Xu Wenrong

Xu Wenrong was born in Dongyang, Zhejiang in 1935.{{cite web

|url= http://zhejiang.chinadaily.com.cn/2021-03/25/c_606202.htm

|title= Xu Wenrong

|author= Zhejiang China Daily

|date= 25 March 2021

|website= Zhejiang China Daily

|publisher=

|access-date= 13 November 2024

}} He grew up in Hengdian town, at the time a poverty-stricken farming village.{{cite web

|url= https://www.npr.org/2007/08/13/12741465/ambition-and-history-meet-in-chinas-hollywood

|title= Ambition and History Meet in China's Hollywood

|author= Louisa Lim

|date= 13 August 2007

|website= NPR

|publisher=

|access-date= 27 December 2024

}} He was a primary school dropout, leaving school when he was just 13 years old,{{cite news |title=China's 50 Richest Entrepreneurs |url=https://www.forbes.com/global/2000/1127/0324150a.html |access-date=27 December 2024 |agency=Forbes |date=6 June 2013}} due to poverty and the misfortune of spending his childhood years during the wars (the anti-Japanese war from 1938 to 1945 followed by the civil war until 1949).{{cite book |last1=Yang |first1=Keming |title=Entrepreneurship in China |date=29 April 2016 |publisher=Routledge |pages=177–195 |isbn=978-1-317-14257-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p5UWDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA177 |access-date=27 December 2024}}

In the early 1970s, Xu Wenrong was a cadre in the local commune and later went on to hold the party secretary post of Hengdian town. His first break came when he convinced locals of the town to lend him $6000 to open a village enterprise to produce silk, promising that he would double their money within three years.{{cite web |title=China's 50 Richest Entrepreneurs |url=https://www.forbes.com/global/2000/1127/0324150a.html |website=Forbes |access-date=27 December 2024}} Since then, Xu has been called the "farmer's entrepreneur," and was a trailblazer in the first generation of township entrepreneurs during China's reform and opening up.{{cite news |last1=王益敏 |title=徐文荣：带农民共同致富，是一生的追求 |url=http://qjwb.thehour.cn/html/2018-11/15/content_3714213.htm?div=-1 |access-date=31 December 2024 |website=Qianjiang Evening News |date=15 November 2018}}

In the 1990s, he began making components for electronics, such as semiconductors and circuit boards, then opened a company producing magnetic materials before diversifying into making chemicals.{{cite news |last1=Johnson |first1=Ian |title=Studio City |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/04/22/studio-city |access-date=27 December 2024 |agency=New Yorker |date=15 April 2013}}

In 1996, Xu founded Hengdian World Studios, one of the largest film studios in the world,{{Cite web |title=Is 'Chinawood' the new Hollywood? |url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20140207-is-chinawood-the-new-hollywood |access-date=2024-11-15 |website=www.bbc.com |language=en-GB}} after seeing opportunity in China's booming domestic tourism industry. In 1995, he met with the film director Xie Jin, who was preparing to shoot his acclaimed film The Opium War, a movie about China's humiliating loss to the British in 1842. Xie had top-level backing from the government for his film, a big propaganda effort, but he couldn't find an outdoor lot for nineteenth-century street scenes. After Xu proposed he could build the set from scratch, Xie accepted and Xu built the set.{{cite news |last1=王春雷 | last2=徐军 |title=时代的追梦人徐文荣！听他讲述"水炸油条"的横店实践 |url=https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_2565858 |access-date=31 December 2024 |website=The Paper |date=25 October 2018}}

Hengdian World Studios is now often known as "Chinawood,"{{cite news |last1=Myers |first1=Steven Lee |title=Epic Battles, Palaces and Concubines: A Chinese Studio's Vast World of Fantasy |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/02/world/asia/china-films-movies-hengdian.html |access-date=27 December 2024 |agency=New York Times |date=2 December 2018}} After Xie, other filmmakers started to use the "Opium War" lots and request Xu to construct more sets. Thus, Xu began building more replicas of famous old temples and palaces.{{cite news |last1=Johnson |first1=Ian |title=Studio City |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/04/22/studio-city |access-date=27 December 2024 |agency=New Yorker |date=15 April 2013}} As more film and television crews came to Hengdian to shoot, more tourists also came to visit, spurring the town's economic growth. Over 30 large-scale shooting bases and 130 high-tech studios have now been built, linking various parts of the film and television industrial chain, from production services to cinema chains to vocational education.{{cite news |last1=傅颖杰 |last2=杨振华 |last3=严粒粒 |last4=陈亚君 |title=徐文荣的风雨人生 |url=https://zjrb.zjol.com.cn/html/2020-12/10/content_3391741.htm?div=-1 |access-date=31 December 2024 |website=Zhejiang Daily |date=10 December 2020}}

Xu was called a "visionary"{{cite news |last1=Yan |first1=Cathy |title=If You Build It, They Will Come: Chinese Town gets Hollywood Makeover |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704322804576302901606181530 |access-date=27 December 2024 |agency=The Wall Street Journal |date=21 May 2011}} by Bill Kong, the Hong Kong-based producer of world-wide blockbusters Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, both shot in Hengdian.{{cite web |title=Hongdian Film Production Installs DaVinci Resolve |url=https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/release/20120822-01 |website=Black Magic Design |access-date=27 December 2024}} Kong credited Xu with turning "a place in the middle of nowhere into the best studio in China."{{cite news |last1=Yan |first1=Cathy |title=If You Build It, They Will Come: Chinese Town gets Hollywood Makeover |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704322804576302901606181530 |access-date=27 December 2024 |agency=The Wall Street Journal |date=21 May 2011}} In 1999, Xu controversially decided to offer free access to all interested film crews, a choice that one of his company's board members objected to. Eventually the decision proved prescient, attracting many film crews to the village and massively boosting the local hotel and catering industries.{{cite news |last1=Zhang |first1=Wenting |title=Xu Wenrong and his "Chinawood" |url=http://www.chinatoday.com.cn/English/e2007/e200705/p58.htm |access-date=31 December 2024 |agency=China Today |date=7 February 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110611033903/http://www.chinatoday.com.cn/English/e2007/e200705/p58.htm |archive-date=11 June 2011 }}

In 2003, Xu resigned as president of Hengdian Group, handing over the title to his eldest son Xu Yong'an.{{cite news |last1=Ho |first1=Jane |title=China's Movie Studio Tycoon Xu Wenrong Opens Summer Palace Replica Theme Park |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/janeho/2015/12/03/chinas-movie-studio-tycoon-xu-wenrong-opens-summer-palace-replica-theme-park/ |access-date=27 December 2024 |agency=Forbes |date=3 December 2015}}

Continuing work into his 80s, Xu has drawn public attention for his work on the Summer Palace replica project in Hengdian. Leading up to its opening in 2015, Xu personally oversaw plans to construct a full-scale copy spanning 3.5-square kilometers of the Old Summer Palace, the Qing Dynasty imperial gardens sacked by British and French troops during the Opium War.{{cite news |last1=Watt |first1=Louise |title=Replica of razed Chinese palace opens, but some prefer ruins |url=https://apnews.com/article/eec60521f49d45eea6723f9360c503ca |access-date=27 December 2024 |work=Associated Press News |date=12 May 2015}}

Yet the construction of the ambitious project soon became contentious. While representatives of the real ruins site belittled the new replica as a sell-out to tourism, some historians praised the project and Xu for preserving China's heritage.{{cite news |last1=Watt |first1=Louise |title=Replica of razed Chinese palace opens, but some prefer ruins |url=https://apnews.com/article/eec60521f49d45eea6723f9360c503ca |access-date=27 December 2024 |work=Associated Press News |date=12 May 2015}} The palace replica site was finally opened in 2015.{{cite news |last1=Ho |first1=Jane |title=China's Movie Studio Tycoon Xu Wenrong Opens Summer Palace Replica Theme Park |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/janeho/2015/12/03/chinas-movie-studio-tycoon-xu-wenrong-opens-summer-palace-replica-theme-park/ |access-date=27 December 2024 |agency=Forbes |date=3 December 2015}}

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Category:Chinese film producers

Category:Businesspeople from Zhejiang

Category:21st-century Chinese businesspeople

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wenrong, Xu}}

Category:1935 births

Category:Living people