Kung Fu Pander: a play for local audiences

While Americans have mastered the art of including characters from local markets as a ploy to get audiences on side, Aussie film-makers and local audiences are yet to get on board, which may be a good thing says Lee Zachariah in a piece that first appeared in Encore.

If you were one of the thousands of audience members who added to Iron Man 3’s box-office blitz earlier this year, you may well have enjoyed the work of Bingbing Fan and Xueqi Wang as Chinese doctors tasked with helping Tony Stark.

Don’t recall that scene? Then you clearly didn’t watch it in China. In an attempt to crack the Chinese market – one that notoriously limits the number of Hollywood films that may be screened – Marvel crammed in about four minutes of China-only scenes that reportedly bore zero relation to the overall story. Before you wipe your brow at not being subjected to such nonsense, it’s worth noting that America panders to us just as much, although not for the transparently economic reasons it does with China. Disney’s upcoming Planes, a spin-off from the money-printing family-friendly animation Cars, will feature former Packed to the Rafters actress Jessica Marais as a Tasmanian plane in what is being called a “localised” version of the film, only to be seen in Australia and New Zealand.

This is not new ground for animated films. 2004’s Shark Tale was altered from country to country, focusing on aquatic news reporter “Katie Current”, played by Katie Couric in the original US version. In Australia, however, six year olds across the country were no doubt delighted to recognise reporter Tracy Grimshaw’s voice emanating from the microphone-wielding fish. The UK got GMTV’s Fiona Phillips, and Italy heard anchorwoman Cristina Parodi.