The name's Bond, dubbed Bond

James Bond is coming to Chinese cinemas and producers of the British superspy’s latest romp, Casino Royale, are pulling out all the stops to promote it.

Sony Pictures hired experts to get the Chinese-language dubbing of the movie’s gambling jargon just right. The new 007, Daniel Craig, is flying in to lend star power tomorrow at the Beijing premiere.

The film will be shown on 1,000 screens throughout China.

But even if Bond’s big-screen Chinese debut is a hit, Sony stands to make little money in a market where the state-owned monopoly distributor keeps most of the box office revenues.

The dilemma highlights the conflict between foreign ambitions in China’s film market of 1.3 billion potential viewers and Beijing’s desire to protect its own studios.

Bond should get a good reception, said Li Chow, the general manager in China for Sony Pictures Entertainment.

“I think it will be very well received,” she said. “Everybody here in China knows the Bond films, and there are very high expectations, so we hope it will be very successful.”

Until now, Bond has been a flop with Chinese censors, though earlier movies are available on pirated DVDs.

Authorities rejected 2002’s Die Another Day, starring Pierce Brosnan, reportedly due to its depiction of North Korea, a close Beijing ally, as a gangster haven.

For Casino Royale, a tale of poker and terrorism, Sony submitted the film to the Chinese censors as early as possible and discussed its content with them, Li said.

“The censors didn’t request any cuts,” she said. “What we told them is, we are fighting a common enemy, terrorists. That was well accepted.”

Sony hopes to show the film for at least a month.

“We expect this to be the highest-grossing foreign film (in China) this year,” Li said.

To protect its film-makers, Beijing limited imports last year to 50 titles for cinema release, including those from Hong Kong, according to figures from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

Dozens of additional foreign movies get limited release on DVD through Chinese distributors. Pirate DVDs of the most popular titles from abroad are widely available from black market sellers.

Regulators also try to maximise revenues for Chinese studios by barring foreign films from cinemas during public and school holidays when audiences are biggest.

For Casino Royale, Sony took the unusual step of hiring two Chinese directors instead of one to dub it into Mandarin, one for voices and the second for technical details, Li said.

“For gambling terms it’s very difficult to translate,” she said. “So sometimes we used a word that explained what was happening, rather than using a gambling term.”

Casino Royale has been available in China since December on black-market DVDs dubbed in Russian, possibly reflecting their origin in Russia, a major source of pirated goods.