Meet China’s La Peikang, the movie world’s most powerful man
The head of China’s biggest film company talks about censorship, increasing artistic quality and box office returns that, he says, will beat America’s by 2017
“I am a member of that legendary species: the nouveau riche. Before, you had the Japanese, the Saudis, the Russians. And now it’s me.” The Chinese banker with the line in Boris Johnson buffoonery has the room falling about with laughter, but his game is deadly serious. He’s part of a special delegation at the Montreal world film festival, dangling millions of dollars for “cultural investments” in front of western film-makers. Near him on the dais, a greying, creamy-skinned man in rimless specs musters the odd half-smile, like he’s heard the speech before. Hiding in plain sight, this is probably the most powerful individual in cinema today.
La Peikang’s business card spells it out: “Chairman of the board, China Film Co.” Double-sided, in Mandarin and English. Off-white, with a tantalising iridescent sheen. I have a serious case of Patrick Bateman card-envy as I reach into my Nike sports wallet and fish out mine, with my new mobile number scrawled on it in ballpoint. Not what will impress the man who, on current projections, will oversee the world’s largest film market by 2017. State-owned China Film Co is a leading film producer that owns theatres, drives technological research and is the country’s sole importer of foreign films, too. La’s predecessor – the bullish impresario Han Sanping, who stepped down in 2014 after a 15-year reign – has been described as “Jack Valenti [creator of the US ratings system], Lew Wasserman [legendary studio executive] and Steven Spielberg rolled into one”.
The emails leaked from Sony Pictures in 2014 show, on La’s accession, the studio circulating a full briefing on the man to whom Hollywood now goes, cap in hand, to ensure its blockbusters gain entry to a box-office goldmine that has grown at least 30% year-on-year since 2010. Sitting with a translator and I in a spot outside the men’s toilets where we’ve sought refuge from the business scrum, La is quick to extend a hand to the studios: “Our government has introduced a lot of helpful policies so we can cooperate with film companies in the west and elsewhere.” He waits, with practised rhythm, for his translator to finish, then resumes. “We’re more open than in the past.”