Visitors interact with actors in Hengdian. CHINA DAILY

The town of Hengdian, where 70 percent of China's films and TV series are shot every year, is expected to make a strong comeback after having witnessed a decline in film activity owing to various factors, including competition from Shanghai and a tax probe across the entertainment industry.

Last year, more than 370 production units shot their films or TV series in the Hengdian Film and Television Industry Experimental Zone, located in the city of Dongyang, Jinhua, Zhejiang province, according to Zhou Fenglai, head of the Hengdian Actors' Union. "This year, only 30 units have undertaken on-location production until March."

According to him, the film crews prefer Shanghai, which has traditionally been known as the movie capital of China, for post-production work. It was the first Chinese city to have its own international film festival, which is today one of the biggest in Asia.

Shanghai Film Studio, one of the country's three major film production bases, is hugely popular because of the facilities it offers, he said.

Describing the plight of Hengdian, dubbed the world's largest film and TV series production hub, as "Growing Pains" - a reference to the American sitcom popular among TV viewers in China in the 1980s and 1990s - Zhu Guoqiang, deputy director of the administrative committee of the zone, said a total of 46 high-tech studios will be built within the zone.

First proposed in 2017, the government-funded studios, with a total investment of 3 billion yuan, are expected to be completed by September 2019.

Zhu said leading visual and creative studios have been invited to the zone to enhance Hengdian's competence in film production.