And,action!

Chinese blockbusters, such as Wolf Totem, Zhong Kui: Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal(above) and Mojin: The Lost Legend, attract viewers with high-quality special effects.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Li Ruigang, chairman of the State-backed investment firm China Media Capital, says special effects will be widely used by domestic filmmakers in the future.

"Even for non-fantasy films, visual effects are needed to raise the overall picture quality and save costs," Li told media last week, when announcing CMC's purchase of a stake in Base FX, a leading studio credited with 20 percent of the visual effects for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Though the sector has come a long way in China in the past few years, an overwhelming number of TV series and films are still under criticism for "50 percent" special effects.

The term, coined by Chinese Internet users, refers to half-baked creative attempts and low-cost postproduction that lead to jarring images on screen.

Xu suggests that Chinese studios should improve their knowledge of special effects.

Usually it takes between 12 and 18 months for work on special effects in Hollywood related to fantasy epics or sci-fi thrillers.

But in China, studios leave relatively lesser time for postproduction, including for effects, after a film has been shot.