Every so often, Chinese producers, billionaires, or officials declare that the country's film industry is ready to go global. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into the country's movies, boosting domestic box offices, with dreams of a Chinese Hollywood that can boost the nation's soft power.

But all the money in the world won't sell Chinese films abroad if they cannot come up with fresh stories. Take a look at the lineup of Chinese movies, and what do we see? Battles and power struggles from past dynasties unknown to foreign audiences, and told in a way that makes them no more familiar, and version after version of the Four Great Classical Novels.

I grew up listening to stories about Sun Wukong every night from my dad, but I have no desire to see yet another version of the Monkey King's adventures.

Imagine if Hollywood played by the same principles as Chinese cinema. Would audiences worldwide turn out to see a movie about the Battle of Crécy in 1346 that assumed they were intimately familiar with the French and English barons? What if the only four novels ever filmed were Le Morte d'Arthur, War and Peace, Clarissa and Ivanhoe? Classics all, and they've produced their share of good adaptations, but if we had one after another after another retelling, it'd be as dull as ditchwater.

The recent Detective Dee films may be the first real shot China has. Di Renjie is both a historical figure and a recurring popular hero in Chinese legend, and is known to fans of mysteries in the West through Dutch writer Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee series.

But this is still a resurrection of a familiar figure, and the movies make little effort to sell a clear world to foreign viewers.

The efforts to sell Maoist moral icon Lei Feng to a new generation flopped spectacularly last year after four movies came out about him, all of which bombed at the box office.

The truth is, Lei Feng may be a shining example of moral values, but his epic struggle against reactionaries and telegraph poles has little appeal to even Chinese nowadays, never mind anyone else.

Hollywood certainly recycles. The vogue for remakes or sequels is often slammed by critics, even if it sells tickets. But it also innovates. In particular, Hollywood has succeeded in creating its own heroic mythologies that can be tapped for generations to come.

Take the "Star Wars" franchise, which now spans six movies, with more to come, several TV series, literally hundreds of books, and dozens of video games.

In 40 years Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Darth Vader have become more famous across the world than Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Cao Cao, three of the semi-historical protagonists of the 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, did in seven centuries. Even the god-awful prequels couldn't ruin the appeal of the universe.

The ultimate example of this may be novelist Ian Fleming's James Bond. Not only is the debonair superspy hugely popular worldwide, he's seen by many to epitomize a particular set of British values and class.

And, like many other iconic characters, he's become detached from the original actor who played him, able to be created anew for each generation.

There's a document online that gives us a powerful insight into Hollywood's creative process at its very best; it's a transcript of the brainstorming between George Lucas, Lawrence Kasdan, and Steven Spielberg over the creation of Indiana Jones.

As the three toss ideas around, bounce off each other, slap down bad suggestions, you can see a legend being born.

In contrast, I met with the American team involved in an attempt last year to film a popular series of Chinese novels also about heroic tomb raiding. But where Spielberg et al had been able to brainstorm freely, they found their creative efforts shut down at every turn, whether by corruption, government restriction, or simple refusal to innovate. They quit eventually.

It's no accident that compared with the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong cinema has been far more successful at creating its own mythologies, from the ambiguous cops-and-crooks of John Woo and others to the comic antics of Jackie Chan. Indeed, "Jackie," Chan's movie version of himself, may be the only truly recognizable Chinese hero worldwide.

If the mainland wants people to watch its movies, it needs to encourage creativity, and allow new worlds to be born.

The author is an editor with the Global Times. jamespalmer@globaltimes.com.cn