunned, confused but excited"

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – The set-up may seem familiar to film fans: a pair of  femme fatales, vast riches and a villainous male standing in their way.

But the Sino-side update of crime classic Bound (1996) will  feature “Chinese characteristics”: the plot now revolves around a pair of rival sisters, whose exquisitely bound feet compete for the attentions of a wealthy Manchurian warlord in 1914 China.

“It’s a much more interesting story than the original, which was about lesbians, betrayal and the Mafia,” explained Hong Kong director Danny Chao, adding, “The new version features rampant calligraphy.”

Chao’s film is part of a cinematic renaissance spearheaded by the Chinese government, whose plan to make China “a socialist cultural superpower” was unveiled at the latest Central Committee plenum in late October.

Aftershock director Xiaogang Feng is already hard at work on The Towering Inferno (Safely Extinguished), which revisits the  downtown Beijing 2009 CCTV  fire and uncovers the tale of an upright government official (Andy Lau) battling to save office workers from a group of disgruntled Japanese fireworks salesmen.

Other potential hits include Citizen Kong – starring Chow Yun-fat as a dying Confucian scholar, desperate for a last tap of former mistress “Rosebud” – and Titanic, an epic weepie about a pair of doomed lovers who meet on an “uncrashable” high-speed train.

This is not the first time Beijing has plundered Hollywood’s back-catalog in search of inspiration to revive its own flagging film industry, however.

During the 1960s, the rights to a numbers of Oscar-winning classics were stolen and completely re-shot to incorporate a Maoist aesthetic: the James Dean hit  Rebel Without a Cause became Red Guard classic Public Servant With Noble Intention (1965) while the retitled A Rickshaw Named Contentment (1967) arguably speaks for itself.

Many of these remakes went on to become extremely popular in China. Harmony on the Bounty (1977), for example, proved a huge success with both the public and the censors.

“Pass the scurvy!” declared the People’s Daily film critic upon the film’s release. “For here’s emphatic proof that the US piracy in the motherland’s South China Seas is no longer a match for a crew of hardened seamen with socialist longings.”

But despite the most stringent re-branding efforts, some of today’s remake projects seem unable to shake off what officials once called the “spiritual pollution” of their origins.

An early cut of Zhang Yimou’s Mr Lin Goes to Zhongnanhai, for example, recast Frank Capra’s 1939 feelgood classic as a cautionary tale about the dangers of political reform, with Lin — played by a thoughtful Guo Degang — now a disillusioned peasant-with-a-petition, shown regretting his destabilizing ways as he languishes in a black jail. Censors eventually decided the film was too uplifting.

And the Huayi Bros production Some Like it Hot Pot (tagline: “Spice up your Spring Festival with a little transvestism in your hogwash oil!”) seems forever bound for the cutting-room floor, after star Ge You admitted in interview that he now preferred wearing his character’s female costumes in real life.

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And look for the following at your nearest Wanda Multiplex soon:

Shaft
Not to be confused with Blind Shaft, this Chinese remake of the 1970s hit hopes to launch a new genre – “Uighursploitation.” Shaft is a wisecracking private detective who won’t stop till he gets his man — but after investigating a series of ethnic arson attacks, he agrees he’s better off just leaving the case well alone. A sequel, Shaft in Africa, is in the works.

The Godfather
This line-for-line indie remake of the 1970s Oscar-winner stars renowned character actor Alec Su playing an unusually upstanding Yunnanese Tobacco Bureau chief.

The Grapes of Benevolent
Has there ever been a better time to revisit Steinbeck’s masterful tale of a migrant worker family, fleeing the West across a lush Jiangsu landscape into the arms of a group of benevolent Wenzhou money lenders?

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