Four feature film projects and two animated film projects are set to come out of the deal.

Chinese state-owned China Film Group and private media conglomerate Chinavision Media Group has announced a strategic alliance that will co-develop and co-invest on 4 feature film projects, 2 animated film projects, TV dramas and new media distribution.  The total amount of these investments reached $88m (RMB600m).

Chinavision Media Group is led by Dong Ping, former head of Asian Union, a Beijing-based film and TV entertainment company which has invested on Chen Kaige’s The Emperor and the Assassin (1998), Jiang Wen’s Devils on the Doorstep (2000), and Gu Changwei’s Peacock (2005).  In 2009, Dong set up Chinavision Media Group in Hong Kong after acquiring Hong Kong listed Shanghai Allied Cement Ltd and changed its name to Chinavision Media Group. 

Since its establishment, the group has begun a series of acquisition and merger of Chinese new media companies, as well as developing film and TV projects.  Its recent investment was actress-turned-director Jiang Wenli’s debut film Lan, which won top prize at Shanghai International Film Festival’s Asian New Talent Awards.

The four film projects to co-produce with China Film Group are Founding of a Party, the prequel to the blockbuster propaganda film Founding of a Republic to be co—directed by China Film Group chairman Han Sanping and director Huang Jianxin, Ding Sheng’s (Little Big Soldier) action drama The Underdog Knight 2, starring Liu Ye; Shang Jing’s Kung Fu comedy My Own Swordsman; and Qiu Jin, a bio-pic about the only female martyr during the 1911 revolution to overthrow the imperial China.  The film is seen as one of the series to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the success of revolution, led by Dr Sun Yat-sen.

The new media cooperation between the two companies include to co-invest and co-produce 365 short films, each three minutes long, to be distributed on Chinavision Media’s mobile TV platform.  Besides, all of China Film Group’s licensed films and audio-visual programs will be distributed on Chinavision’s subsidiary mobile TV platform, a joint venture set up in April with People’s Daily Online.

Chinavision Media in June 7 received $146m (RMB1 billion) in credit from Bank of Beijing for the company’s businesses on film and TV production, traditional and new media, on-line game and cinema development.

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