Mu Zijian's 'One Child' makes shortlist for Academy Award

Director Chen Kaige awarded Order of Arts and Letters

China has screened 14 more foreign films at 3-D or Imax theaters every year since 2012, bringing the total number to 34. Before that only 20 foreign films were allowed in Chinese theaters.

What followed the box-office boom and favorable policy were the so-called "exclusive for China" 3-D movies.

Some such movies are new releases, while others have been transformed from old films. Some of them have performed poorly at the box office.

Ice Age 2, for example, was recently screened in China in its 3-D version. The movie was released in China eight years ago in 2-D, and made about 50 million yuan. The 3-D version, however, has only grossed 4.6 million yuan since it premiered on Oct 13.

2012, the disaster epic that grossed about 400 million yuan in China in 2009, tried to get a share of the growing market in 2012, but only took in 140 million yuan.

Titanic 3-D has been the most successful conversion worldwide. The movie reprised the glory of the original version, attracting millions of Chinese viewers and earning $145 million at the box office. The 3-D version of the movie made more in China than it did in the US.

Ratner promises that his latest interpretation of the mythical hero is a genuine visual wonder.

"As a filmgoer I prefer to see a movie that planned to be 3-D from the very beginning," he says. "Movies transferred to 3-D in a rush and in an unprofessional way hurts, because that makes audiences not want to watch 3-D anymore. They walk out of the movie with a headache."

Hercules tells the adventures of a mighty Greek hero by the same name in the Kingdom of Thrace. The movie's visual splendor includes a real lion-fighting scene with Johnson and real Greek temple settings that don't use computer-generated graphics.