Why China Built a WHOLE Ancient CITY to Shoot Movies

In Chinese movies, we often see sprawling ancient palaces, scenes in villages and towns, fight scenes in ancient temples, Republican era streets, old colonial buildings in their original paint job, and even scenes inside the Forbidden City itself, minus all the tourists you'd normally see there. So, how do they get these shots? Do they clean out the Forbidden City for weeks on end to shoot TV shows or movies? Chinese TV series or sea dramas are normally like 50 episodes long. That's a lot of production time. Well, no. The answer is all of this is fake. Didn't you know that China fakes everything? >> China fakes everything part 16. These are p these are dogs. >> Okay. Well, that's in a bad way, but this time it's actually in a good way. What you are looking at right now is not the Forbidden City, but instead a life-siz replica of many of the buildings from the Forbidden City complex that was home to the Ming andQing Dynasty emperors. Welcome to Hungian or Hungian World Studios in Jang Province about 4 hours drive from Shanghai. It's one of the largest movie studios in the world, the size of Paramount and Universal Studios combined where one quarter of China's annual film and TV production and 70% of production of period dramas takes place. And this is its story. In the west, we love to make movies about the present day and the future with heroes fighting and robots and aliens attacking our cities and real life currently existing locations. But in China, the majority of movies and TV shows are actually set in the past. This is because all films and TV shows in China must have their scripts approved by the state administration of radio, film, and television. And it's a lot easier to write about the past where there is no way that you could be seen as criticizing the current government run by the Chinese Communist Party because there was no Chinese Communist Party during the Han Dynasty, for example. That is just the way things are in China right now. But the good thing is is that China has 5,000 years of civilization to draw upon. You can easily pick classic stories or create a new tale about a certain era. But where do you shoot it? It would be very expensive to rent out the forbidden city for a show about theQing dynasty. And for earlier dynasties like the Tong, Han, or Chin, those palaces and buildings don't even exist anymore. Well, in the '90s, a Chinese billionaire called Hugh Wen, who was already running resorts in the area where Hungen is now, started noticing the potential in China's domestic movie industry. He met a director called Shia Jin who was preparing to shoot a movie called The Opium War about China's loss to the British in 1842. And since it was a nationalistic film, he had backing from high levels of government with the script approved by the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television. And the film had to be released on July 1st, 1997, the day that China would regain control of Hong Kong, which had been lost to the British in that war in 1842. But Shia couldn't find anywhere to film the outdoor 19th century street scenes. Shu offered to build the sets from scratch, which featured tiny streets and colonial style buildings. Sher accepted and the project was a success. Soon other movie and TV productions wanted to film at Hugh's growing Hungen complex. In the year 2000, Hugh declared all shooting at Hungen rentree. That's right, he doesn't charge movie companies to use the sets. So, how does the studio complex actually make money? Well, instead of charging rent, his group offers costumes, props, technical services, extras, and hotel rooms to the companies that shoot there. The Hungian Group controls most of the 12,000 hotel beds in the area, for example. And a lot of those beds would be sold when you have thousands of people coming to shoot a movie. And it has attracted top directors and talent. For example, Jung Emo's 2002 movie Hero that starred Jet Lee and a load of other famous Chinese actors was shot there. This is the set for the Chin Dynasty Palace that was actually used in the movie. Interior scenes from the Jackie Chan and Jet Lee movie Forbidden Kingdom were shot here too. And also some Hollywood movies like The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor were shot here due to the quality of the Chinese style sets that were available. Today at Hungen Studios, you will find Chin and Han Dynasty palaces, villages, Tong Dynasty settings such as palaces and town streets, Song Dynasty Imperial Palaces, Riverside and street settings. You'll find a full-size scale replica of the Forbidden City, the gardens of the summer palace. You'll find the streets of old Guangjo and historic Hong Kong, colonial buildings from Shanghai, and even sets of villages and towns destroyed by war. And that is just the outdoor sets. They also have a massive cluster of studios and soundstages, including the world's largest studio at 12,000 square m. And to show you how massive this place is and how much of the town of Hungen it takes up, here is the Forbidden City or the fake Forbidden City with the streets of Guangjo next to it. Oh, and there's a public toilet here, just a heads up, just in case you need to go when you visit. Then all the way on the south side of town, we have the Chin Dynasty Palace. And north of that we have another massive area which I believe is this area with traditional buildings and bridges by the water. In total there are about 13 large outdoor shooting areas and over 120 indoor areas and studios with about 70% of Chinese period TV shows and movies shot here each year. This is all very cool and you can actually visit Hungen as a tourist and see what they've built there for yourself. It does make the list of most expensive tourist attractions in China, though with prices somewhat comparable to what attractions cost in the West, but people say it's really worth it because there is so much on offer and you can see the Forbidden City, probably with less crowds of people than the real thing and a load of other palaces that don't even exist anymore all in one day. Same concept as if you've been to Vegas, you don't really need to see Paris, right? I'll leave you to fight that one out in the comments. And that's the video for today, guys. Please subscribe to the channel if you're new. And if you want to support us by joining as a member, you can hit that join button down below. It's $4.99 per month, but you get early access to our videos and your comments are highlighted to us so that we can reply if you ask a question. It means a lot to us if you want to support us. As always, thank you for watching and we'll see you in the next video. Bye-bye.