When I last visited the old Beijing Film Studio site in 2018, the surviving buildings were slated for demolition. Sections of original back lot remained but had been long neglected and were rapidly deteriorating and overgrown with weeds. A replica Qing era streetscape had been used in Rickshaw Boy (1982), Farewell My Concubine (1992), and, later, for an infamous fight scene with Michael Jai White, deleted from the final version of Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004). Quentin Tarantino was one of the last filmmakers to use the set before it was shut down, as the studio moved outside the city.
While the structures hung on for a while longer, it was only a matter of time before the historic set disappeared forever. On a recent visit to Beijing, I was saddened to see that the site has been completely razed, leaving only an empty lot. As Beijing continues to grow at a rapid pace, limited attention is given to preserving history.
