Despite the astronomical growth of Chinese films at the domestic box office, Chinese cinema is struggling to find an audience in foreign markets.

According to a survey conducted by the Academy for International Communication of Chinese Culture (AICCC), 30 percent of respondents considered “the thoughts and logic of Chinese films difficult to understand”, while less than 40 percent identified with the “values” expressed in the films. A third of respondents simply said they weren’t interested in Chinese films.

The survey included 1,800 respondents from 46 different countries across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.

One argument as to why Chinese films are struggling abroad is a lack of marketing. Less than eight percent of surveyed respondents noticed Chinese film advertisements in their home countries, while 36 percent claim they’ve never seen any marketing for Chinese films at all.

According to Sha Dan, with the China Film Archive, one solution to the marketing issue is more Chinese films that are co-produced with foreign production companies: “Commercial packaging is necessary for Chinese films if they want to be better accepted, no matter what genre it is,” said Sha.

Another issue is subtitles. 70 percent of respondents said they were unsatisfied with subtitles, which often amount to nothing more than literal translations without reflecting the scene’s context. “To have quality subtitles, one will need to understand both Chinese culture and the culture of the foreign country,” said Luo Jun, deputy head of the AICCC. “We need Chinese who know foreign cultures well and expats who have an abundant knowledge of Chinese culture.”

Feng Xiaogang, a director and actor who starred in the recent box office hit Mr Six, offers another explanation. Feng believes that Chinese films fail abroad because they are poorly made and hindered by domestic censorship regulations. Feng also questions the industry’s hiring practices: “Most of the people working in the lighting department are from Henan province,” said Feng at the recent Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). “They are not trained professionally – they got the job simply because they happen to know someone who works on the film crew.”

Feng had previously accused the Chinese film industry of sacrificing quality for box office success. According to Feng, hit movies are actually making the Chinese film industry worse:

They are a tremendously bad influence upon the development and production of the Chinese film industry. They cause producers to be less willing to invest in serious films that won’t make large profits.

There is also the issue of censorship. TV screenwriter, Gao Mantang, said TV producers lean toward comedies and historical dramas to avoid state approval for their scripts. “If your script is based on reality, and if you touch [even] a little bit on social issues, or you want to talk about things in-depth, the censorship will be very, very difficult,” said Gao.

But even without all of these disparate problems, there still remains the issue of corruption. The distributor for the recent Donnie Yen-Mike Tyson action film, Ip Man 3, had its license revoked after it was revealed the company artificially inflated the movie’s box office receipts. Claiming to have raked in 500 million yuan (77.3 million U.S. dollars) in just four days, Beijing Max Screens eventually admitted to buying 56 million yuan worth of Ip Man 3 tickets. Meanwhile, theaters colluding with Beijing Max Screens, fabricated more than 7,600 screenings of the film, falsely generating some 32 million yuan in ticket sales.

So what does the future of Chinese cinema look like? According to Feng, it’s films that sell: “Costume dramas, and shows involving fairies and gods” he says. “Dramas made by people like me do not sell well anymore.”