Nearly every country in Asia has felt the effects of the Korean Wave, the three-year surge of popular interest that propelled Korean movies, TV shows and music acts onto local screens of every sort and to the top of local charts. Several countries have sent delegations of officials and filmmakers to the country to understand how this sudden success was achieved.
While they took home lessons about the ability of visual media to stimulate national pride and tourism, countries disagree about how to deliver new Waves of their own.
"Of the 70 movie projects that we are currently tracking in Asia, a dozen would be shooting now if this were Europe," says one European film financier now working in Asia. "What is missing is the small slice of soft money that provides reassurance and a cushion to the other backers."
City-states Singapore and Hong Kong are throwing government money at their film industries.
Singapore, which has a movie history that is honorable but not particularly influential, has decided in the past four years to recast itself as a media center for the region.
The establishment of the Media Development Authority and the Singapore Film Commission has been backed by increasingly generous subsidy plans. Country claims to house the regional HQs of more than a dozen Western media multinationals and has attracted Lucasfilm's new animation production hub.
While level of cash support for productions is still small, programs such as the recently launched guarantee system are open to film projects from around the world, provided that pic's producers are open to some Singaporean participation.
Number of Singapore-qualifying films is unsurprisingly on the rise.
Until recently, the Hong Kong government had no plan to boost production in its once-vibrant industry. The territory has arguably felt the greatest negative impact of the Korean Wave and the revival of neighboring China as a world power. Territory is witnessing a withering away of aud interest in filmgoing as a whole, and for the last two years local production numbers have slumped.
Producers established an "emergency response group" and have lobbied for active government support.
Response had been muted.
But on Feb. 28, the Hong Kong government announced the creation of a new pool of financial aid for the biz.
Making his annual budget address to the Legislative Council, Hong Kong's financial secretary Henry Tang unveiled a $38.5 million package to help what he described as a "major creative sector." Creation of a state fund to help the production sector was one of the propsals made recently by the territory's Film Development Committee.
"One of its recommendations is the establishement of a new fund to help finance film production and overcome the shortage of talent," Tang said at the announcement in February. "I have earmarked $300 million for this purpose."
The speed of Tang's announcement surprised some in the industry. Some had not expected a government commitment until after this month's chief-executive elections. But pushing the announcement forward was made easier by booming Hong Kong's enormous $55 billion fiscal surplus.
Industry response was positive, but Tang gave no indication of how the fund would be allocated, whether his measure is a one-off, or how long coin would be available.
Elsewhere in the region, from Thailand to the Philippines and Indonesia, there are calls for expansion of state support. These are met by confused or lightweight responses.
The success of Ang Lee and "Brokeback Mountain" has given many in Taiwan new hope of revival for an industry that commands less than a few percentage points of its local B.O. So far there have been more policy initiatives than commercial films.
Planning in Thailand has been made harder by the September coup. Industry funding, previously channeled through the Tourism Authority, has been slashed at the high-profile Bangkok Film Festival, but the direction of other coin is not clear. Country's ability to attract foreign shoots also is waning.
The Philippines has witnessed the building of two production studios, in Cebu and in the Clark Economic Zone, near Manila, but the operators have called on the government to pitch in with incentives to help bring in business. They argue that countries around the world, and even many U.S. states, provide tax or other inducements.
In contrast, the two biggest production territories in Asia -- Japan and India -- seem to be doing better these days without direct government involvement or much change in policy.
Two of Japan's TV companies, Fuji TV and TBS, have upped the ante and invested large sums into movie production -- and been handsomely rewarded at the B.O. The established majors have similarly given their commercial pictures more resources and kept turnstiles whirling.
Rather than direct stimulation of the sector, India has removed some of the barriers that had made movies the industrial equivalent of the "untouchable" caste.
Local film, which is the dominant form of entertainment, can now raise capital more freely. Technology that prevents pay TV piracy is becoming mandatory. And reform of the retail sector is helping the ancillary video market grow.
Most interesting, however, will be to watch how Korea handles the ebbing of the Wave, since export revenues have already dropped by 60%. Government has offered massive financial support, $430 million over seven years, drawing on a new cinema ticket tax. And the Korean Film Council (Kofic) is highly interventionist, now seeking to bring ethnic Koreans living abroad into the Korean system.
But many in the Korean industry say they would prefer less government cash and more of the protection against competition they enjoyed under the full screen quota.
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