Local movies in Taiwan revitalizes by the power of Internet

Posted by Jui-Lun Hsu on
Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 3:07 pm

Recently, the most hot topic in Taiwan is “Cape No.7″, a local movie which reveals the beauty and energy of the south part of Taiwan. Its box office receipts have already skyrocketed over $100,000,000, a rare milestone in the Taiwanese film industry. Usually, local movies in Taiwan are not popular at all. They may be good enough to win some international awards, but domestic audiences just don’t buy them typically.

However,”Cape No.7″ completely overthrew this unfortunate situation and became an instant hit. How was it able to miraculously revitalize a nearly dead movie market in Taiwan? Of course, the story is quite good, but it has really been the viral marketing of the film by word of mouth over the internet. It is interesting that when ”Cape No.7″ was in theaters, some people started writing reviews on the one of the biggest forums in Taiwan - ptt, afterwards more and more people downloaded these reviews to their blogs. Finally, almost every blog was talking about this movie and there was even a slogan such as “if you have never seen Cape No.7, you don’t love Taiwan!”etc. Obviously, using the correct language to communicate with audiences is a vital factor to its success.

Indeed, as long as a movie is good enough, it will be a hit sooner or later. Yet by the power of the Internet, it can gain much more popularity much sooner which is very important for a movie to get momentum. After ”Cape No.7″ was getting popular on the Internet, the mainstream media started to report this phenomenon, and which made it even easier for the word to spread about this smash hit. The most inspiring point in this case is that this movie stimulated a nearly dead domestic market and imploded new demands in this market. Sometimes this can be even harder than succeeding abroad. Moreover, the effect of this movie is somewhat the opposite example of the “Long Tail Theory” since it gathered the “tail parts” – people who have different kind of interests in minority products together and evoke them willing others to see this movie. It should be interesting to watch how other studios and filmmakers learn from this record setting movie as Taiwanese cinema finds itself revitalized once more.

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6 Comments, Comment or Ping

Brian Johnson

Interesting that Taiwan does not traditionally support homegrown films. Do you think it would have made the same amount of money if the film did not have viral marketing? Or would it have made the same amount of money, but just taken much longer to reach that amount?

Maybe native films from Taiwan need a different kind of marketing to be successful? Perhaps the Taiwan film industry needs to rally around the internet as the focal point in homegrown movies.

Nov 17th, 2008
Pei-chieh

Yes, that’s how social media helps Taiwanese films. Without the growth of social media, Hollywood movies make profits more, since they have more budget and resources to promote. Now the audience has chances to know great local films through social media.

Nov 19th, 2008
Yu-Hsuan

I am glade you posted this article to introduce the Taiwanese movies. It reminded me the Taiwanese movie festival last month in UW. I think it is difficult for Americans to understand the movies with different cultures. Even for local Taiwanese, not so many people watch our movies. Most of us go to theaters and watch the Hollywood movies, because they are good in marketing, especially in the mass media. But thanks for Internet and Blogs, Cape No.7 has good marketing in this new media. This movie was shot in my hometown, the south and countryside place. That’s why this movie can touch my heart very much. It presented the story of the south in Taiwan and the facts that people have no alternatives between cities and countries. I am glade this movie was very popular in Taiwan and thanks Internet.

Nov 22nd, 2008
Brook Ellingwood

I’m finding it interesting that when my Canadian/American friend in Taiwan changed his Facebook status to “…finally saw Cape No. 7″ I knew what he was talking about because of this FTM post. The world keeps getting smaller and smaller. And it’s good.

Nov 22nd, 2008
Pei-chieh

Following the trend of Cape No7, several Taiwanese films become hits recently. It’s a good sign!!

Nov 22nd, 2008
Jui-Lun Hsu

To Brian:
Yes, i am sure without the viral marketing, this movie might not be as successful as it is now….. Taiwanese were not very interested in our homegrown movies based on several reasons. For example 1) themes of our early homegrown movies were not so business therefore it was hard to appeal the public interests. 2) because of historical backgrounds, our early homegrown movies are somewhat sad .. even though they were good, yet they were not so entertaining. However, while mainstream culture varies, directors have new perspectives of Taiwan; thus themes of our movies become more diverse. So I think with growing self-confidence and new marketing strategy, the future of our homegrown movies will catch more and more attention.

To Pei-Chieh and Yu-hsuan:
Cape No.7 Rocks !!!!!!!

To Brook:
I am so glad that your friend finally saw this movie, i hope he really enjoyed it ! And it’s true, thanks all these tools make us not be isolated because of long distance. ^_^

Nov 23rd, 2008