In a contribution to the opinion page at the International Herald Tribune, Jeremy Breningstall, an English teacher in China, writes about the depth and breadth of the pirated movies available to see.

From the piece “Movies for the masses”:

Contrast that with what you can find within a 10-minute walk of my house, which is in an ordinary residential neighborhood: an incredible potpourri of movies from all around the globe, vastly superior in breadth to anything you would ever find in the United States at your local Blockbuster or Hollywood Video.

On the black market in China you can discover independent movies like “Pi” and “Down by Law,” international films like “Tsotsi” and “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” documentaries like “Looking for Richard” and “Bowling for Columbine,” gutsy flicks like “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Elephant,” and many movies much too obscure for me to bother naming.

Read the entire piece here.

Movie Piracy in China costs $2.7 billion.