A stone is a stone, but sometimes it can be a Philosopher's Stone as in the Harry Potter tale, with magical power to brighten all the gloomy souls with whom it comes in contact.

Such is the case of Crazy Stone, a low-budget made-in-China film that has made 20 million yuan (US$2.5 million) almost seven times its production cost at the box office since it was released in Chinese theaters on June 30.

Suddenly, newspapers around the country were filled with praise for this witty comedy, which was apparently inspired in part by Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Many in the Chinese film industry saw it as the "saviour" in rekindling Chinese audiences' smouldering passion for domestic films.

One of the surprises was that Crazy Stone is the first product of director Ning Hao. Ning, a 29-year-old graduate of the Beijing Film Academy, had shot only two DVDs and a handful of MTV videos before venturing into movies.

Surely someone had faith in Ning to give him a chance to do Crazy Stone, people said.

That someone turned out to be Andy Lau. Yes, that Andy Lau -- the Hong Kong singing and acting superstar. In March 2005, Lau launched his Asian New Director program, the first private fund in China that dedicated itself to supporting emerging screenwriters and directors.

Asian New Director is the rough equivalent of the Sundance Institute started by Robert Redford in the United States. Initially organized in 1981, the Sundance Institute (named for Redford's role in the 1969 movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid opposite Paul Newman) played a key role in the first productions of many important people in today's Hollywood. Among them was Steven Soderbergh, who won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his 1989 movie sex, lies and videotape and also won an Academy Award for Best Director for Traffic in 2000.

With Lau's personal funds, the program offered a total investment of HK$25 million (US$3.2 million) to six young directors on the Chinese mainland, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Taiwan Province as well as Singapore and Malaysia to make their startup films. Of the six, Ning produced the biggest commercial hit.

"I had no money when I finished my last DVD, and I was owing people money," he said. "I was carrying the camera and shooting MTV videos like crazy to pay both my debt and the mortgage of my small apartment when I heard about the program through a friend.

"The greatest merit of the program is the freedom it gives the directors. There is not much money, but you can do whatever you want with it."

Lau clearly was surprised, as well, as these kinds of investments are always a gamble. "It's like your parents arranged a blind date for you," Lau said. "But when you arrive, you discover your date is (beautiful South Korean actress) Jeon Ji Hyun"

Tastes turning Hollywood

Ning said he was motivated, in part, by the changing tastes of Chinese movie-goers.

"Audiences have been avoiding going to the movies on the mainland," he said. "They don't watch domestic films. They love Hollywood productions."

The same is true in Hong Kong, where box-office revenue has shrunk to one-third the amount at the end of the 1990s.

That, said Chen Ruibin, assistant manager of Beijing Capital Times Square Cinema, made Crazy Stone " a dark horse in Chinese domestic film industry."

Like other common domestically made films, few came to watch the film the first week of its release. But things quickly changed, and cinemas began to sell out in the second week.

"Without any further promotion, it seems like all the audience were told by their friends to come and watch the film," Chen said. "It's a phenomenon that hasn't been seen in the domestic film industry for a long time."

Shi Chuan, professor in the Shanghai Film and Television Technology College at Shanghai University, added: "Hit movies come and go in China, but Crazy Stone is unique for a few reasons. It's unexpected that a low-budget film with no major stars could fill the cinemas.

"It attracts the audience by telling the true side of life. A large number of domestically produced films are too far from real life and, therefore, can't win the audience's hearts."

The story unfolds in the Southwest China's Chongqing, more representative of the lives of many ordinary Chinese than, say, Beijing or Shanghai. The backdrop is China's rapid but unsophisticated industrialization, where a professional thief and three clumsy rivals compete to steal a rare jade stone discovered in a factory that is facing bankruptcy. The factory assigns the security detail for the stone to its ordinary workers, and the result is chaos, entertaining plot twists and - perhaps most to the point quirky dialogue.

Most of the audience must rely on subtitles to understand the confusing-but-realistic mixture of Chongqing, Chengdu and Shandong dialects employed by a true-to-life variety of migrant characters.

Whether because of the black humor or the variety of dialogues that forced its audience to read subtitles, people who went to see Crazy Stone didn't always like it.

"What's so funny about it? I couldn't understand," said Wu Bin, a 30-year-old white-collar worker from Beijing. "It's a cliche story about thieves, and I couldn't understand why the thieves should behave in such a silly way."

Wang Lina, a 27-year-old student at the Beijing Institute of Technology, also didn't like it because "it's confusing, too local."

Confusing or not, the audience has made its decision at the box office.

Things are looking up

Andy Lau has pledged to launch the second phase of Asian New Director by the end of this year by investing in the films of another six new, young directors. He says he believes these young directors will instil vitality to the gloomy film industry in Hong Kong and to the fledgling one on the mainland.

"I have known too many young, talented people who have had no opportunity in our film industries," Lau said. "I'd like to give a few of them a try. Otherwise they will disappear from sight within two or three years, as they abandon the careers in which they've shown talent and pick up a more regular job."

Lau pledged that his program would give the directors the greatest freedom possible to display their talents. "It has only one request of the directors: that they tell stories in their films that are not boring," he said.

"By launching this program, we want to lure the audience back. Directors can make either commercial or artistic films, but they always have to bear the audience in mind. If they want only to express themselves, they can simply find their own investment."

Lau's courage has borne other fruit, as well. The Sichuan provincial government recently announced it would start a Sichuan New Director program to encourage the development of its own film industry.

What's more, Warner Brothers one of the top American filmmaking companies, which distributed Crazy Stone has also started to express interest in Chinese films.

"Warner Brothers is committed to China's market," Tony Vaughan, managing director of the CAV Warner Home Entertainment Co, told China Daily, "and this commitment is shown in its project to produce and launch the latest popular Chinese films such as The Crazy Stone."

Han Sanping, chairman of Warner China Film HG Corporation, added: "The film makes me feel confident (because) it tackles the problem of how the Chinese film industry can produce good films that satisfy a Chinese audience."

(China Daily September 30, 2006)