I think if you’re looking for a Chinese IMDb equivalent, you’re definitely a fan of Chinese movies. Let me just straight to the point.
What is Douban Movie? Douban Movie is the Chinese IMDb equivalent, one of the main sectors of Douban which is a Chinese movie review and rating website that allows people to freely share their comments on any movie.
With its own unique and complex rating system and strict regulation regarding any cheating behaviors, Douban Movie is providing fairly objective and rational movie rating references. In my opinion, it is more than qualified to be considered the most prestigious movie rating website in China.
Unlike most foreign websites such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc., the IMDb site actually is not banned in China. You totally can access IMDb to check out all the movies in China.
But you still need a Chinese version of IMDb because one of the obvious weaknesses of the IMDb site is that it doesn’t include many insightful reviews from the Chinese audiences’ point of view regarding Chinese movies. You just can’t learn Chinese movies solely based on the rating and reviews from the Western world.
What is Douban?
Douban is founded in 2005. It is an interest-based social networking platform with strong diversified content, one of the most popular websites in China. Normally, you can’t just use one word to conclude what Douban is, because it actually includes a variety of features regarding its different involved areas like music, movies, social media, etc., more like a combination of Facebook, IMDb, Blogger, and Goodreads.
The sectors in Douban are including:
- Douban Movie,
- Douban Music,
- Douban Books,
- Douban FM,
- Douban Market,
- Douban City Events,
- Douban Online Campaigns,
- Douban Groups,
Douban now has over 60 million registered users and 150 million unregistered frequent visitors. I mention the number of unregistered frequent visitors because, unlike other Chinese social media platforms, Douban allows people to access almost all content without any registration but can’t leave comments or create content.
Through freely viewing Douban content that is mainly generated by other users, people are easy to feel connected and make them more willing to actively share their views and ideas, creating more and more organic content. More importantly, the majority of Douban users are well educated, at least holding a degree, and most of them are living in major cities. Therefore, you can imagine that the contents on Douban are more solid and niche focus.
Douban Movie vs IMDb
1. Rating systems are different
Douban is operated by a jury of more than 100 million registered users, using a large quantity of user base that is hard to rig.
IMDb, on the other hand, has a totally different nature. It’s an online movie database website that allows users to rate movies on a scale from 1 to 10 and then weighted vote averages rather than raw data averages. Also, IMDb will use some filters to decrease and avoid vote-rigging.
Here is a video talking more about the rating systems that Douban Movie and IMDb are respectively applying.
It’s not been proven which site is using the better rating systems, but if you spend time to compare the rating scores of most movies between these two sites, you’ll find that there are actually no huge differences, so I think both can be reliable.
2. Different favor of certain movies
Douban is a China-based platform that’s just used locally, so the users mainly consisted of Chinese people. Regarding certain movies, Douban users are showing quite different favors. Many factors cause this, such as culture, religion, nationality, etc.
One of the most distinctive examples is the rating of the US movie “The Departed”.
“The Departed”, directed by one of the greatest directors Martin Scorsese, was given numerous credits from the industry and was rewarded the best picture Oscar in 2007. Gaining a high rating of 8.5 on the IMDb site, which definitely can be considered one of the most successful artistic and commercial movies.
However, the review is totally different from the Chinese audience’s point of view. In fact, “The Departed” is the adapted version of the Hong Kong movie “ Infernal Affairs”, one of the greatest Hong Kong movies in history.
The overall storyline is pretty much the same but the style is more to the American style, more violent, and more external. Chinese audiences prefer “Infernal Affairs”, which has a more sophisticated story arrangement and more detailed internal descriptions of the characters.
Another typical example is Steven Spielberg’s movie, Ready Player One, which only gains a 7.5 rating score in IMDb but 8.7 in Douban Movie.
Just because anime culture is being so popular in China for the past few years, Chinese audiences are excited to see a movie that includes so much anime content, making them connect to the movie. Chinese audiences absolutely love it.
On the other hand, IMDb audiences probably think it is another entertaining movie without too much insight and meaning but just for fun.
3. More insight into Chinese movie
In recent years, the film industry in China has exploded, generating billions of dollars in revenue annually and producing numerous ground-breaking movies that are worth to be shared with the audiences around the world, such as The Wandering Earth, Ne Za, Dying to Survive, etc. To better know the insight of Chinese movies, you can’t just rely on IMDb, a US-based website.
Here are the ratings for the top 10 Chinese movies by IMDb and Douban:
I’m sure you can see the huge differences between the two lists. Most top 10 Chinese movies ranked by IMDb are actually just mediocre ones if you compare them with their Douban ratings, most of them can’t be ranked in the top 50 from Chinese reviewers’ standpoint.
This is why you need a Chinese IMDb alternative, Douban Movie, which is not only providing you with a reliable rating and review references but also authentic insights into the film industry in China from real professional and Chinese movie fans.
Conclusion
Movie rating nowadays is increasingly important to the movie industry because it not only can provide solid and relatively reliable references to the audiences before they decide to go to the cinema but also is a great way to accumulate the reputation of the movies and film companies.
Neither IMDb nor Douban Movie is a perfect movie rating website, only if you can acquire more information from various sources, you can make the most optimized decision.
