There are a handful of reasons why you’re better off watching a DVD at home then venturing out into a movie theater here in Shanghai:

  • No buttered and salted popcorn. For some reason, the Chinese never got around to ripping-off this movie-going essential. Instead, caramelized popcorn is the only thing you’ll find at the concession stand. It looks like popcorn, it feels like popcorn, but it tastes like Crackerjack; good for a Dodger game, not for a movie.

  • Image and projection quality.It’s a commonly held belief amongst theater owners in the U.S. that by dimming the bulb on the projector, they can extend its life and save some long-term costs. In China, not only do they dim the bulb even more than their overseas counterparts, but they also hire clueless projectionists who don’t calibrate and adjust the image when switching to the 2nd reel. This results not only in dim, flickering images but also blurry ones as well.

  • Incessant talking during the course of the film. This has got to be the worst one by far. For me, time spent watching a movie in a theater is intensely personal. Being a bit of a fanatic, I like to be enveloped by the experience and not have outside distractions puncture that. For many Chinese, however, they treat their theater time as a personal event in different way in that they act as if they’re in their own living room, commenting and analyzing the film in un-modulated tones and volumes for everyone else to hear.

That being said, this is the Transformers movie we’re talking about here, a film that I had been literally waiting years to go see. Trying to hedge against the above annoyances as much as possible, we decided to watch it at the IMAX over at the Raffles City mall, and to get the latest showing so as to avoid contact with other human beings. This way, we could get a high-quality projection with as as little disruption as possible.

Surprisingly, even at 12:40 am (all the other shows were sold out hours in advance), there was a pretty decent crowd. And projection quality was just as bad as it was in any other theater I’ve been to in Shanghai, with the 2nd reel being inexcusably blurry. Yes yes, I have a stick up my ass, but anyone who knows me knows how particular I am when it comes to a movie-watching experience (TV shows are a completely different matter).

And you know what? I still found myself sitting through the entire thing with a huge grin on my face. I’m even bold enough to admit that I pumped my fist a couple of times, especially when all the Autobots show up and Optimus Prime’s iconic voice boomed through the speakers. Although I own many a stereotypical fanboy accoutrement, you have to believe me when I say that the only things that inspire fanboy-like craze in me are Transformers and burritos, so you’ll have to forgive my somewhat raw and unfiltered reaction to seeing the characters I grew up with duke it out on screen.

While we were walking out of the theater, I observed the faces of all the other Chinese attendees who I had decried as being obnoxious and annoying. Danwei has a pretty good reason why their faces were full of the same bliss that I’m sure was on my big round mug that night:

For a special group of people in China, the influence of the Transformers is quite out of the ordinary.

This group was born between the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Transformer TV cartoon series was irreplaceable entertainment for them in their childhood. As the first generation under the one child policy, they had no brothers or sisters, and most of their spare time was spent sitting in front of a TV set which may have even been black and white.

At that time, Tangram (七巧板) was a typical “mainstream” kids program on CCTV. It taught kids how to do simple paper folding and sing children’s songs – all the TV station cared about were the educational aspects of the programming.

Then the Transformers arrived, greeted by surprise and wild enthusiasm. Now, with those kids all grown up, they will take their own children, wives (they were mostly boys), and childhood memories and flock to the cinemas to see the new movie.

That’s why the Transformers is much more influential in China than it is in the United States, says New Century Weekly in its cover feature.

They made a movie for me, and all of those kids who grew up just like I did, no matter in China or in Southern California. And that’s something no shitty projectionist can take away from me. Whew, guess I am a fanboy after all.


Blurry picture of a blissful me

Also check out this great piece from Wired