WHEN Chinese wunderkind Han Han announced in 2013 that he would be making his debut as a director with “The Continent,” a feature adaptation of his own best-selling novel, many in the Chinese industry were skeptical. During his 20s, Han, now 34, had been hailed as “the world’s most popular blogger” and “the voice of China’s boom-era youth” — his blog, filled with wry commentary on social change in China, has received over 300 million hits. And although he had achieved moderate success pursuing other interests — including releasing a pop album and devoting a surprisingly large amount of his time to professional rally car racing — Han had virtually zero experience in filmmaking. But his directorial debut, produced by Bona Film Group, went on to confound his naysayers, earning US$101 million at the Chinese box office and receiving mixed reviews from international critics. Han returned in February with his second feature, “Duckweed.” A “Back to the Future”-like dramatic-comedy about a young man who travels back in time to gain a new understanding of his father, the film was the dark horse of the Chinese New Year, pulling in US$151.5 million despiting opening head-to-head against strong competition from the local industry’s elder statesmen, Stephen Chow with “Journey to the West 2” (US$239 million) and Jackie Chan’s “Kung Fu Yoga” (US$252 million). In an email interview conducted in mid-March, The Hollywood Reporter (THR) got Han’s thoughts on filmmaking. THR: What do you enjoy or dislike about filmmaking compared to your many other creative pursuits — blogging, writing books or racing cars? Every writer, when they create, has certain corresponding pictures in their mind. The fun part of making films is that these pictures can be presented directly, because every character has a real image of its own. And then you can make the creative expression even richer through editing, music and the visual language of the camera. In any case, artistic creation always makes people feel good — even though, in the end, it also always brings an ache of sorrow to the creator. THR: How would you characterize the development of China’s film industry over the past few years? Is it a good time to be making a start as a director in China? For filmmakers, it’s definitely a good era. We can get bigger production budgets, and as long as you do decent work, you get appropriate feedback from the market. The number of theaters is indeed increasing dramatically. But China has so many cities and such a huge population, this state that we usually think of as sudden growth is actually just a return to the normal global standard. Normally, you’re supposed to say that “the best of times” are also “the worst of times” — to demonstrate your depth. But I don’t want to do that, because this really isn’t a bad time for the Chinese film industry. THR: What are your hopes, or predictions, for the role Chinese pop culture will come to play on the world stage? If or when China will overtake North America — I don’t think it’s very important. Because it’s a very normal thing. We have many more people and cities, and entertainment consumption is growing. What’s more important is when China will be able to export its culture to the world. This is important. In this respect, we are still behind Japan and South Korea. Of course, there are various reasons. Every participant is responsible, including me. We have a self-sufficient market, which is a good thing but also a bad thing. Naturally, I hope that we can exert a stronger influence on the world stage, and play a more important role. Eastern culture has its own forms of excellence, and it is best to conduct mutual exchange on equal footing. What we ought to do is improve ourselves, rather than resist or protest against cultural works from other countries. Meanwhile, even with the political environment aside, the Western world does hold some natural biases against works of Chinese culture. To eliminate this prejudice and hostility, there is still a long way to go. (SD-Agencies) | 