Sony, the Japanese electronics and entertainment giant, said it will invest about US$100m over the next three years in movie production in China. In 2002, the company's Hong Kong-based Columbia Pictures Asia released Big Shot's Funeral, starring Donald Sutherland, which made US$4.3m in its first month, setting a Chinese box-office record for a domestically produced film.
Sony also plans to release its Playstation games console in China in 2003. It had not done so before because of fears of piracy, but it hopes that by getting Chinese software houses to write programs for the console, they would be encouraged to join with Sony in trying to protect copyrights.