Amazing China documentary becomes ‘instant record-breaker’

China claims a stirring 90-minute film it launched only days ago has become the country’s biggest-earning documentary.

China's President Xi Jinping.

China’s government claims a stirring 90-minute film it launched only days ago has already become the country’s biggest-earning documentary.

Its title is Amazing China, but its star is the Amazing Xi. The film celebrates Xi Jinping potentially becoming President for life.

China’s rubberstamp parliament unanimously handed Xi a second term on Saturday and elevated his former anti-graft enforcer Wang Qishan to Vice-President.

Premier Li Keqiang was given a second five-year term yesterday.

Xi appears at the start and the end of the film, in scores of venues in China and beyond, and narrates other scenes.

Amazing China was released immediately after Xi secured a 99.8 per cent vote of National People’s Congress delegates for the constitutional change that ­allowed him to lead indefinitely.

It delivers the party-state’s key message that China is changing — and changing the world — in what Xi calls his “New Era”.

Constitutional changes agreed a week ago deliver what Xi has called during the annual parliamentary session “the new type of party system”. Before, China was committed to being “socialist”. Now it is further committed to the leadership of the party, whose own leadership is firmly and indefinitely in Xi’s hands.

He tells a family of Uighurs — Muslims, mostly farmers — in the film that “only the party can boost your income from 500 yuan a year (about $100) to 20,000 yuan. That is the China story, the China solution for the world.”

Branches of the Chinese Communist Party and workplaces have bought massive numbers of seats for screenings of Amazing China.

The huge cost of millions of movie tickets is amplified by the additional burden of buying parking spots so people can get to the cinemas — although some told The Australian they made use of the free parking to shop and eat at restaurants instead.

When The Australian saw the film, which has allegedly grossed $54 million, the cinema was otherwise empty. Tickets may have been bought by state organs, but they were not being used.

The film, made by China Central TV and China Film Company, contains breathtaking aerial shots and cameos of infrastructure, including the Hong Kong to Macau bridge, the high-speed rail network and the world’s biggest oil rig.

It shows China taking its benevolence and efficiency to the world, highlighting a $4.8 billion rail line in Kenya, and a shoe factory in Ethiopia employing 1300 people who are paid twice the rate at locally owned factories, according to the film.

It underlines Xi’s role as what China Daily described last week as “the chief architect of China’s distinctive major-power diplomacy, playing a pivotal role, having irreplaceable strategic value”.

He is shown taking the centre stage internationally, including being flanked by Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama.

The song that plays as the film concludes, New Sky and New Land, includes the lyrics: “Walking in rain and wind without respite/You share your heart with the people/Like a tree rooted in the land/like a seed buried in the earth.” Unambiguously, the “you” is Xi.

Pony Ma, China’s richest man, the founder and chief executive of internet giant Tencent, who is a delegate to the NPC session that ends tomorrow, says “a new concept has been born” under Xi’s rule.

This concept encapsulates what is frequently described in China as the “the new four great inventions” — high-speed rail, online shopping, mobile payment and shared bicycles.

Although China — which in earlier eras did invent gunpowder, paper-making, printing and the compass — has commercialised all four modern inventions with outstanding success, they were invented in Japan, Britain, Finland and Holland, respectively.

Amazing China is introduced by actor Jackie Chan saying: “Only if the country is good can you or your family life be good — that’s the China Dream,” one of Xi’s catchphrases.

The phrase “in the past five years” is constantly repeated. That period coincides with the start of Xi’s rule. His predecessors appear irrelevant.

“The China Dream,” the film’s narrator says, “is within your reach, immediately.”

Amazing China marks a significant step towards a personality cult that is making many in the country uneasy but cannot be criticised or even named in public.

Additional reporting: Agencies