Screenshots of Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), set to hit theaters on Valentine's Day, have gone viral on social media platforms in China. Photo: CFP
Screenshots of Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), set to hit theaters on Valentine's Day, have gone viral on social media platforms in China. Photo: CFP
Screenshots of Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), set to hit theaters on Valentine's Day, have gone viral on social media platforms in China. Photo: CFP
Screenshots of Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), set to hit theaters on Valentine's Day, have gone viral on social media platforms in China. Photo: CFP
Ai Jingjie, a Chinese postgraduate student in Sydney, Australia has been keeping herself extremely busy. She is the person behind the Weibo account for China's
Fifty Shades of Grey club, a microblog that tracks every update regarding the popular book and movie for its Chinese fans.
The erotic romance film, adapted from the New York Times best-selling novel by E.L. James, is about to hit theaters around the world for Valentine's Day. Although the movie has been marked as being too taboo to be shown in the Chinese mainland, it has still attracted a growing number of followers.
"Since the first official trailer of the movie was released last year, the Weibo account has had an obvious increase in followers," Ai said. When She set up the account two years ago, it mainly provided news relating to Irish actor Jamie Dornan who plays the role of Christian Grey in
Fifty Shades. After she changed its name and started posting things about the movie, it grew to about 9,000 followers.
Compared with the 60,000 followers of
Twilight trilogy,
Fifty Shades has little influence in China. The book has never been officially translated and published in the Chinese mainland. Readers access the book by reading Chinese and English digital versions shared online or by paying up to 200 yuan ($32) for a copy on e-commerce platform Taobao.
Some of the readers who did manage to snag a copy of the book reported that they were disappointed by it. Zeng Shi, a Shanghai-based architect was originally drawn to the book because of its "Mary Sue story plot" - a storyline following an ordinary female character's (in this case, Anastasia Steele) unrealistic, bittersweet romance with an attractive, successful, powerful man.
"I was expecting that reading the book that went viral in the West would help improve my English skills," Zeng said. "But soon I stopped reading it because I couldn't put up with its bad writing. The narratives about sex create no artistic and aesthetic feelings."
Emily Hu, who works for a media company in Beijing, said she thought that China has more quality options for fiction that feature the Mary Sue plot or erotic romance.
"For example, some of my friends prefer the erotic narratives in
Bu Er published in 2011 by Chinese celebrated writer Feng Tang, " Hu said.
Bu Er is only publicized in Hong Kong. It set a sales record for Chinese novels in Hong Kong.
Ai is a diehard fan of
Fifty Shades, and said people should not judge the book based on the quality of the writing alone.
"What moves me and drive its fans to read the book has to do with the punishment aspect of Grey's sexual tastes," Ai said. "We want to discover Grey's dark past."
Wu Xiaopiao, owner of sex toy Taobao shop TOIs Intimacy Boutique, said she is expecting that the movie will attract more attention to adult toys in China. Her own store features
Fifty Shades inspired products, including a feather stick, blindfolds, and handcuffs.
"I would advise people to watch the movie and then go back to the novel," Wu said. "The movie won't show the sex skills [of BDSM] in detail, but people can refer to the book to learn to how to do them. It will add color to sex."
Despite divided opinions on the novel, Chinese readers are highly interested in the upcoming movie starring Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan.
In the
Fifty Shades club on Baidu Tieba, an online community for users who share the same hobbies, fans are organizing trips to Hong Kong to watch the movie on February 12 when it hits theaters.
According to Hong Kong's movie rating system,
Fifty Shades is rated III, which means people above 18 years old are allowed to see it.
"I hope in the future, the Chinese mainland can also adopt a movie rating system, rather than just banning all movies involving erotic romance," Zeng said. "The cut only fuels people's growing curiosity."