[Weekly Update] Movie Hotels and Chinese Netflix

Sorry for the late update. I was on a flight all Sunday. ANd I had to crash in a hotel afterward. Anyway, bringing this update to you right from China!

Our next few updates will be about my observations of film culture in China this year. In this update, we'll talk about how movie has latched itself onto the hotel industry (or maybe the other way around). But first, let's house keep.

CHANNEL UPDATE

Shanghai Video
Over the next few days, I'll be trek through much of Shanghai, tracking down the origin of cinema in China. That means visiting the location where movies were first screened in China, the first dedicated cinema, and also the current Shanghai film industry and museum. The goal is to eventually make a video out of the footage I filmed. But if you'd like to follow along on this journey, come to our Patreon Discord server!

Preview All Videos
Our next 3 videos are all complete, and are available for preview on our Patreon Discord. Their script and notes will be shared on here soon.
Our next video is on Kwaidan, which will go this Friday. If you haven't seen Kwaidan, this is your time to watch it. Don't be intimidated by the run time. It's an anthology movie with intermission. You can watch it as two seperate movies or even as a 4 episode mini series.

MEDIA TALK

In China, newer hotels are often themed. This can be something as basic as rustry aesthetic with a shared garden, or as degenerate as themed to a specific anime. A few years back, "AI hotel" was all the rage, as the industry rush to adopt AI butlers to turn on and off the light for you, browse movies to play on TV, and even use robots to bring your food delivery from the front desk to in front of your room. The AI craze has since died down, because it has become industry standard. Every hotel is an AI hotel.

One particularly popular hotel theme, interestingly enough, is movie themed. Not themed after movies, but hotel rooms build for watching movies. Instead of TVs it has large projectors. Most of the rooms also provide a decent quality sound bar. Although 5.1 surround sound is extremely rare. Not that it'd be useful, since most Chinese streaming websites don't support surround sound.

Interesting, right? Movie consumption is so prevalent in China, some people want to watch more of them in better quality during their trip and business travel. There's also a sexy implication here, but we are all adults who can figure that part out. The point is, this is how popular movies are in China, and I think a lot of people don't understand that.

When we think of movies, we think of the big productions from Disney and WB. That biase also exists in China. But when people go to these hotel and boot up their streaming website, what they see is not Superman. What they see is shlocky movies like "Giant Cockroaches" or "Massive Octopus". Also Meg 2 is always there for some reason.

Because YouTube is not available in China, and there is no similar ubiquitous substitute, when people want something to film their time, cheaply produced web movies are often their go to options. After all, no one is gonna scroll through TikTok for 2 hours in their hotel rooms (hopefully), and few wants to start watching a new TV series while traveling. So a movie is the perfect one and done medium.

This is what drove the demand on both ends: Film industry produces a lot of cheap thrill ride movies (mostly creature feature), and the hotel industry creates these movie themed hotel rooms for people to relax their body and mind.

Still, people consider these movies as "movies", not YouTube entertainment. The availability of film culture makes the cinema experience more approachable. People don't see going to the movie theaters as a special event, but simply something they can decide to do on the spot. And it is this sort of mindset that currently keeps the Chinese film industry afloat in a shaky economy.

Anyway, that is our update this week. I'm still half asleep, so sorry if there are more typos than usual. In any case, I hope you are having an excellent October. I'll see you soon with a new video.